Articles by BoingBoing from September 2012
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10:09 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Firing a pistol underwater
Destin from Smarter Every Day captured high-speed images of both a revolver and an automatic pistol discharging underwater; the water perfectly captures and renders visible the gas forces at work in t...
07:02 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Smith-Corona's voice letters by post: dead media
Here's a weird bit of dead media: a Smith-Corona audio-letter that used a "Letterpack cartridge" (which appears to be a 3.5" floppy disc) to record and play back personal voice-letters sent by post. T...
05:13 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Greek Pastafarian arrested for "Cyber Crimes"
A reader writes, "On September 24, Greece's Cyber Crimes division arrested a 27 year old man on charges of blasphemy, for his website that mocks a well-known Greek monk Elder Paisios, using the name E...
03:57 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Princess Vader goes to Disneyland
This little girl reportedly visited Disneyland with her parents in her adorable princess Vader Hallowe'en costume, taking it for a test drive. Rsharich, the redditor who posted the pic, doesn't mentio...
01:30 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: The Cereal Killings by James Sturm
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
12:51 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Fox News broadcasts a live suicide
Yesterday, Fox News aired live footage of a man in Phoenix shooting himself in the head. According to the Times of India Fox got so excited about following a carjacking suspect in a high-speed chase t...
12:27 pm PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Boppo the Bad Breath Clown (vintage ad)
Image Link. A cheerful, totally non-creepy ad from days of yore, scanned and uploaded to the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by reader v.valenti....
09:47 am PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Freeopen math textbook written in a day
Here is a free/open upper secondary mathematics textbook written in a single day by a group of Finnish math teachers, working together in a "booksprint." Related news: California's passed a bill estab...
09:47 am PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Freeopen math textbook written in three days
Here is a free/open upper secondary mathematics textbook written in a single daythree days by a group of Finnish math teachers, working together in a "booksprint." Related news: California's passed a ...
12:08 am PDT - Sat, September 29, 2012
BoingBoing
Why can't pacemaker users read their own medical data?
In this ten minute TEDx talk, Hugo Campos explains his frustration with the fact that his pacemaker is designed to let his doctor read his biometric status, but to stop the patient from doing the same...
11:17 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Vancouverites! Coming to Kidsbooks!
As part of my Pirate Cinema tour I'll be coming to Vancouver's Kidsbooks on Oct 21 at 7PM. You've got to buy a $23.50 ticket, but it comes with a copy of the book, which normally retails for $25. Kids...
09:49 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
TV news programs ignore false claims in the thousands of political ads that pay their bills
Josh Levy from Free Press sez, "My colleague Tim Karr just released a report exposing the billions spent on political ads around the country -- and how that money is pocketed by local TV stations. Are...
09:22 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Nude Psychotherapy (vintage seventies magazine ad)
"Be the first on your block to know about nude psychotherapy." A 1970s-era magazine ad, scanned and shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by Boing Boing reader v.valenti....
07:23 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Mystical experiences without significance
Ed from Aeon sez, "The Scottish science fiction writer Ken MacLeod, (Intrusion, The Night Sessions) has a short essay in Aeon magazine exploring two strange sensations. Each one sounds like a mystical...
06:16 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
US naval analyst on science fiction space warfare
Foreign Policy magazine interviewed naval analyst Chris Weuve, a former US Naval War College research professor, about space warfare in science fiction. Has sci-fi affected the way that our navies con...
05:38 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Predictable, but reassuring news: Marc Webb signs on to direct The Amazing Spider-Man sequel
In Stuff We Knew Would Probably Happen, the director of this summer's The Amazing Spider-Man, Marc Webb, has officially been confirmed to helm the sequel. And it's a good thing, too, because it alread...
05:24 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Treasure Island Music Festival 2012: contest winner!
I'm pleased to announce that the winner of our Treasure Island Music Festival 2012 ticket contest is Russell Walks! Below is his witty winning Haiku, about The xx, who are playing at the festival. Alo...
04:15 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
iPad left at airport checkpoint ends up at TSA inspector's house
ABC News ran a sting against dirty TSA inspectors by leaving behind iPads (with tracking spyware) at ten airport checkpoints known for theft and following them electronically. One iPad, left at an Orl...
04:09 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
AMC will stream the season premiere of The Walking Dead for Dish customers
As they did for the season premiere of Breaking Bad this summer, AMC will be streaming the third season premiere of The Walking Dead online for all those frustrated Dish customers who still don't have...
03:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Pennsylvania police post perp pix on Pinterest
The Pottstown Mercury, a newspaper in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, recently started posting police mugshots of wanted criminals on Pinterest. Sounds crazy, right? Well, the novel use of a social networkin...
03:41 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
"One Day," an animated short (video)
[Video Link] A beautiful, Pixar-esque short from students at the French arts and media school Gobelins. More wonderful shorts on their YouTube channel. (via Short of the Week)...
02:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
The Star Trek-Psy parody you know you wanted: Klingon Style
This was destined to happen, and it's all in Klingon. What better way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation and the internet, all at the same time? (video link) (via Come...
02:50 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Outlaw auction includes Bonnie and Clyde's guns
You could be the new owner of Bonnie & Clyd's personal pistols, Bugsy Siegel's Nevada Project Corporation stock certificate, or a subpoena signed by Wyatt Earp. This Sunday, RR Auction is holding...
02:30 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
A classic work of entomology, available online in French and English
In 1879, Jean-Henri Fabre wrote a book about insects called Souvenirs entomologiques. Today it's considered a classic of entomology. An English translation, with some absolutely beautiful illustration...
02:14 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
This Friday, procrastinate with history!
Perhaps you will enjoy this in-depth analysis of the history of Roman charioteers, their sport, and their role in ancient Roman society. I haven't had a chance to read through this whole thing yet (be...
02:04 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Help fund Diana Gameros's album
Diana Gameros is a deeply talented singer/songwriter in San Francisco who creates soulful, passionate, and enchanting music infused with her Latin heritage. As I've written before, Diana, who was born...
02:04 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Help fund Diana Gameros album
Diana Gameros is a deeply talented singer/songwriter in San Francisco who creates soulful, passionate, and enchanting music infused with her Latin heritage. As I've written before, Diana, who was born...
02:01 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
New respiratory virus identified in the Middle East: What you need to know
Coronaviruses are a family of relatively large viruses. The name comes from the fact that, under a microscope, coronaviruses all look like they are surrounded by little halos. Those "coronas" are actu...
01:30 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Zap Comix #2
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:22 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Ye Smokiana: 1890 study of smoking
RT Pritchett's Ye Smokiana, from 1890, appears to a very informative "historical" and "ethnographical" study of smoking. It's illustrated with beautiful color drawings smoking implements from around t...
01:07 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Tear-off cardboard USB flash-drives
Here's a cute concept-design for tear-off, disposable flash-drives from Art Lebedev, who predicts, "Stick will become even simpler vehicle than once floppy" (mangled Russian-English interpretation cou...
01:00 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
The Dog Stars: terrific book about life after 99.9% of humans are wiped out
I never get tired of reading novels about life on Earth following a disaster that wipes out 99.9% of the human population. Earth Abides and I am Legend are two of my favorites in this sub-genre. I lik...
12:45 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Curiosity adds to evidence that water once flowed on Mars
When a narrow stream, flowing downhill, meets a wide, significantly-flatter valley, you get an alluvial fan — a place where the flow of water spreads out, slows down, and leaves behind all the r...
12:32 pm PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
F.T.C. plans new privacy protection regulation, "for the children"
COPA, the Childrens Online Privacy Protection Act of 1998, requires web sites for kids to obtain parental consent before collecting personal data, but much has changed online since 1998. The NYT repor...
11:16 am PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Mystery around anti-muslim filmmaker and fraudster deepens as yet another alias is revealed
As if "Sam Bacile," "PJ Tobacco," and dozens more colorful fake names weren't enough, the "Innocence of Muslims" guy apparently had yet another alias. A California judge has detained him for violating...
10:01 am PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
Yarn bomb transit protest in Edinburgh
An unknown yarn-bomber has taken to the streets of Edinburgh with a political message, opposing the tramway expansion underway there. Yarnivore Rose says, "Actual political speech in yarnbomb form, ra...
01:00 am PDT - Fri, September 28, 2012
BoingBoing
UK banks use robo-callers to make fraud-check calls, conditioning customers to hand out personal information to anonymous machines that phone them up out of the blue
My latest Guardian column, "Automated calls, fraud and the banks: a mismatch made in hell," reacts to the news that UK banks are using robo-call machines to check in with customers on possibly fraudul...
11:27 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Man behind "Innocence of Muslims" video ordered jailed for violating fraud probation by using computers
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula escorted by LA County Sherriff's deputies from his home in Cerritos, CA. Photo: AP/CBS2-KCAL9, LA. A federal judge today determined that California resident Nakoula Basseley N...
11:16 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Herbert Lom, who played stressed-out boss of Inspector Clouseau in "Pink Panther" films, has died
Czech-born actor Herbert Lom, best known as the weary boss of Inspector Clouseau in the Peter Sellers Pink Panther movies, died today at 95 years of age. His son Alec Lom told the Associated Press tha...
11:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Helmetcam video of US soldier under fire in Afghanistan
From the YouTube description of this purported "helmetcam" video from a soldier in Kunar Province, Afghanistan: no shots penetrated his body armor, and he made it home with no permanent injuries. I go...
10:34 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Worst fight scene ever? More like BEST fight scene ever. (video)
[Video Link] Continuing in our Turksploitation theme, a spectacularly awful fight scene from the Turkish film "Death Warrior." Previously: worst death scene ever. (thanks, Michelle Strait, via interna...
10:22 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Panama's new copyright law is the worst in the history of the universe
We've seen some stupid copyright laws in the past fifteen years, but Panama's new law -- which has passed the legislature and merely awaits executive approval. Under Bill 510, the Panamanian copyright...
08:26 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Former top US copyright bureaucrat thinks all communicationsentertainment technology should be illegal until Congress approves it
Ralph Oman, the former bureaucrat who served as Register of Copyrights to the US Copyright Office, has filed an amicus brief in the lawsuit against Aereo, a company that makes server racks with thousa...
08:03 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots
My buddy Barry McWilliams has a kickstarter up for a fun book he wrote and illustrated called The Wrylon Robotical Illustrated Catalog of Botanical 'Bots. He gave me a sneak peek of the book and it's ...
07:51 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Disgraced New Yorker journo speaks to LA Magazine
Kari Mozena of Los Angeles magazine says: This month, Los Angeles magazine tackles the imbroglio surrounding the once-heralded (and now discredited) genius in our backyard: Jonah Lehrer. In the piece,...
07:34 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Blood Brother trailer
Blood Brother Trailer from Blood Brother on Vimeo. Danny Yourd, producer of Blood Brother says: Blood Brother is the story of a group of children infected with HIV and Rocky Braat, a disenchanted youn...
07:06 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Steampunk Nintendo casemod
Redditor Andrew5785 refurbed an elderly Nintendo system for a covetous steampunk nephew, turning it into a sweet little contrafactual brass retrofuture contraption. Steam-Punk Nintendo: Built this for...
06:41 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Worst movie death scene ever? More like BEST movie death scene ever. (video)
[Video Link] Apparently, a clip from the Turkish movie "Kareteci Kz 1973." HT: Joe Sabia....
05:57 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Drilling for Hoffa
Tomorrow, police will drill through a concrete slab at a Detroit home where Jimmy Hoffa may be buried. They are responding to what they say is a "credible" tip from a man who claims he saw a burial ta...
05:49 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Why don't giraffes have necks as long as a brachiosaurus?
We think of giraffes as long-necked creatures, but compared to ancient sauropod dinosaurs (a family that includes the brachiosaurus and apatosaurus) even the longest-necked giraffe may as well be nick...
05:19 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Human flesh pop-up butcher shop in Smithfield to promote new Resident Evil installment
Capcom is running a "pop up human butchery and morgue" at Smithfields meat market in London to promote the new Resident Evil installment. It'll be open for two days: Sept 28 and 29. WARNING: Gross ima...
04:59 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Commodity market prediction takes the Internet by storm
Good news! There is not an unavoidable bacon shortage looming in our future. Bad news! What was actually being predicted was really an increase in meat prices across the board. Droughts have completel...
04:47 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The champagne of national unity
According to a survey of 200,000 Americans, Miller High Life is the most bi-partisan of beers. Republicans favor Samuel Adams and, apparently, there are a lot of Democrats drinking Heineken. (Although...
04:16 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
"Images" from the edge of a black hole
EDIT: This post originally went up with the wrong images. Sorry about that. This is not a photograph. But it's still amazing. An important thing to remember about science is that some of the stuff we ...
04:10 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
RiffTrax takes on The Hunger Games, in blatant defiance of President Snow
Good news for everyone who loves watching hit movies get mercilessly mocked! The RiffTrax crew -- Michael J. Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett -- have emerged from their secret bunker in Panem's ...
04:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Clay Shirky at TED: "How the Internet will (one day) transform government"
Clay Shirky's TED talk, "How the Internet will (one day) transform government," is a smart, fast, funny look at how the Internet lowers the cost of doing things together. Given that the core task of g...
04:02 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
How records are made
Gorgeous black and white photos from 1954 and 1962 of vinyl records being made, including scans of an album jacket with a description of the process. "How records are made" (Voices of East Anglia, via...
03:25 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Incredible 360 interactive panorama of Great Pyramids
AirPano created a breathtaking 360 interactive panorama of Egypt's Great Pyramids of Giza. The video above shows how AirPano collected the images that went into the panorama. How did they do it? As Gr...
03:04 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The Saturday Night Live reality show that (thankfully) wasn't
Bradford Evans at Splitsider has delved into the aborted attempt at an American Idol-style competition show in which the ultimate prize was becoming an actual featured player on Saturday Night Live. I...
02:51 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Treasure Island Music Festival 2012: contest finalists
There were a slew of amazing entries in our Treasure Island Music Festival ticket contest! We asked you to post a Haiku about your favorite band performing at this year's festival, October 13-14, in t...
02:27 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Luaka Bop throws worldwide party for Brazilian superstar Tim Maia's 70th Birthday
Luaka Bop, the world music record label started by David Byrne, is celebrating the 70th birthday of Brazilian musician Tim Maia, who died in 1998. Above is a stream of his upcoming album, Nobody Can L...
02:03 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Amazing truck collision
In this video, two trucks collide nearly head-on and one driver flies through the windshield. Spoiler: He lands on his feet and walks away....
01:57 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Possible burglar rescued from exhaust duct
Yesterday, Ashland, Kentucky police had to call in firefighters with an aerial truck to pull a juvenile trapped for nine hours in the exhaust duct of El Rancho Grande restaurant. He apparently slid do...
01:49 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Sponsor Shout-Out
Our thanks to Watchismo, sponsors of our daily email update. Watchismo exclusively offers the new Tendence Skeleton Watches with fully exposed, fully mechanical 'skeletonized' automatic movements. See...
01:34 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The NFL ref strike is over, but The Daily Show still got to make jokes about it with Patrick Stewart
Monday Night Debacle-ball apparently was the last straw: Late last night, the NFL and the union representing the striking referees finally came to a tentative agreement, and the professional referees ...
01:30 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: From Inside, by John Bergin
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:24 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Stella Im Hultberg: exlusive preview of new paintings
When Brooklyn-based painter Stella Im Hultberg was working on her latest paintings, she read Haruki Murakami's novel 1QA4. Twice. The Japanese surrealist's writing has long been an inspiration to her....
01:24 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Stella Im Hultberg: exclusive preview of new paintings
When Brooklyn-based painter Stella Im Hultberg was working on her latest paintings, she read Haruki Murakami's novel 1Q84. Twice. The Japanese surrealist's writing has long been an inspiration to her....
01:15 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
A Gumby moment, brought to you by Nicolas Cage
Last night, I was watching the 1986 movie Peggy Sue Got Married, about a time-traveling Kathleen Turner who goes 25 years into her own past, when she was in a budding relationship with her philanderin...
01:12 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Headline of the day: "Millionaire with cocaine habit so bad his nose collapsed is jailed after police find drugs stash in the folding roof of his Bentley"
The only way this Daily Mail headline could be any better is if the millionaire were from space. A millionaire cocaine addict who retired abroad at the age of just 36 after making his fortune has been...
01:00 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Lando Calrissian's law firm
ZekeMahogany's "Law Office of Lando Calrissian" is a pretty cute little funnybit. The territory is well-worn (ISTR a union drive for aggrieved Death Star construction workers), but the execution is ni...
12:44 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Morrissey at age 17: "Ramones are Rubbish"
A crotchety 17-year-old "Steve" Morrissey complained about the Ramones in a letter that ran in the July 24, 1976 issue of Melody Maker. Dangerous Minds: Morrissey at age 17: "Ramones are Rubbish"...
12:15 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo - September 29, 2012
I'm going to be at World Maker Faire New York this weekend, but if I wasn't, I'd be sorely tempted to attend MICE 2012, the Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo in Cambridge. It's billed as an "event...
12:07 pm PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Bill Nye the Science Style
[Video Link] HT: @astrojenny...
11:53 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Wondering why investors are pulling back from funding internet startups? Blame Facebook.
The disappointing stocks of Facebook, Groupon, and Zynga shares are causing some investors to hesitate on funding internet start-ups. More in the WSJ. "The frothy bubble is over," says one VC quoted i...
11:49 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Headline of the year: "Buddhist Iron Man found by Nazis is from space"
The only way this Nature News headline could be any better is if the Nazis themselves were from space. A Buddhist statue brought to Germany from Tibet by a Nazi-backed expedition has been confirmed as...
11:46 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Romney avoided tax on 1999 dot-com riches with trust nicknamed, "I Dig It"
Jesse Drucker at Bloomberg reports on how, back in pre-dotcom-crash 1999, a trust Mitt Romney set up for his children and grandchildren returned a 1,000 percent return on the sale of shares in Interne...
11:36 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The life and death of a 125-year-old tree (video)
Standing, and Falling, two short films by Casimir Nozkowski about the life and death of a big, beautiful, very old tree....
11:25 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Contest to come up with a better "young women in science" video PSA than, "Science, Its a Girl Thing!"
Surely you recall that godawful "Science, It's a Girl Thing!" video atrocity created with EU funding and mocked the world over. There's now a contest to make a better one, with cash prizes and worldwi...
10:25 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
How to build a trippy meditation chamber, from PopSci 1970 archives
"The Meditator," a personal isolation tank fashioned from 12 pentagons decorated with photo collages. "You may find the sensation akin to that mystical communion with nature that you experience when a...
10:21 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
The appeal of the Naked English Garden
You garden naked. Can we come and visit your garden naked, too? Yes. (NYTimes.com)...
10:11 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Cancer and the High Holy Days: Rethinking Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die
Cancer survivor Lani Horn, who helped me through some painful times during my cancer treatment, writes in a piece for kveller.com about anger, justice, and the search for deeper meaning in the Jewish ...
09:55 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
32 metronomes attaining spontaneous synchrony
This Japanese video shows 32 metronomes set rocking on a wobbly surface. They begin in a state of chaos, and as they feed motion into the table, they begin to influence one another, until, 4 minutes l...
07:51 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Murdoch's Times goes back to Google: please index us, just a little!
An update from Rupert Murdoch's experiment in news publishing without search-engines: the oligarch has reversed his policy regarding the Times (which went paywall in 2009), and he will now allow Googl...
07:37 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Prime Minister of New Zealand apologizes to Kim Dotcom for letting spy agency wiretap him
New Zealand Prime Minister John Key issued an official apology to Kim Dotcom for illegal spying conducted by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) -- the NZ equivalent to the CIA, which...
01:23 am PDT - Thu, September 27, 2012
BoingBoing
Hustler's MBA: a "modern curriculum" for four years of self-directed learning
"The Hustler's MBA" is a modest proposal for a four-year alternative to university for recent high-school grads. Its proponent and originator, Tynan, suggests that four years spent learning to play po...
10:09 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Second sleep: a period of wakefulness in the middle of the night
I just had dinner with my friend Emily Hurson, a talented actor, singer and all-round hoopy frood. When I asked her about her longtime struggle with insomnia, she mentioned that her life was much bett...
10:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Gweek 069: Ned Vizzini, author of The Other Normals and writer for Last Resort
Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My guest this week...
07:59 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
People from 0 to 100 years in 150 seconds (video)
Kanaal van Filmersblog says: In October 2011 I started documenting people in the city of Amsterdam, approaching them in the street and asking them to say their age in front of the camera. My aim was t...
07:31 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
PSY foam-art
Redditor DivineBaboon posted an unattributed photo of an espresso drink with a beautiful PSY (of Gangnam Style fame) portrait in the foam. My friend ordered a cappuccino and this is what he got.. (i.i...
07:14 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
The Pax Vaporizer: 'fropheads rejoice!
[Video Link] Have you ever wondered what J.R. "Bob" Dobbs smokes in his pipe? It's the dried flower petals of the Habafropzipulops plant! (Street parlance: 'frop.) 'Frop is not a drug, and as little a...
05:53 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Dirty translation of the Iliad, 1897
Nat sez, "Homer's Iliad set to bawdy verse. The Preface sings true, even today:" Good people, would you know the reason I write at this unlucky season, When all the nation is so poor That few can keep...
05:53 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Dirty translation of the Iliad, 1797
Nat sez, "Homer's Iliad set to bawdy verse. The Preface sings true, even today:" Good people, would you know the reason I write at this unlucky season, When all the nation is so poor That few can keep...
05:02 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Rolling Stone interviews Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez at the same time
Who is this handsome bunch? Just four of the greatest living cartoonists on Earth: Jaime Hernandez, Chris Ware, Daniel Clowes, and Gilbert Hernandez. They were interviewed simultaneously by Sean T. Co...
04:56 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
FORM1: a new, $2300 high-resolution 3D resin printer on Kickstarter
FORM1 is a new 3D printer that's taking pre-orders via Kickstarter. It was invented by MIT Media Lab students and brought to product stage through private investment, including some investment from fr...
04:48 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong: YA webcomic "full of teenagers building homemade robots in their basement"
Comics awesomecreator Faith Erin Hicks (Zombies Calling, Friends With Boys) is serializing a new comic online called "Nothing Can Possibly Go Wrong," adapted from a Prudence Shen YA novel. When the se...
04:47 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
The Plot Against Occupy
A worthy piece of reporting over at Rolling Stone, on "how the government turned five stoner misfits into the world's most hapless terrorist cell," in the spirit of COINTELPRO. Snip: "Nothing was dest...
04:36 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Rainbow over the Andes (photo)
Boing Boing reader Ben Leshchinsky shares this wonderful photo in the Boing Boing Flickr pool and says, "About 10 km from the ancient city of Machu Picchu, we had the good fortune of seeing a magnific...
04:26 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Zombie lawn-gnomes feast on a pink flamingo
Chris and Jane's Place on Etsy will sell you this delightful tableau for your front yard, in which zombie gnomes are depicted feasting on a felled and mutilated pink flamingo. $55 cheap. This is a sor...
03:30 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Kawaii Catastrophe: Japanese insurance brochure depicts adorable disasters that can befall your home
Author Matt Alt, who lives in Tokyo, writes: Kawaii. The aesthetic of Japanese cute. You love it or hate it, but you can't escape it, as Hiroko and I learned when renewing the insurance on our house. ...
03:24 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Jet pack 'Rocketeer' hopes to fly from SoCal coast to Catalina Island, set world record | 89.3 KPCC
LA radio station KPCC reports that "Newport Beach adventurer Dean O'Malley will try to set a world record this weekend when he flies from Newport to Catalina Island using a new type of jet pack, power...
03:14 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Steve Jobs, Romantic
At O'Reilly Radar, Doug Hill with a worthy read on the late Apple CEO: "Id like to talk here about a spirit that Jobs carried within himself. Its a spirit he relied on for inspiration, although he see...
02:43 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
The Shuttle Shokunin, and Kennedy Space Center's 50th anniversary
This past weekend, I accompanied Miles O'Brien to the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy Space Center. In attendance were present and past KSC directors, NASA Administrator Charles Bolden, astronauts and...
02:32 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Insane Clown Posse suing FBI over its classification of Juggalos as a gang
In October 2011, the FBI added Juggalos (followers of Insane Clown Posse) to its National Gang Threat Assessment (PDF). From the report: The Juggalos, a loosely-organized hybrid gang, are rapidly expa...
02:23 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
UC Davis students reach $1 million settlement with UC Davis over pepper-spray incident
Photo:Brian Nguyen/The Aggie From the ACLU of Northern California, this just in: Attorneys for 21 UC Davis students and recent alumni have just announced the details of a million-dollar settlement in ...
02:19 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Penguin suing author Elizabeth Wurtzel, Ana Marie Cox for failure to deliver books
Smoking Gun reports that Penguin is "suing a host of well-known authors, claiming that they failed to deliver books for which they received hefty contractual advances. The list of authors includes Pro...
02:05 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Man dresses as car seat in attempt to move to Spain without the usual red tape
This fellow dressed up as a car seat in an unsuccessful attempt to relocate from Guinea to Spain. From the Telegraph: "Police only realized there was a third man inside the Moroccan-plated Renault 7 w...
01:30 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: God's Man, by Lynd Ward
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:30 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Gods' Man, by Lynd Ward
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:09 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Weird cyberpunk game has pounding electronic soundtrack
Electronic musician Tettix's latest is Cool Pizza, the soundtrack to a bizarre and brutally difficult iOS game by the same name, which renders Space Harrier-style gameplay in pink spot color and halft...
12:55 pm PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Librarians, teachers: sign up to get free copies of my forthcoming YA novel Pirate Cinema
As many of you will know, I'm about to kick off the tour for a new YA science fiction novel, Pirate Cinema, which comes out next week. As with all my other novels, I'll be putting up Creative Commons-...
11:40 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Cyclists are safe and courteous, and your disdain for them is grounded in cognitive bias
Jim Saska is a jerky cyclist, something he cheerfully cops to (he also admits that he's a dick when he's driving a car or walking, and explains the overall pattern with a reference to his New Jersey p...
11:30 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
TOM THE DANCING BUG: A Totally Implausible Satire, featuring Lucky Ducky
Tom the Dancing Bug: Come on! Hollingsworth Hound giving a speech to Fat Cats, denouncing Lucky Ducky and his 47% buddies as entitled moochers? It's beyond satire!...
10:28 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Felony charge over stick figure threat
A woman scheduled to be released from prison will remain incarcerated, say authorities in Idaho, because she mailed a threatening stick figure drawing to a relative. [WaPo]...
10:24 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Finger found inside trout traced to owner
A human finger found in a trout was identified as one lost months ago in a wakeboarding accident: "Detectives were able to get a fingerprint off the severed digit. They matched it to a fingerprint car...
10:23 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
64,000 drug-bust samples in Mass. were processed by a dirty lab tech who tampered with them, altered weight, faked positive tests for illegal substances
Michael F sez, "There's a Massachusetts state crime lab scandal that hasn't yet received too much national attention (outside of the state)--and I thought it was worth sharing. It's been alleged that ...
10:16 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Movie poster for Jodorowsky's Dune
Kilian Eng created this poster for an upcoming documentary about Alejandro Jodorowsky's legendary project to film Dune, "possibly the greatest Sci-Fi film that never was." Poster for the upcoming docu...
10:00 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
33 new biomes to explore in Minecraft
The Biomes O'Plenty Minecraft mod adds wild varieties of landscape to the blocky exploration and building game: wastelands, craggy outcroppings, hazy savannah, ominous woodlands, orchards, and much el...
09:24 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
The Shining as a Seinfeld-style sitcom
"I know I'm not the first person to put a laugh track on The Shining," writes youtoobmember, "but I couldn't resist doing my own version of it." The result is funny for a minute or so, then increasing...
02:59 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
EU working group produces the stupidest set of proposed Internet rules in the entire history of the human race
An EU working group that's been charged with coming up with recommendations for a terrorist-free European Internet has been brainstorming the stupidest goddamned ideas you've ever read, which are now ...
01:25 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
David Byrne and St Vincent performing each others' songs together
Pitchfork's got a couple YouTube clips from the ongoing David Byrne/St Vincent tour, which is in support of their new album and Byrne's new book, both of which are amazing. I saw the tour stop in Toro...
01:12 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Interview with Ray Harryausen
Here's a 1974 interview with SFX pioneer and "Dynamation" inventor Ray Harryhausen, whose stop motion magic brought to life such classic films as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonau...
01:12 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Interview with Ray Harryhausen
Here's a 1974 interview with SFX pioneer and "Dynamation" inventor Ray Harryhausen, whose stop motion magic brought to life such classic films as The 7th Voyage of Sinbad (1958), Jason and the Argonau...
12:53 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Guy trying to cure friend's hiccups accidentally kills him
On Sunday evening, US Army private first class Isaac Lawrence Young, 22, was drinking and watching football with his buddies when he got the hiccups. His pal Pfc. Patrick Edward Myers, 27, pulled out ...
12:03 am PDT - Wed, September 26, 2012
BoingBoing
Fruit salad trees with six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them
The Fruit Salad Tree Company of Emmaville, NSW, Australia sells trees that have up to six different fruit-bearing branches grafted on them. * Stone fruits which grows peaches, plums, nectarines, apric...
11:50 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Google launches underwater Street View, a new virtual map of oceans
Today, Google Maps unveils a new Street View feature: underwater panoramic views of six special sea spots. The idea is to create a virtual map of the oceans, documenting the state of fragile ecosystem...
11:10 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Laptop rental companies reach cash-free, pointless settlement with toothless FTC for taking secret naked pictures of customers having sex, harvesting medical records and banking passwords and more
The FTC has settled with seven rent-to-own companies and a software company called DesignerWare of North East Pennsylvania for their role in secretly installing spyware on rental laptops, which was us...
09:58 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Debunking the NYT feature on the wastefulness of data-centers
This weekend's NYT carried an alarming feature article on the gross wastefulness of the data-centers that host the world's racks of server hardware. James Glanz's feature, The Cloud Factory, painted a...
09:25 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Fantastically detailed miniature replica of Katz's deli
Miniatures sculptor Alan Wolfson was commissioned to make a teeny weeny, fiendishly detailed diorama of the legendary Katz's Deli. Wolfson doesn't do miniature people, so he needed a plausible reason ...
07:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Silcon Valley's high-tech bus commuter lines visualized
Stamen, a design firm in San Francisco, was commissioned to study the private transport networks that run from San Francisco down to Silicon Valley. The traditional commuter dynamic for cities is subu...
07:34 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Dolphin giving birth
Here's a rare look at dolphin birth, from Dolphin Quest Hawaii at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. Jump to 17s for the main event. Video Link [The Telegraph (h/t CSM)]...
06:28 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Six-eyed reveler wows Folsom Street Fair
From Carolyne Zinko's SF Gate story and slideshow from San Francisco's Folsom Street Fair (a kink/fetish event), this fantastic mask on an unidentified "reveler." I want to wear something like this on...
05:59 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
AMC casually confirms a fourth season of The Walking Dead
Good news! AMC has all but confirmed a fourth season of The Walking Dead -- by nonchalantly mentioning it while talking about something else entirely! In an announcement for not the show, but a blood ...
04:17 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Toyota's new robot
This is Toyota's new arm-wresting robot. Apparently, its other application is for "human support" such as assisting disabled people and caring for the elderly in their homes. The robot's body can rais...
04:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Mitt Romney: "I don't know" why airplane windows don't open
At a $50,000/ticket fundraiser at the Beverly Hills Hilton (home to one of the great Trader Vic's of America, I might add), Mitt Romney expressed his controversial views on aerospace engineering, as r...
03:23 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
From opium antiques collector to addict
Steven Martin (not the comedian) is the author of Opium Fiend: A 21st Century Slave to a 19th Century Addiction. Interestingly, Martin started as a collector of antique opium accoutrements. Then he re...
03:10 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
New collection of interviews with JG Ballard
Extreme Metaphors is a brand new anthology of interviews with one of my all-time favorite writers, JG Ballard, master of surrealist science fiction, dystopian visionary, and brilliant cultural critic....
02:44 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
And now, the ballad of the the NFL ref strike, as performed by the replacement refs at the Seahawks-Packers game
Storytime: Last night, during Monday Night Football's presentation of the Seattle Seahawks versus the Green Bay Packers, an insane thing happened that illustrated exactly why the NFL's referee strike ...
02:39 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
The Jetsons: 50 years later
Fifty years ago this week, The Jetsons premiered. It only lasted 24 episodes (not including the mid-1980s "revival"), but it truly embodied the tech optimism of the time. In the world of professional ...
02:16 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
UK government spent millions arming and training Congolese and Sudanese soldiers
The UK government has spent 2.4m on training and arming the military forces in Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo -- two places where soldiers are known for atrocities, gang-rape, torture, ele...
02:09 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection
Available today is Bond 50: The Complete 22 Film Collection on Blu-ray and DVD. (Of course, "complete" is arguably a misnomer because the set doesn't include Casino Royale or Never Say Never Again whi...
01:51 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Telephone management skills, 1957 edition: Stephen Potter
From the wonderful blog "Vintage Scans," a page from Lifemanship lesson from Stephen Potter, 1957 (11th impression). Potter was a British writer known for dry, mocking, self-help books, and the TV and...
01:31 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Homebrew Nintendo laser zapper is powerful, awesome
"The plan was simple. Take a nostalgic NES "duck hunt" Zapper, and retrofit it with a ridiculously powerful laser." A project from North Street Labs. In case it's not obvious, this project is dangerou...
01:30 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Carnet de Voyage, by Craig Thompsom
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:10 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Turn your personal mob into an army
The startup team behind Human.io. Human.io is the new thing from Joshua Schacter, founder of bookmarking site del.icio.us. This time, however, he's not suggesting you share your travels with a few fri...
01:01 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
A perfect political ad (Video)
I love firemen! I love brotherhoods! I love gay marriage! This ad has everything!...
01:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, The Art Scene, Basquiat, Fab Five Freddy Meets Charlie Ahearn
Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!...
01:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
The Mongoliad: Book Two - exclusive excerpt
In April we ran an excerpt from The Mongoliad: Book One, a shared universe epic written by Neal Stephenson, Erik Bear, Greg Bear, Joseph Brassey, Nicole Galland, Cooper Moo, Mark Teppo. Book Two is ou...
12:59 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Awesome action alert: Gina Carano signs on for lady-filled action ensemble flick
That moment that MMA fighter-turned-action star Gina Carano is having? It's going to continue. The breakout star of last year's Haywire has just signed on for an upcoming action ensemble movie that wi...
12:55 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
How to write with style, by Kurt Vonnegut, the 1980 edition
Larger size here, so you can read all the text. Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut, 1980, sponsored by International Paper Company. Shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by vintage ad archivist MewDeep. ...
12:47 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
The Other Death Sentence: the cost of keeping very old men in prison
Mike Mechanic from Mother Jones shares a link to a new longread on the moral, practical, and financial costs ($16 billion a year) of keeping thousands of frail, infirm old men locked up in prison. The...
12:23 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
As car service app Uber grows, D.C. council pushes to regulate
I absolutely love the smartphone app Uber, which allows you to order car service on demand, instead of trying to hail or call a cab or order a black car. It became an essential tool during my radiatio...
12:09 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
United Airlines killed my golden retriever, says supermodel
Maggie Rizer, a well-known fashion model, blames United Airlines for the death of her Golden Retriever, Bea, who suffered heat stroke and died during a cross-country flight two weeks ago. From NY Dail...
12:06 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Bad Pharma: account of pharmaceutical industry scientific fraud is readable and rigorous
Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre's new book Bad Pharma: How drug companies mislead doctors and harm patients ships today, and Ben has posted the foreword, including this helpful paragraph, which explains th...
12:03 pm PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Unique issues in Japan for Apple iOS6 maps
Inconsistencies and funny goofs with Apple's new iOS6 maps feature have been widely reported. But in Japan, a country-specific set of technical issues contribute to the feature's lack of reliability t...
11:41 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Your friendly neighborhood boring machine
Check out this great interactive map of the London subway system, showing the real-time location of the giant boring machines that are currently digging new tunnels beneath the city. (Via Nicola Twill...
11:37 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Game of Thrones cosplay: a most excellent Daenerys Targaryen (photo)
Larger sizes here. Boing Boing reader jojo.edtan's Flickr stream is full of wonderful photographs of cosplayers, and he shared a bunch of great shots from the recent PAX Prime convention in our Boing ...
11:37 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Black American sign language and American sign language are different languages
I've been fascinated by the history and development of sign language for a while now. Highly linked to local Deaf cultures, individual sign languages have deep roots in the home-made systems people ca...
11:09 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Guerrilla Grafters covertly add fruit-tree branches to ornamental trees
The Guerrilla Grafters are a group of rogue artists who roam San Francisco, covertly grafting fruit-tree branches onto ornamental trees to create a municipal free lunch. John Robb calls it "resilient ...
11:01 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
A guide to animal CPR
Back in May, I posted about how the Smithsonian National Zoo took another shot at inseminating Mei Xiang, a female giant panda. Female pandas are only fertile once a year, for 24-72 hours, and the zoo...
10:12 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Mr. Gay Denmark is Muslim
Michael Sinan, Mr. Gay Denmark 2012 is out and proud. As a Muslim. (Thanks, Antinous!)...
10:09 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Preservation Hall 50th Anniversary Collection: four discs of New Orleans jazz with guest appearances from Tom Waits, Pete Seeger, Del McCoury and others
Last week, I linked to a couple early tracks from the new Preservation Hall Band CD, St. Peter & 57th St, which comes out today. What I didn't mention is that today also marks the release of The ...
06:44 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Ad, 1970: Use Dixie Cups, ladies, and you will never grow old
"Think of it. You'll have more time on your hands (...) to make a pantsuit. To live a little." Shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by vintage ad archivist MewDeep, and larger size here....
02:32 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Liquid nitrogen + ping-pong balls = pure awesome
Dr. Roy Lowry demonstrates the awesome power of liquid nitrogen for a group of students at Plymouth University with a riveting demonstration that culminates in making an LN2-based bomb out of a water ...
02:00 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Confronting a troll in real life
Leo Traynor, a "writer, analyst & political consultant" in Ireland, was hounded off of Twitter by a vicious anti-Semitic troll whose ghastly threats against him and his family were too much to be...
01:00 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Pranksters crash final speech of corporate tax avoidance taxman, posh hilarity ensues
UK fair tax/anti-cuts activists crashed the Key Haven Publications' Practical Tax Planning conference in Oxford, where Dave Hartnett, the outgoing top UK taxation bureaucrat, was giving the final spee...
12:31 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Adobe releases open-source coding typeface
Adobe's Paul D. Hunt announces the company's latest open-source typeface. This one's for coders and anyone else who loves legible monospaced figures—and who hates getting confused between l, 1 a...
12:26 am PDT - Tue, September 25, 2012
BoingBoing
Pistols made of bones
Bruce Mahalski, an artist in New Zealand, created a set of sculptural "dueling pistols" out of bone. Bidding opens at NZD1500. Two bone dueling pistols (with spare bullets) mounted in a custom altered...
11:51 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Audrey Kawaski Hint Mint tins
Artist Audrey Kawasaki has teamed up with Hint Mint to produce a series of beautiful mint tins with her art on them. I just bought two gift sets. See more Audrey Kawasaki posts on Boing Boing....
11:20 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Blast from the past: Boing Boing's Fulchau page
I forgot about my fulchau page until I got an email from a fellow fulchau admirer today. In 2002 there was one Google search result for fulchau. Today there are 768. (I see that fulchau.com has not be...
10:20 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Is Diablo III turning virtual economies Into real ones? (Video)
Heath says: The latest episode of PBS Digital Studios’ weekly Web series, Idea Channel, from producers Kornhaber Brown, questions whether games like Diablo III are creating actual value from the...
10:16 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Close Encounters of the Fifth Kind: Shusei Nagaoka (NSFW '70s sci-fi illustration)
View larger size here. Lovingly scanned and shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool by reader v. valenti. Art by Japanese illustrator Shusei Nagaoka, whose sci-fi illustrations were popular during the 1...
10:03 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Oktoberfest 2012 illustration in Playboy by Christoph Hoppenbrock
Playboy Oktoberfest 2012: Oktoberfest Wimmelbild illustration for Playboy Deutschland by Christoph Hoppenbrock. Here's a larger size, and more details on the illustrator's blog, including a detailed l...
09:47 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Study: Republican state voting laws "will disenfranchise 10,000,000 Hispanic US citizens"
Today, a civil rights group called Advancement Project will publish a report on the new voting laws passed in 23 Republican-led states. The report (not named in Patricia Zengerle's Reuters article and...
09:37 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
New fossil analysis shows cannibalism in Britain 15K years ago was "practical and ritualistic"
Scientists analyzing 14,700-year-old remains at Gough's cave in Somerset, England believe that human flesh was not eaten merely out of survival imperative, but as a "practical and ritualistic" behavio...
09:16 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Bre Pettis of MakerBot holding a 3D printer in 2010 and 2012
Here's MakerBot's Bre Pettis holding a Cupcake on the cover of Make in 2010 and a Replicator 2 on the cover of Wired in 2012. The more things change… (Photo by Jake Spurlock)...
09:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
The new MySpace (Video)
Justin Timberlake just unveileda video that shows off the new MySpace beta. It appears that they're hoping to build on their popularity with musicians and the UI looks pretty nice. No word yet on when...
08:42 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Excerpt from The Ravenous Brain: How the New Science of Consciousness Explains Our Insatiable Search for Meaning
Here's an exclusive excerpt from Daniel Bor's new book, The Ravenous Brain. Neuroscientist Daniel Bor has spent the past decade worrying over biology’s most difficult problem -- what consciousne...
08:31 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Exhaust all of DES and crack any MS-CHAPv2-based VPN for a mere $20
Moxie Marlinspike and David Hulton's Divide and Conquer: Cracking MS-CHAPv2 with a 100% success rate presentation from Defcon is now a reality. If you want to crack a MS-CHAPv2 PPTP authentication han...
08:23 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Book about the making of Game of Thrones
[Video Link] Game of Thrones is not only one of best TV shows I've ever seen, it's also the most visually interesting (apart from the opening to Land of the Lost, of course). No wonder the show won si...
07:16 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Pinochet 2.0: US economist talks Honduras' military dictator into establishing a private city owned and regulated by offshore corporations
Honduran president Porfirio Lobo came to power in a military coup and presides over the most murderous nation on earth. Now he has announced hastily assembled plans to desginate a region in his countr...
07:07 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
America's top snack brand
Surprisingly, the "best perceived" US snack brand is Ritz. Lay's is number two, followed by Doritos. For potato chips, I prefer Pringles because of their perfect uniformity and can, but they barely ma...
06:52 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
How to ruin something
I was watching this fantastic intro to one of my favorite tv shows of all time, Land of the Lost, when I saw this 1991 remake linked in the related content. This seems like a How-Not-To guide for rema...
05:21 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Study: many young cancer survivors don't get followup care due to costs
A new study published in Cancer, the peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society, shows that many survivors of adolescent and young adult cancers don't get the routine medical care they need ...
05:21 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Internet Voter Registration Day: pledge to vote, and get your friends to pledge, and scare the piss out of SOPA-loving DC insiders
Tiffiniy from the SOPA-killing activist group Fight for the Future sez, Remember when we worked together and beat back internet censorship and SOPA, and changed the world earlier this year? 2012 is a ...
04:59 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
The new poster for Les Misrables looks familiar
I'll include just a tease here, but Universal has released a new poster for its epic-looking Les Misrables -- and it's a new take on an old image. Head to the movie's official site for the full look (...
04:26 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Realistic finger soap
LoveLeeSoaps sells many different kinds of soaps on Esty, including a "Creepy Finger Soap Set" for $5. (Via $5 Finds)...
04:17 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Iranian cleric beaten and hospitalized by badly covered woman
In the northern province of Semnan, cleric Hojatoleslam Ali Beheshti spotted a woman in the street who was not sufficiently covered to his liking. When he ordered her to cover herself up, she beat him...
03:54 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
New Zealand's spies illegally bugged Kim Dotcom, complicity may go all the way to the prime minister's office
New Zealand's foreign intelligence spy body, the Government Communications Security Bureau spied on Kim Dotcom at the behest of the US government, despite the fact that they are legally prohibited fro...
03:49 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
My night with the International Space Orchestra: Jasmina Tesanovic
The International Space Orchestra in front of Vacuum Chambers, NASA Ames Research Center. Photo: Neil Berrett. I never dreamed I would be in a NASA base in California, singing and playing music. The G...
03:17 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Trailer for The Rise and Fall of the Clash
[Video Link] This looks like a sad documentary about my favorite band, The Clash. The Rise and Fall of the Clash features previously unseen footage of the band at work and at play, interviews with the...
03:10 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Saturday Night Live recap: Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Mumford & Sons
The last time Joseph Gordon-Levitt hosted Saturday Night Live, he turned out to be a great host -- genuinely funny, happy to be there, ready to do anything that was thrown at him, and then doing it we...
02:44 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Ada Lovelace day coming up: party in London, fundraiser to sustain the project
Suw Charman sez, Ada Lovelace Day - the international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering & maths on October 16 - will see people around the world writing...
02:12 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
6,000-word iPhone 5 review
Former BBG writer John Brownlee's 6,000-word iPhone 5 review covers all the bases: "any tech lover who could find this phone to be anything less than the most exciting piece of tech of the year has to...
01:57 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Win VIP tickets to San Francisco's Treasure Island Music Festival (1013-1014)!
The always-fantastic Treasure Island Music Festival returns to the San Francisco Bay Area on October 13 and 14. The exquisitely-curated line-up includes the likes of Girl Talk, The XX, M83, Joanna New...
01:44 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Woman explains why she is waiting in line for an iPhone 5
[Video Link] Mossberg, watch out -- Rachel's gunning for your job. (Via Uproxx)...
01:27 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
LovePalz teledildonic sex toy
An early 1990s magazine called Future Sex was all about teledidonics - devices that allow people to have sex with each other even when they weren't close enough to have sex. But in the early 1990s, th...
01:18 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Optical illusion painted on house
Ciaran Brennan painted the exterior of his home with a delightfully surrealist trompe l'oeil. "boptical illusion" (via)...
01:14 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Recreating the sound of early 20th-century America
Naturalist Aldo Leopold took such detailed notes of the sounds he heard in 1930s Wisconsin — particularly bird calls — that researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison have been abl...
01:05 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Wow, ocean
TIL: The Great Barrier Reef is nearly the size of Montana. (Via Marilyn Terrell)...
01:02 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
You might be discriminating against women and not even realize it
Let's talk about the pay gap. Census data show shows that, in 2008, American women still earned .77 cents for every $1 earned by American men. And, while some of this has to do with women working diff...
01:01 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Randy Regier's space toy artwork
Artist/sculptor Randy Regier makes one-of-kind toys and sometimes exhibits them in shops that never open their doors. To see them, you must peer through the storefront window. His latest work is a bat...
01:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Healthy family cat euthanized by mistake during routine vet visit for flea bath
"Jesse Conway took his mother's 8-year-old cat, Lady, to get a flea bath at Broadway Animal Hospital in Gardner last week when he unknowingly signed forms agreeing to have the kitty put to sleep." The...
12:58 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Fame (1980): Leroy Johnson's "audition"
The late Gene Anthony Ray's "audition" as Leroy Johnson in the original, and still brilliant, 1980 film Fame. The tune is Linda Clifford's "Red Light," available on the movie soundtrack. Wicked. His p...
12:54 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
From death row to Life After Death: Damien Echols profiled in NYT
In today's NYT, Dave Itzkoff profiles death-row inmate turned memoirist Damien Echols, who was one-third of the West Memphis Three. The feature includes some really striking photographs by Todd Heisle...
12:39 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Copyright lobbyists secretly engineering clawback of Canadian user rights
Michael Geist sez, More than ten years of contentious debate over Canadian copyright law appeared to come to a conclusion in late June when Bill C-11 passed its final legislative hurdle and received r...
12:37 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
LEGO Great Ball Contraption
Behold, the LEGO Great Ball Contraption! Acronym: GBC!...
12:32 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Amit Gupta on life after cancer treatment
"We leave in a few weeks on motorcycles." Read this beautiful blog post from tech entrepreneur Amit Gupta, who was diagnosed exactly one year ago with AML leukemia. I know that feel, bro....
12:29 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Manson's note to Manson
Charles Manson wrote Marilyn Manson a postcard from prison: To Marilyn Manson Its taken me a long time to get there from where I could touch M. Manson. Now I got a card to play you may look into my ...
12:08 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
What else can a 747 carry?
Last week, a 747 took the Space Shuttle Endeavour on its final trip — a voyage to the California Science Center in Los Angeles. But that's not the only way 747s break away from the everyday task...
12:01 pm PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
An atlas of horrible things that could happen to you in the 15th century
Today, he's known as "Wound Man", but once upon a time this illustration was just one part of a standard medical or surgical text book. You'd get your basic illustrations of anatomy. Then you'd get yo...
11:59 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Elfquest: His Memories
Here's the third page of the new chapter of Elfquest, the long-running series of graphic novels first released in 1978. New to it? Catch up with our introduction to the series and page 1 of the new s...
11:46 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Suspected burglar found asleep on floor
Cristian Villarreal-Castillo was found asleep on the kitchen floor of a home that was not his own: "[Deputies] believe Villarreal-Castillo entered the home through an unlocked door and was in the proc...
11:43 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Free guns for romantics
Buy a $2,500 diamond and receive a free rifle from D. Geller and Son of Cobb County, Ga.,: "A lot of our customers are hunters, and it just seemed like a great thing to do." [WSBT]...
11:42 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Critiquing the flying car in 1944
During World War II, a time when most manufacturing was concentrated on the war effort and Americans were living with ration books and scrap metal drives, advertising became a very strange thing. Comp...
11:40 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Zimbabweans flush toilets in unison
Authorities in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, asked the city's million residents to flush their toilets at precisely 7:30 p.m. Saturday—a move aimed at clearing waste that had accumulated in the system aft...
11:40 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Flush Mob: 1m Zimbabweans empty cisterns in unison
Authorities in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, asked the city's million residents to flush their toilets at precisely 7:30 p.m. Saturday—a move aimed at clearing waste that had accumulated in the system aft...
11:39 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
CNN in hot water with State Dept. and slain ambassador's family over diary swiped from embassy
A person working for CNN on the story of slain ambassador Chris Stevens swiped his diary from the "the largely unsecured" US consulate in Benghazi, then used its contents to produce on-air reports, ag...
11:34 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
French doctors on trial for cancer radiation overdoses
In France, doctors and radiologists accused of overdosing hundreds of cancer patients, then destroying evidence to cover up their potentially lethal mistakes, are on trial for manslaughter. Out of a g...
11:13 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Romney on America's uninsured: Let them eat emergency rooms
During an interview with Scott Pelley on the CBS program "60 Minutes" last night, GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney addressed America's uninsured: "Well, we do provide care for people who don't h...
10:56 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Parkour Squirrel (video)
[Video Link] Please enjoy the aptly-titled video above, "squirrel goes rampage on my kitchen and escapes like a boss." (Thanks, Joe Sabia!)...
10:46 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
The future is mobile
Robert Andrews writes: "Publishers are seeing mobile audiences growing fast but revenue is yet to catch up, and its the ad industry taking the blame. ... Many publishers are becoming worried about mi...
10:39 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Kim Dotcom "unlawfully" spied upon
New Zealand's prime minister has launched an inquiry into claims that his government illegally spied on Megaupload supremo Kim Dotcom in the lead-up to a gung-ho raid on his mansion. A judge ruled tha...
10:00 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Making the Book Talismanic: An Interview with Robert Ansell
Robert Ansell is the Director of Fulgur Press, which has published the work of esoteric artists for 20 years....
09:55 am PDT - Mon, September 24, 2012
BoingBoing
Hackspace in Juneau, Alaska
Juneau, Alaska, has a hackspace with the rather formal name of "the STEM satellite space of the Juneau Economic Development Council." Despite the funny name, it sounds like a top-notch hackspace, and ...
10:07 pm PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Time-Warner Cable pisses off two Starship Enterprise Captains on two coasts
Behold, a Twitter exchange between Captains Kirk and Picard bemoaning the execrable state of Time-Warner Cable and the firm's general incapacity not to be a monstrous source of life-up-fucking. Starfl...
09:54 pm PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Molly Crabapple describes and illustrates her Occupy arrest
Molly Crabapple's brief, illustrated editorial describing her arrest at the one-year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street is a tale of police entrapment: petty, punitive justice; solidarity, and resolve....
01:30 pm PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: From Hell, by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
11:47 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Thai vulva-bleaching product
Thailand's skin-lightening craze (which includes products with such active ingredients as mercury) has reached new heights, with a widely advertised vulva*-bleaching product called Lactacyd White Inti...
10:45 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Oglaf on nipples
The punchline comes six panels later, and is no less perfect for its obviousness. Bitterfruit [Oglaf]...
09:51 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
A report about reports about reports that recommends the preparation of a report about the report about reports about reports
This year's IgNobel Prizes were a characteristically great bunch, but as a writer, I'm particularly excited to see that the organizers awarded a prize in literature this year. The prize went to the US...
03:47 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Save the Canadian National Archives
Readers will remember that Canada's national archives are in trouble: they've undergone a $9.6M cut, with more to come. The collections are being sold off to private collectors, many outside of the co...
01:41 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
Pussy Riot's lawyers address NYU law
Here's a video of Pussy Riot's lawyers lecturing at NYU Law. Joly sez, "September 21 2012: Having in the morning received the John Lennon Peace prize from Yoko Ono on behalf of the band, Petya Verzilo...
12:38 am PDT - Sun, September 23, 2012
BoingBoing
How DRM screws people with visual disabilities: a report from the front lines
ZDNet's Rupert Goodwins is going blind. Most of us will lose a substantial fraction of our visual acuity, should we live long enough. As a service to his readers, Goodwins is documenting the way that ...
11:31 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO make a machete wrench
EV Builder and friends were in the midst of refitting a vehicle to be of use in a zombie apocalypse when it occurred to them to turn a machete into a variable hex wrench. They liked the result so much...
09:02 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Pharmaceutical companies deliberately mislead doctors into prescribing useless and even harmful meds
Writing in the Guardian, Ben Goldacre reveals the shocking truth about the drugs that doctors prescribe: thanks to aggressive manipulation from the pharmaceutical companies and passivity from regulato...
07:05 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO use a phone (1917)
The 1917 Chesapeake and Potomac Telephone Company publication "How to Use the Telephone, 1917" is a clear, sensible guide to managing your "delicately adjusted instrument," including useful tips like ...
05:40 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Molly Crabapple-illustrated Warren Ellis short story in five fits, limited edition
Molly Crabapple and Warren Ellis collaborated on "Ariadne and the Science," five short-short stories with accompanying illustrations. Each is available in a limited edition of 25 giclee prints, signed...
04:54 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Design Thinking for Social Good: An Interview with DavidKelley
David Kelley is the founder of IDEO and the Stanford d.school. I asked him about design, process and people—and what it takes to be good at all three....
02:35 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
A video in which a pig rescues a goat
Daww. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)...
01:45 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Molotov cocktail in the shape of a heart
"Armament" is Francis Baker's Arab Spring-inspired Molotov cocktail in the shape of a glass heart: "I created this work, inspired by the Egyptians and the so called Arab spring. The visual starting po...
01:30 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Mnage Bughouse by Steve Lafler
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
12:28 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Archie comic from 1972 about 2012
Reportedly snipped from an Archie comic from 1972 in which he time travels to 2012. (via @coseyfannitutti)...
12:00 pm PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bars are basically giant crunchy Thin Mints
I'm not much of one for energy bars, and I don't think I've ever had a Clif Bar before, but I just bought a Cool Mint Chocolate Clif Bar on a whim and let me tell you: Wow. It's basically a giant oatm...
11:34 am PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
PokitDok: helping sick people find out cash cost for treatments
Peter Biddle sez, Some friends of mine are up and running on a web startup called PokitDok. I'm on their tech board and the Facebook, blog and Twitter posts I did while I was dealing with my father's ...
10:00 am PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
The Kairos Mechanism: a half-sequel to The Bone Shaker
Back in 2010, I reviewed Kate Milford's dreamy, Bradburian YA novel The Bone Shaker. And back in April, I blogged Kate Milford's Kickstarter pitch to fund a print-on-demand half-sequel to act as a bri...
09:17 am PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Inflatable Unicorn horn for kitties: "Cats love it"
Happy Caturday. (thanks, Tara McGinley)...
09:15 am PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Cory at Oakville Public Library (and other Toronto stops) this week
Great news, West Torontonians! The free Oakville Public Library event I'm doing next Wednesday has been opened to all comers (it was previously teen-only). There's refreshments, too. You need to pick ...
01:12 am PDT - Sat, September 22, 2012
BoingBoing
Father and son send toy train into the stratosphere
Maker dad Ron Fugelseth and his 4-year-old son sent the boy's favorite toy train eighteen miles up into the stratosphere aboard a weather balloon outfitted with an HD camera and salvaged cell phone fo...
10:17 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Fallout shelter necessities
From 1962, a sparkling set of electronics for your fallout shelter. Equip your fallout shelter....
09:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Gweek 068: Matthew Modine
Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My co-hosts for th...
08:47 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Kickstarter re-commits to ideas instead of pre-orders
Kickstarter updated its policies for product design today: a move that will cost the firm money but relieve tension caused by fast promises and slow delivery....
07:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Video about New Dimension comic book store (featuring Ed Piskor!)
[Video Link] I was thrilled to see our pal Ed "Brain Rot" Piskor in this great video about a fantastic old-school comic book store on Pennsylvania called New Dimension that actually sells used comic b...
07:50 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Blanket that makes you look like you're cuddlng with Thor and Loki
Illustrator Pascalle Lepas created a design for a blanket that would make its user appear to be snuggling with Thor and Loki and had it custom printed. She's not sure if she'll sell them, but she cert...
07:33 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Confusing photo
Assuming this wasn't photoshopped, I'm still trying to figure out what's going on here. Is this a photo of three people? (Via Reddit)...
07:28 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Hand lettering the lyrics to Bob Dylan's "Subterranean Homesick Blues"
A wonderful homage to Bob Dylan's card-flipping film for "Subterranean Homesick Blues," by artist Leandro Senna....
07:20 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
07:18 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Tree dollhouse
Meg Allan Cole says: "Maddie Chambers created this amazingly detailed and beautiful tree dollhouse she dubbed Mad’s Mouse House and it is something to see. It even has electricity and a teeny ti...
06:42 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Sneak peek at Preservation Hall Band live at Carnegie Hall album
Here's a hell of a way to start the weekend: a couple of outstanding tracks from the upcoming album St. Peter & 57th St, from the Preservation Hall Band, the very sound of New Orleans. The album ...
06:33 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Open source brick machine: the evolution
Tristan sez, "Open Source Ecology is a social enterprise based in Missouri. We develop open source machines that can be made for a fraction of commercial costs, and share our designs on the Internet f...
05:46 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
In case you need to be impressed today, here is the cast of Les Misrables performing all their musical numbers live
You might be a cynic when it comes to movies adapted from Broadway musicals, and that's fine. They're not for everyone. But no matter what you might think of Les Misrables or its cast -- Russell Crowe...
05:34 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Incredible lava lake video
Filmmaker Geoff Mackley captured this insanely hot footage of Marum Volcano on Ambrym Island, Vanuatu. Check out the incredible photos on Mackley's site too. (via Dave Pell's NextDraft)...
05:00 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Art textbook with no art: school trying to fix it
Earlier this week, I wrote about a custom textbook for a course in art history from prehistory to 1800 that had been assigned to students at the Ontario College of Art and Design at a price of $180, w...
04:58 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Helen Mirren will continue in her role as "backup Queen" in The Audience
Helen Mirren will play all the queens, all the time! The only actress to ever play both Queen Elizabeths on screen will play the younger version once again for The Audience, a play written by Peter Mo...
04:22 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Kickstarting a book of homemade D&D modules from the 1980s
Plagmada -- the Play Generated Map and Document Archive -- is kickstarting a book of homebrew D&D modules made by game-geeks in their misspent youth. The lead title is the remarkable The Habititi...
04:12 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Bus cab converted into office
A fellow in Hungary converted the front of a salvaged bus into a fantastic workspace "cubicle." Reminds me a bit of the VW Westfalias converted into an office at IDEO's Palo Alto headquarters and a co...
04:12 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
The Emmys are this Sunday night, get ready for a live-Tweeting extravaganza!
Boing Boing is covering the Primetime Emmys this year! This Sunday night, starting at 7:00 PM EST (4:00 PM Pacific), I will be taking over the Boing Boing Twitter account to live-tweet the Emmys. Whil...
04:06 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Authors of study linking GM corn with rat tumors manipulated media to prevent criticism of their work
Earlier today, I posted on the recent paper that claims to have found a link between eating genetically modified corn and the growth of tumors in rats. Short version: The research sucked. It's a terri...
03:52 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Oldest recorded message in a bottle
Dropped into the Atlantic Ocean's North Sea on June 10, 1914, this is the oldest message in a bottle ever found. A fellow plucked it from the sea last year. The bottle was part of a study of ocean cur...
03:32 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Mug appears to be stuck in table
The Treasure Mug is a delightful illusion cup available directly from Japan via Plywood or Amazon JP. (via Spoon & Tamago)...
03:18 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
A discussion about the history of technology and the future of energy
On Wednesday, I spoke with MIT professor of science writing Tom Levenson, as he interviewed me for the Virtually Speaking Science podcast. We had a really interesting discussion, centered on the histo...
03:15 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Lunch on a skyscraper: The history of a famous photograph
This is the original glass-plate negative of the iconic photo of construction workers eating lunch on a girder during the construction of Rockefeller Center's RCA building in 1932. Today, those of us ...
03:08 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Dubstep power tools
MysterGuitarMan's excellent "Dubstep Power Tools" video, a promo for a home improvement shopping site....
01:31 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Burger King breaches McDonald's
On Monday, the Burger King burst into a McDonald's restaurant in Rome, Georgia, handed out free hamburgers to customers, danced, and posted for photos with children. Managers called the police, but th...
01:30 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Alan's War: The Memories of G.I. Alan Cope
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:12 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Of GM corn and rat tumors: Why peer reviewed doesn't mean "accurate"
Yesterday, in an aside to a post criticizing an astroturf political campaign in California, Mark mentioned a new study that supposedly found GM corn causes tumors in rats. As Mark said in an update to...
12:57 pm PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Imagineers visit with Maker Camp
Maker Camp teens got a kick-ass treat: a one-hour Google+ hangout with Disney Imagineering, which has been released to YouTube. Here's The Disney Blog's John Frost: Maker Camp is a month-long vir...
11:52 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Sponsor Shout-Out
Our thanks to Watchismo, sponsors of our daily email update. The Alessi Grow Watch is a cool new timepiece designed by Andrea Morgante of Shiro Studio and now available at Watchismo! The watch concept...
11:34 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
MD Anderson launches $3 billion "Cancer Moon Shot" program on anniversary of JFK "moon shot" speech
MD Anderson Cancer Center at the University of Texas is today launching the Moon Shots Program, "an unprecedented effort to dramatically accelerate the pace of converting scientific discoveries into c...
11:14 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
The Science and tragedy of "Bath Salts"
At PBS NewsHour, Jenny Marder has a truly epic report on so-called "bath salts," a term commonly used to refer to a variable cocktail of drugs linked to a number of violent episodes throughout the US....
10:50 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Shuttle Endeavour flies over California today, en route to LA retirement
Photo: Shuttle Endeavour's final landing at Edwards AFB. September 20, 2012. By Todd Lappin If you're in California today, Friday, Sept. 21, you may have a chance to see space shuttle Endeavour's hist...
10:13 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Breaking Bad IRL: chemistry teacher busted for cooking meth, selling at school where he teaches
East Texas chemistry teacher William Duncan, like Breaking Bad protagonist Walter White, applied his love of chemistry to a promising side job as a methamphetamine cook. He was busted for selling home...
09:54 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Advisory: iOS6 maps on the tube
The London Underground workers made a funny. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) (Image: source unknown -- if you know it, please leave details in the comments)...
09:43 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
Origami hats for world leaders, folded from the currency of their respective nations
Hasegawa Yosuke creates origami hats for presidents, dictators, and monarchs from the currency of the nations they led. via MyModernMet....
01:16 am PDT - Fri, September 21, 2012
BoingBoing
The WELL is bought by its users
The WELL, the online community which started out life more than 20 years ago as the Whole Earth Lectronic Link, has been sold to a company founded by some of its long-time users. It has had many owner...
11:46 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Lunatic SUV driver harassing cyclists
YouTube user Dfriel1 and a pal went out for a Sunday bike ride on a road east of Longmont, CO, when a driver in a Ford Explorer (license plate Colorado 893 EKG) pulled up behind them and rode their ta...
10:29 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Leader of Amish sect convicted of hate crimes in bizarre beard- and hair-cutting assaults
And his name is "Mullet." (NYT)...
09:41 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
150 years of photos of American lesbians
Autostraddle's Riese has collected an astounding gallery of photos of American lesbians, spanning 150 years, from 1850 to 2000. I really threw myself into Herstory Month, in June, eating every accessi...
09:01 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
The Art of Web Design (Video)
[Video Link] I enjoyed this video created by PBS's Off Book, called The Art of Web Design. The "8-bit style" soundtrack is a treat, too. The explosion of the internet over the past 20 years has led to...
08:06 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Dinosaur Art: The Worlds Greatest Paleoart -- exclusive excerpt
There are many forms of art –- still life, abstract, landscape, digital, cubism, marine, aviation, splatter, modern, photography etc but chances are, few people know what "paleoart" is. Well, si...
07:43 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
The dumb "No on 37" campaign to defeat labels on genetically engineered food
"No on 37" is a campaign to defeat "California Proposition 37, Mandatory Labeling of Genetically Engineered Food," which is up for a vote in the November election. I ran across the ad shown here on th...
07:19 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Knotts Berry theme park ride strands riders 300 feet in the air for hours
A husband who wanted to "train" his wife to lose her fear of heights got his wish granted when a Knotts Berry Farm ride stranded riders for the second time this month. "The first half an hour was pret...
07:19 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Knott's Berry theme park ride strands riders 300 feet in the air for hours
A husband who wanted to "train" his wife to lose her fear of heights got his wish granted when a Knott's Berry Farm ride stranded riders for the second time this month. "The first half an hour was pre...
07:17 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Dried riverbed reveals stolen architecture, unexploded artillery shells
When Sweden invaded Poland in the 17th century, the Swedes made off with pieces of marble lintels, columns, and other architectural details from the Polish royal palace. Hundreds of years later, Nazis...
07:15 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Flash Gordon's football fight (1980)
Discussion with Mrs. Beschizza about Ted conjured up fond memories of Sam J. Jones's post-10 epic role as Flash Gordon in the 1980 British-American film adaptation of the classic comic strip. Yes, the...
07:12 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Android on eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. There are those who are dedicated to the fruits of Cupertino and those who, well, ar...
07:00 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
What does the $1000 genome really mean for you?
The cost of genome sequencing is starting to sink into the affordable range. (In comparison to its previous cost. We're talking "within reach" the same way Design Within Reach uses the phrase.) Compan...
06:56 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Munson typewriter, a beauty from 1890
The Martin Howard Typewriter Collection has a new treasure to show off: a Munson typewriter, with horizontal rods that control a hammer that strikes the page from behind: The Munson typewriter is a re...
06:29 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Outstanding accounts
Phil Plait — who writes the Bad Astronomy blog — still has not been paid for his contributions to the Great Global Warming Conspiracy. For such an organized cabal, you think they would hav...
06:29 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Amanda Palmer will pay volunteer musicians who play her gigs
In an update to Xeni's post yesterday about Amanda Fucking Palmer asking her musician-fans to play on stage during her tour. Palmer has written a long, thoughtful note about the non-monetary ways in w...
06:05 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
A Medieval Bestiary: When a book breaks your heart
This review is cross-posted on DownloadTheUniverse, a group blog that reviews science-related ebooks and discusses the future of the written word. An illustration from the The Royal Bestiary, depictin...
05:53 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Every NFL quarterback as a Muppet
I want to applaud the efforts of BuzzFeed's Ben Rosen for taking the time and doing the research for this very special and important thing: all 32 quarterbacks in the National Football League if they ...
05:31 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Android on eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. There are those who are dedicated to the fruits of Cupertino and those who, well, ar...
05:30 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Jenny Slate is writing an adorably wacky Looney Tunes movie for us
Looney Tunes is slowly making a comeback, having debuted their reboot on Cartoon Network last year and earned themselves an Emmy nomination this year, and now, Warner Bros. is going to have another go...
04:56 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
"39 Lashes" from Jesus Christ Superstar (1973)
"39 Lashes" from Andrew Lloyd Weber's Jesus Christ Superstar (1973). Those visuals! That groove! On Halloween 1992, I saw the Afghan Whigs open with this song and it was sublime. Speaking of the recen...
04:50 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Fresco "restorer" wants a royalty from the church
Cecilia Gimenez, the octogenarian Spanish amateur art restorer who dramatically refashioned a 100-year-old Jesus fresco at the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza, has declared that her botched ef...
04:22 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
House with a skate-ramp
The Skate Park house was custom built for a Shibuya, Tokyo couple, integrating a skate-ramp, a piano studio, and many lovely design flourishes. I think the stair-rail looks like it'd be awesome for gr...
04:04 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Oliver Sacks on drugs
Oliver Sacks was a 30-year-old neurology resident when he had his first psychedelic experiences. During the 1960s, Sacks explored LSD, pot, opium, morning-glory seeds, and the downer chloral hydrate. ...
03:44 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012
This is M51, the "Whirlpool Galaxy." The image is by Martin Pugh who won the Royal Observatory Greenwich's Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2012....
03:14 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
"Nurse Chapel with Tribbles," by Barnaby Ward
Artist Barnaby Ward, who designed our Boing Boing Beetle T-shirt, recently posted his commissioned drawing of Star Trek's Nurse Christine Chapel with some tribbles at at her feet. A dead-ringer likene...
02:12 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Article about human billboards who bear tattoos of defunct company logos
Buzzfeed has an article about the desperate people who cashed in on the skinvertising craze of the mid-2000s. Then there’s the case of perhaps the world’s most famous skinvertiser, Karolyn...
01:57 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Fiona Apple busted in Texas for possession of hashish
[Video Link] Police officers in Sierra Blanca, Texas made the world safer by arresting Fiona Apple for possession of hashish. She was scheduled to play in Austin. The “Criminal” singer had...
01:51 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Two fun Little Archie comic book stories
Love and Rockets' creators Gilbert and Jaime Hernandez have mentioned in interviews that they loved Little Archie comic books when they were growing up. Little Archie was started in the 1950s and star...
01:47 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
The cast of The West Wing reunites for a wistfully hilarious (and actual) campaign spot
While I don't officially endorse Bridget Mary McCormack, who is running for a seat on the Michigan State Supreme Court, I do endorse the viewing of the campaign ad she's running for her non-partisan r...
01:34 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Creator of "world's smallest book" raising funds for a large print edition
Robert Chaplin is a writer and artist, and he holds the world's record for producing the world's smallest book (he etched a copy of "Teeny Ted From Turnip Town" into the surface of a microchip using a...
01:30 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Android on eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. There are those who are dedicated to the fruits of Cupertino and those who, well, ar...
01:29 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Law catches up with shoddy gunmaker
In 2011, we told you about Bryco Arms, a "Saturday Night Special" gunmaker which knew its products were unsafe, and which declared bankruptcy to avoid paying lawsuit damages to teenage victim Brandon ...
01:04 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Sofa whose cracks organize things instead of swallowing them
Lost in Sofa, by Japanese designer Daisuke Motogi, is a piece of furniture with deliberate gaps in the upholstery, intended to be used for storage of books and other items. huzi design | | ...
12:47 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Words on the Water
Avast, mateys! If youre a literature lover and a seafaring type, you might be surprised to find that you can satisfy both your passions at a public library. With libraries and librarians across the co...
12:15 pm PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Wormwood webcomic merch -- a Kickstarter
Back in 2011, Mark blogged about the Wormworld Saga, a free, beautiful, multilingual webcomic created by Daniel Lieske. Now, Lieske has produced a world of beautiful merchandise for people who want to...
11:29 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
IOS6 maps fail so hard, a Tumblr is born
You know you have an issue when someone brews up a Tumblr to mock you: theamazingios6maps.tumblr.com....
11:08 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Wilco: "Sunloathe" (music video)
[Video Link]. A new animated epic fantasy video from Wilco, for the track "Sunloathe," from The Whole Love. Peter Glantz directed the video, which includes more than 100 original drawings by Nathaniel...
11:04 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Matt Ritchie's sketchbook
Over at Juxtapoz, pop surrealist painter/designer Alex Pardee admires the work of Matt Ritchie, aka Matt136. While Ritchie's art includes everything from large-scale paintings to furniture, I'm most d...
11:01 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Fungus the Bogeyman, by Raymond Briggs
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
11:00 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Android on eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. There are those who are dedicated to the fruits of Cupertino and those who, well, ar...
11:00 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Robotic Lego ball contraption to beat them all
Akiyuky on YouTube has uploaded a 7 minuted video overview of her or his astounding Lego Ball Contraption, a robotic rube goldberg device in 17 modules, each more fiendishly clever than the last. The ...
10:59 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Moo.com acquires flavors.me
Do-it-yourself-easily-online business card printing service moo.com has acquired do-it-yourself-easily-online personal website service flavors.me. The deal is said to have been 6 months in the making....
10:08 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Taxes, The Tea Party, and Those Revolting Rebels: A History in Comics of the American Revolution
With election season upon us, it's the perfect time to visit with Stan Mack's book, Taxes, The Tea Party, and Those Revolting Rebels: A History in Comics of the American Revolution. Mack's history of ...
10:05 am PDT - Thu, September 20, 2012
BoingBoing
Artist Ai Weiwei captures footage of protesters attacking US ambassador's car in Beijing
Robert Mackey at the NYT reports that Chinese art-provocateur Ai Weiwei was in the right place, at the right time, and captured video of "a small group of protesters [who] briefly surrounded the Ameri...
11:51 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
A horse is a vehicle, in Kentucky, if you're drunk
Kentucky cops will write you a DUI if you ride a horse drunk. The fellow whose circumstances proved this to the rest of us was carrying a jar of "moonshine" at the time. Lowering the Bar has some lega...
10:15 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Eyeball Creep: a very special My Little Pony
Wrenniepooh isn't your typical bronie. In 2008/9, Wrenniepooh created a series of custom My Little Ponies, including this rather magnificent specimen, dubbed Eyeball Creep. Created for the Horror/Gore...
08:05 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Saving Mr. Banks starts shooting, marks the first time Walt Disney is portrayed on film
Today in News I'm a Little Ashamed I Didn't Know About Already: Disney is making the first movie that features Walt Disney as a character, and he will be portrayed by the only man with whom "Uncle Wal...
07:57 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
One Google query = one Apollo program's worth of computing
Here's a thought: "It takes about the same amount of computing to answer one Google Search query as all the computing done in flight and on the ground for the entire Apollo program." (Quote from Seb...
07:40 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Facebook's vague rules only help creeps make trouble for the rest of us
Ryan McGinley's India (Coyote), 2010 Comic artist (and BB contributor) Wendy Pini was issued a second ban by Facebook today after posting a widely-shared photo to her wall. She was told that she faces...
07:40 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Facebook's vague rulebook helps only the creeps
Ryan McGinley's India (Coyote), 2010 Comic artist (and BB contributor) Wendy Pini was issued a second ban by Facebook today after posting a widely-shared photo to her wall. She was told that she faces...
07:21 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Why Philip Roth had to explain himself in the New Yorker before his Wikipedia entry could be corrected
My latest Guardian column, "Why Philip Roth needs a secondary source," explains why it makes sense for Wikipedians to insist that Roth's claims about his novels be vetted by and published in the New Y...
07:18 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Feds charge open data activist with 13 felonies for downloading academic articles
Wired reports that Federal prosectors have added nine additional felony counts against coder, freedom of information activist, and early Reddit employee (or Reddit co-founder, depending on who you ask...
07:10 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Real Life Emoticons (video)
[Video Link] From JemmaKuma....
07:07 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Elfquest, by Wendy and Richard Pini
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
06:46 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Ben Folds Five meets Fraggle Rock: a Nerdist music video
[Video Link] Chris Hardwick's NERDIST YouTube channel is full of awesome, but few things as awesome as this....
06:10 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Small fish makes undersea "crop circles"
This pretty pattern was created by a small, amorous pufferfish. Underwater cameras showed that the artist was a small puffer fish who, using only his flapping fin, tirelessly worked day and night to c...
05:51 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Thin-skinned, plagiarizing Philippino Senator criminalizes "libel" with last minute stealth-attack on cybercrime bill
Philippines Senator Vicente Sotto III has been embroiled in a series of plagiarism scandals -- most recently, he gave a speech including phrases from a Robert Kennedy, Jr address, without credit or ac...
05:51 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Thin-skinned, plagiarizing Philippines Senator criminalizes "libel" with last minute stealth-attack on cybercrime bill
Philippines Senator Vicente Sotto III has been embroiled in a series of plagiarism scandals -- most recently, he gave a speech including phrases from a Robert Kennedy, Jr address, without credit or ac...
05:42 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Jewel + Walmart = song about Walmart
[Video Link] (Via Uproxx)...
05:20 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
iPhone 5 on gray market in Hong Kong for $1135
Mr. Lo of Hong Kong will happily sell you an iPhone 5 right now for $1135. If you want to buy one through Apple or an authorized retailer, you must wait until Friday. Alright, Mr Lo, the ‘master...
04:32 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
"Real-life" Minecraft game
Ben Purdy created this incredibly fun "real life Minecraft" game, which was set up and relentlessly thrashed at XOXOfest in Portland. I would like to, in no sarcastic manner what-so-ever, officially d...
04:27 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Apps for Kids 31: Space Holiday
Click here to play episode. Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 9-year-old daughter, Jane Frauenfelder. In this week's episode Jane...
04:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
MakerBot launches the Replicator 2, and a retail storefront -- a MakerBot Operator Manifesto
MakerBot has just released two important announcements: first that they have shipped a 100 micron-resolution version of their Replicator printer; second, that they have opened a central Manhattan stor...
03:34 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Three Space Shuttle flight decks (photos)
Ben Cooper of Launch Photography has photos of the flight deck from all three Space Shuttles, Endeavour (fully-powered), Atlantis and Discovery. "Endeavour [shown here] looks particularly spectacular,...
03:12 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Remakes of Carrie and Evil Dead will debut footage at New York Comic Con
You can either hate that they're happening, or you can give them the benefit of the doubt, but the Carrie remake and the new Evil Dead movie are both very much going to happen to us in 2013. And they ...
03:03 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Monstrous chocolate bar
Hot damn, that's a nice chocolate bar wrapper. It's from Loom and Honest Chocolate, two South African companies, who explain the design to The Dieline: "In August 2012 we ran a crowd-sourced design co...
03:02 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
New Orleans cancels plans for Super Bowl drone, after indie paper investigates
Above, "The Bravo 300," a tactical drone manufactured in New Orleans by Crescent Unmanned Systems. Weeks after New Orleans local investigative paper The Lens began digging into city officials plans to...
02:03 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
A brain scan on ecstasy
Under the supervision of a medical team, New Scientist's Graham Lawton took a dose of MDMA and then lay in an fMRI machine. You know. For science. Lawton was a participant in a double blind, controlle...
01:50 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
XOXO: Maker Love, Not Thwart
I have fallen in love with a building, hundreds of people, a MakerBot, a portable toilet trailer, food trucks, and two men each named Andy. Is it possible to fall in love with a conference? If so, I h...
01:32 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Death on Mount Everest
Back in May, we linked you to the reporting of Outside's Grayson Schaffer, who was stationed in the base camps of Mount Everest, watching as the mountain's third deadliest spring in recorded history u...
01:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
XOXO: Maker Love, Not Thwart
I have fallen in love with a building, hundreds of people, a MakerBot, a portable toilet trailer, food trucks, and two men each named Andy. Is it possible to fall in love with a conference? If so, I h...
12:59 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Peter Jackson puts the idea of directing an episode of Doctor Who into everyone's head, everyone dies
Okay, now, before we all (present company included) get too excited, let me state that this is not an official announcement, but merely words said by people out loud to the press. Matt Smith, who play...
12:57 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
XKCD's 14-foot-wide CLICK AND DRAG map
Today's XKCD, "Click and Drag," is a triumph. It's a tribute to House of Leaves, and it treats the punchline as a window to a ginormous, explorable world that you can see by clicking and dragging. Dan...
12:45 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
TOM THE DANCING BUG: The God-Man YouTube Video!
CLICK HERE TO JOIN THE INNER HIVE. "Ruben Bolling is a comic genius, a clever artist, a true gentleman, a pseudonym, and and important ally in the struggle against deep dish pizza. I am happy to pledg...
12:43 pm PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Beware of neuro-speculation
Between the downfall of Jonah Lehrer, and Naomi Wolfe's new book that claims chemicals in women's brains force us to demand our lovers shower us with roses and candy and refer to us as "goddess"*, the...
11:08 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Maggie on Virtually Speaking Science
Today at 5:00 pm Eastern, I'll be talking to MIT professor of science writing Tom Levenson on the Virtually Speaking Science podcast. The show is recorded live, so you can call in and join the convers...
11:00 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Court to hear argument on the privacy implications of "junk" DNA databases
The Ninth Circuit is hearing arguments today about the privacy implications of gathering and retaining "junk" DNA, which has been treated as merely identifying, like a fingerprint, and not unduly inva...
10:29 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Apparently there is some drama involving Amanda Palmer and the payment of backup musicians
Whenever a female musician reaches some high point of success, particularly an indie artist, it seems—that moment of recognition is followed by a backlash of one sort or another. With this in mi...
10:07 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Ubuntu Made Easy
The latest edition of Ubuntu Made Easy preserves all the best characteristics of the earlier edition I liked so much, but updates it substantially to cover the next-generation graphic interface Unity,...
09:22 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO be a good commenter
On John Scalzi's Whatever, a list of ten excellent rules for being a better commenter -- it's certainly stuff that I'll keep in mind the next time I leave a comment somewhere: 1. Do I actually have an...
09:19 am PDT - Wed, September 19, 2012
BoingBoing
Why not to hire a woman, Australia edition, 1963
An Australian Department of Trade document listing the reasons women should not be hired to be trade commissioners. "A spinster lady can, and often does, turn into something of a battleaxe with the pa...
11:41 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Pattern for knit Panzer tank slippers
Etsy seller Miligurumis offers a knitting pattern for making your own Panzer tank slippers, a peaceful project to wile away the long nights on the Eastern front. PATTERN for Tiger 1 Tank - Panzer Croc...
11:41 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Pattern for crocheted Panzer tank slippers
Etsy seller Miligurumis offers a knitting crocheting pattern for making your own Panzer tank slippers, a peaceful project to wile away the long nights on the Eastern front. PATTERN for Tiger 1 Tank - ...
11:08 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Mentos + Coke + Condoms
Mixing Mentos and Coke is a thing -- well-parameterized and understood. But what if you tape a condom over the bottle-mouth before you make the fateful introduction? Sheer hilarity! Durex + Cola ...
08:51 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Automated system to identify and repair potential weak-spots in 3D models before they're printed
"Stress Relief: Improving Structural Strength of 3-D Printable Objects," a paper presented at SIGGRAPH 2012 from Purdue University's Bedrich Benes demonstrated an automated system for predicting when ...
08:10 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Book trailer for "This Machine Kills Secrets," about Wikileaks
Andrew Greenberg writes, Here's the video trailer for my new book "This Machine Kills Secrets" about the history and future of anonymous information leaks. The book, which started when I interviewed J...
08:10 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Chat with Charlie Stross and Cory on the WELL and Tor.com
Charlie Stross and I are doing a public interview on The WELL's Inkwell.vue conference -- you don't have to be a WELL member to ask questions, either! While I'm on the subject, Charlie and I are doing...
07:55 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
I am so goth, I was born black.
At Coilhouse online, a feature exploring racism and goth culture in the age of Tumblr: "Is the goth scene unfriendly to people with dark skin? What do non-white goths think about the fetishization of ...
07:46 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
New Sifl and Olly episodes from Liam Lynch
[Video Link] Oh, happy day. Genius weirdo video auteur Liam Lynch (@lynchland on Twitter) is making new episodes of "Sifl and Olly." The show originally ran on MTV from 1997-1999. Now, the Machinima Y...
07:44 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Turing and Burroughs: a beatnik SF novel by Rudy Rucker
Rudy Rucker has launched a new novel, Turing & Burroughs, which he describes as a "beatnik SF novel." It's available direct from his site as an ebook, or from the Kindle store, or as a print-on-d...
06:07 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Remembering Sean "Vilerat" Smith, killed in Benghazi
Zack Parsons, author and Something Awful moderator, writes, Sean Smith was one of the four men tragically killed in the consulate attack in Benghazi, Libya on September 11^th . He was a foreign servic...
05:14 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
1971 anatomy book uses pornographic photos
Street Anatomy reports on a 1971 textbook called The Anatomical Basis of Medical Practice, which uses pornographic photos of women as illustrations. You can snap up a used copy on Amazon for $479.99 T...
03:50 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Excerpt from James M. Cain's lost final novel: The Cocktail Waitress
Good news for James M. Cain fans (like me!) -- Hard Case Crime is publishing his lost final novel: The Cocktail Waitress. After the jump, an excerpt from the book. “Here, long after anyone would...
03:08 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Tim Biskup art show in Milan
Longtime BB fave Tim Biskup has a show of new paintings opening this Thursday at Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea in Milan, Italy. Juxtapoz has a preview of the exhibition, titled "Excavation." ...
02:51 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Elephant expresses disapproval of man at Berlin zoo (video)
[Video Link] (Via Arbroath)...
02:51 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Sad celebritysuperhero impersonators
Last year, Nicolas Silberfaden photographed superhero and celebrity impersonators in Los Angeles. If they look bummed out, it's because Silberfaden asked them to "to manifest feelings of genuine sadne...
02:48 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Strangely adorable video of sea slugs eating a blue button jelly alive
Yesterday, I posted a photo of Glaucus atlanticus — a strange little creature, related to mollusks, which floats through the ocean and eats (among other things) the jellyfish-like Portuguese Man...
02:44 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Searchable index of 350,000 US news broadcasts
The Internet Archive has published TVNEWS, a searchable version of its index of 350,000 news broadcasts. Archive founder Brewster Kahle writes, "Today we launched a new service called TV News Search &...
02:40 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Toy soldier stop-motion animation
Chris Butcher works stop-motion magic with toy soldiers and flower buds. "Plot-oon"...
02:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Cassette To iPod converter
This gadget will transfer cassette tape content to an iPhone. It's $80 at Hammacher Schlemmer, maker of stuff you'd swear was an April Fools joke. (Via Bag of Nothing)...
02:32 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo
Our thanks to Watchismo, sponsors of our daily email update. Ikepod Watches of Switzerland have found a cool new home at Watchismo! Check out the Ikepod Horizon, whose unique dial creates an optical i...
02:11 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Gweek 067: Eugene Mirman, the world's greatest podcast co-host
Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My co-hosts for th...
02:08 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Jenny O. - "Automechanic" (free MP3)
Sound it Out # 37:Jenny O. - Automechanic (MP3)I posted Jenny O.s first single almost a year ago.At that time, Jenny was just getting started - she had moved from NY to LA and had a five-song EP call...
01:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
UK government is squatting on 1.67 million unused IPv4 addresses
The UK's Department for Work and Pensions is squatting on an unused block of super-scarce IPv4 addresses. Specifically, they're sitting on a /8 network with 1.67 million spare addresses. A petition as...
01:11 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Fire tornado
Chris Tangey took this intense image of a tornado sucking a brushfire into the sky near Alice Springs, Australia. From The Australian: "There was no wind where we were, and yet you had this tornado," ...
12:52 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
NSA to AT&T customers who believe wiretapping violates their rights: neener neener neener
Courthouse News Service has an extensive explainer on the state of a legal battle between The National Security Agency and a group of non-terrorist AT&T customers who claim that warrantless wiret...
12:42 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Drop everything now, watch this video of a panda being born at the National Zoo
[Video Link] A baby panda cub was born last night at the National Zoo! More at the Zoo website. (via i09)....
12:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Fun activities for you and your nuclear warhead
The Skulls in the Stars blog has a funny/terrifying look at all the different uses for nuclear bombs that the United States and the Soviet Union tried to come up over the course of the Cold War. From ...
12:35 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Return of the Winkelvii
Mark Zuckerberg may have Facebook (and its ever-shakier stock valuation), but the Winklevoss twins have a new social network for professional investors. From the WSJ: "After finishing their competitiv...
12:28 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Ice expert foresees final collapse of arctic sea ice within four years
A leading expert on the science of ice predicts the final collapse of Arctic sea ice in summer months within four years, and describes a "global disaster" unfolding in northern latitudes "as the sea a...
12:19 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Native American women twice as likely to be raped
"One in three American Indian women have been raped or have experienced an attempted rape," according to a Justice Department statistic cited in the NYT. The rate of sexual assault among indigenous Am...
12:15 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Study finds BPA associated with obesity in kids
A study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that children with higher levels of BPA in their bodies are more likely to be obese. Liz Szabo at USA Today notes that it is ...
12:07 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Iraq gets a Hackerspace
Spencer Ackerman at Wired News reports on a project led by Iraqi-American Bilal Ghalib, 27, "whos trying to create the countrys first hackerspace" and believes itll take irrational optimism for Iraqis...
12:02 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Re-grown lizard tails are cheap knock-offs of the original
A new study suggests that the "miracle" of re-growing a lost tail is less awesome than it might first appear. Sure, growing a new tail is cool and all. But the new tails have completely different anat...
12:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
A mandatory $180 art school textbook about "prehistory to 1800" with no pictures, thanks to a lack of mysterious "copyright clearances"
Students enrolled in the Ontario College of Art and Design's Global Visual and Material Culture: Prehistory to 1800 are required to buy a $180 "custom textbook." Despite exclusively covering material ...
11:56 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Why can we see through some animals?
Creature Cast is one of my favorite blogs — a series of charmingly animated videos about surprising, oft-overlooked details in the animal kingdom. Better yet, the videos are often made by studen...
11:53 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Mitt Romney does not understand how one creates a "dirty bomb"
Mother Jones today published a second part of the video secretly recorded at a Mitt Romney fundraiser in Boca Raton. The first bombshell will forever be known as "47 percent," but the portion getting ...
11:47 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
When does bad news become funny?
What makes the difference between successful satire or dark comedy, and jokes that make everybody hate you? Obviously, some of this has to do with the personality and internal culture of the person or...
11:43 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
How Romneys "47 percent" percolated through the internet, and became a viral political moment
Ben Smith at Buzzfeed describes the RomneyFail leak as "unexploded digital ordnance," and traces its explosion. At Poynter, a post that similarly explores the hands through which it passed—one o...
11:18 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Russia reveals large deposit of "extra-hard" diamonds in asteroid crater
The Russian news agency ITAR-TASS reports that the government has declassified a large deposit of diamonds, located in a meteorite crater formed 35 million years ago. The unique composition of these "...
10:51 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Marshmallow bedding
From a smashing collection of vintage bedding ads on Voices of East Anglia, this marshmallowey sleeping bag that makes your little ones feel like they're cocooned in spun sugar. I'm Only Dreaming - Vi...
10:00 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Obama 2012 campaign erases all previous civil liberties campaign guarantees
Marilyn sez, "The Democrats criticized Bush for suspension of civil liberties and guaranteed them in their 2008 platform. In their 2012 platform, those guarantees have all been erased." Trevor Timm fr...
12:18 am PDT - Tue, September 18, 2012
BoingBoing
Guns that are also other weapons
On the Propadeucist, "objects that are guns - and are also other weapons," including a gun that is also several other guns. objects that are guns - 2 - and are also other weapons (via Richard Kadrey)...
11:03 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Romney: Half of US voters expect free health care, food, housing, you name it (updated)
Mother Jones has published a "secret" video captured during a private fundraiser for Mitt Romney, in which the Republican presidential candidate tells a small gathering of wealthy voters what he think...
11:03 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Leaked video from Romney fundraiser: Half of US voters expect free health care, food, housing, you name it (updated)
Mother Jones has published a "secret" video captured during a private fundraiser for Mitt Romney, in which the Republican presidential candidate tells a small gathering of wealthy voters what he think...
10:44 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Privilege denying dude
I have encountered his type on the internet before. (via Theremina)...
10:30 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Amid nationalist rage in China, Japanese tech firms suspend operations
Panasonic, Canon, and other Japanese technology firms have suspended operations at their plants in China, as massive anti-Japan protests continue over disputed islands in the East China Sea. (AFP)...
10:09 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Lecture on sf writing with Joe Haldeman
Tony Smith from StarShipSofa sez, Over the coming months StarShipSofa will present a series of online web lectures by some of the top SF writers out there. These lectures will be called How To Write S...
10:08 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Pakistan blocks YouTube over "Innocence of Muslims"
The government of Pakistan blocked access to YouTube today, after Google refused to remove the craptacular trailer for "Innocence of Muslims" linked to violent protests around the the Muslim world. Pr...
09:50 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Romney: Half of US voters expect free health care, food, housing, you name it (updated)
Mother Jones has published a "secret" video captured during a private fundraiser for Mitt Romney, in which the Republican presidential candidate tells a small gathering of wealthy voters what he think...
09:50 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
As space shuttle Endeavour retires in LA, 400 trees to be removed, four times as many to be planted
To make room for the space shuttle Endeavour as it is transported from Los Angeles International Airport to The California Science Center, some 400 trees must be removed from the city streets. The shu...
09:40 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
One Year of Occupy. One Year of Journalist Arrests.
Josh Stearns has been tracking "press suppression and journalist arrests," which became a regular occurrence since the start of Occupy Wall Street on September 17, 2011. "As press, protesters and poli...
09:34 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
On Occupy's first anniversary, over 180 arrested in NYC
The AP reports that protesters circulated around lower Manhattan this morning, one year after the "Occupy" movement kicked off. "There were a few hundred protesters scattered throughout the city. More...
09:24 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Glaucus atlanticus: For once, the Internet is not lying to you
This is actually a real life animal. I know. I didn't believe it either. When it turned up in my Facebook feed, via my Aunt Beth, I assumed that this had to be a hoax photo. Had to be. I mean, just lo...
08:06 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Terrorists suck
"The Terrorism Delusion," a paper by John Mueller and Mark G. Stewart in this summer's issue of International Security, argues that terrorists basically suck at their jobs. They report that the best U...
06:58 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Parody iPhone 5 promo
[Video Link] And it's all true! (Via Dooby Brain)...
06:50 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Mitt Romney says 47% of American voters are parasites and self-identified victims who "pay no income tax"
"There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victi...
06:41 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Newsweek is Americas #1 magazine for trolls
Uproxx has a gallery of 15 melodramatic Newsweek covers. As we told you earlier, if you read Newsweek — and Allah help you if you do — then you already know that we, as Simple Americans, s...
05:58 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
How to build "The Most Useless Machine"
A couple of years ago I was on The Colbert Report showing some fun projects from MAKE, and Stephen fell in love with a project called "The Most Useless Machine." (Watch the episode here.) The Most Use...
05:56 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Interview with Harvard psychology professor Steven Pinker about free speech
[Video Link] Ted Balaker produced this video interview with Harvard experimental psychologist Steven Pinker, author of such books as The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature and, most recent...
05:52 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
US crackdown on medical marijuana threatens a dad's search for halting son's epilepsy
In the Los Angeles Times, a really great feature about how the Obama administration's assault on medical marijuana dispensaries threatens one father's search for cannabidiol, which has helped reduce t...
05:52 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
US crackdown on medical marijuana threatens a dad's search to halt son's epilepsy
In the Los Angeles Times, a really great feature about how the Obama administration's assault on medical marijuana dispensaries threatens one father's search for cannabidiol, which has helped reduce t...
05:50 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Zippo tricks, like a boss
Dawnoh's 2009 Zippo Tricks video has garnered over 2,000,000 views. She's quite a virtuoso and I love her super-cool, like-a-boss affect -- but be sure and watch to the end for her blooper reel. Doing...
05:31 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Romney: Half of US voters expect free health care, food, housing, you name it
Mother Jones has published a "secret" video captured during a private fundraiser for Mitt Romney, in which the Republican presidential candidate tells a small gathering of wealthy voters what he think...
05:22 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
JetBlue planning free in-flight Wi-Fi rollout in early 2013
The Verge reports that US-based airline JetBlue will "roll out high-speed wireless networking in the first quarter of 2013," and that the service will be free for passengers. Instead of GoGo, "which J...
04:35 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Police chief in MA: Illicit drug use is a form of domestic terrorism
Illicit drug use is a form of domestic terrorism to some extent, Wilmington, Massachusetts Police Chief Michael Begonis said today. It is preying on folks who are more susceptible and who need a bette...
04:28 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
RIP, Ping
During last week's iPhone 5 unveil, Apple CEO Tim Cook confirmed that the company's social network foray would be mothballed on September 30. That gives you, like, 2 weeks to figure out what the hell ...
04:19 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
L'shana Tova!
I wanted to wish you all a Happy New Year! I have a hard time with the entire 2:22 seconds of this, but it is awfully cute....
04:16 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Appeals court says Feds can't detain without trial. White House begs them to reconsider.
David Kravets at Wired News writes on today's demand by the Obama administration that a federal appeals court immediately halt a ruling that blocks legislation authorizing the government to "indefinit...
04:01 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Artist Molly Crabapple among those arrested in Occupy one-year-anniversary events
Arrested. Twittering from police van— mollycrabapple (@mollycrabapple) September 17, 2012 Earlier today, artist Molly Crabapple was one of a number of people arrested at events marking the one-y...
03:40 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
What are Jay-Z's 99 problems?
Last December, Brandon Scott Gorrell compiled a notional list of Jay-Z's storied 99 problems. It seems pretty plausible to me: 52. Confusion regarding how frequent one should use Q-tips to remove earw...
03:29 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Scotty Albrecht's typography wood artprints in N.J. gallery
Designer/woodworker/hand-drawn typographer Scotty Albrecht has several lovely new pieces hanging in a group show at Parlor Gallery in Asbury, New Jersey. We have two of Scotty's pieces in our home, in...
03:18 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Light up arcade coin-slot belt-buckle
Etsy seller ifindustries has already sold out of this light-up arcade game coin-slot belt buckle, which is good, because otherwise I might have accidentally bought it and worn it for the rest of my li...
03:03 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Averaging Noah Kalina's 12 years of daily photos
You've likely seen Noah Kalina's updated daily self-portrait video, now including more than twelve years of photos. If you haven't, it's below. The image above is Than Tibbett's averages of each year....
02:12 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
David Byrne on silence
Talking Heads co-founder David Byrne's new book, "How Music Works," is a combination personal artistic memoir and cultural/scientific exploration of music -- what it is, how it's made, and what it mea...
02:08 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Major exhibition of Nam June Paik, "father of video art," opens at Smithsonian in December 2012
The Smithsonian American Art Museum just announced a major exhibition of Nam June Paik, set to open December 13, 2012. Nam June Paik: Global Visionary will offer an "unprecedented view into the artist...
01:58 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
NYT on tailor-Made "bioartificial" organs for regenerative medicine
A feature in the New York Times this weekend about the rapidly-evolving science of growing, then implanting bioartificial organs in the field of regenerative medicine, "which for decades has been prom...
01:37 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Michigan J Frog meets Black Mesa
Ronaldthecock produced this Black Mesa/Michigan J Frog mashup as part of a machinima challenge on steamcommunity.com: Let's have another Theme week. Starting sunday September 16th and running through ...
01:11 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
High quality math audio programs from a successful Kickstarter
Peter sez, "Samuel Hansen completed a successful Kickstarter project and as a result has created eight high-quality audio documentaries featuring in-depth stories about the world of mathematics. Samue...
12:20 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
If Google yanks "Innocence of Muslims," will it lose its DMCA Safe Harbor?
Robert Cringely speculates on the reasoning behind Google's decision to continue hosting the controversial "Innocence of Muslims" clip despite a request from the State Department to remove it. Cringel...
12:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Elfquest: A greater challenge
Here's the second page of the new chapter of Elfquest, the long-running series of graphic novels first released in 1978 (Here's page 1: and here's our our introduction to the series) Published online-...
10:00 am PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
Free, Creative Commons licensed downloads of Rapture of the Nerds
After a short delay, Charlie Stross and I have finally managed to get the site for our new novel, Rapture of the Nerds, live and online, including Creative Commons licensed ebook versions of the book....
09:49 am PDT - Mon, September 17, 2012
BoingBoing
The Arrival: graphic introduction to steampunk ARG
The Arrival is the opening salvo in a multi-year, multimedia steampunk alternate reality based in London. It tells the story of how restless mechanical servants were brought to Victorian England, serv...
10:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
District Attorneys rent out their letterhead to debt collectors, split the shakedown loot
Over 300 US district attorneys have made arrangements with strong-arm debt collectors, through which the debt collectors send out threatening notices on the DAs' letterhead to people who've allegedly ...
08:39 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Quick self-promotional item: I will be in one of Anderson Cooper's "Tweet Seats" tomorrow morning!
So, Boing Boing readers, here is a media alert for you: I'm going to be sitting in one of Anderson Cooper's "Tweet Seats" tomorrow morning at his daytime show, Anderson Live, which means that I'm goin...
08:19 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Saturday Night Live recap: Seth MacFarlane and Frank Ocean
Last night, NBC's Saturday Night Live returned early to get a head start on the presidential election season. And not only did it spend considerable time on the topic, it introduced us to three new ca...
08:05 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Hot Wheels corkscrew jump with real car
As a kid, did you do insane stunts with your Hot Wheels cars? So do the people at the Hot Wheels Test Facility, but with real cars. This 92-foot "corkscrew jump" broke the world record. "Making of" vi...
07:17 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Jill back
Due to popular demand, we have returned Jackhammer Jill to the logo....
07:16 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Spider Robinson's podcast returns with an excerpt from The Free Lunch
Hurrah! Spider Robinson's put up another installment of his podcast (it's been understandably erratic for the past few years, as Spider and his family were doubly afflicted by cancer). As always, it f...
04:06 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
William Gibson on where the Internet's Bohemias are
Here's more of Geeta Dayal's Wired interview with William Gibson (see also), wherein Gibson discusses the way that the Internet impacts on "Bohemia" and how subcultural moments like the birth of punk ...
02:34 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
UK Tories put a spam kingpin in charge of the party
Grant Shapps is the Conservative Member of Parliament for Welwyn Hatfield and the new co-chair of the UK Conservative Party. He's also co-owner (with his wife) of a spam factory called HowToCorp, whic...
12:57 pm PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Maria Del Camino, a mutant excavator mated to a 59 El Camino, with the face of Maria from Metropolis
Maria Del Camino is Bruce Tomb's magnificent mutant vehicle. It started out life as the body of a '59 El Camino, and was then riddled with thousands of hand-drilled holes, turning it into a meshwork. ...
10:00 am PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Talking Heads Live in Rome, 1980
A followup to this 2007 post about the handful of clips from Talking Heads' Live in Rome concert footage: the whole movie is now online in one big, 1:05 YouTube clip. The 1980 concert is a kind of pre...
02:17 am PDT - Sun, September 16, 2012
BoingBoing
Yahoo to give employees any smartphone they like
Marissa Mayer is giving everyone at Yahoo an iPhone 5, reports Nicholas Carlson: New Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer just sent an email to all of Yahoo's full time and part time employees in the US, promising...
11:21 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Massachusetts medical marijuana opposition forgets to register domain
At election time in Massachusetts every voter gets a copy of the state produced 'Information Guide.' Inside this guide, with the usual pros and cons, are URLs for the folks leading the support or oppo...
09:54 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Burning Man 2012 flyover
Here's a rather magnificent flyover of this year's Burning Man's Black Rock City. Look closely and you'll see our glorious Liminal Labs camp, just off 6 O'Clock and Rod's Road. BURNING MAN FPV - Black...
08:39 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Army "Civil Disturbances" training manual from 1975
Mark Pilkington, who is documenting for Boing Boing his strange trip through the mythic landscape of the American Southwest, picked up this useful manual at an army surplus store in Albuquerque, New M...
06:46 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Librarians to Hachette: Seriously? You want to triple the cost of ebooks?
The American Library Association has decried Hachette's decision to increase the cost of library ebooks by 220 percent. Hachette is the same publisher that has demanded that authors it publishes lean ...
04:57 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Step-by-step guide to frying the perfect egg
The New York Times and spanish chef Jos Andrs shared this pictorial guide to frying a perfect egg. My whole life, I have been trying to cook an egg in the right way, said Andrs....
03:51 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Homophobic theory of dinosauric extinction
Origin unknown: a brochure attributing the extinction of dinosaurs to their rampant homosexuality. Quite possibly a parody. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)...
02:18 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
HBR wo DRM
Mary sez, "Following the lead of Baen, O'Reilly Media, and Tor, the Harvard Business Review has decided to go DRM free." They say, "We make our ebooks available to you DRM-free so you can read them on...
01:30 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: The Collected Sam and Max: Surfin' the Highway, by Steve Purcell
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:07 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Overweight elephants in India go on a diet
BBC News reports on the elephant obesity crisis in India. All that vajiggle-jaggle is not beautimous....
12:52 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Meet some of the curious characters linked to Innocence of Muslims film
At the ADL blog, a rundown of Anti-Muslim Christian Activists linked to the Innocence of Muslims film. One of them, anti-Muslim activist Pamela Geller associate Joseph Nasralla, stars in the YouTube v...
12:49 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Caturday: Here is a purring cat with daisies on its head (video)
[Video Link, via shironekoshiro]....
12:46 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
White House asks YouTube to "review" that anti-Muslim video causing all the global freakouts
"There's no indication that the government is questioning the right of these idiots to make that repellent film. On the other hand, it does make us nervous when the government throws its weight behind...
12:46 pm PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
White House asks YouTube to "review" that anti-Muslim video blamed for global freakouts
"There's no indication that the government is questioning the right of these idiots to make that repellent film. On the other hand, it does make us nervous when the government throws its weight behind...
09:48 am PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Cthulhu lemon!
Sean from Melbourne sez, "This, believe it or not, is a citrus fruit that I have dubbed Cthulhu lemon. Ok, we did the eyes. But the tentacles at the bottom are natural." Cthulhu lemon...
12:10 am PDT - Sat, September 15, 2012
BoingBoing
Fantagraphics to publish Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree as a book
This is great news: Fantagraphics announced it will be publishing the anthology edition of Ed Piskor's Hip Hop Family Tree, which appears weekly on Boing Boing. Congrats, Ed! What started out as a web...
11:42 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Malaysia offers "spot the gay kid" seminars for teachers and parents
In Malaysia, being gay can get you a caning and 20 years in prison. Now the Malaysian government is holding seminars to help teachers and parents figure out which kids are gay (boys with "tight, light...
10:06 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Victorian and Edwardian proto-science-fiction
David Malki sez, "I moderated a panel at Worldcon the other week on Victorian & Edwardian (proto-)science fiction, and my co-panelist Matt Bennardo kept notes on everything both the panelists and...
09:51 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Bomb threats linked to "Innocence of Muslims" lead to evacuations at 3 US college campuses
Three schools in Texas, North Dakota and Ohio were evacuated today after bomb threats apparently linked to the "Innocence of Muslims" YouTub video freakout prompted officials to issue evacuation order...
09:48 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
iPhone "oil paintings," animated GIFs of artful screen smudges
A little gross, a little genius. iPhone Oil Paintings (by JK Keller via Gautam Ramdurai)....
09:43 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Japanese man attacked with hot noodles over Sino-Japan geopolitics
Shanghaiist reports that "A Japanese man had hot noodles thrown on his face while another had his eyeglasses snatched on a street in Shanghai as anti-Japanese sentiment surged in China over a territor...
09:40 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Manipulated Outrage and Misplaced Fury: Husain Haqqani on the YouTube outrage
Husain Haqqani, professor of international relations at Boston University and Pakistan's former ambassador to the U.S., writes in a WSJ op-ed that the "YouTube riots" spreading around the world aren't...
09:14 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
The great Yoga Pants Legal War of 2012
Popular yoga garb maker Lululemon (which is linked to the Landmark Education Forum) is suing Calvin Klein over a design for yoga pants....
09:08 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
California crystal meth busts indicate Mexican drug gangs' expansion
Recent DEA busts of methamphetamine "conversion labs" in California indicate that drug gangs based in Mexico are exploring new business models that mimic "legal industries that have found that, rather...
08:59 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Middle East mobs freaking the hell out over YouTube video
This story is so weird. And with every advancement this week, it just gets weirder. "Fury about a film that insults the Prophet Mohammad tore across the Middle East after weekly prayers on Friday with...
08:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Gawker outs director of "Innocence of Muslims" as softcore porn director
Adrian Chen at Gawker: "The anti-Islam film that's set off a firestorm in the Middle East was directed by a 65-year-old schlock director named Alan Roberts, we've confirmed. He's the creative vision b...
08:50 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
More signs point to "Media for Christ" firm behind "Innocence of Muslims"
Marlow Stern at The Daily Beast reports on more evidence that right-wing-wacko Pam Geller associate Joseph Nasrallah ("Media For Christ") may be the producer of the "Sam Bacile" hate video, "Innocence...
08:46 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
GoPro camera captures free-fall from 12.5K feet when skydiver drops it (video)
[Video Link] "MartialArt23," the YouTube user who shot and uploaded this video, explains: [I] bumped my head on the door frame on exit unclasping the latch on the box. The camera popped out on exit at...
08:46 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
GoPro camera captures free-fall from 12.5K feet when skydiver drops it (video, not safe for epileptics)
[Video Link] Warning: do not watch if you're epileptic. "MartialArt23," the YouTube user who shot and uploaded this video, explains: [I] bumped my head on the door frame on exit unclasping the latch o...
07:00 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Fan art and copyright presentation from ComicCon
Here's an hour-long presentation on copyright law and fan art from San Diego ComicCon 2012, presented by a lawyer from DeviantArt who once worked as a copyright enforcer for Paramount. It's a pretty g...
06:33 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
We mere non-Marvel executive mortals might get to see Edgar Wright's Ant-Man sizzle reel
Now that New York Comic Con is approaching, let's talk about San Diego Comic Con! Remember when Edgar Wright showed attendees some test footage for the Ant-Man movie he's officially making for Marvel ...
05:35 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
There were even more insane, demented monsters that we didn't see in Cabin in the Woods (but they'll be on the DVD)
The best horror movie of the year, Cabin in the Woods, featured a wall of tons of freaky beasties in one of its most memorable scenes. But as unsettling and scary as that was to think about, there wer...
05:15 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Brief confusion-fixer: Paul W.S. Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson
Two starkly different movies hit theaters today -- Resident Evil: Retribution, which is an action movie based on a video game starring Milla Jovovich, and The Master, a movie that is totally not about...
04:53 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Pennsylvania man, imprisoned since the age of 18, faces execution for murder of older men who repeatedly raped him
Terry Williams is on death row in Pennsylvania for murdering two older men who raped him and physically abused him, something he had endured from a succession of predators from the age of six until he...
04:21 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
World's tallest mohawk
A Tokyo fashion designer did a public appearance in New York's Washington Square Park in order to show off his 3' 8.6" mohawk, which has held the Guinness World Record for world's tallest mohawk since...
04:12 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Major Lazer's "Get Free" (featuring Amber Coffman)
I encourage you to shake your rump to "Get Free" by Major Lazer (aka Diplo) featuring Amber Coffman (Dirty Projectors.) The song is included on Major Lazer's forthcoming album "Free the Universe" with...
03:22 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Man believed to be "Innocence of Muslims" filmmaker once arrested for making PCP
Yesterday, I posted an update on the stranger-by-the-day story of "Innocence of Muslims"—the craptacular film trailer (the actual feature may or may not even exist) is blamed for a string of vio...
02:52 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Glitch, the whimsical game, reboots
Last November, I blogged the open beta of Glitch, a whimsical, beautiful, dreamlike browser-based game from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield, with help from Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takehash...
02:26 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Magnificent flapper cake
"Zelda is half Peach Cake soaked in bourbon, the other half is vanilla cake with a salted caramel buttercream." Yes, cake. More magnificent cakes at Karen Portalo's cake gallery and Flickr stream....
02:26 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Magnificent Zelda Fitzgerald cake
"Zelda is half Peach Cake soaked in bourbon, the other half is vanilla cake with a salted caramel buttercream." Yes, cake. More magnificent cakes at Karen Portalo's cake gallery and Flickr stream....
02:12 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Acid Test diploma up for auction
The above 1966 Acid Test Diploma of Merry Prankster and Jerry Garcia widow Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia is up for auction as part of The HeART of Rock and Roll Poster Auction. Current bid is $5,775....
01:55 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Composites of 1906 San Francisco earthquake photos and today
Photographer Shawn Clover makes composite photos of the devastating San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the same locations in the present day. Clover created part 1 in 2010 and part 2 was just publis...
01:44 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Sulu talks
Over at Mother Jones, George Takei, who played Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu on Star Trek, shares some fascinating stories about Asian stereotypes in Hollywood, his childhood memories of a post-Pearl Harbor ...
01:30 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: West Coast Avengers, by Steve Englehart and Al Milgrom
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:14 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
First-year criminal law course in webcomic form
Nathaniel Burney's Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law is a complete first-year Criminal Law course in comic form, in 17 parts on a Tumblr. It's clearly written, and the illustrations go a long way towa...
01:10 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
John Lennon interviewed by Jann Wenner, 1970
In December 1970, John Lennon sat down with Rolling Stone founder Jann Wenner. This interview took place in New York City Shortly after Lennon and Yoko Ono finished recording the monumental "John Lenn...
01:09 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Caine's Arcade 2: The Global Cardboard Challenge & Imagination Foundation
[Video Link] Nirvan Mullick says: 5 months after Caine's Arcade, here is the followup film, inspired by the response of kids around the world. We're also kicking off a Global Cardboard Challenge, invi...
01:02 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Librarians! Teachers! Sign up for free copies of Rapture of the Nerds!
Charlie Stross and I have a new book out and I'm about to put up a website were readers can download free, CC-licensed copies of it in ebook form. As with other recent books, I'm going to collect and ...
12:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Sword of Fargoal 2: classic dungeon-crawler adventure on Kickstarter
The roguelike Sword of Fargoal is one of my favorite games for iPhone/iPad. Everything about it -- the gameplay, the music, the graphics -- kept me playing it way past my bedtime until I completed it ...
11:05 am PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
A machine for washing breasts
Circa 1930s. Origin unknown. Use unknown. Breast washer, c.1930s...
10:03 am PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Canadian mint claims copyright over pictures of pennies
The Canadian mint has sent a legal threat to a folk-singer called Dave Gunning, objecting to his use of photos of pennies in the liner notes on his latest CD, No More Pennies, which eulogizes the Cana...
02:41 am PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
PeanutsCthulhu tee
Today only on Tee Fury, Queenmob's "Call of Snoophulhu" $10 tee. Call of Snoophulhu (via Super Punch)...
12:08 am PDT - Fri, September 14, 2012
BoingBoing
Librarian tattoos
On Mental Floss, Jill Harness's collection of librarian tattoos. Above, Elizabeth Skene's card-catalog sleeve, by Frank William of the Chicago Tattoo Company. Right, Michelle's super-librarian tattoo,...
10:25 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
An accountable algorithm for running a secure random checkpoint
Ed Felten presents and argues for the idea of "accountable algorithms" for use in public life -- that is, "output produced by a particular execution of the algorithm can be verified as correct after t...
08:15 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
France's Hadopi finally punishes someone for infringement -- a guy whom everyone agrees isn't an infringer
The French Hadopi agency has prosecuted its first user under the country's insane anti-piracy laws, which provide for disconnection of whole families from the Internet if someone using their connectio...
07:20 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Glenn Gould Variations: a two-day event in Toronto inspired by Gould's awesomeness
The Glenn Gould Variations is a new conference/event in Toronto mounted by the Glenn Gould Foundation, dedicated to the kind of odd, creative, quirky and thoughtful ideas that Gould was known for. The...
07:12 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
If this law passes, cops may finally need a warrant to read your Gmail
Cyrus Farivar at Ars Technica: "Right now, if the cops want to read my e-mail, its pretty trivial for them to do so. All they have to do is ask my online e-mail provider. But a new bill set to be intr...
07:05 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Actress Kathy Bates tweets news of her breast cancer diagnosis, treatment
After some four month of silence on Twitter, Kathy Bates returned to share news that she was diagnosed with breast cancer two months ago, and has undergone a double mastectomy. I felt an extra-strong ...
07:00 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
TSA screener in Florida charged with child porn possession
A TSA screener who worked in Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood airport in Florida is in jail, "facing 25 counts of possessing child pornography showing young children engaged in sexual acts." He first admitted...
06:42 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Collective Soul cat (video)
[Video Link] (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)...
06:03 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
William Gibson explains why science fiction writers don't predict the future
William Gibson speaks with Wired's Geeta Dayal about his new book Distrust That Particular Flavor (my review), and particularly the idea that science fiction sucks at predicting stuff. Science fiction...
05:33 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Report: Mysterious gentleman behind Anti-Muhammad movie an ex-meth cook
"Innocence of Muslims," the spectacularly crappy anti-Muslim movie linked to recent violence in Libya, and the death of a US ambassador and others? The guy credited as its filmmaker, "Sam Bacile," has...
05:13 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Guatemala's Volcan de Fuego erupts
There are two major active volcanoes in the Sacatepquez department of Guatemala, and one of them is very active today: Volcn de Fuego, or "the fire volcano" (as contrasted with its adjacent twin, Volc...
04:58 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
James Cameron wants to help the Mythbusters prove that Jack and Rose could not have both occupied that door-raft
Apologies for another Titanic-related post this week, but this one has Mythbusters in it. James Cameron did an interview with IGN in which he talked about the conversion to 3D, yada yada yada... And t...
04:23 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Stunning cover from Daniel Clowes' Eightball no. 18 as a limited-edition print
I loved the cover painting for Daniel Clowes' Eightball no. 18, and now it's available as a limited-edition print. This is a limited edition, archival, facsimile print of the cover painting used for i...
04:14 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Win tickets to see David Byrne and Cory in Toronto, Sept 19
Yesterday, I reviewed the new David Byrne book, How Music Works and mentioned that I'd be interviewing Byrne about it live on stage in Toronto on Sept 19, as part of the Harbourfront International Fes...
04:00 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
I am in favor of Kraken Jamming
Want an awesome painting like this? It's a two step process: Step 1: Find generic '80s oil painting at thrift store Step 2: Paint a badass Kraken in it Dana's Painting and Portraits (Thanks, Gromitori...
03:16 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
If NFL players were characters from Game of Thrones
Rob Bricken of Topless Robot has compiled a list for Maxim Magazine, a magazine that generally has nothing for me to look at. However, this list is a list of NFL players if they were characters from H...
03:10 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Fred Armisen hands over the presidential reins to Jay Pharoah on SNL
Lorne Michaels broke the news yesterday that when the new season of Saturday Night Live starts this weekend, it will be Jay Pharoah playing President Obama rather than Fred Armisen, who has played POT...
02:04 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
New monkey isn't so much "new" as "newly documented in a scientific journal"
When somebody says that a new species has been discovered, it's easy to get the impression that this is an animal nobody has ever seen before. But that's usually not exactly what scientists mean. Take...
01:50 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Time to start coveting vintage Pyrex
Pyrex is supposed to be tough stuff, capable of withstanding extreme temperature changes, like a trip from the freezer to the oven. And that was true with old Pyrex, made from thermal-stress resistant...
01:40 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Dredging: how the hell does that work?
Ben Mendelsohn sez, "Dredging - the mechanized transport of underwater sediments - is one of the most elemental of the infrastructural support systems that underlie modern societies. Through dredging,...
01:36 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
The science of Aquaman
When it comes to powers, he's no Superman. And he lacks Batman's popularity. But at the Southern Fried Science blog, perennial also-ran superhero Aquaman is at least able to inspire some fascinating d...
01:30 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Sazae-San, by Machiko Hasegawa
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
01:17 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
How cartographers helped clean up after 911
This image, made using a laser mapping technology called LIDAR, was taken on September 17, 2001. It shows a 3-D model of the rubble left behind in lower Manhattan following the attacks on the World Tr...
01:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
For the last time, redheads are not going extinct
Pictured: Your great-grandchildren? As a redheaded science journalist, I hear this "fact" a lot. Reality is, though, we aren't going anywhere. Yes, as Cara Santa Maria points out at Huffington Post, r...
01:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Singularity Summit San Francisco, Oct 1314
Eric sez, "The Singularity Summit 2012, exploring 'Minds and Machines' and 'Emerging Technologies and Science' will be taking place October 13 - 14 at the Nob Hill Masonic Center in San Francisco. The...
12:38 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
The grisly business of buffalo bones
By this point in your lives, most of you are by no doubt aware of the massive slaughter of buffalo that happened in the United States in the late 19th century. Across the plains, thousands of buffalo ...
12:32 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Astronaut Neil Armstrong remembered in nation's capitol today
America said goodbye today to Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on another world beyond Earth. "The powerful of Washington, the pioneers of space, and the everyday public crowded into the Wash...
12:32 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Astronaut Neil Armstrong remembered in nation's capital today
America said goodbye today to Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on another world beyond Earth. "The powerful of Washington, the pioneers of space, and the everyday public crowded into the Wash...
12:26 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Breakdancing Freedom Tower construction worker in NYC (video)
[Video Link] (Thanks, Joe Sabia)...
12:20 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Snapshots from Benghazi
Bassam Tariq of 30 Days Ramadan points us to a series of images making the rounds on Facebook, Twitter, and the like today. The snapshots are ostensibly reactions to the recent violence related to a w...
12:14 pm PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Hip Deep Angola: 4-part radio series exploring music in southern Africa
Ned Sublette shares word of a new Afropop Worldwide radio series premiering this month, and continuing in four episodes through November: HIP DEEP ANGOLA, "an unprecedented exploration of the history ...
10:05 am PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Supercomputer built from Raspberry Pis and Lego
A team of computer scientists at the University of Southampton in the UK created a supercomputer out of 64 Raspberry Pi matchbox Linux-on-a-chip computers and Lego. The team included six year old Jame...
01:00 am PDT - Thu, September 13, 2012
BoingBoing
Sneak peek at graphic novel of Wrinkle in Time
Tor.com has an excerpt from the upcoming graphic novel of A Wrinkle in Time, published for the Madeline L'Engle original's 50th anniversary. My review of the book is slated for next month when it hits...
11:53 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Toothbrush bodge used to fix ISS
Here's a picture of the now-famous improvised bolt cleaner that astronauts on the ISS created out of a toothbrush to use during a recent spacewalk. ABC's Gina Sunseri describes the hack: A $100 billio...
11:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Ubiquitous surveillance rap
The latest edition of Juice Rap News, "Big Brother is WWWatching You," is a catchy little rap ditty about how the Internet is being remade as a total information awareness panopticon: September 2012 r...
09:47 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Facebook to New Yorker: no nipples in your cartoons!
Facebook forced The New Yorker to remove a cartoon depicting Adam and Eve in the Garden because the cartoonist drew in two dots representing Eve's nipples, which is a Facebook no-no. Nipplegate (via J...
09:09 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Nottingham's wondrous caves
Geoff from BLDGBLOG sez, I thought I'd send a link to a new and very long post I just put up, describing a visit last month to Nottingham, England, where we explored nearly a dozen artificial cave sys...
08:01 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Great Graphic Novels: Its A Good Life, If You Dont Weaken, by Seth
Last month I asked my friends to write about books they loved (you can read all the essays here). This month, I invited them to write about their favorite graphic novels, and they selected some excell...
08:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Opus: a new, free, open audio codec that outperforms everything else
The IETF has finished its standardization effort for Opus, a new free/open audio codec that reportedly outperforms all other codecs on all axes. The codec was jointly created by IETF, Mozilla, Microso...
07:14 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Acme Dogma Disruptor tees
On sale and awesome from the good folks at Skepchick, and just in time for the school year: Atomic Dogma Disruptor tees, perfect for those PTA meetings over school prayer! New Skepchick T-shirt &...
06:27 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Magic: The Gathering is Turing complete
Alex Churchill has posted a way to implement a Turing complete computer within a game of Magic: The Gathering ("Turing complete" is a way of classifying a calculating engine that is capable of general...
06:12 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
100 critically-endangered species
This is the Pygmy Three-toed Sloth that lives on a few islands off Panama. Only a few hundred of these beautiful beasties are alive today. Like the Sumatran rhinoceros, Tonkin Snub-nosed Monkey, and A...
04:54 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Hershey's Chocolate was once part of US Army soldiers' emergency rations
From the Smithsonian, a photograph marking the Sept. 13, 1857, birthday of Milton S. Hershey, American confectioner, philanthropist and founder of the Hershey Chocolate Company. The company was founde...
04:44 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Tim Minchin explains evolution and genomics in an animated video
Tracy King sends us an "animated history of genetics from Nature to celebrate the release of ENCODE. Narrated by Tim Minchin and animated by the team who made Storm. Written by Adam Rutherford (Nature...
04:42 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Explore Japanese Space Science with Google Maps
From the Google Maps blog: September 12th is 'Space Day' in Japan, and we are celebrating by releasing new, comprehensive Street View imagery for two of Japans top scientific institutions: the Japan A...
04:26 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
The Rapping Weatherman's Puzzle Forecast (music video)
[Video Link, and his YouTube channel is here.]...
04:19 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Hodgman Box Set: it's official!
Early in August, John Hodgman teased the release of a boxed set of his three books (The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, That Is All). Now the set is officially announced. Als...
04:15 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Save on Apple at eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. No, that isn't the brand new iPhone in the center there. It's the iPhone 4S. And whi...
03:09 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Mars Curiosity update, now with animated GIFs from the red planet
I'm sitting in on a NASA Jet propulsion laboratory teleconference for science journalists, with an update for the world on the Mars Curiosity rover's mission. Curiosity completes her "checkout" phase ...
03:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Bald eagle with 3D printed prosthetic beak
A bald eagle named Beauty whose beak was shot off by poachers has been fitted with a 3D printed, prosthetic beak by her helpers at Birds of Prey Northwest. The prosthetic isn't stable enough for a rel...
02:52 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
German artist Paule Hammer created this massive head of Klaus Kinski for a 2005 exhibition at Munich's Galerie Andreas Binder. The work is titled "Niemand wei, was wir fhlen" ("Nobody Knows What We Fe...
02:52 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Giant head of Klaus Kinski
German artist Paule Hammer created this massive head of Klaus Kinski for a 2005 exhibition at Munich's Galerie Andreas Binder. The work is titled "Niemand wei, was wir fhlen" ("Nobody Knows What We Fe...
02:48 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Send Super Awesome Sylvia to Maker Faire
Dan sez, "I just learned that Super Awesome Sylvia, who has been featured on Boing Boing a couple times, is raising funds on Indiegogo for a trip to the Open Hardware Summit and Maker Faire in New Yor...
02:42 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
The best quotes from Heathers that perfectly describe Bravo's planned reboot of Heathers
News broke today that Bravo was headed into scripted television territory, and that's the positive news. (Holding out on calling it "good news" until I see the actual shows.) But then there was this: ...
02:33 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Island Night: A nocturnal group walk, with philosophic dialogue, poetic meditation
Jon Cotner says, "Last weekend's New York Times discusses Island Night -- my 12-hour nocturnal walk through Fire Island. These walks accommodate eight participants plus myself. They combine philosophi...
02:30 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Save on Apple at eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. No, that isn't the brand new iPhone in the center there. It's the iPhone 4S. And whi...
02:26 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Dog face t-shirts
Excellent photorealistic dog t-shirts by The Mountain are available at Amazon for around $20 in a variety of styles, er, breeds. Dog Face T-Shirts (via Super Punch)...
02:15 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Great historical disasters in papercraft form
Here's a series of "Disaster Dioramas" (dioramae?) -- papercraft models of historic disasters to download and print. Included in the set are the Titanic, the Hindenberg, Sir Shackleton's Endurance, Ap...
02:13 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Wake me up when the iPhone 42 comes out
Dylan Tweney at Venturebeat: "Apple has entered a new phase in the evolution of its iPhone line, and you can pretty much forget about radical reinventions from now on. The iPhone is now a mature produ...
02:03 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Apple event under way, new iPhone and MacBooks anticipated
The big Apple unveil of the Fall is under way. Live blogs to follow: GDGT, Verge, Gizmodo, Ars....
02:02 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Art crit generator
After rigorous study of the Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator, I conclude that with regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive perturbation of the spatial relationships brings within the real...
01:53 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Moon Zappa: "Valley Girl"
Moon Unit Zappa performs "Valley Girl" on Solid Gold, 1982. (like, for Sarah Ruxin)...
01:34 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
"Lovers locks" to be cut from Roman bridge
(CC-licensed photo by Ela2007) Rome's Ponte Milvio Bridge is decorated with thousands of padlocks that couples have attached to the structure to signify their love. Now, city workers are taking bolt c...
01:20 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Nude monk tripping on bad berries
A hiker in Unterwssen, Germany called police after coming across a naked, disoriented man in the woods who refused any help. Turns out, the gentleman was a monk who had gone off camping and, according...
01:18 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Tomorrow: Student-designed experiments take flight on the International Space Station
The YouTube Space Lab competition gave teenagers around the world a chance to design a science experiment for the International Space Station. Tomorrow morning, starting at 9:30 Central, you can watch...
01:12 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Higgs Boson papers clear peer review
The two papers documenting evidence that CERN has found a particle matching the description of the Higgs Boson have cleared peer review and are now published in the journal Physics Letters B. Ironical...
01:10 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
TOM THE DANCING BUG: Mitt Romney Plays "Santa Claus Politics"
Help sustain Tom the Dancing Bug, by @RubenBolling, by joining its INNER HIVE. Please click HERE for information....
01:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Skeleton found at dig may be Richard III
The remains of England's King Richard III, killed in battle 500 years ago, may have been found in ancient ruins long-hidden by modern development: "a result beyond our wildest dreams." [Telegraph]...
01:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Lego's massive Haunted House set
Drew sez, "Lego has released a Haunted House set with vampire figures, zombie chef, Frankenstein butler, and glow in the dark ghosts. It's not a traditional Lego set as it's made to look in a state of...
12:55 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Jason Sudeikis will return to Saturday Night Live for an abridged season
All summer long, following the departures of Andy Samberg and Kristen Wiig from the Saturday Night Live cast, Jason Sudeikis never really committed to staying or going. It was a tricky situation, sinc...
12:54 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Teenage Mutant Turtles ephemera: the precambrian merchandising explosion
Brain Rot's Ed Piskor says: I was just digging around in my comic collection and found this great editorial in an old Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic, that appeared just before the merchandising on...
12:18 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Why cilantro-haters hate cilantro
I have loved cilantro (also known as coriander) passionately since first eating it in a Vietnamese restaurant in a former gas station in downtown Chicago when I was 10. And most people seemed to agree...
12:11 pm PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Interview with the Singularity Weblog
I recently sat down for a video interview with the Singularity weblog to talk about about The Rapture of the Nerds, Singularity, science fiction, how fiction works, sf movies, and a lot of varied subj...
11:54 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
A tour of the bat cave
In this video for Science Friday, bat biologist Nickolay Hristov takes a thermal camera inside Carlsbad Caverns to see what bats do in the dark when nobody's watching. In his footage, a blazing yellow...
11:44 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Something new under the sea
Drug cartels are building their own diesel submarines in the jungles of South America. A recently caught version wasn't fully submersible—the engine needed to bring in air via a snorkel that stu...
11:37 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
What's climate change ruining today?
Barring a seriously crazy shift that plunges us quickly into an especially cold winter, 2012 will likely go down as the hottest year on record in the United States. More importantly, this broken recor...
11:36 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Crappy YouTube trailer leads to death of US diplomat and others in Mideast
Sam Bacile is an Israeli filmmaker based in California who made an independently-produced anti-Muslim film that's sort of "Birth of a Nation" meets "Bed Intruder." The YouTube trailer is embedded abov...
10:15 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
David Byrne's How Music Works
Former Talking Heads frontman and all-round happy mutant David Byrne has written several good books, but his latest, How Music Works, is unquestionably the best of the very good bunch, possibly the bo...
10:12 am PDT - Wed, September 12, 2012
BoingBoing
Save on Apple at eBay
ADVERTISEMENT This post is sponsored by eBay. From the new to the hard to find, when its on your mind, its on eBay. No, that isn't the brand new iPhone in the center there. It's the iPhone 4S. And whi...
11:56 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
In Letterspace, No One Can Hear You Kern
We spent $2.5 billion to put Helvetica Arial on Mars (and incidentally, an SUV-sized robotic science rover), and yet not a cent was devoted to kerning. The Curiosity rover brought with a calibration t...
11:47 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Hacks that never happened
Yesterday, GoDaddy went down, taking with it countless hosted sites. A hacker claimed credit, gaining the attention of the entire tech press. But his story was soon debunked: a DNS configuration mista...
11:37 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Nasty smell explained
A peculiar rotten-egg smell covering the Los Angeles region has an explanation: it was brought in by winds blowing in from Salton Sea, a saline lake in Southern California, where a recent massive fish...
10:31 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
The iconic M*A*S*H still
Earlier I stumbled across this fantastic history of the iconic M*A*S*H still. It is beautiful and evokes such great memories of a phenomenal show. I have always wanted one in my home. From M*A*S*H4077...
08:31 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Cupertino tech firm to announce new products tomorrow
On September 12 at 10:00 a.m. PT / 1:00 p.m. ET, Apple's big event kicks off. One never knows exactly what to expect, but all signs point to the iPhone 5 (or whatever they end up calling it). The revi...
08:18 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
The streets of Manhattan, transformed into song on 911 (music video)
[Video Link] Joe Sabia of the Youtube CDZA project sends this week's musical video experiment: the streets of Lower Manhattan, turned into music. See a map of where they walked on Google Maps. Featuri...
08:07 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Larry Flynt and Hustler offer $1 million bounty for Romney tax info
Mitt Romneys personal tax history is exactly the kind of political mystery that porn mogul and free speech advocate Larry Flynt would like to uncover. So he and Hustler are offering $1 million in cash...
08:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
AT&T blocking iPhone FaceTime on its network is a big blow to Deaf people
Brendan Gramer, who is deaf, writes in Wired News today about how AT&T's recent announcement that it will block FaceTime on its networks affects deaf people, who use FaceTime to converse in sign ...
07:52 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
A father's note, on 911
"84th floor / West Office / 12 people trapped. It is not these words alone that change the narrative of Randy Scott's final moments. The other content on the note is a dark spot, about the size of a t...
07:51 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
"The Sifr," a global Muslim jam session (music video)
[Video Link] Aman Ali is one of the guys behind "30 Days Ramadan," a Muslim media project, and he writes: This one one of our proudest creations. I got 12 of my music friends around the world to put t...
06:23 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Mark Dery on "Aesthetics after 911"
Over at Thought Catalog, the inimitable Mark Dery riffs somberly on terrorism, art, Hollywood, and the society of the spectacle where we all have a front row seat: The reflexive habit reflexive, at l...
05:48 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Upcoming episode of Gravity Falls features animation by Paul Robertson (episode clip)
[Video Link] My daughter and I are hooked on Gravity Falls, a quirky new cartoon series on Disney about about the goings-on in an occult curio shack in the Pacific Northwest (see Jane's interview with...
05:27 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Stan Lee reinterprets the best four-letter word in the English language for us
Marvel Generalissimo Stan Lee has taken the internet podium (via his YouTube channel, World of Heroes) to let us all know that we've all been taking the phrase "Fuck you" the wrong way this whole time...
04:29 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
September 11, 2001 as experienced on the International Space Station
On September 11, 2001, US astronaut Frank L. Culbertson watched the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks from the International Space Station. He wrote up his experience that day and the days following in a ...
04:22 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
If you haven't been sold on Mindy Kaling yet, this New York Magazine profile should do the trick
If there is any one new show that I'm looking forward to watching this fall, it's The Mindy Project, featuring showrunner and star, Mindy Kaling. I've been a fan of Kaling for a long time, but I knew ...
03:36 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Walt Disnizzle Mixtape
Our dear, former comments moderator Arkizzle (aka Arkham.p.77) has released a fantastic "mashup of classic Disney songs vs hip-hop vocals and drum-breaks. It's 77 minutes long, full of little jokes an...
03:34 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Orange County Where magazine on newsstands
The Fall 2012 issue of Orange County Where has a story titled "Wine Bars Take Flight." (Via Photoshop Disasters)...
03:22 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
A useful graphic for gadget bloggers
It is often the case, these days, that any given item of consumer electronics will bear a striking resemblance to the popular designs of the segment's market leader. This has led to a certain degree o...
03:11 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
A deeper-than-necessary look: Jeremy Sisto read for Leonardo DiCaprio's role in Titanic
I know, this is a post about Titanic. But hear me out for a moment, because it involves who wasn't cast in one of the lead roles. Jeremy Sisto, the intense, grumbly-voiced actor who is no stranger to ...
03:01 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Connect-A-Cord: extension cord set with 50 1-foot cords
A godsend! And it's only $8....
02:58 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Handmade Doctor Who chess set
Emmi Visser made this one-of-a-kind Doctor Who chess set. It's $949 on Etsy and will be gone in 3 2 2 "UNIQUE DETAILED Doctor Who chess set" (via Dangerous Minds)...
02:39 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
The wonderful horror of hermit crabs migrating
The hills are alive with the sound of scuttling. This video has popped up on lots of sites already, but I kind of love it and wanted to post here. Plus, it made me curious. Where are all those crabs g...
02:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
New monthly magazine about exorcism
Egzorcysta is a new monthly magazine in Poland dedicated to exorcism. Launched by Roman Catholic priests in association with the publisher Polwen, the first issue includes articles like "New Age - the...
02:15 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Hiking an abandoned hydroelectric power plant at Niagara Falls
Geology Ph.D. student and volcano blogger Jessica Ball recently took a detour away from volcanoes and into the world of awesome abandoned industrial sites. Have I mentioned that I LOVE awesome abandon...
02:04 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Meet "Big Trash"
Over the long run, keeping stuff like tree limbs and compostable waste out of landfills is good for cities. There's only so much space in a landfill and getting more land is extremely expensive. So wh...
01:47 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
ENCODE, the media, and what we really know about the human genome
If you've read anything in the past week about ENCODE—a group of laboratories that recently published their latest work on the human genome—then you need to read John Timmer's excellent pi...
01:30 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
In Search Of Glenn Miller
On December 15, 1944, big band pioneer Glenn Miller was flying from the UK to Paris to perform for soldiers. His plane reportedly vanished over the English Channel without a trace. There are many theo...
12:37 pm PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Fear and Trembling: Prion diseases on Twitter
You have probably heard this story before. Even if you don't immediately recognize the words "prion" or "Kuru", the history has seeped into popular culture, like a horrifying fairy tale, or an urban l...
11:04 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Natural history and the rights of women
Really fascinating talk coming up at the Royal Society in London. Sharon Ruston, a professor of 19th century literature and culture, will be talking about the scientific texts that influenced Mary Wol...
11:00 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Birth of Profile Records
Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!...
10:57 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Peacock spider shakes it for the ladies
Male peacock spiders are fuzzy, strangely adorable, and boast a brilliantly colored abdomen that they flip up and use as a prop for an elaborate (for a spider) mating dance. In this video, the mating ...
10:30 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Tapeworms on the brain
Here's a fun fact: Did you know that you can get tapeworms in your brain? You know that you can get a tapeworm from eating infected meat. But when people have tapeworms in their guts, they secrete ten...
10:29 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Tom Tom Club's first EP in 10+ years: Downtown Rockers
This is a good month for Talking Heads fans. Tomorrow, David Byrne's magnum opus book on music and technology How Music Works ships, and today, Tom Tom Club -- the band founded by Heads Tina Weymouth ...
03:18 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO make a leather rockabilly Batman cowl
Trevor sends us, "An imgur gallery of how I constructed my leather Rockabilly Batman headgear, based on the artworks of Denis Medri, in 7 easy steps (some easier than others), as part of the Gotham Ci...
02:13 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
R2D2 rolling luggage
Salvador Bachiller's €95 R2D2 rolling baggage looks great. I know nothing about its materials, handling or build-quality (for all I know, it corners like a 30-year-old supermarket trolley, crump...
01:06 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Junebug-like robotic pack mule
Here's a DARPA video showing a robotic pack-mule prototype. I think you're supposed to imagine this thing being on your side, but when I see videos like this, I always find myself imagining what it wo...
12:06 am PDT - Tue, September 11, 2012
BoingBoing
Haunted MansionSmall World mashup tee
Actualchad has designed a Haunted Mansion/Small World mashup tee. He writes, "Just in time for Halloween, the Haunted Mansion has taken on the small world in the battle of which ride is really the sca...
11:09 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO make huge, wall-mounted papercraft Minecraft scenery
Jeff sez, "Some gamers need a Railgun, others choose an M1A1, most seem to desire an Energy Sword...but what we need is a pickaxe! That's right, our current favorite diversion from lab work is Minecra...
09:48 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Experience the Iranian Internet in central London
Runa from the Tor Project sez, "What is the Iranian Internet? How does it feel to be censored? Filtered? Under constant surveillance? Unsure? Restricted? Oppressed? On Wednesday September 26, Small Me...
09:46 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Kickstarter: Impossibly goofy! Impossible Project iPhone adaptor
Its crazy. I love it. You can help kickstart the project and buy one at the same time. (via PetaPixel)...
08:58 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
DIY mini photo studio
Here's how Nick Britsky made a nifty mini photo studio. Our household is spawning blogs like bunnies. Since I need all the help I could get, I thought it would be good to up my photo game. We’ve...
08:50 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
A Is For About Us: Martha Plimpton
[Video Link] I just finished producing a short video for A Is For featuring Martha Plimpton. It's essentially a quick overview of A Is For and a public invitation to be part of our new awareness-raisi...
08:41 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Haunted Playmobil set
On eBay, a toymodder called Foiled1 is selling a beautiful, highly detailed Playmobil haunted house: "So what you get is the house, fence, wallpaper and all items seen in photo's (some interior item's...
08:34 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
New chapter in comic strip about underground publisher John Wilcox
I love Ethan Persoff and Scott Marshall's comic strip about the colorful and brilliant underground publisher John Wilcox. My only complaint is that it runs so infrequently! They just posted the third ...
07:13 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
App to speed up audio and video: Swift
[Video Link] Swift Player & Downloader is a useful $0.99 iOS app can speed up or slow down audio and video....
07:01 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Sex in comic books, part 2
Here's artist Mitch O'Connel's second installment of silly, unintentionally sexual (and other weird) comic book art from the days of yore. (Previous installment) Sex in Comics Part 2! The top 100 stra...
07:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Phil Hartman's SNL audition reel
Here's Phil Hartman's 11-minute SNL audition from 1985 or 1986, with a guest appearance by Jon Lovitz. It's very funny, very raw, and pure Hartman -- fascinating and sad to see how Hartman's genius sh...
06:10 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Anatomically correct, full-sized chocolate skulls
Eat Your Heart Out has announced that they'll soon be taking reservations for these anatomically correct, full-sized chocolate skulls at £50 each. They're made by the cats at Two Little Cats bake...
05:52 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
J.J. Abrams' Star Trek gets an official title that looks like it's suffering from a typo
The official title for Star Trek 2 was revealed by Paramount today, and while I never thought I'd say this about anything or anyone (okay, perhaps a couple of times), I really hope it's dealing with c...
05:28 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Profile of a cigar maker (video)
Made by Hand / No 4 The Cigar Shop from Made by Hand on Vimeo. Keith says: After making portraits on a distiller, a knife maker, and an urban beekeeper, we've focused our camera on The Cigar Shop. In ...
05:05 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
GoDaddy's DNS servers experiencing extended outage
If you manage your domains through GoDaddy or are hosting a website with them, it's probably down right now and has been for about an hour. Take advantage of this time to find out which ones of your f...
04:59 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Skull made from VHS cassettes: Dead Media
Noah Scalin sez, "Dead Media is created from 497 VHS videocassettes that were given to me by several friends and also culled from my personal collection. The piece, which is approximately 20 feet long...
04:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Quadruplets with their birth-order shaved into their heads
A family of quadruplets in Shenzhen, China have had the numbers 1-4 shaved into their heads by their parents in order to aid in telling them apart: 'Even now, their father can't tell which one is whic...
03:44 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
James Cameron says Avatar 4 is a prequel to Avatar, does not want people comparing it to Star Wars
James Cameron was not kidding when he said he was just going to make Avatar movies for the rest of his life. In an interview with MTV, he discussed plans for a fourth Avatar movie, an idea he'd been t...
03:31 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Bob Marley's "Is This Love" metal remix
Andy Rehfeldt turns Marley metal....
03:08 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Titan Missile Museum, Tucson, Arizona
Unknown Fields (UF) is a design studio, originating in Londons Architectural Association, that "ventures out on annual expeditions to the ends of the earth exploring unreal and forgotten landscapes, a...
02:47 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Homebrew prosthetic finger seeks funding
Ivan is a American cosplayer who invented a useful and detailed mechanical hand. His demonstration video was viewed widely, and he was contacted by a man in South Africa who had lost his fingers in an...
01:54 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Did Timothy Leary supply the LSD for Dock Ellis's no-hitter baseball game? (Probably not)
Lisa Rein from the Timothy Leary Archives sez, "ESPN's Patrick Hruby did a piece a few weeks ago investigating Dock Ellis' claim that he pitched a no-hitter on LSD in 1970. We had a few more details a...
01:25 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Pesco on augmented reality games
Over at our sponsor Intel's My Life Scoop site, I posted a short into to augmented reality games: In 1901, Wonderful Wizard of Oz author L. Frank Baum published a short story called The Master Key in ...
01:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Memories of shooting Sneakers
In Slate, Stephen Tobolowsky remembers what it was like to shoot the 1992 hacker/caper flick Sneakers, one of the great hacker movies of all time, with an all-star cast that included Robert Redford an...
12:57 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Three Second City performers join Saturday Night Live, Jason Sudeikis also sticks around
Just in time to start its 38th season this weekend, Saturday Night Live has added three new performers to its roster, all of them discovered through their work at Chicago's Second City: Aidy Bryant, C...
12:31 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Venus Patrol, gaming art and culture site, launches
Venus Patrol, Brandon Boyer's independent videogame art & culture site, has "really honestly actually finally launched", he reports! Venus Patrol -- the website dedicated to independent videogame...
12:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Elfquest: Twilight in The Holt
Here's the first page of a new chapter of Elfquest, the long-running series of graphic novels first released in 1978 (Do you want to know more?) Published online-first for the first time here at Boing...
11:54 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Hello, Curiosity
On Sol 32 (Sept. 7, 2012) the Curiosity rover used a camera located on its arm to obtain this self portrait. The image of the top of Curiosity's Remote Sensing Mast, showing the Mastcam and Chemcam ca...
11:22 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Atoms for Peace: "Default"
[Video Link] Loving the blippy, glitchy feel of "Default," the new track from Atoms for Peace, the Thom Yorke/Flea/Nigel Godrich project. Pitchfork has more. At the Radiohead website, word from Yorke ...
11:15 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
For those with cancer: make your own "With great power comes great radiotherapy" t-shirt
Science blogger Ed Yong whipped up this awesome graphic and made me a one-off tshirt to wear to radiation treatment for breast cancer. Cancer patients, radiation oncologists, radiation therapists, and...
11:02 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Here's a drawing of a torture box the US used to interrogate Gaddafi's enemies in Libya
Over at Wired News, Spencer Ackerman points to one grisly detail in a lengthy report just released by Human Rights Watch, about how the US cooperated with the Gadhafi regime in Libya: This is a drawin...
10:53 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
TinkerMite: a wooden puzzle toy that turns into phones, tablets, and circuit boards
Nick sez, "Tired of greasy finger prints on your table? Tired of prying your phone out of your kiddos' hands? A Seattle-based startup, Tonkermite, is here to solve your problems with an innovative low...
10:49 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
"Matrix" producer buys WPA-era post office in Venice, CA, plans to transform it into film center
A U.S. post office in Venice (the beach neighborhood in California, not the one in Italy) which includes an 1941 mural and began as a 1939 WPA building, has been purchased by Movie producer Joel Silve...
10:44 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Report faults Santa Monica College in student pepper-spray case
Last April, a number of students were pepper-sprayed in a "melee" that took place outside a Santa Monica College Board of Trustees meeting. About a hundred protesters gathered to protest a proposed tw...
10:26 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Mote and Beam
Joel Johnson, formerly the gadgets man at this august institution, has himself a new blog: Mote and Beam. This one, unlike the others, is about whatever the hell he likes! Right now, this is Virtual R...
10:17 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Anti-party-politics-as-usual posters up in DC Metro
Boing Boing reader Jeff Gates remixed some vintage war-era posters with postmodern slogans, and called the series "The Chamomile Tea Party." The idea: encourage "a calming force in American political ...
10:00 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Angry roboticist drops science
Here's Katy Levinson's semi-drunken robotics tutorial from DEFCON XX in Vegas this past summer. To get a sense of Levinson's presentation style, imagine if Bill Hicks was a young, female roboticist. W...
09:57 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Boing Boing comment of the day
"You could not be more full of shit here if someone reversed the polarity on your enema bag."—noted by our moderator Antinous....
01:48 am PDT - Mon, September 10, 2012
BoingBoing
Crocheted bicycle
I spied this cozy crocheted cruiser on Balboa Street just outside Shanghai Dumpling King in San Francisco. Bundle up, winter's coming!...
08:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
London mapped by common surnames
James Cheshire (Department of Geography, UCL) produced a series of interactive maps of London that show the relationship of common surnames to different neighbourhoods: This map shows the 15 most freq...
06:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
56 Broken Kindle Screens: book and video
Here's a bit of wry gadget iconography: a book and video devoted to the sad sight of a smashed Kindle screen. Speaking as someone who broke three Kindle screens in as many months (and then gave up on ...
04:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
Shooting video -- with bullets
A Juxtapoz article from last March featured the firearm-flavored contemporary illustrative photoshoppery of Adam Wheatley. I'm especially fond of this visual commentary on shooting video. Juxtapoz Mag...
02:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
Steampunk's guide to sex
Margaret Killjoy sez, "Combustion Books, the indie publisher of SteamPunk Magazine, is raising funds to print A Steampunk's Guide to Sex. The book is aimed to be a serious (though entertaining) look a...
12:17 pm PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
Stross at Doctorow at RIT tonight!
Reminder: Charlie Stross and I are doing our grand finale tonight at Rochester's RIT -- last chance to see!...
10:15 am PDT - Sun, September 9, 2012
BoingBoing
Gendered crayons
Here's a set of gendered crayons from Melissa and Doug, whose image is of a cool, progressive toymaker. I found the "Truck Crayon Set" and "Princess Crayon Set" in the gift-shop at the Rochester, NY H...
11:42 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Increasingly desperate quest to find photos to illustrate news stories about Eurozone crisis
In Der Spiegel, Friederike Ott polls Europe's photographers on their increasingly desperate quest to find compelling images to use in illustrating stories about the Eurozone crisis. Taking pictures of...
09:59 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Alan Turing memorial Monopoly set
Last year, I wrote about the hand-drawn Monopoly board that Alan Turing and friends played with at Bletchley Park. Now it's an official set. Chris from Bletchley Park sez,: Bletchley Park is delighted...
08:49 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Can fandom change society? PBS video
[Video Link] PBS has been making great videos about online culture. This one about fandom is especiall good. Before the mass media, people actively engaged with culture through storytelling and expand...
08:03 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Video from the Stross and Doctorow show at MakerBot in Brooklyn
Joly McFie captured video of Charlie Stross's and my tour-stop at Brooklyn's MakerBot this week. We were there in support of our new novel Rapture of the Nerds, and did a talk, reading and Q&A th...
07:00 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Super Scratch Programming Adventure: Fun introductory programming book
Scratch is a graphical programming language for kids that was designed at the MIT Media Lab. To write a program in Scratch, you connect colored code blocks together. The neat thing about not having to...
05:57 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Warren Ellis on life in the science fiction condition
Warren Ellis has posted a transcript of "How To See The Future," they keynote he gave at the Improving Reality conference in Brighton, England this week. Ellis works his way through McLuhan's statemen...
03:53 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Radio circuit board laid out like the London tube map
Yuri Suzuki's "London Underground Circuit Maps" is being shown at the London Design Museum until next January. It was developed through the museum's Artist-in-Residence programme. responding to 'thrif...
02:59 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
We Got Power!: Hardcore Punk Scenes from 1980s Southern California - exclusive photo gallery excerpt
Jello Biafra as the president of the United States in Lovedolls Superstar, occupying an empty office adjacent to SST/Global, 1985. JORDAN SCHWARTZ We Got Power! is a book of nearly 400 photographs tak...
02:13 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
The 1 Purr-cent: Internet fat cats
Some months ago, I put a dollar bill on my cat Zeldas head, took a picture and submitted it to cashcats.biz, then a fledgling Tumblr apparently devoted solely to images of cats with money. At the time...
01:49 pm PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Candy-corn flavored Oreos are a thing
The end-times are upon us (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)...
11:45 am PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
Musicians on file-sharing, record industry as Monsanto
On TechDirt, Mike Masnick rounds up three thoughtful and thought-provoking statements from musicians about the way that their careers can be helped by piracy, and the how the response to downloading i...
09:37 am PDT - Sat, September 8, 2012
BoingBoing
See you in Rochester on Sunday!
Charlie Stross and I conclude our whirlwind transhumanist comedy two-act on Sunday to support our new novel Rapture of the Nerds with appearances at RIT in Rochester, and the IEEE International Games ...
11:17 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Wells Fargo mistakenly forecloses on the wrong house, destroys elderly couple's entire lifetime's worth of possessions
Wells Fargo mistakenly foreclosed on a home that had no mortgage, sending in a crew to steal all and throw out all the elderly homeowners' belongings. Alvin Tjosaas helped his father build the family ...
08:49 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Internet video's robotic, idiotic copyright cops
On Wired, Geeta Dayal looks at the state of automated copyright enforcement video-bots, the mindless systems that shut down the Hugo awards livestream, took down NASA's own footage of the Curiosity la...
08:13 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Beer Slogans Quiz!
Twaggies presents another quiz, which on this occasion shall have you under the counter...
07:07 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Glenn Greenwald replies to CNN's attempt to discredit story about compromised Bahrain coverage
Yesterday, I blogged Glenn Greenwald's Guardian story about CNN suppressing its own award-winning documentary on human rights abuses in Bahrain, which Greenwald linked to CNNi's commercial relationshi...
06:40 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Shepard Fairey sentenced to probation
Shepard Fairey was sentenced for two years' probation for tampering with evidence during his copyright battle with the Associated Press. From CNN: "I accept full responsibility for violating the court...
06:32 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
US State department employee owes $3.3 million to escaped sex slave
"A Virginia federal judge awarded $3.3 million to a Yemeni woman who was enslaved by a State Department employee and repeatedly raped by that worker's husband." Fortunately for the State Department em...
06:08 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe has a few choice words for a Maryland politician
In case you were wondering how some NFL players feel about marriage equality, Chris Kluwe, punter for the Minnesota Vikings, is in support. Vocal support. Very vocal support. He also supports fellow p...
05:00 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Anthrax's Dan Spitz is now a master watchmaker
Hodinkee's John Reardon has a great profile on and interview with Dan Spitz, former Anthrax guitar hero who quit the music business to become a world-renowned, prize-winning watchmaker who hand-lathes...
04:37 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Rebel on Rebel: Rebel Wilson interviews a rapper version of herself
Bachelorette star Rebel Wilson did an interview for Bullett with Rebelicious, the British rapper who was hiding inside of her this whole time. I thought you might like to read something like that on a...
04:18 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Cartoon characters gone bad
A botched bank robbery. From a men's adventure magazine. (Via X-Ray Delta One)...
04:02 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
CC-licensed nerdy feature film breaks Kickstarter record
Ben sez, "Our feature film comedy about roleplaying gamers and collectible card games, The Gamers: Hands of Fate, is just finishing up a very successful campaign on Kickstarter [ed: $384,174 and risin...
03:46 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Google celebrates Star Trek's 46th anniversary with an interactive doodle!
Hey, Trekkies: Google has treated us all to a really fun, interactive doodle to celebrate the 46th anniversary of the network premiere of Star Trek! From today until tomorrow -- September 8, the actua...
03:14 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Earlimart - 97 Heart Attack (free MP3)
Sound it Out # 36: Earlimart - 97 Heart Attack (MP3) Aaron Espinoza and Ariana Murray make records asEarlimartand also help other artists make theirs. Aaron ownsThe Ship Recording Studioin LA, which e...
03:10 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Gay war veteran talks to Mitt Romney
[Video Link] First posted in December, I just watched this excellent video of a Vietnam war veteran speaking with Mitt Romney about marriage equality. The vet was undecided about who to vote for befor...
03:07 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
The wet get wetter and the dry get drier
The other day, a reader asked why I call climate change "climate change", instead of "global warming". The short answer is that, from my perspective, climate change does a much better job of giving pe...
02:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Tim Berners-Lee blasts UK government's Internet spying plan
Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, has blasted the UK government's Draft Communications Bill, which will allow bulk, warrantless, unaccountable surveillance of all Internet traffic by go...
02:47 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Instructions for legitimate knot enthusiasts
Please observe this chart of knots and then direct all claims of new knots to the New-Knot Claims Assessment Committee, which will assess your knot and let you know whether or not the knot is new....
02:37 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
What is the SPF of your beard?
Have I told you guys lately that you should be reading the Scicurious blog, especially for Weird Science Fridays? Because, seriously, you guys. You guys, seriously. Today, Scicurious tackles "DOSIMETR...
02:29 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
America's best public bathrooms
Every year, the company Cintas sponsors a contest to find "America's Best Restroom," specifically public bathrooms. This year's finalists like Washington DC's Mie N Yu Restaurant and Minneapolis's Wal...
02:15 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Story of the family business whose gears are inside the Mars rovers
Forest City Gear is a family business that was founded in 1955 in Roscoe, Illinois. The gears they make are now on Mars, inside the Curiosity, Spirit, and Opportunity rovers. Our City, Our Story tells...
02:06 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
How to build a better speed limit
Sometime in November, Texas will open a stretch of toll road south of Austin where the speed limit will be 85 miles per hour.It will be the highest speed limit in America. (Montana used to have no spe...
02:01 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Video: graffiti artists create wine labels
French winery Cave Fin Bec brought in eight graffiti artists from around the globe to paint on large wooden canvases made from wine crates. The art was then used for a series of wine labels. The winer...
01:54 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Where airplanes go to die
Unknown Fields (UF) is a design studio, originating in Londons Architectural Association, that "ventures out on annual expeditions to the ends of the earth exploring unreal and forgotten landscapes, a...
01:49 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Roger Ebert's memoir is going to become a movie that might be awkward for him to review
Legendary movie critic Roger Ebert just spilled the Twitter beans that his 2011 memoir, Life Itself, was just optioned to be turned into a documentary by Hoop Dreams director Steve James and Oscar-win...
12:47 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Kickstarting a hackerspace in Iraq
Quinn Norton sez, "The Global Entrepreneurship and Maker Space Initiative runs around the Middle East creating hackerspaces and fostering maker communities in places like Cairo and Beirut -- but its h...
12:33 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Let's help a new roller derby documentary about lesbian, bisexual, and transgender skaters body slam its goal!
In a related followup to my interview with the filmmakers of the men's roller derby documentary, This Is How I Roll, another derby film is currently trying to raise money for production costs. The Vag...
12:23 pm PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Los Angeles treat: Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks at the Hollywood Bowl
Los Angeles friends: if you haven't been to the annual Tchaikovsky Spectacular with Fireworks at the Hollywood Bowl, you're missing one of LA's greatest treats. Tickets are still available for tonight...
11:56 am PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
The closest we will ever come to Morgan Freeman narrating a Fifty Shades of Grey novel
As majestic and worldly as it might be, Morgan Freeman is never going to recite the text of E.L. James' fanfic-turned-housewife titillator Fifty Shades of Grey in front of people. However, some people...
11:56 am PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
The chemical playwright
Carl Djerassi, the chemist who first synthesized an effective oral contraceptive, is now an author and playwright. Wired has a really interesting interview with him about his writing work, his scienti...
11:18 am PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Why technology might not make children stupid, after all
All this newfangled technology is going to make young people stupid. This is a very old argument, dating back (at least) to 370-ish BC, when Plato wrote the The Phaedrus. Like the better-known Republi...
10:51 am PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Charlie Stross and Cory in Brookline, MA tonight
Charlie Stross and I will be at the Brookline Booksmith tonight at 7PM! It's the second-to-last stop on our quick tour for Rapture of the Nerds -- the last stop is this weekend in Rochester, NY. Be th...
09:49 am PDT - Fri, September 7, 2012
BoingBoing
Copyfraud: making the case for actual copyright enforcement
Jason Mazzone's Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law isn't just another book about how the expansion of copyright and trademark law has harmed innovation, free speech and creativity...
11:18 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Kickstarting a literary studio for serialized fiction
Jennifer 8 Lee sez, Plympton is a new literary studio dedicated to producing serialized fiction for the digital age. They've just launched with their first three titles through the newly created Kindl...
10:21 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Wikipedia will encrypt to fight UK spying
Jimmy Wales says that he'll configure Wikipedia to encrypt all user traffic to undermine the UK government's "Snooper's Charter," which will institute bulk, warrantless Internet spying on the whole na...
09:13 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Street Shofar featuring IKAR's Sexy Shofar Man
[Video Link] My old Wired pal Jonathan Golub and his friends at IKAR made this hilarious "shofar-bombing" video for Rosh Hashanah. It was directed by Isaac Feder and features Michael Brous as Sexy Sho...
08:17 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
UK transport secretary broke a cyclist's neck through careless driving
What's worse than a new UK health secretary who believes in homeopathy? How about a new transport secretary who broke a cyclist's neck while recklessly driving a 4x4 through the streets of London? (vi...
07:08 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Mitt Romney: I believe in basic science, and by "basic science" I mean "cold fusion"
I'm not entirely sure what to say about this excerpt from a Washington Examiner interview other than, "*headdesk*". Mitt Romney: I do believe in basic science. I believe in participating in space. I b...
06:02 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
3D printed guitar
Rachel sez, Olaf Diegel, professor of mechatronics at Massey University in Auckland, New Zealand has been leading the charge in a new way of creating instruments: 3D Printing. Although there are plent...
06:01 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
How to turn your cars ashtray into a smartphone dock
Jason Torchinsky of Jalopnik shows how to turn your car’s ashtray into a smartphone dock I hardly know anyone who still smokes and pretty much everyone I know has a little computer in the form o...
05:45 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Cheetah cub and puppy are BFFs!
My friend Michelle Curley runs online media for the Cincinnati Zoo. This is what she saw when she arrived at work today. "Best morning of my Zoo career!" she said. Photo from Michelle's @CincinnatiZoo...
05:28 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Astronauts fix the Space Station with a toothbrush
When NASA's Sunita Williams and Japanese astronaut Akihiko Hoshide couldn't seem to get a bolt attached to the outside of the space station, ground crews came up with a clever solution: Fix the proble...
05:21 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
A radio telescope built of recycled satellite dishes
Sometime in the mid-2020s, the world's most powerful radio telescope will open in South Africa. Called the Square Kilometer Array, it will be used to learn about the formation of the first stars and g...
04:56 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Why Barack Obama lost Science Debate 2012
On Tuesday, I linked to the results of the 2012 Science Debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. I chose to focus in on one of Romney's answers, where he acknowledges that climate change is real, ...
04:12 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Can't Kate McKinnon just be the one and only Kate McKinnon?
I love covering awesome comedians. I happen to have a soft spot for the lady ones since I have attempted to be a lady comedian myself. But you know what really gets my knickers in a twist? (And it's c...
04:11 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Adobe releases its first freeopen type family
Adobe has released a free/open typeface called Source Sans Pro. It's licensed under the SIL Open Font License, which is considered a free license by the Free Software Foundation. The font itself is be...
04:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Berners-Lee says no off switch for Internet, photo proves he's wrong
World Wide Web inventor Sir Tim Berners-Lee says there's no off switch for the Internet, but he's wrong. I found it and here's photographic proof. Anyway, I still like what he said at yesterday's Worl...
03:34 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo
Many thanks to Watchismo for sponsoring Boing Boing Blast, our once-daily delivery of headlines by email. Retrogadget watch pioneer Click Watches and Watchismo are proud to introduce the extremely lim...
03:24 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Shepard Fairey x Neil Young 'Americana' Box Set
Released today is the Shepard Faire/Neil Young sumptuous "Americana" box set. An edition of 200, it includes 12 signed and numbered prints, song lyric sheet, and a CD of the new Neil Young and Crazy H...
03:05 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
"I Fucking Love Science" and "Lost Wormhole" t-shirts
and I fucking love these new t-shirts from our friends at the Imaginary Foundation. Also available in this "Bonkers Collection" is a Charles Darwin "Chuck D: Natural Selecta" design. IF has kindly off...
03:02 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Travesty of the Day: The straight-to-DVD sequel to A Christmas Story
So, I don't like to make a career out of snarking on things. I prefer to focus on things that don't make me want to break an expensive piece of technology or kill the entire internet with fire. And it...
02:50 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
New record for quantum teleportation
"Physicists at the University of Vienna and the Austrian Academy of Sciences have achieved quantum teleportation over a record distance of 143 km. The experiment is a major step towards satellite-base...
02:47 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Man's Search For Happiness
[Video Link] Philosophy departments around the world are throwing their ontology books away, replacing them with this video, which answers all questions about existence and the meaning of life. (Via C...
02:20 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Water bear hunter (video)
[Video Link] If Boing Boing had a mascot animal, it would probably be the tardigrade. As you aware, tardigrades (the scientific name is water bear) came to Earth from outer space. [Video Link] Spaced ...
02:14 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Ransom & Mitchell's phantasmagoric photo narratives, San Francisco show
I've posted many times about the genius of Stacey Ransom and Jason Mitchell (Purebred Studio) whose phantasmagoric photo illustrations are like pages from a living comic book. Stacey builds incredibly...
02:09 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Cheetah robot runs 28.3 mph
[Video Link] Eric Weinhoffer says: "Boston Dynamics have improved their Cheetah bot. It can now run faster than 28 mph, and still doesn't have a head. They push it to the limit at the 55 second point....
02:04 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Videos from H2K2 hacker convention online
Emmanuel Goldstein from 2600 Magazine sez, "H2K2 was an historic hacker conference that took place in 2002 in New York City. It happened a mere 10 months after 9/11 shook the city and changed the coun...
01:49 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Seattle's mystery hum
Residents of West Seattle are reporting on the return of a mysterious hum that was first heard several years ago. Apparently, the hum shifts in frequency, goes away and then returns. The West Seattle ...
01:24 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
US Rep. Jared Polis's DNC speech
[Video Link] Here's Boing Boing T-shirt owner Rep. Jared Polis giving a great speech at the Democratic National Convention about respecting diversity. See also: Happy Mutant Congressman has at least t...
01:00 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Patrick Warburton has provided some deliciously vague non-hints about the upcoming season of The Venture Bros.
Be still my Venture-fan heart -- Patrick Warburton, who voices career assassin-slash-bodyguard Brock Samson on Adult Swim's The Venture Bros., was approached at an event promoting the syndication of h...
12:25 pm PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
4chan gets real about software
4chan, the Internet's long-time dumping ground and butt of many a joke, isgetting serious about softwareby making their biggest public-facing code change in nearly a decade, introducing an API and a b...
11:31 am PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Charlie Stross and Cory at Brooklyn's MakerBot BotCave TONIGHT!
Hey, Brooklynites and assorted New Yorkers! Charlie Stross and I will be at MakerBot's BotCave TONIGHT at 7PM (MakerBot Headquarters, 314 Dean Street, Brooklyn, NY 11217)! There are party favors, exci...
09:52 am PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Immortal Lycathropes: Required reading for budding happy mutants and their grownups
Hal Johnson's Immortal Lycanthropes is a YA novel unlike any other. It's the story of Myron Horowitz, a horribly disfigured amnesiac orphan whose nice adoptive parents can't protect him from the savag...
09:52 am PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Immortal Lycanthropes: Required reading for budding happy mutants and their grownups
Hal Johnson's Immortal Lycanthropes is a YA novel unlike any other. It's the story of Myron Horowitz, a horribly disfigured amnesiac orphan whose nice adoptive parents can't protect him from the savag...
04:21 am PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Dazzling, baffling Zardoz trailer
I remember watching Zardoz, but having watched this trailer I am now completely baffled as to what it was about....
12:48 am PDT - Thu, September 6, 2012
BoingBoing
Little Face Mitt launches video appeal
FreezePaint made a video version of the Little Face Mitt meme. Sleep tight, America....
11:12 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Ubisoft drops its crappiest DRM, dodges all the interesting questions
Game maker Ubisoft has dropped its notorious DRM requirement that all games must be played on computers that are continuously connected to the Internet, even for single-player modes. This comes after ...
10:37 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Prince Ea's song explains to Obama why he should end the war on cannabis
[Video Link] Tony Newman (director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance) says: I love people who can educate and politicize in creative and entertaining ways. Prince Ea -- hip hop artist, ac...
09:55 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Bill Barminski's cardboard art show
[Video Link] The great Bill Barminski has an art show called This End Up: Cardboard Sculpture And Other Stuff. It opens September 8th, 2012 at Robert Berman Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. Here are a coupl...
07:50 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Watch the Sun "burp"
Check out this great NASA video showing a coronal mass ejection—a burst of plasma thrown off the surface of the Sun—from several different perspectives. It happened on August 31 and it's r...
07:47 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
A long stripper pole
Diplo - Set It Off feat. Lazerdisk Party Sex from Pomp&Clout on Vimeo. Illustrator Bob Staake says: "Thought you might enjoy taking at look at my son Ryan's new video for Diplo. Nice to see that a...
07:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Fixbot: an open source hardware pet arm!
Meet the Fixbot! It's a sweet open source hardware robotic arm that uses a blob of Sugru putty on its tip to help you repair stuff. And it waves bye-bye at you when you pet it! We have some great news...
06:56 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Are pesticides evil, or awesome?
Are pesticides helpful things that allow us to produce more food, and keep us safe from deadly diseases? Or are they dangerous things that kill animals and could possibly be hurting us in ways we have...
06:41 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
White Sands Missile Range Museum and National Park
Unknown Fields (UF) is a design studio, originating in Londons Architectural Association, that "ventures out on annual expeditions to the ends of the earth exploring unreal and forgotten landscapes, a...
06:27 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Is Homestuck the Ulysses of the internet?
[Video Link] Here's the latest video from PBS Digital Studio's excellent "Idea Channel" web series. It's about the 5,000-page (and growing!) webcomic Homestuck. You might not think that a 265,000&plus...
06:19 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Why SF movies make me insane
My latest Locus column is "Why Science Fiction Movies Drive Me Nuts," in which I propose that the reason the science in sf movies is so awful is that they're essentially operas about technology. The r...
06:13 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Wikipedia Edit-a-Thon at the library of the Royal Society
Wikipedia's entries on women in the sciences are lacking. The Royal Society has an extensive collection of original sources documenting the work of women in the sciences. On October 19, the nail will ...
06:08 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Secret service code names
According to GQ, Paul Ryan's secret service code name is Bowhunter and Mitt Romney is Javelin. Time magazine follows up with a selection of other secret service code names from political history. Pres...
06:04 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Drew Friedman's portrait of Superman creators Siegel and Shuster
Drew Friedman says: I just wanted to share my latest portrait of Jerome Siegel and Joseph Shuster, the creators of Superman. This is the latest in the series of portraits I'm creating of "Legends of t...
06:01 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Introducing Elfquest at Boing Boing!
It's my great pleasure to welcome Wendy and Richard Pini to Boing Boing, where they'll be publishing the next chapter of their long-running fantasy epic Elfquest—online-first for the first time!...
05:54 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Army Day!
Keep an eye out for crocodiles -- the islands of the South Pacific are teeming with them....
05:41 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Marshall home stereo
Marshall Headphones & Amplification have launched their first home audio product, an active loudspeaker that (surprise) looks just like a guitar amp. The Hanwell, named for the London location of...
05:19 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
CNN suppresses its own award-winning doc on human rights abuses in Bahrain; has commercial ties to the regime
CNN sent its investigative correspondent Amber Lyon to produce an expensive documentary on the Arab Spring, including human rights abuses in Bahrain. Lyon and her crew were violently detained by Bahra...
05:14 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
At sea for science
The Joides Resolution is a large boat—more than 450 feet long and almost 70 feet wide. That's small compared to a lot of cruise ships, but big enough to house and feed and provide work space for...
04:33 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Update: Jim Carrey has reportedly accepted the role of Colonel Stars in Kick-Ass 2
In an update to a previous story, Jim Carrey is definitely going to play Colonel Stars in Kick-Ass 2: Balls to the Wall. Apparently, according to Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar, informal talks with Carr...
04:31 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Del Close tribute in Los Angeles on Saturday
This Saturday, September 8th 8PM, at the Fanatic Salon, Betty Thomas seeks to answer one of the enduring questions of improv: "Who was Del Close?" Every student of Del, myself included, has their shar...
03:50 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Burning Man's Temple of Remembrance
Ian Alexander Norman contributed his long-exposure pic of this year's Temple of Remembrance at Burning Man to the Boing Boing Flickr pool. The Temple is a huge, ornate structure that burners fill up w...
03:10 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Model boats will explore contaminated New York City waterway
The Newtown Creek Armada preview from Newtown Creek Armada on Vimeo. Nathan Kensinger is an artist "whose work explores hidden urban landscapes, off-limits structures, and other liminal spaces." He to...
03:03 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Trailer for Dead Europe
[Video Link] Dead Europe, a new movie by Tony Krawitz, is premiering at the 2012 Toronto International Film on Friday. Dead Europe, from the producers of Shame and Animal Kingdom, is a tense and moody...
02:43 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Help Anil Dash give a whole village clean water
It's Anil Dash's 37th birthday, and he's asking his friends and fans to donate $37 to charity:water, to provide clean water for a whole village. His post gives the background on this: he grew up playi...
02:41 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Explorer Ed Stafford chronicles deadly journey of Walking the Amazon (excerpt)
Here's an exclusive excerpt from Walking the Amazon: 860 Days. One Step at a Time. by Ed Stafford. In April 2008, Ed Stafford embarked on a journey to become the first person to walk the entire length...
02:27 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
The secret history of the St. Louis Post Office and its amazing pneumatic tube
In 1905, the St. Louis post office built a two-mile pneumatic tube system to deliver mail between the train station and the post office. It was expensive to maintain ($17,000 per year per mile of tube...
02:02 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Michael Jai White gets his own action franchise
Have you ever seen Black Dynamite? Even if you haven't, just trust me on this. (And also see Black Dynamite.) While that movie was a spoof of blaxploitation films, its star, Michael Jai White, legitim...
02:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
HOWTO protect yourself from ATM skimmers
Brian Krebs, who has written many excellent investigative pieces on ATM skimmers, spent several hours watching footage seized from hidden skimmer cameras, and has concluded that covering your hand whi...
01:38 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique recreated and remixed
Musicians DJ Food, Cheeba, and Moneyshot spent three years recreating the Beastie Boys masterful Paul's Boutique from "all the original samples plus a cappellas, period interviews and the Beasties own...
01:26 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Woman arrested four times in 26 hours
This is Joyce Coffey who was arrested four times in 26 hours last week. Reportedly, the first three times were for playing loud music, including AC/DC's "Highway to Hell." The final time was after she...
01:00 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
YouTube blocks clip of Michelle Obama's DNC speech on copyright grounds
A YouTube clip of Michelle Obama's DNC speech, embedded on BarackObama.com, was blocked due to a copyright complaint "from WMG, SME, Associated Press (AP), UMG, Dow Jones, New York Times Digital, The ...
12:41 pm PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Today in amazing casting news: Bryan Cranston is coming to 30 Rock
Man, Bryan Cranston is popping up everywhere these days! First, he was seen directing an episode of NBC's The Office for its final season. And now, he'll appear on camera for another show entering its...
11:46 am PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Act today to stop the Daily Mail's campaign to establish opt-out censorship in the UK
A group of UK MPs, the Daily Mail and religious pressure groups are pushing for a law that would require all new Internet subscribers to opt out of an unaccountable censorwall, which will silently blo...
11:09 am PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Stolen wallet recovered 40 years later is a miniature time-capsule
A 2011 piece from the NYT's David W. Dunlap tells the story of the recovery of a long-lost wallet that was stolen from a Times art director in 1970, and which was recovered from "a void between an old...
10:00 am PDT - Wed, September 5, 2012
BoingBoing
Be My Enemy: triumphant sequel to Planesrunner
Today marks the publication of Be My Enemy, the absolutely triumphant sequel to Ian McDonald's pulse-pounding young-adult science fiction novel Planesrunner. Planesrunner -- a rollicking, multidimensi...
09:35 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Writing an edgy comic? Don't forget to include whatever fetish we posted about last month
Reading or writing an edgy comic? Be sure to play Edgy Comic Bingo, by Cathy Leamy, who creates comics herself and knows a thing or two about getting linked to. Click through for the full NSFW card. A...
08:26 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The history and science of meringue, from a new book by Linda K. Jackson and Jennifer Evan Gardner
My friend Jen Gardner has co-written a gorgeous recipe book called Meringue, which is all about the featherweight delicacy that turns desserts into works of art. I asked Jen if I could include an exce...
08:26 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The history and science of meringue, from a new book by Linda K. Jackson and Jennifer Evans Gardner
My friend Jen Gardner has co-written a gorgeous recipe book called Meringue, which is all about the featherweight delicacy that turns desserts into works of art. I asked Jen if I could include an exce...
07:55 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Your cellphone is a tracking device that lets you make calls
Just in case you had any doubts about how much of a security risk your mobile phone presents, have a read of Jacob Appelbaum's interview with N+. Jake's with both the Tor and Wikileaks projects, ...
07:20 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
From XKCD, a swell turn of phrase
As neglected as the nine button on a microwave....
06:59 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Fun commercial for Sugru repair putty
[Video Link] This is a cute commercial for Sugru, the delightful moldable repair compound that I use to fix suitcase zippers, dishwasher rollers, headphone strain reliefs, and many other things around...
06:45 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Chris Ware art show in Chicago and NYC
Peggy Burns of Drawn & Quarterly wrote about two concurrent art shows taking place in Chicago and New York in conjunction with the release of Chris Ware's graphic novel, Building Stories. I've be...
06:15 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Taschen announces $1000 Robert Crumb sketchbook set
I love R. Crumb's sketchbooks. I have three of them, which are facsimile editions of his sketchbooks from the 60s and 70s. I paid about $100 per volume. This six volume set for Taschen is $1000. It lo...
06:08 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Gweek 066: Happier at Home, by Gretchen Rubin
Click here to play this episode. Gweek is Boing Boing's podcast about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My guest today is ...
06:04 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
NFL fans deal with watching the best game ever -- and the concussion crisis that comes with it
As a football fan, it's always painful to hear the increasing number of stories about players sustaining head injuries that range from your standard (but still dangerous) concussions to chronic trauma...
05:53 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Compelling bad news about the economy
Ian Welsh writes on Naked Capitalism with 21 dismal and compelling "basics" about the economy and the so-called "recovery." 7) Europe, ex. Germany, is in recession. 8 ) the developed world is in depre...
05:13 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The Dot and the Line (1965)
The Dot and the Line, Chuck Jones/MGM's classic 1965 Oscar-winning short film based on Norton Juster's 1963 book The Dot and the Line: A Romance in Lower Mathematics inspired by Edwin Abbott Abbott's ...
04:50 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
On the terminal nature of copyright licenses
A fine observation from the clever Kevin Marks, about the fact that your "license" to use you DRM media (ebooks, games, music) expires when you die: "How is it that copyright lasts 70 years after deat...
04:18 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Help name an asteroid!
In 2016, NASA will launch OSIRIS-REx, an unmanned mission to an astroid called 1999 RQ36. It is, to say the least, not the most inspiringly named object in space. That's why MIT, the University of Ari...
04:02 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Crononauta: stylized photos of Brazil's abandoned public clocks
Brazilian artist Diego Kuffer writes, " I have a new series of photos called 'Chrononaut'. It's about how experience shapes the way we perceive the world and reality. Also, it pictures public clocks i...
03:59 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The best cat video on the Internet
That is a high claim, I know. But over Labor Day weekend, a combination of dedicated curation and popular vote resulted in Henri 2, Paw de Deux being named the best Internet cat video. The Internet Ca...
03:37 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again": just the bass
My pal John Curley, bassist for the newly-reformed Afghan Whigs, tweeted the above video of The Who's John Entwistle playing bass on "Won't Get Fooled Again." No, that's not an epic solo. That's the i...
03:35 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Great depressing moments in history: Philippe Lebon and the streetlights of Paris
At his blog, Kafka's Mouse, author P.D. Smith details the history of lighting infrastructure in cities—a story that begins with the dawn of gas lights. London was the first city to get gas-power...
03:15 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Wind farms aren't a major cause of bird deaths
It's hard to say how many birds are killed by collisions with wind turbines. The high end of the estimates top out around 450,000 birds each year in the United States. But even that doesn't come close...
03:15 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The Sweet Wines You Shoop
St. James Winery has armed itself with a copy of photoshop. [Hat tip: reck]...
02:41 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Mitt Romney: Climate change is real, but addressing it would be wrong
Science Debate is a group that's working to get political candidates in the United States actually talking publicly about issues of science and technology policy. In 2008, they tried (and failed) to g...
02:29 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The cast of Mad Men "sing" Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up"
I post this not just because it's the cast of AMC's Mad Men performing Rick Astley's famous Rick-rolling anthem one word at a time, but also because of the sheer man hours spent looking for each word ...
02:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Demonic sigils in handy form
Here's all the demonic summoning symbols you're likely to use on a daily basis, in handy flashcard form. All you need to do is print it up and stick it over your monitor, so it's handy when you need i...
01:53 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Man who excels at carnival games donates more than a quarter million stuffed animals to kids
[Video Link] The story behind the video is here. The winning YouTube comment, if you're a Breaking Bad fan (mild Season 5 spoiler alert)... when he opens the storage at 1:35 all I was thinking was: Sk...
01:46 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Climate change allows 3 explorers to boldly sail where no man has sailed before
The three-man crew of the 31-foot Belzebub II, a fiberglass sailboat "with a living space the size of a bathroom," told the world today how they sailed through the MClure Strait in northern Canada, a ...
01:38 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
The story behind that viral video of an autistic boy receiving electroshock "therapy"
New York Magazine has a feature out about the Judge Rotenberg Center (formerly the Behavior Research Institute), a controversial institution that was recently targeted by Anonymous when a video showin...
01:13 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Time to freak out: An Evil Dead dress that gives you a chainsaw for a hand
Every once in a while, I come across an Etsy site that I feel should make a million dollars a day. (Like Pica Pica Press, the Etsy store that might have first existed in one of my own dreams, and then...
01:08 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Strange superhero Flaming Carrot goes digital
The 1980s had many surreal and outr comic-book stars. I recall particularly following The Tick, Concrete, and Nexus. They were respectively a nigh-invulnerable, possibly mentally ill superhero with a ...
12:30 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
To do in NYC, Sep. 8, 2012: Celebrate John Cage's love of foraged wild mushrooms
Photo: mushrooms, by Damon Lapas, shared in BB Flickr Pool Snip from the NYT: To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the New York Mycological Society and the 100th birthday of the composer John Cage, it...
12:28 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Darth Vader onesie
There's tons of stuff in the Boing Boing Shop -- so much that I sometimes find links to stuff elsewhere that make me think, "Hey, I should blog that" just before I realize "Hey, that's from us!" Case ...
12:24 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Actor Michael Clarke Duncan dies at 54
This year has been filled with sad goodbyes, but this is a particularly sad one. Michael Clarke Duncan, the former bouncer who made good and became an Academy Award nominee for his work in Frank Darab...
12:18 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Why oversimplified science news headlines may not be healthier for you
Here's why I wish SEO didn't factor into science news: it encourages headline writers to tart up the findings of studies beyond recognition, and away from more boring truths. Case in point, this NPR i...
12:00 pm PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Mr. Magic, The Juice Crew, and Spyder D
Read the rest of the Hip Hop Family Tree comics!...
11:20 am PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Jobs reincarnated
The late Apple co-founder and CEO Steve Jobs has been reincarnated as a handsome warrior-philosopher in a mystical palace floating over Cupertino, a state of affairs that the Wall Street Journal repor...
11:06 am PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Better services, less piracy
John Brownlee on why he stopped pirating music: Its clear to me, in retrospect, that my piracy was mostly mere collecting, and like the most fetishistic of collectors, it was conducted with mindless v...
10:14 am PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Legends of Zita the Space Girl: a worthy followup to the most excellent kids' science fiction graphic novel
Back in June, I reviewed the delightful science fiction kids' comic Zita the Spacegirl and mentioned that the sequel would be out in September. That sequel, Legends of Zita the Spacegirl, comes out to...
10:02 am PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Cory and Charlie Stross coming to Lexington tomorrow; then Brooklyn, Brookline and Rochester
Tomorrow morning, Charlie Stross and I kick off our tour for Rapture of the Nerds tour, with stops in Lexington, KY; Brooklyn, NY: Brookline, MA; and Rochester, NY. Be there or be left behind!...
09:58 am PDT - Tue, September 4, 2012
BoingBoing
Tuesday linkdump
* The Haunted Clock: outstanding analysis of all the clever that went into the chiming-13 grandfather clock in Disney's Haunted Mansions. Bonus trivia: a Simpsons animator is a former HM butler, and s...
02:00 pm PDT - Mon, September 3, 2012
BoingBoing
TOM THE DANCING BUG: Mitt Romney Repudiates President Roosevelt's Fear of Syrup Shelves
FOLLOW @RubenBolling on Twitter. Further: JOIN Tom the Dancing Bug's INNER HIVE and receive untold BENEFITS and PRIVILEGES!...
02:36 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
Victoria Jackson plays Theres a Communist Living in the White House! on her ukulele
[Video Link] Here's Victoria Jackson playing “There’s a Communist Living in the White House!” on her gorgeous Martin baritone ukulele. (Via CN) U900 plays "Ben" on UkuleleZooey Desch...
02:05 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
Home brew at the White House
Sam Kass, White House Assistant Chef and the Senior Policy Advisor for Healthy Food Initiatives, blogs two recipes and a great story. "Inspired by home brewers from across the country, last year Presi...
02:00 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
Two fun little videos from Burning Man
Comedian, video curator, and filmmaker Mark Day of YouTube went to Burning Man this year on a last-minute whim, and shot some neat video vignettes: About this video, he explains, "At Burning Man 2012,...
01:13 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
1967 JPL employment ad, remixed: now with more Mars Curiosity "Mohawk Guy"
Hahah! Boing Boing reader William Jaspers saw the 1967 ad for jobs at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory I posted yesterday, which ran in Scientific American—and with a little help from Photoshop,...
12:53 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
A Super Mario cat in a mushroom hat
Wearing lavender sunglasses (well, for a little while). [Video Link]. From Shironekoshiro's YouTube channel, a daily source of cute comfort in my life....
12:39 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
John Cage turns 100 this week. Celebrate silently for four minutes, thirty-three seconds.
On Wednesday, September 5, 2012, the late composer and music theorist John Cage would have turned 100. Here's a list of events around the world commemorating his life and work....
12:19 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
An airship boom in Southern California
Photo: the Aeroscraft in a hangar in CA. Image: Worldwide Aeros, Inc. In the Los Angeles Times, an article about an aerospace industry boom of sorts in Southern California, involving new twists on an ...
12:02 pm PDT - Sun, September 2, 2012
BoingBoing
China: 770 pounds of eggs spilled from truck cause mad scramble (video)
From Beijing Cream blog: In Zhengzhou, Henan province on Thursday morning, a man in a motorized three-wheel wagon was a bit eager at a yellow light, according to a witness, and crashed into another ve...
01:17 pm PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
"Cannibal! The Musical," Matt and Trey's musical before "Book of Mormon" (video)
Pesco blogged earlier about the news that weirdo indie film purveyors Troma are releasing 150 full-length movies on YouTube, for free. One of them is Cannibal! The Musical (1993), an awesomely awful f...
01:11 pm PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Economix: terrific cartoon history of economics
One of my favorite books is Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. With simple comic art, McCloud presents the history of sequential comics, and how they work. It's as much about psychology as it is ab...
01:00 pm PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Comics Rack: Boing Boing's comics picks for September
Its September, and what better way to mark back to school season than with a little bit of mind-rotting comic bookery? Well try to keep the grey matter melting to a minimum with the following selectio...
12:42 pm PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Caturday: kitten is hogging the TV remote
Boing Boing reader Benjamin G. Levy, a Mac computing consultant based in Los Angeles, shot and shared this photo in the Boing Boing Flickr pool. Happy Caturday....
12:36 pm PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Late '60s ad for space jobs at NASA JPL
A late-1960s ad that ran in Scientific American, scanned and shared in the Boing Boing Flickr pool by fdecomite. The look is true to Mad Men, and the copy is true to life: I bet the Mars Curiosity tea...
10:28 am PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Drugs: Without the Hot Air, now in the USA!
I wrote last June about Drugs: Without the Hot Air, the best book on drug policy I've read, written by David Nutt, the UK drug czar who was fired because he refused to bow to political pressure to rep...
02:21 am PDT - Sat, September 1, 2012
BoingBoing
Former IBM Japan president questioned over upskirt filming
Japan Today: A former president of IBM Japan has been questioned by police after allegedly filming up the skirt of an unsuspecting woman in a train station, local media reported Thursday. Takuma Otosh...
11:52 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
TONX coffee, video shopping, and Pesco's wife
Joyus is an online retail start-up where the stories of the products (from a mix of smaller indie makers and larger brands) are told through videos. My wife Kelly Sparks is fashion director there. The...
07:42 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Astonishing cigarette magic
Masterful cigarette magic by Cyril Takayama....
07:24 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Troma Entertainment: 150 free films on YouTube
Legendary psychotronic film studio Troma Entertainment, maker of such cinematic masterpieces as The Toxic Avenger, Class of Nuke'em High, and Redneck Zombies, has put 150 movies (including some classi...
06:42 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Rushkoff: Apply for a Codecademy Fellowship!
Our dear pal Douglas Rushkoff says: I've been at Codecademy, the free online code school, as "Codevangelist in Residence" for two weeks now, and I'm as inspired and future-focused as I was the first t...
06:30 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Fleetwood Mac: "Rhiannon" live, 1976
Continuing to fuel my rekindled love affair with Fleetwood Mac's California cocaine trilogy is this scorching version of "Rhiannon" live on The Midnight Special, June 11, 1976. The original track is f...
06:27 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
"Ready Player One" DeLorean prize awarded
Author Ernest Cline was on G4's X-Play this week to give away a fully-restored DeLorean to Craig Queen, the person who won the Easter egg contest that was hidden in the print copies of his novel, Read...
06:04 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Dominique Pruitt "To Win Your Love" music video
[Video Link] In July I posted a link to songstress Dominique Pruitt's "To Win Your Love." As I said, her work has a great 50s and 60s vibe. Here's a video for her song, "To Win Your Love," which will ...
05:40 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Yurei Attack! The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide
[Video Link] Here's the highly polished trailer for a very cool book I received this week, called Yurei Attack! The Japanese Ghost Survival Guide Yurei is the Japanese word for "ghost." It's as simple...
03:59 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
How tracking down a stolen computer triggered a drug bust
Over at MAKE, we've got an interesting story about computers stolen from a MAKE employee's car during Maker Faire Detroit, which led to a drug bust. Have you ever had something stolen? Your heart sink...
03:13 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Controlled demolition of unexploded WWII bomb in Munich
During WWII the allies dropped millions upon millions of tons of explosives upon Germany; to halt German war production. Its not infrequent for German authorities to remove, destroy or incapacitate ol...
02:28 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Toca Boca music video
A fun and infectious music video from our friends at Toca Boca, developer of apps for kids. It appears to be a teaser for an upcoming title....
01:58 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Advice to the poor, from world's richest woman: "spend less time drinking"
Are you broke? Can't pay the bills or feed your family, despite holding down one or more jobs you hate? Can't get a job because there are no jobs to be gotten? Australian mining tycoon Gina Rinehart, ...
12:24 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Woman dies after police kick her in the genitals; LAPD now investigating 'Questionable Tactics'
A drug-addicted woman who dropped off her two children at a police station because she recognized that she was unable to care for them was tracked down by LAPD officers who reportedly told her to "get...
12:06 pm PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Passing the Drum (video)
[Video Link] The 30 Days Ramadan guys have put out a wonderful new short film in their series of profiles on Muslim life in America. This one was directed by Zeshawn Ali, and focuses on a father-son l...
11:51 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Things that almost make you want to go back to school
A new trend: Colleges offering chemistry cooking classes as an undergraduate science course....
11:44 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
The shape your beer mug might help explain why you get drunk so fast
In a recent study at the University of Bristol, young people drank beer faster when it was served to them in a curved, fluted glass. It's a small study, but the researchers think it could be a first c...
11:44 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
The shape of your beer mug might help explain why you get drunk so fast
In a recent study at the University of Bristol, young people drank beer faster when it was served to them in a curved, fluted glass. It's a small study, but the researchers think it could be a first c...
11:40 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Bikram Choudhury, yoga's biggest asshole, squares off for a copyright showdown
I missed this great piece in the LA Weekly from a few weeks back about yogi blowhard Bikram Choudhury. Short version: Bikram is basically the Walter White of yoga. And I'm talking Season 5 Walter Whit...
11:30 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Building an indoor hurricane at the University of Miami
This is how Hurricane Isaac looked on Tuesday, as it made landfall on America's Gulf Coast. If you've never been to the Gulf of Mexico, here is a key fact you should know: The water there is warm. Whi...
11:20 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Shit White People Do, part umptybillion: "Les Indes galantesLes Sauvages" (video)
[Video Link] BB Community moderator Antinous (the person who nukes your comments at Boing Boing when you act like a dick) plucked this gem from the jaws of YouTube and says, I could watch this a hundr...
11:06 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Seed artists support marriage equality
I've written here before about seed art at the Minnesota State Fair. Every year, Minnesotans glue thousands of tiny seeds to heavy backing material to create some surprisingly elaborate examples of po...
10:40 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Meet your face mites!
"Everything you never wanted to know about the mites that eat, crawl, and have sex on your face". How can you say, "No", to that headline? Ed Yong has a great post up today at Not Exactly Rocket Scien...
10:28 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Insane, true energy fact of the day
Exit signs are so ubiquitous that they're almost invisible. Every public building has them. In fact, they are so common that, taken together, these little signs consume a surprisingly large amount of ...
08:41 am PDT - Fri, August 31, 2012
BoingBoing
Indie Capitalism relies on crowdsand you can do it too
Dan Provost and Tom Gerhardt are enthusiastic fellows. The makers of the Glif iPhone tripod adapter and Cosmonaut stylus for capacitive touch screens, you can't help but get a contact high from the jo...