In a lifetime

The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-31T06:13:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Robert Anton Wilson talks at a Mondo 2000 event in 1988
Crowdfunding exemption - WeFunder and other Senate nudging
On Booth Babes
Project Unbreakable
Did a UK fashion marketer rip off logo for iconic punk band CRASS?
Stereogranimator: transform historical stereographs from NYPL archives into animated gifs and 3d images
VA state senator attaches rectal exam amendment to anti-abortion bill
First World Cat Problems
Object Breast Cancer: visualizing tumors through art
Crabby frog
John Scalzi introduces his 13-year-old daughter to an LP
Junk-market door as a desk/table/streetdoor
Dad and kids play Depeche Mode
eBay: "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" vintage cover photo
Canadians from all corners of industry, culture, education, law and civil society oppose Canada's SOPA
Ken Hollings lectures on John Cage
Psychotronic generators, pi-rays, Egyptology, and orgone accumulators
Dog delivers receipts to customers at vet's office (video)
Meet Mexican tattoo diva "La Mujer Vampira," Maria Jose Cristerna
Young woman can say any word backwards, instantly (video)
Rupert Murdoch's Mind, 140 at a time
Strange blue gelatinous balls fall from sky
Patrick Farley is back: "The First Word" webcomic explains language's origin
Attorney General set to destroy tens of millions of users' legitimate MegaUpload files
Game clones swarm Facebook
Ex-LAPD deputy chief wins Ask Obama contest with pro-drug-legalization question
"Worlds Largest Emerald" fails to attract bid at auction
Oh Shit! images of overmatched, imminent failure
Gweek 037: Donald Duck is High on Arrival
3D printed Hilbert curve as scrunchie

Robert Anton Wilson talks at a Mondo 2000 event in 1988

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 31, 2012 04:16 am

As part of his Mondo 2000 History Project, R.U. Sirius uploaded a couple of Robert Anton Wilson recordings from a Reality Hackers Forum from 1988. He writes: I can’t remember if having RAW give a lecture titled “The CIA-Vatican-Cocaine Conspiracy” was his idea or ours. I think it was our idea based on the fact ...
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Crowdfunding exemption - WeFunder and other Senate nudging

By Paul Spinrad on Jan 31, 2012 03:35 am

Should non-millionaires be able to invest small amounts, like up to $100 or $1000, in small, local businesses or other ventures that they believe in, without the ventures having to spend tens of thousands (or more) on state or federal securities compliance? I believe so, provided that the offerings can be seen and discussed openly, ...
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On Booth Babes

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 31, 2012 12:12 am

Tech writer Glenn Fleishman doesn't mind attractive people trying to get him to pay attention to their products. But "companies that rely on models whose various assets are stress-testing spandex or exposed to air are trying so hard that they fail, he writes in an opinion piece at TidBITS today. "Not all attention is good, ...
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Project Unbreakable

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 31, 2012 12:05 am

Grace Brown created "Project Unbreakable" in October, 2011, and the tumblog appears to really be gathering momentum. The idea: "Use photography to help heal those who were sexually abused by asking them to write a quote from their attacker on a poster and photographing them holding the poster." So many stories from so many different ...
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Did a UK fashion marketer rip off logo for iconic punk band CRASS?

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 11:48 pm

At left, the CRASS logo, first seen in the mid-1970s. Center and right, a recent design for the UK garment retailer "Hardware," which appears to have repurposed the CRASS logo after 35 years of prior use, and crassly so. Punk News says the band and their label are aware of it. More at exclaim.ca, and ...
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Stereogranimator: transform historical stereographs from NYPL archives into animated gifs and 3d images

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 11:21 pm

Above, "Dixon crossing Niagara below the Great Cantilever Bridge," U.S.A., 1895-1903. And you can make your own, with Stereogranimator, a new project from NYPL Labs. Stereogranimator is " a tool for transforming historical stereographs from The New York Public Library's vast collections into shareable 3D web formats." (thanks, Mikael Jorgensen!)
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VA state senator attaches rectal exam amendment to anti-abortion bill

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 10:29 pm

"To protest a bill that would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion, Virginia State Sen. Janet Howell (D-Fairfax) on Monday attached an amendment that would require men to have a rectal exam and a cardiac stress test before obtaining a prescription for erectile dysfunction medication." (thanks, Antinous!)
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First World Cat Problems

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 10:27 pm

I approve of this meme. (thanks, Antinous!)
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Object Breast Cancer: visualizing tumors through art

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 10:09 pm

Above, one of the bronze sculptures to emerge from the Object Breast Cancer project by art duo caraballo-farman. Snip from the project description: 1.3 Million women in the world are diagnosed with breast cancer each year. For most, the tumor has no image. It's an invisible monster, an unseen malignancy. OBJECT BREAST CANCER (OBC) is ...
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Crabby frog

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 30, 2012 09:28 pm

[Video Link] Three happy Boing Boing readers and one troll. (Via Arbroath)
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John Scalzi introduces his 13-year-old daughter to an LP

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 30, 2012 09:23 pm

[Video Link] Apparently, so many people thought this was staged that Scalzi disabled the YouTube comments and asked Athena for a comment.
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Junk-market door as a desk/table/streetdoor

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 09:12 pm

This table, from Italy's Manoteca, is made from a junk-market door and a lot of style: Made from a door found at a outdoor market in Modena, the table is outfitted with a custom steel frame and new hinges that enable the shutters to open and close at will. When flat, the table can accommodate ...
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Dad and kids play Depeche Mode

By David Pescovitz on Jan 30, 2012 09:02 pm

Joel Johnson turns us on to Dicken featuring Milah and Korben performing "Everything Counts" by Depeche Mode. This is fantastic. I just can't get enough. (See what I did there?)
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eBay: "Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children" vintage cover photo

By David Pescovitz on Jan 30, 2012 08:32 pm

My friend Randall de Rijk, noted collector of vernacular photographs, shares with us this absolutely magnificent snapshot used on the cover of Ransom Rigg's young adult novel Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. It has just sold on eBay for $600. The photo is far more beautiful and weird stripped of its recontextualisation as a ...
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Canadians from all corners of industry, culture, education, law and civil society oppose Canada's SOPA

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 06:56 pm

Michael Geist sez, "Throughout the fall, I ran a daily digital lock dissenter series, pointing to a wide range of organizations representing creators, consumers, businesses, educators, historians, archivists, and librarians who have issued policy statements that are at odds with the Canadian government's approach to digital locks in Bill C-11. While the series took a ...
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Ken Hollings lectures on John Cage

By David Pescovitz on Jan 30, 2012 06:54 pm

My friend Ken Hollings is a master at connecting the dots between avant garde art history, outré culture, weird science, and basically everything that interests me. You might recall that Ken is the author of the absolutely fantastic radio series and book "Welcome to Mars," about the "fantasy of science in the early years of ...
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Psychotronic generators, pi-rays, Egyptology, and orgone accumulators

By David Pescovitz on Jan 30, 2012 06:24 pm

Toys And Techniques posted several wonderful scans from Christopher Hills' fantastically-titled "Rays From The Capstone: The story of the psychotronic generator of the pi-ray and the incredible coffer." It was published in 1976 by the University of the Trees press. According to Amazon, Hills has written several books, including "Secrets of the Life Force," with ...
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Dog delivers receipts to customers at vet's office (video)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 06:20 pm

[Video Link] (thanks, Joe Sabia!)
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Meet Mexican tattoo diva "La Mujer Vampira," Maria Jose Cristerna

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 06:10 pm

Mexican tattoo star Maria Jose Cristerna, better known as "La Mujer Vampiro" (Female Vampire), poses during the Venezuela Tattoo Expo in Caracas, January 27, 2012. She is a 35-year-old attorney. 98 percent of her body is covered in tattoos. She also has prosthetic fangs, and platinum implants in her forehead. "The 'Vampire Woman' was not ...
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Young woman can say any word backwards, instantly (video)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 06:01 pm

"Alyssa Talking Backwards." (thanks, Joe Sabia!)
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Rupert Murdoch's Mind, 140 at a time

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 30, 2012 05:59 pm

NYT's David Carr, on the News Corporation CEO's foray into Twitter: "The rules of effective tweeting for business leaders are no different from the ones for us mere mortals who want to both express ourselves and remain employed: Don't be boring, don't curse, and for heaven's sake, don't always be shouting about how some junior ...
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Strange blue gelatinous balls fall from sky

By David Pescovitz on Jan 30, 2012 05:55 pm

Weird blue gelatinous balls, about 3cm in diameter, rained on Steve Hornsby, of Dorset, England during a hailstorm last week. He collected them in a jam jar and put them in his refrigerator. From the BBC: Josie Pegg, an applied science research assistant at Bournemouth University, speculated that the apparently strange phenomena might be "marine ...
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Patrick Farley is back: "The First Word" webcomic explains language's origin

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 05:16 pm

Patrick Farley is one of the greatest and most maddeningly irregular webcomics artists working today. We've been covering his work for a decade, and a new Farley is always cause for celebration. His latest, "The First Word," is no exception -- a fine, odd, beautifully realized story about the invention of language, one that tries ...
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Attorney General set to destroy tens of millions of users' legitimate MegaUpload files

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 04:44 pm

An attorney for MegaUpload -- which was shut down by the US government earlier this month, and whose assets have been frozen, following copyright complaints from the entertainment industry -- says that the US Attorney General is planning to destroy all its user data within a week. With its assets frozen, MegaUpload can no longer ...
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Game clones swarm Facebook

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 30, 2012 04:27 pm

Dean Takahashi on the relentlessness machinery of Zynga's game-cloning operation, whereby it minimally modifies others' work and sues those who treat it likewise. Nimblebit drew some blood last week when the developer of Tiny Tower cast a stone at Zynga, via an infographic, for copying Tiny Tower in an upcoming mobile game called Dream Heights. ...
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Ex-LAPD deputy chief wins Ask Obama contest with pro-drug-legalization question

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 04:10 pm

Tomangell sez, "A question advocating marijuana legalization from a retired LAPD deputy chief of police won twice as many votes as any other video question in the White House's 'Your Interview with the President' competition on YouTube this weekend. President Obama is slated to answer some of the top-voted questions on Monday." Cop's Marijuana Legalization ...
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"Worlds Largest Emerald" fails to attract bid at auction

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 30, 2012 03:23 pm

Who would pay $1.15m for a 57,500-carat emerald from a guy in an Ed Hardy shirt who admits dying the stone green, and who was arrested last week on unrelated fraud charges? No-one. [Vancouver Sun via Brendan Koerner]
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Oh Shit! images of overmatched, imminent failure

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 03:00 pm

Safwat sez, "'Oh Expletive!' is a series of clever illustrations by graphic designer Safwat Saleem, each depicting that 'Oh $@#!' moment familiar to anybody who's ever had the odds stacked against them. Except in this case, the odds are represented by awesome things like zombie attacks, unicorn swarms, 8-bit creatures, epic knife fights and more. ...
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Gweek 037: Donald Duck is High on Arrival

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 30, 2012 02:15 pm

Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My hosts on episode 37 are cartoonist Ruben Bolling, whose comic, Tom the Dancing Bug, premieres weekly on Boing Boing, and Dean Putney, ...
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3D printed Hilbert curve as scrunchie

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 02:07 pm

Wagner James Au writes in with novel uses for a 3D printed Hilbert curve like the one I blogged last week: "Mathematician Henry Segerman creates copies of a 3D printed Hilbert curve he originally made in Second Life which, thanks to its twisty material, can also be worn as a geekily fashionable hair accessory!" Fractal ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-30T06:11:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Hollywood: a corrupt empire, founded by pirates
"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": A collection of beloved collections
Mika explains Spiderman movie

Hollywood: a corrupt empire, founded by pirates

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 30, 2012 01:03 pm

Writing in the Toronto Sun tabloid, Alan Parker rails against the corruption of the entertainment industry, and the hypocrisy of the way that they've painted Kim Dotcom and MegaUpload: "The film corporations that were spawned by the very pirates and outlaws who created a hole-in-the-wall getaway hideout in Hollywood are now leading the charge to ...
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"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": A collection of beloved collections

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 30, 2012 01:00 pm

Last week, I asked BoingBoing readers to send me images and stories about your favorite museum exhibits—beloved displays and collections squirreled away in museums that might not have a big profile outside your state or region. The challenge was triggered by an awesome photo of a mummified Ice Age bison on display in Fairbanks, Alaska. ...
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Mika explains Spiderman movie

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 29, 2012 11:42 pm

[Video Link] I could listen to Mika explain movies all day long. Here's her take on Titanic and Inception, too.
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-29T06:03:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

HOWTO mix a grody-looking Alien Brain Hemorrhage cocktail
Jeff Meadows' funny painted shoes
Infographic: Hollywood's long war on technology
Papercraft Viewmaster and Etch-a-Sketch
Little Brother play, extended
Space-age Lestoil ad
Mini collapsing traffic cone from 3D printer
MPAA's number two admits industry "not comfortable" with the Internet
More cracks in YouTube's takedown process reveal how media giants and corporations get to claim copyright to things they don't own
Approximating the Hilbert curve with 3D printers

HOWTO mix a grody-looking Alien Brain Hemorrhage cocktail

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 29, 2012 05:08 am

This revolting thing is a cocktail called an "Alien Brain Hemorrhage": "To make an alien brain hemorrhage cocktail, fill a shot glass halfway with peach schnapps. Gently pour Bailey's Irish Cream on top. After the shot is almost full, carefully add a small amount of blue curacao. After it settles, add a few drops of ...
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Jeff Meadows' funny painted shoes

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2012 08:21 pm

Artist Jeff Meadows did a great custom paint job on his shoes! From an interview with him on Illustration Mundo.
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Infographic: Hollywood's long war on technology

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 08:13 pm

You know, when I was sitting down with entertainment execs on a regular basis to debate applied, practical technology choices in DRM standards bodies, their constant refrain was, "We love technology! We use it all the time!" The implication being that if they instigated a law prohibiting a technology it would not represent ignorance or ...
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Papercraft Viewmaster and Etch-a-Sketch

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 07:11 pm

Marshall Alexander made these free downloadable papercraft Etch-a-Sketch and Viewmaster models. He notes, "Instead of creating exact paper replica's I chose to do very simple interpretations that fit on a single page and are very easy to construct." Bright Red 1 and 2
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Little Brother play, extended

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 05:50 pm

The San Francisco Chronicle loves the stage adaptation of my novel Little Brother, and brings the welcome news that its run has been extended by two weeks!
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Space-age Lestoil ad

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 05:19 pm

From the Boing Boing Flickr Pool, this contribution by V.Valenti, showing a superb space-age Lestoil ad. Lestoil Woman of the Future, 1968.
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Mini collapsing traffic cone from 3D printer

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2012 04:42 pm

[Video Link] I was up at the MAKE offices earlier this week and saw this little traffic cone that the interns made on a MakerBot Cupcake 3D printer.
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MPAA's number two admits industry "not comfortable" with the Internet

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 04:17 pm

A great Mike Masnick Techdirt editorial deals with MPAA second-in-command Michael O'Leary's statement that, "[the Internet is] a platform we're not at this point comfortable with." The MPAA's O'Leary concedes that the industry was out-manned and outgunned in cyberspace. He says the MPAA "is [undergoing] a process of education, a process of getting a much, ...
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More cracks in YouTube's takedown process reveal how media giants and corporations get to claim copyright to things they don't own

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 03:14 pm

An unsigned rap group called After the Smoke couldn't post their song "One in a Million" to YouTube because every time they tried, it generated a YouTube content-match error saying that Universal Music owned their song. It turned out that UMG had laid claim to a leaked video that had a UMG artist performing the ...
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Approximating the Hilbert curve with 3D printers

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 02:06 pm

Thingiverse's Tony Buser has an amazing approach to approximating the Hilbert curve, as Make's Sean Ragan explains: Veteran Thingiverse user Tony Buser has printed a model (intended to be an approximation of the fractal Hilbert curve) using polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) as a support material. Once everything is printed and cooled, the PVA is dissolved away ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-28T06:01:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

WSJ's partisan approach to climate change vs. science
Using bundles of PVC pipes to make motion-blurred sculptures
Lego Moleskine notebooks
Twitter, partnering with Chillingeffects.org, publishes a year's worth of DMCA takedown notices (all 4,410 of them)
Nada Surf - "Waiting For Something" (MP3 download)
EFF: "What Does Twitter's Country-by-Country Takedown System Mean for Freedom of Expression?"
Best practices for fair use in libraries
Video for "Brothers," by The War on Drugs
Trailer for Ethos: the truth about the U.S. Government and its corrupt system
Klaus Schulze, live Moog madness from 1977
Here's the utterly inconsequential recording that resulted in NZ PM John Key ordering raids on the free press
LA airport security scare caused by TSA mistaking insulin pump for gun
Those racist, crazy 1990s Ron Paul newsletters? He signed off on every single one, associates say
The Great Hall of Hams
Art Spiegelman exhibition in Angouleme, France
Anti-aging mouthpiece
RePress: a WordPress plugin for proxying around national firewalls
FBI to increase monitoring of Twitter and Facebook, seeks help building new surveillance app
Hubble Space Telescope power interface console on eBay
Did NYPD police chief violate code of conduct by lying about Islamophobic video?
A lovely photo of a plastic bag
Earth station satellite facility home for sale
Top RBS bankster's compensation in visual context
Newt Gingrich's pro-medical marijuana letter to Journal of the American Medical Ass'n., 1982
Documentary about the Langley Schools Music Project
Richard Branson: It's time to end the failed war on drugs
Madonna's cautionary AIDS comic, handed out at a 1987 concert
In Russia, tiny protest sparks big police response: LEGO minifigs, South Park dolls, and Wall-e demonstrate for democracy
Political Contributions from Financial Sector Increased 700% Since 1990
HOWTO build a Tardis, the adorable German schoolteacher way

WSJ's partisan approach to climate change vs. science

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 12:58 pm

The Wall Street Journal published a letter expressing skepticism about anthropogenic climate change signed by a group of engineers, retired weathermen, and scientists from fields other than climate science. In response, a much larger group of actual climate scientists signed onto a letter rebutting the first letter. The WSJ rejected it. Instead, the pre-eminent science ...
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Using bundles of PVC pipes to make motion-blurred sculptures

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 28, 2012 09:02 am

Kang Duck-Bong is a Korean sculptor who makes pieces from bundled PVC pipes that appear to be in rapid motion. Disguise 1: pvc pipe, urethane paint, 90x28x55cm, 2011 (via Kottke)
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Lego Moleskine notebooks

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 28, 2012 05:57 am

I already have a lifetime supply of notebooks, but I'll be buying these Lego Moleskines just in case there's a mortality cure coming down the pipes.
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Twitter, partnering with Chillingeffects.org, publishes a year's worth of DMCA takedown notices (all 4,410 of them)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 11:40 pm

From an article by Jake Brodkin at Ars Technica: "Twitter has taken the unusual step of making DMCA takedown notices public, in partnership with Chilling Effects, a project of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and several universities. The site shows 4,410 cease and desist notices dating back to November 2010." Here's the database on Chillingeffects.org. (Twitter's effort ...
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Nada Surf - "Waiting For Something" (MP3 download)

By Amy Seidenwurm on Jan 27, 2012 11:18 pm

Sound it Out # 15: Nada Surf "Waiting for Something" Nada Surf has been playing intelligent and catchy guitar-based rock music for two decades. Their records are lush and beautifully written, and the constant sense of wonder and optimism throughout is a joy for this cynic to discover each time. Nada Surf always makes me ...
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EFF: "What Does Twitter's Country-by-Country Takedown System Mean for Freedom of Expression?"

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 10:49 pm

An explainer from Eva Galperin at the Electronic Frontier Foundation on Twitter's "country-based tweet takedown" news. The key point here, which has been missing in much of the initial coverage, is that the policy announcement is specifically related to the company's global expansion: Twitter is opening offices in more countries around the world. A US-based ...
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Best practices for fair use in libraries

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 10:14 pm

Pat Aufderheide sez, When is it OK for me to put copyrighted material on e-reserves for students? I've got an ancient VHS and the company that made it is defunct. Can I copy it to DVD for a prof's class? A student's thesis analyzes advertisements and includes some of them. Can I put the thesis ...
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Video for "Brothers," by The War on Drugs

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 27, 2012 09:54 pm

[Video Link] Amy Seidenwurm says: "'Brothers' by The War on Drugs was possibly my favorite song of 2011. They just released a supremely creepy video for it."
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Trailer for Ethos: the truth about the U.S. Government and its corrupt system

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 27, 2012 09:33 pm

[Video Link] Sounds like this documentary explores the same kind of mass psychological manipulation that Freud's nephew, Edward Bernays invented to convince Americans that it was a good idea to get involved in World War One, as well as convince women that they'd become socially powerful if they smoked cigarettes. Directed by filmmaker Pete McGrain ...
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Klaus Schulze, live Moog madness from 1977

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 08:37 pm

Klaus Schulze pilots his Moog spaceship through the composition "For Barry Graves" live in 1977. The track can be found on "La Vie Electronique Vol. 5." The Klaus Schulze La Vie Electronique series, which started in 2009, are reissues of The Ultimate Edition, a CD box set from 2000 that contained a staggering 50 discs, ...
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Here's the utterly inconsequential recording that resulted in NZ PM John Key ordering raids on the free press

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 08:05 pm

Juha Saarinen sez, 2Johns2Cups by goldenturkey New Zealand media were raided by police last November just before the general election, after the incumbent centre-right Prime Minister John Key made a criminal complaint over a recording of a conversation in a cafe between him and far right-wing politician John Banks during a staged media event. The ...
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LA airport security scare caused by TSA mistaking insulin pump for gun

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 07:54 pm

At Los Angeles International airport early this morning, TSA screeners mistook a woman's insulin pump for a gun. Screening and boarding at Terminal 4 were delayed as airport authorities searched for a woman they thought had a weapon.
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Those racist, crazy 1990s Ron Paul newsletters? He signed off on every single one, associates say

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 07:26 pm

"It was his newsletter, and it was under his name, so he always got to see the final product...He would proof it." Renae Hathway, a former secretary in Ron Paul's company and former supporter of the Texas congressman, in the Washington Post today about those wacky racist newsletters previously mentioned here on Boing Boing.
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The Great Hall of Hams

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 07:20 pm

A worker checks in a special room where the Parma hams are hung to dry in Langhirano near Parma. Prosciutto di Parma can only be produced in a very restricted area of 29 sq km (11.2 sq mile) around the town of Parma in the region of Emilia Romagna, just north of Tuscany. Around 10 ...
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Art Spiegelman exhibition in Angouleme, France

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 27, 2012 07:14 pm

[Video Link] Short video of Maus creator Art Spiegelman getting a hero's welcome in France, where a museum in Angouleme is exhibiting a retrospective of his work. (Via Potrzebie)
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Anti-aging mouthpiece

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 27, 2012 07:01 pm

"This easy-to-use beauty and skincare product was developed by an ordinary housewife. Chikako Hirama was simply concerned about her own age and wanted an easy way to combat those telltale lines. Just try the yellow or pink Pupeko daily using such techniques as puffing out your cheeks or sucking them in while breathing through the ...
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RePress: a WordPress plugin for proxying around national firewalls

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 06:53 pm

RePress is a new WordPress plugin that turns any WordPress site into a proxy that can be used to circumvent national firewalls, including the systems used in The Netherlands, Italy, Finland and other countries where The Pirate Bay is blocked. The plugin is developed by the hosting company Greenhost and allows everyone with a WordPress ...
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FBI to increase monitoring of Twitter and Facebook, seeks help building new surveillance app

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 06:29 pm

From the Guardian: "Earlier this month the FBI quietly published a request for information (RFI) looking for companies that might help it build a new social network monitoring system looking at "publicly available" information. Contractors have until 10 February to suggest solutions."
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Hubble Space Telescope power interface console on eBay

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 06:26 pm

If you're working on a DIY version of the Hubble Space Telescope, this may come in handy. It's apparently the Vehicle Power Interface Console used at the Goddard Flight Center during pre-launch testing of the HST, and you can buy it now on eBay for $75,000. From the listing: Everything is housed in a very ...
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Did NYPD police chief violate code of conduct by lying about Islamophobic video?

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 06:19 pm

Gothamist digs into whether NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly's statements and actions regarding the production of an Islamophobic propaganda film "screened on a continuous loop for over 1,200 NYPD officers" may have been a violation of NYPD conduct codes. If you're new to the story, first read this NYT item, then this followup.
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A lovely photo of a plastic bag

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 06:06 pm

Photographer Edi Go made a beautiful photograph of an ugly plastic bag. "Elastic" by Edi Go (Behance, via Imaginary Foundation)
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Earth station satellite facility home for sale

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 05:53 pm

After noticing a lack of space for Rob's vintage synthesizer collection, Happy Mutants has decided not to purchase the ICBM silo and air park for sale in New York's Adirondacks. Instead, we have our sights on the Jamesburg Earth Station now for sale in Carmel Valley, California. As we speak, Weisberger is pawning a handful ...
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Top RBS bankster's compensation in visual context

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 05:45 pm

Dunchead of amazingstuff.co.uk sez, "RBS boss Stephen Hester has accepted his bonus of £963,000 on top of his annual salary of £1.2 million. RBS is 80% owned by the UK taxpayer. This image represents his annual income as 2.2 million pixels, comparing it in 'income parade' style with other taxpayer-employed workers." RBS boss Stephen Hester's ...
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Newt Gingrich's pro-medical marijuana letter to Journal of the American Medical Ass'n., 1982

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 05:27 pm

"On Sept 16, 1981, Representative Stewart McKinney and I introduced legislation designed to end bureaucratic interference in the use of marijuana as a medicant. We believe licensed physicians are competent to employ marijuana, and patients have a right to obtain marijuana legally, under medical supervision, from a regulated source." Newt Gingrich, hypocritical piece of shit, ...
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Documentary about the Langley Schools Music Project

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 05:19 pm

Several years ago, VH1 made a documentary about the Langley Schools Music Project, and you can watch the whole thing on YouTube. If you're not hip to the Langley Schools Music Project, you're in for a real treat. Between 1976 and 1977, music teacher Hans Fenger and a group of middle school students recorded two ...
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Richard Branson: It's time to end the failed war on drugs

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 05:14 pm

"Just as prohibition of alcohol failed in the United States in the 1920s, the war on drugs has failed globally. Over the past 50 years, more than $1 trillion has been spent fighting this battle, and all we have to show for it is increased drug use, overflowing jails, billions of pounds and dollars of ...
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Madonna's cautionary AIDS comic, handed out at a 1987 concert

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 05:10 pm

From Ethan Persoff's ongoing chronicles of vintage weird ephemera: COMICS WITH PROBLEMS #7 - MADONNA ON AIDS. This public health pamphlet was handed out at one of her concerts, one night only, in 1987. Her image appears on the cover, and inside, a handwritten note urging for greater awareness of AIDS and an end to ...
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In Russia, tiny protest sparks big police response: LEGO minifigs, South Park dolls, and Wall-e demonstrate for democracy

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 27, 2012 04:38 pm

(Photo above: RFE-RL; below, Ivan Krupchik.) Authorities in Russia are investigating the legality of a "doll demonstration" demanding "clean elections" in the Siberian city of Barnaul, and looking for the humans responsible. Russian news agency RIA Novosti reports that Russia's police "[arrest] anyone, young or old, who takes part in an "unsanctioned" opposition rally"—so, some ...
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Political Contributions from Financial Sector Increased 700% Since 1990

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 04:35 pm

Nicko Margolies from the Sunlight Foundation sez, "A new analysis prepared by the Sunlight Foundation shows that wealthy financial sector donors gave $178.2 million in political contributions in 2010, more than ten times what they gave 20 years ago. More than any other industry, individuals from the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector, particularly ...
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HOWTO build a Tardis, the adorable German schoolteacher way

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 03:31 pm

Sillysparrowness, a self-described "German teacher with a leaning towards silliness," described the process by which she came to build a beautiful, obsessively finished Tardis. I built a TARDIS (Thanks, scottiep!)
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-27T06:05:00.000-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Portuguese rights society presents lists of supporters for a digital media tax; composer says he never gave consent to be included on the list
Polish MPs wear Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA
Scunthorpe photographer faces down abusive security guards at Golden Wonder factory who want to enforce imaginary law against taking pictures from the public pavement
Chief ACTA Eurocrat quits in disgust at lack of democratic fundamentals in global copyright treaty
Future World Orchestra: Desire (1982)
Robert Hegyes, aka "Juan Epstein," RIP
"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": The Bishop's Rectum
"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": Arab Courier Attacked by Lions
Three extra hours a day
Vintage photos transformed into superhero portraits
Tibet: China's bloody crackdown on Tibetan protesters escalates, as self-immolations continue
Twitter caves to global censorship, will block content on country-specific basis as required
Bank robber shoots himself in foot
Report: North Carolina aviation company handled extraordinary rendition flights for CIA
Toronto teens send Lego Minifig up 78,000 feet
The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect
How a dead paper mill in Finland became a model for future Google data centers
Guatemala: at long last, ex-dictator Rios Montt in court over possible genocide charges
Deranged IHOP commercial slowed down
The Osmonds, slowed into Death Metal
The human cost of technology
Die Antwoord gets a New York Times profile
Watch a Mongolian family assemble their yurt in fast-forward video
SFO unveils world's first (?) dedicated yoga room within an airport
NASA releases "most amazing high-definition" photo of earth, from space
Kim Dotcom, allegedly
Guy who built epic "Star Trek Apartment" may lose it in divorce
Bloomberg's amazing -- and rejected -- Mitt Romney cover
On fixing academic publishing
Reuters' Anthony deRosa interviews tech folk at Davos (video)

Portuguese rights society presents lists of supporters for a digital media tax; composer says he never gave consent to be included on the list

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 10:54 am

Carlos sez, "A Portuguese Authors Association was caught faking authors' names in support of an abusive proposed law to add a copyright tax to every gigabyte of digital storage." António Pinho Vargas (one of my most appreciated Portuguese music composers, you should check his Tom Waits if you don't know him) has came forth and ...
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Polish MPs wear Guy Fawkes masks to protest ACTA

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 09:01 am

The streets of Poland have erupted in protest on the eve of the country's signing onto ACTA, the secretive copyright treaty that is being rammed through many European Parliaments this year. Members of Parliament showed up for work wearing Anon-style Guy Fawkes masks to show their disapproval. After the signing, protesters rallied in the Polish ...
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Scunthorpe photographer faces down abusive security guards at Golden Wonder factory who want to enforce imaginary law against taking pictures from the public pavement

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 08:42 am

In this video, Hamst, a proud resident of Scunthorpe who enjoys taking photos of local landmarks for the Visit Scunthorpe site confronts two very nasty security guards for the Golden Wonder factory. The guards are furious that he is taking pictures of the factory from the public pavement and they shower him with threats and ...
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Chief ACTA Eurocrat quits in disgust at lack of democratic fundamentals in global copyright treaty

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 27, 2012 08:27 am

Kader Arif, the EU "rapporteur" for ACTA (a copyright treaty negotiated in secret, which contains all the worst elements of SOPA, and which is coming to a vote in the EU) has turned in his report and resigned from his job, delivering a scathing rebuke to the EU negotiators and parliamentarians, and the global corporations ...
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Future World Orchestra: Desire (1982)

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 27, 2012 05:10 am

A modern electronica duo can only dream of being as good as Future World Orchestra. [via Robert Popper]
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Robert Hegyes, aka "Juan Epstein," RIP

By David Pescovitz on Jan 27, 2012 12:56 am

"Hey, Mr. Kotter, I got a note!" Robert Hegyes who played Juan Luis Pedro Philippo DeHuevos Epstein on "Welcome Back Kotter" has died. "Robert Hegyes dies at 60" (Variety)
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"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": The Bishop's Rectum

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 26, 2012 11:07 pm

Earlier this week, I challenged readers to send me photos of their favorite museum exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon. Over the next few days, I'll be posting some of these submissions, under the heading, "My Favorite Museum Exhibit". Want to see them all? Check the "Previously" ...
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"My Favorite Museum Exhibit": Arab Courier Attacked by Lions

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 26, 2012 10:52 pm

Earlier this week, I challenged readers to send me photos of their favorite museum exhibits and specimens, preferably from museums that might go overlooked in the tourism pantheon. Over the next few days, I'll be posting some of these submissions, under the heading, "My Favorite Museum Exhibit". Want to see them all? Check the "Previously" ...
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Three extra hours a day

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 10:26 pm

Brian Lam on finding happiness after absorbing too much Internet as a too-busy website editor. With my three extra hours a day, I will often go to the beach. Cook a healthy meal. Do a bunch of exercise. Have a drink with friends. Read a book. Write a poem. Mow the lawn. Go skiing while ...
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Vintage photos transformed into superhero portraits

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 26, 2012 10:25 pm

Rachel Hobson of CRAFT correctly figures (in my case, anyway), " you'll enjoy this series of vintage photographs that have been transformed into portraits of superheroes by artist Alex Gross."
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Tibet: China's bloody crackdown on Tibetan protesters escalates, as self-immolations continue

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 10:15 pm

Ethnic Tibetans throughout Tibet this week held some of the largest demonstrations against Chinese rule in four years. Chinese forces responded by shooting protesters. Up to 5 are said to have been killed and more than 30 wounded, according to Tibetan advocacy groups. On January 9, a 42-year-old monk became the latest in a continuing ...
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Twitter caves to global censorship, will block content on country-specific basis as required

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 09:31 pm

A new Twitter policy which goes into effect today allows the social network "to reactively withhold content from users in a specific country," so that Twitter can further expand globally and "enter countries that have different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression." The Twitter blog post announcing this news was titled "Tweets still ...
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Bank robber shoots himself in foot

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 26, 2012 09:31 pm

[Video Link] A bank robber in Brazil shot himself in the foot. In the video he is seen limping away with his cohorts. He was later arrested while receiving treatment at a nearby hospital. (Via Arbroath)
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Report: North Carolina aviation company handled extraordinary rendition flights for CIA

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 09:24 pm

From Physicians for Human Rights: "A report (PDF) prepared by professors and students at the University of North Carolina School of Law states that the CIA has been relying on Aero Contractors, Ltd., a North Carolina operated civil aviation company to transport detainees to international destinations for detention, interrogation and torture."
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Toronto teens send Lego Minifig up 78,000 feet

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 26, 2012 09:19 pm

Goli of MAKE says: Two young makers from Toronto, Mathew Ho and Asad Muhammad, both age 17, successfully sent a Lego minifig and four cameras to roughly 78,000 feet elevation on a homemade weather balloon. After a 97-minute flight, the balloon returned to Earth with great footage of the journey. Inspired by a similar project ...
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The MegaUpload Shutdown Effect

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 09:17 pm

"With enough global data, you can actually see the traffic drop when the shutdown occurs." Internet traffic analysists at Arbor Networks examined recent worldwide data flow and determined that Megaupload was taken offline just after 19:00 GMT on January 19. Internet traffic all over the world dropped in the two hours that followed. Top users ...
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How a dead paper mill in Finland became a model for future Google data centers

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 09:13 pm

"In February of 2009, Google paid about $52 million for an abandoned paper mill in Hamina, Finland, after deciding that the 56-year-old building was the ideal place to build one of the massive computing facilities that serve up its myriad online services." Wired on the future of Google data centers, with a focus on this ...
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Guatemala: at long last, ex-dictator Rios Montt in court over possible genocide charges

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 09:01 pm

Cloths embroidered with signs are seen in front of the Supreme Court of Justice in Guatemala City January 26, 2012. Former Guatemalan dictator Efrain Rios Montt, who ruled the country from 1980-1982 during a bloody civil war, went to the Supreme Court of Justice to declare for the genocide accusations committed during the armed conflict. ...
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Deranged IHOP commercial slowed down

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 08:57 pm

Originally posted by Cory, this is from 1969 and involves helium balloons. The vocal effect, however, was accomplished not with vocal cord-tightening gas, but Chipmunk-style—with threats and coercion, perhaps. Accordingly, I slowed it down to reveal the original, nightmarish, vocal recording. JUST. FOR. THE. FUN. (Monster approaches) [Thanks, Heather!]
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The Osmonds, slowed into Death Metal

By David Pescovitz on Jan 26, 2012 08:54 pm

If The Osmonds were a death metal band, "Crazy Horses" might have sounded something like this. Dangerous Minds' Marc Campbell added the visuals. "ARMAGEDDON ROCK: THE VERY METAL SOUND OF THE OSMONDS" (Thanks, Tara!)
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The human cost of technology

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 08:41 pm

The New York Times on the human cost of industrial accidents at Apple's foreign suppliers: Troubling, the groups say, is some suppliers' disregard for workers' health. Two years ago, 137 workers at an Apple supplier in eastern China were injured after they were ordered to use a poisonous chemical to clean iPhone screens. Within seven ...
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Die Antwoord gets a New York Times profile

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 08:18 pm

Ninja, Yo-Landi, and their South African art/zef/rap/rave phenomenon get a NYT Magazine profile this week—complete with a portrait by legendary South African photographer Roger Ballen. (thanks, Mike Mechanic)
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Watch a Mongolian family assemble their yurt in fast-forward video

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 08:14 pm

[Video Link] Shot by multimedia journalist Dan Grossman, who writes: The nomadic people of Mongolia don't stay in one place for long. That's why they live in gers (which American's know by the Russian name, yurt), a home that is fast and easy to assemble and disassemble. Putting up a ger (pronounced gair) is fast ...
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SFO unveils world's first (?) dedicated yoga room within an airport

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 07:41 pm

Officials at San Francisco International Airport today unveiled what is said to be the first dedicated practice space for yoga in any airport, anywhere in the world. I'm not surprised to see it's in SFO's newly revamped Terminal 2, a swankily-designed space where Virgin America is based, and some really fantastic food vendors abound. So ...
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NASA releases "most amazing high-definition" photo of earth, from space

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 07:29 pm

NASA today released a so-called 'Blue Marble' image of Earth captured by the VIIRS instrument on NASA's most recently launched Earth-observing satellite, the Suomi NPP. The composite image above "uses a number of swaths of the Earth's surface taken on January 4, 2012." Larger sizes here (hello, new computer desktop image!)
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Kim Dotcom, allegedly

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 07:14 pm

This splendid work, by Aurich Lawson, is a perfect aperitif for Sean Gallagher's wonderful article about the ridiculous but astoundingly successful con artist, Quake cheat and entrepreneur Kim Dotcom.
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Guy who built epic "Star Trek Apartment" may lose it in divorce

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 07:01 pm

Oh, this makes me so sad. Tony Alleyne, the trekkie, club DJ, and "house-modder" who redesigned his British flat to be a faithful replica of the Starship Enterprise? Looks like he may lose it in divorce proceedings. His ex owns the flat, and wants to sell it as "a conventional dwelling," according to tabloid reports. ...
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Bloomberg's amazing -- and rejected -- Mitt Romney cover

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 06:39 pm

It's not hard to see why Bloomberg Businessweek chose not to run with this remarkable illustration of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. The creative director is Richard Turley; the rest of the design crew follows: Creative Director: Richard Turley Design Director: Cynthia Hoffman Graphic Director: Jennifer Daniel Graphics Editor: Kenton Powell, Evan Applegate Director of ...
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On fixing academic publishing

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 06:35 pm

Nancy Sims, of the University of Minnesota Libraries, responds to The Atlantic's criticisms of JSTOR, an academic database that can be difficult and expensive to access: "There are things JSTOR does that I do have issues with. I wish it was doing more to provide more open access to the public domain materials it holds, ...
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Reuters' Anthony deRosa interviews tech folk at Davos (video)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 26, 2012 06:34 pm

There's a fun online video series at Reuters TV called "Tech Tonic" that currently features host and Twitter star @antderosa interviewing technology figures at Davos.
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-26T06:06:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

HOWTO ditch GoDaddy
Groupon rapped for selling snake oil
Newt promises moonbase
Techno-mercenaries
Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations
Insane English copyright ruling creates ownership in the idea of a photo's composition
10 digital albums for $15, including Sophie Madeleine
Time lapse of LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall getting prepped for "Mahler Project"
Disney store offers, then pulls, Mickey t-shirt based on iconic Joy Division album cover
Fritz Goro's science photography
The adorable snoring dormouse (video)
Newt threatens Russia, China with cyberwar
Popeye meets Wilco in hand-drawn cartoon music video
Julian Assange to host Wikileaks TV show on Kremlin-funded Russian cable network
Academic database "imprisons" research
The Mind of a Sniper
Shrooms may open the doors of perception, seriously
Company you've never heard of acquires copy and paste clipboard-molesting jerks to create an even bigger pile of shit
Space is awesome: Astronaut Rex Walheim answers more BoingBoing reader questions
Space Adventures planning for lunar tourism
Wade Davis's new book about Everest
Pirate Party book
Disney parks fan vidcast: Communicore weekly
Canada's new SOPA-style copyright bill could shut down YouTube
Star Wars meets Tank Girl
Video: Aurora Australis from the Space Station
US slumps in press freedom rankings
Hellboy camp for teens
TOM THE DANCING BUG: "Lucky Ducky," Featuring Hollingsworth Hound, Who Must Decide Where to Send His Money on Vacation
DirecTV: click to add channels, call to remove them

HOWTO ditch GoDaddy

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 26, 2012 12:47 pm

Domain registrar GoDaddy drew a lot of bad publicity for supporting SOPA, resulting in a large loss of business and a reversal on its public position. But wherever GoDaddy stands on SOPA, it remains one of the worst places in the world to host a domain. The company's terrible behavior and rotten customer service, combined ...
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Groupon rapped for selling snake oil

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 12:03 pm

Snake with thought bubble, Shutterstock Britain's Advertising Standards Agency has banned Groupon from marketing snake oil. An internet sales promotion for "Wrinkle Killer Snake Serum" promised to "reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles" and "tackle the signs of ageing." When challenged, Groupon claimed that the claims refer only to the "sensory and/or temporary ...
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Newt promises moonbase

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 11:38 am

"By the end of my second term we will have the first permanent base on the moon." [NPR. Photo: Eric Thayers/Reuters]
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Techno-mercenaries

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 26, 2012 11:33 am

Adrian Chen on the gadget experts who serve rogues: "Martin made them leave their phones in the car for safety. He recalled the phones with disgust. 'They had all smart phones, and I told them: Bad fucking idea. You have to scale down two generations, at least. There's too much information on a smart phone.'"
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Stop ACTA: secretive treaty will bring in the worst of SOPA through trade obligations

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 26, 2012 07:24 am

ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is the notorious, unprecedented secret copyright treaty that was negotiated by industry representatives and government trade reps, without any access by elected representatives, independent business, the press, public interest groups, legal scholars, independent economists and so on. Time and again, the world's richest governmental administrations (only rich countries were in ...
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Insane English copyright ruling creates ownership in the idea of a photo's composition

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 26, 2012 06:42 am

In a bizarre ruling, an English court has ruled that in favor of a commercial poster company that argued that a photo that showed a similar (but different) scene taken by a different person in a different place nevertheless infringed the copyright of a poster. What the judge ruled was that photographing a scene that ...
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10 digital albums for $15, including Sophie Madeleine

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 26, 2012 01:18 am

[Video Link] The Sound Supply is selling 10 digital albums for $15, including Sophie Madeleine's The Rhythm You Started. 10 albums for $15 Sophie Madeleine performs "Oil & Gold" on ukulele -- Boing Boing exclusiveSophie Madeleine plays 30 uke songs in 30 daysSophie Madeleine plays "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm" on ukueleYouTube ...
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Time lapse of LA's Walt Disney Concert Hall getting prepped for "Mahler Project"

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 26, 2012 01:06 am

[Video Link] Shayna of LA magazine says: We have this time-lapse video of the Walt Disney Concert Hall being set up for a rehearsal of Mahler's Symphony no. 8, which will be performed by the LA Phil, the Simon Bolivar Orchestra, and 16 choirs at the Shrine next month. It's a mesmerizing video and quite ...
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Disney store offers, then pulls, Mickey t-shirt based on iconic Joy Division album cover

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 25, 2012 09:25 pm

On The Madeleine Brand Show (a radio program on which I'm a regular guest), Luke Burbank points to two strange Disney-related updates: first, Disneyland has finally relaxed their extreme rules banning all facial hair for staff/contractors—employees are now allowed to grow beards. And in even odder news, the Disney Store is now offering was, until ...
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Fritz Goro's science photography

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 09:11 pm

Stephen Jay Gould once said that LIFE photographer Fritz Goro, who died in 1986, was "the most influential photographer that science journalism (and science in general) has ever known." LIFE.com has posted a gallery of his truly wonderful photos. Above, Goro's 1962 shot of inventor Allyn Hazard testing his "moon suit mock-up" that contained oxygen ...
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The adorable snoring dormouse (video)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 25, 2012 08:48 pm

[Video Link] Things I did not know before viewing this adorable video shot by Surrey Wildlife Trust Mammal Project Officer Dave Williams: 1) The dormouse, a little rodent species you'll find in Britain, hibernate in the winter in nests they hide on the ground. 2) The dormouse spends up to one-third of its life in ...
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Newt threatens Russia, China with cyberwar

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 25, 2012 08:27 pm

"I think that we have to treat state-based covert activities as the equivalent of acts of war. And I think that we have to respond to that and create a level of pain which teaches people not to do it." US presidential candidate Newt Gingrich, responding to a question about countries that target U.S. corporate ...
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Popeye meets Wilco in hand-drawn cartoon music video

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 25, 2012 07:51 pm

[Video Link] The Wilco track "Dawned On Me" re-imagined as a classic, early-era Popeye cartoon. The song is from the band's Grammy-nominated 2011 album, "The Whole Love." They're on tour now, and should not be missed, as they are one of the greatest live acts on the planet. The animation is a collaboration with King ...
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Julian Assange to host Wikileaks TV show on Kremlin-funded Russian cable network

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 25, 2012 07:17 pm

Wikileaks announced this week that house-arrested frontman Julian Assange would host a new television interview series with "in-depth conversations with key political players, thinkers and revolutionaries from around the world." The theme, according to the announcement: "the world tomorrow." Today, news that the network involved is none other than RT, the Russian cable television outlet ...
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Academic database "imprisons" research

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 25, 2012 07:08 pm

Laura McKenna excoriates JSTOR, the online database of academic journals that has universities and the public paying thousands of dollars to read their own taxpayer-funded research. [The Atlantic]
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The Mind of a Sniper

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 25, 2012 06:53 pm

Among others, the BBC interviewed two snipers. Both have killed many people, but they are very different men. One affirms the humanity of his targets, and worries at how ideology sends them into battle. One considers them subhuman, and worries about himself. Here's Chris Kyle: "You're running everything through your mind. This is a woman, ...
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Shrooms may open the doors of perception, seriously

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 06:32 pm

New research suggests that taking psilocybin, the hallucinogen in magic mushrooms, may actually lead to a decrease in the amount of blood flow in certain parts of your brain. Scientists at Imperial College London injected subjects with psilocybin and scanned their brains. Turns out, they observed a reduction in neuronal activity and blood flow in ...
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Company you've never heard of acquires copy and paste clipboard-molesting jerks to create an even bigger pile of shit

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 25, 2012 06:31 pm

Tynt, the company responsible for inserting adverts when you copy text from websites, was bought by another company that specializes in "graphing" brand loyalty. Just imagine how much fun these guys are to hang out with! [TechCrunch via Daring Fireball]
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Space is awesome: Astronaut Rex Walheim answers more BoingBoing reader questions

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 25, 2012 06:31 pm

A couple weeks ago, I got a chance to interview Rex Walheim—astronaut, test pilot, and all-around swell guy. He answered five questions BoingBoing readers had about what it takes to be chosen for the space program and what the experience of training to be an astronaut is like. Unfortunately, we only had 10 minutes to ...
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Space Adventures planning for lunar tourism

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 05:43 pm

Eric Anderson, 37, is the founder of Space Adventures, a company that acts as the middleman for rich people who want to go to space and the Russian space program that sells the seats on the Soyuz rockets. Air & Space Magazine profiles Anderson and tells what it took to launch the space tourism business. ...
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Wade Davis's new book about Everest

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 05:12 pm

Anthropologist Wade Davis is one of my heroes. He's an incredibly talented explorer and explainer of the world's cultural diversity, what he calls the ethnosphere. He's most famous for his 1985 book The Serpent and the Rainbow, about Haitian voodoo and zombies. But he's written a slew of books about the dangers faced by disappearing ...
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Pirate Party book

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 04:55 pm

Variable Rush sez, "No Safe Harbor is the first book released by the United States Pirate Party. It was released yesterday and traffic managed to knock it offline. The book is great and features an essay by BB's Cory Doctorow, as well as Lawrence Lessig, danah boyd, Kembrew McLeod, and others."
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Disney parks fan vidcast: Communicore weekly

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 04:54 pm

Jeff sez, "Communicore Weekly is a brand new, online VidCast/Podcast with George Taylor and Jeff Heimbuch, exploring Disney news and obscure history. With segments such as the Bathroom Break & The Five Legged Goat, you'll never look at Disney the same way again. You'll laugh, you'll cry, and you'll have a new favorite online show. ...
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Canada's new SOPA-style copyright bill could shut down YouTube

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 04:52 pm

Michael Geist sez, Recent revelations that the content industries are demanding that Canada implement SOPA-style provisions into its copyright law have raised concerns the law could be used to target legitimate sites. Industry lawyers say there is no reason for worry, yet an analysis of the proposed law set against the claims made by Viacom ...
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Star Wars meets Tank Girl

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 04:48 pm

Mashup master James Hance has crossed Tank Girl with Princess Leia to excellent effect. He's selling prints and tees. Latest Doodle: 'Falcon Girl' (Tank Girl / Star Wars) (via The Mary Sue )
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Video: Aurora Australis from the Space Station

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 04:39 pm

This absolutely stunning video was created from a series of still images taken on the International Space Station. From NASA's Gateway To Astronaut Photography of Earth page: The sequence of shots was taken January 3, 2012 from 15:01:30 to 15:08:17 GMT, on a pass from the Indian Ocean, just west of Australia, to south of ...
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US slumps in press freedom rankings

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 25, 2012 04:11 pm

In this year's Reporters Without Borders international press freedom index, the U.S. slumped to 47th place, a fall of 27 places, largely due to arrests of journalists covering protests. The full report is available in PDF format. [RSF]
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Hellboy camp for teens

By David Pescovitz on Jan 25, 2012 04:03 pm

Are you a teenager yearning to join Hellboy in the fight against evil occult, supernatural forces? Now you can, thanks to the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense Training Camp in Portland, Oregon. Operated by Trackers, an outdoor skills training company, BPRD Training Camp (aka Hellboy Camp) actually sounds like a fun way to spend ...
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TOM THE DANCING BUG: "Lucky Ducky," Featuring Hollingsworth Hound, Who Must Decide Where to Send His Money on Vacation

By Ruben Bolling on Jan 25, 2012 03:50 pm

RECOMMEND: Visit the TOM THE DANCING BUG WEBSITE, follow RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER, and listen to him as he joins other Boing Boingers in select episodes of GWEEK PODCAST.
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DirecTV: click to add channels, call to remove them

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 25, 2012 03:37 pm

JWZ reports some of the sleazy things that DirecTV does to squeeze money out of its customers, of which he is one. In addition to the predictable stuff, like market-obscuring channel bundles and below-the-radar billing extras, there are weird cramming strategies designed to make customer service as inconvenient as possible. I receive 626 channels, and ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-25T06:11:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Study does not show that disconnection threats terrorized France into using iTunes
Conclusion of Martian Chronicles podcast
An update in very important whale/dolphin friendship news
A view inside a nuclear reactor
How deadly is bird flu?
RAW Week: Everything I Need to Know I Learned From RAW, by David Jay Brown
Homebrew Monster Manual
Pirate Bay branches out into physical objects
Christian Nightmares video performance in Philadelphia, Sat, January 28, 2012
Parents' snooping teaches kids to share their passwords with each other
Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana
HOWTO make a boombox out of a toolbox
Man didn't notice 3 inch nail go into his brain
Movie about robot sex movie
Louisiana commissioner proposes ban on public pajama-wearing
Trailer Tuesday: Illustrator Ed Emberley documentary
BB Video: Mastodon's "Dry Bone Valley," animated by Tim Biskup
Violist improvs response to ringing Nokia phone
What it's like at CES
SF in SF reading series returns
Space dive in Star City (photo)
Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Kool Herc Is Out, Grandmaster Flash Is In
Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom appears in New Zealand court
Mary Robinette Kowal challenges you to write a letter a day in February
What happens when a Coronal Mass Ejection hits the Earth?
Homemade D&D module, 1981
Homebrew, 3D printed Fisher-Price record-player disc plays "Still Alive"

Study does not show that disconnection threats terrorized France into using iTunes

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 10:00 am

IFPI, the international trade group for the record industry, has trumpeted a study that allegedly shows that France saw a surge in iTunes sales following the institution of a mass-scale regime of "disconnection warnings" -- threats to remove you and your family from the Internet if you don't stop downloading. These warnings are the first ...
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Conclusion of Martian Chronicles podcast

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 25, 2012 06:41 am

The final installment of Jeff Lane's reading of my YA story "Martian Chronicles" is up on Starship Sofa. It's from Life on Mars, a great YA anthology that came out in 2011. MP3 (Previously: 1, 2)
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An update in very important whale/dolphin friendship news

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 25, 2012 02:41 am

You guys! Remember yesterday, when we learned that dolphins and whales in Hawaii have twice been caught spontaneously playing together? Apparently, this gets better. Dolphins in a French aquarium seem to be "speaking" whale—making whale-sounding noises at night that mimic the actual whale noises they hear all day on the soundtrack to the aquarium dolphin ...
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A view inside a nuclear reactor

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 25, 2012 01:13 am

This is not a metaphorical view inside a nuclear reactor. This is for real-real. This month, the good folks at TEPCO sent a remote-controlled endoscope and thermometer into the containment vessel of Fukishima's crippled reactor #2, hoping to learn something about the level of cooling water, the state of the fuel rods, and the temperature ...
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How deadly is bird flu?

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 25, 2012 01:02 am

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the World Health Organization, say that H5N1 bird flu kills some 60% of the human beings it manages to infect. Basically, it hasn't infected many people—because it can't be spread from person to person—but most of the people it does infect die. But this might not be ...
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RAW Week: Everything I Need to Know I Learned From RAW, by David Jay Brown

By David Jay Brown on Jan 24, 2012 11:23 pm

Editor's note: I received so many wonderful essays about Robert Anton Wilson, that I've extended RAW Week for a few more days! -- Mark Robert Anton Wilson departed from this world on January 11, 2007 at 4:50 am. He will be missed enormously by his many loving friends and devoted fans, and his powerful impact ...
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Homebrew Monster Manual

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 11:12 pm

After seeing today's entry on a homebrew D&D module, Chris sends us his own addenda to the Monster Manual, lavishly illustrated with youthful zest. My Monster Manual (Thanks, Chris!)
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Pirate Bay branches out into physical objects

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 09:58 pm

The Pirate Bay has launched a new category called Physibles. They explain: "Data objects that are able (and feasible) to become physical. We believe that things like three dimensional printers, scanners and such are just the first step. We believe that in the nearby future you will print your spare sparts for your vehicles. You ...
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Christian Nightmares video performance in Philadelphia, Sat, January 28, 2012

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 24, 2012 09:32 pm

[Video Link] I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I like this video, and I like the song with the uplifting lyrics about being left behind after the Rapture, too. I learned it is a popular song called "I Wish We'd All Been Ready," and it has been covered by a bunch of bands. ...
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Parents' snooping teaches kids to share their passwords with each other

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 09:10 pm

Matt Richtel's recent NYT article on teenagers who share their Facebook passwords as a show of affection has raised alarms with parents and educators who worry about the potential for bullying and abuse. But as danah boyd points out the practice of password-sharing didn't start with kids: it started with parents, who required their kids ...
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Vintage Photographs of Arcane Americana

By David Pescovitz on Jan 24, 2012 08:57 pm

A year ago, I posted about Take Me To The Water, a terrific book/CD set and exhibit of river baptism photos from the 1880s - 1930s. The photos were from the collection of Jim Linderman, who has a terrific eye for weird art, antiques, ephemera, and of course vernacular photography. Jim has just published a ...
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HOWTO make a boombox out of a toolbox

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 08:03 pm

Chicago's Floyd Davis demonstrates how to make a boombox out of any case, including a Craftsman toolbox. Boombox in a Toolbox
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Man didn't notice 3 inch nail go into his brain

By David Pescovitz on Jan 24, 2012 07:42 pm

Dante Antullo, 32, thought a nail gun accident last week had just left him with a surface abrasion. But the next day, he felt nauseous and his girlfriend convinced him to see a doctor. Physicians found a 3 1/4-inch nail in his brain. Surgeons removed it and Antullo is recovering well. From the AP: "When ...
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Movie about robot sex movie

By David Pescovitz on Jan 24, 2012 07:23 pm

Mike Sullivan is making tiny robot actors to star in his stop-motion robot sex film. Documentary filmmaker Matt Lenski made a documentary about Sullivan's efforts. Titled "The Meaning of Robots," it premiered last weekend at the Sundance Film Festival. Above is the trailer. From Lenski's description of the project: In the Spring of 2011, after ...
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Louisiana commissioner proposes ban on public pajama-wearing

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 07:01 pm

Caddo Parish, LA commissioner Michael Williams is sick and tired of being able to discern guys' penises through their pajamas at WalMart (apparently, the men of Caddo like to go to WalMart in their jammies, which is pretty boss if you ask me -- I live in my jimjams). He's proposed a local ordinance to ...
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Trailer Tuesday: Illustrator Ed Emberley documentary

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 24, 2012 06:45 pm

"Everyone who likes my books is like me in some way. If you like my books [but] you've never met me, there's something about you that's just like me." That must mean I'm a dead ringer for Emberley, because I am positively gaga for his instructional drawing books for kids. Award-winning children’s book author and ...
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BB Video: Mastodon's "Dry Bone Valley," animated by Tim Biskup

By David Pescovitz on Jan 24, 2012 06:01 pm

[video link] Boing Boing is pleased to present the new video for Mastodon's "Dry Bone Valley," from their album
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Violist improvs response to ringing Nokia phone

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 05:56 pm

In this 2011 YouTube upload, violist Lukáš Kmiť shows what to do when your playing is interrupted by a ringing phone, as happened to him during a beautiful performance at an orthodox synagogue in Presov, Slovakia. Kmiť broke off playing for an instant, regrouped, and then improvised a lovely aria based on the Nokia ringtone. ...
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What it's like at CES

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 24, 2012 05:54 pm

A bunch of people sit and stand around at CES. Photo: REUTERS/Rick Wilking This year's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was dull, giving reporters at the show time to write interesting offbeat coverage. Stars in the firmament of boredom included Mat Honan, Brian Lam, and the marvelous CESTrailer Twitter account. Every year, however, readers ...
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SF in SF reading series returns

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 05:00 pm

The next installment of San Francisco's SF in SF reading series, on Jan 28, features Ryan Boudinot (Blueprints of the Afterlife) and Ayize Jama-Everett (The Liminal People). Organizer Rina Wiseman writes, "it's Debut Novel Drink Night! Join us for an SF in SF Sling...we can't tell you what's in it til you get here!" Free ...
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Space dive in Star City (photo)

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 24, 2012 04:47 pm

Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Soichi Noguchi dives in a space suit during a refresher training exercise at the Cosmonaut training centre at Star City, outside Moscow January 23, 2012. Noguchi is tweeting his experience here, with cool snapshots from Star City. REUTERS/Sergei Remezov
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Brain Rot: Hip Hop Family Tree, Kool Herc Is Out, Grandmaster Flash Is In

By Ed Piskor on Jan 24, 2012 04:45 pm

Hip Hop Family Tree, Part 1 Hip Hop Family Tree, Part 2
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Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom appears in New Zealand court

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 24, 2012 04:41 pm

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom, a German national formerly known as Kim Schmitz, is seen at court in Auckland, New Zealand in this still image taken from video shot on January 23, 2012. The file-sharing website founder was ordered to be held in custody by a New Zealand court on Monday, as he denied charges of ...
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Mary Robinette Kowal challenges you to write a letter a day in February

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 04:00 pm

Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "I have a challenge for you. When was the last time you got a letter in the mail? December sees a lot of mail and you remember that sense of delight when the first card arrives. You can have that more often. That's what sparked The Month of Letters Challenge The ...
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What happens when a Coronal Mass Ejection hits the Earth?

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 24, 2012 03:01 pm

At approximately 11:00 am Eastern time (15 minutes from now as I type this), the Earth will come into contact with the largest Coronal Mass Ejection since 2005—a huge burst of charged particles and magnetic fields that exploded off the surface of the sun Sunday night. Scientists have been tracking it as it headed our ...
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Homemade D&D module, 1981

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 03:00 pm

Tim H sez, "A recent and amazing donation to the PlaGMaDA.org [ed: Play Generated Map and Document Archive] project: A beautiful, hand-made homebrew addition to the classic TSR Against the Giants series." I wish I had the modules and monster sheets I painstakingly made in my youth. I used to cram them into envelopes and ...
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Homebrew, 3D printed Fisher-Price record-player disc plays "Still Alive"

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 02:00 pm

Pittance sez, "This is my brand new 3D printed Fisher-Price record player record (for the old clockwork music box one, not the new electronic one) playing "Still Alive" from Portal. It's entirely made using Processing and printed at Shapeways and, now I know how to do it, I really hope I can make more with ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-24T06:05:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Magic, juggling and variety: Mat Ricardo's East London spectacular
The President's challenge: What more does government want — or deserve — from the tech world?
Vortex, a USB keytar
Inside SpaceX's Dragon
NYT Pony Correction revisited
Elfquest too much like The Hobbit, says Warner Brothers
Trailer for Die Antwoord's upcoming "TEN$ION" album
Ornate Victorian typewriter
A.D.D. comic book: Exclusive essay and excerpt by author Douglas Rushkoff
Make: Talk 002 - Bob Knetzger, Toy Inventor
Secret history of the SOPA/PIPA fight
Marx Brothers history
Gweek 036: Grab bag of comics, book, gadgets, apps, and websites we love
Notes towards a practice of responsive comics
New Righthaven offers hosting service "with a spine"
US record labels trying to sneak SOPA's provisions into Canada's pending copyright legislation
Vermin Supreme: strong teeth for a strong America
Preppers: suburban survivalists
Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory
Room 237: documentary about The Shining
Museum photos: Mummified Ice-Age bison
Testing suborbital rocket navigation on Earth
Inside a malware company's trouble-ticket system
John Cale on "I've Got A Secret" (1963)
Local snow does not disprove global climate change
Supremes to GPS-snooping cops: come back with a warrant
I will not put a pun in this headline
Good news: Whale and dolphins are friends
Funny titles mask serious science
Petition: investigate Chris Dodd for fraud

Magic, juggling and variety: Mat Ricardo's East London spectacular

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 09:00 am

I've featured the work of net-savvy, happily mutated juggler and magician Mat Ricardo here before. Now he's planning quite an astounding show in east London. He sez, Further to the tale of how I soul-searched, and crowd-sourced to revitalise my career - I'm launching a unique new monthly variety show in London. The best performers ...
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The President's challenge: What more does government want — or deserve — from the tech world?

By Nat Torkington on Jan 24, 2012 05:16 am

There's an old joke. Heavy rains start and a neighbour pulls up in his truck. "Hey Bob, I'm leaving for high ground. Want a lift?" Bob says, "No, I'm putting my faith in God." Well, waters rise and pretty soon the bottom floor of his house is under water. Bob looks out the second story ...
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Vortex, a USB keytar

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 24, 2012 04:51 am

A $250 USB keytar with DAW automapping, MIDI-assignable motion sensitivity and an internal battery for optional use with an iPad? Yes. [Alesis]
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Inside SpaceX's Dragon

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 24, 2012 04:35 am

When it heads into orbit this year, SpaceX's Dragon will be the first private spacecraft to visit the International Space Station. It won't be carrying tourists, but you can explore it now thanks to a panoramic view published by the company. [SpaceX]
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NYT Pony Correction revisited

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 24, 2012 04:20 am

I'm a little late back to the party, but here's even more coverage of the now-infamous NYT My Little Pony Correction. [Romenesko] Previously.
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Elfquest too much like The Hobbit, says Warner Brothers

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 24, 2012 02:19 am

Warner Brothers has canceled production of Elfquest, a movie about the feral descendants of space-faring shape-shifters and their quest to uncover the truth about their ancestors' crash-landing on a primitive planet, because that sounds rather too much like The Hobbit. These guys need to watch today's Die Antwoord video tailer and get a clue about ...
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Trailer for Die Antwoord's upcoming "TEN$ION" album

By Xeni Jardin on Jan 24, 2012 02:01 am

[Video Link] This just hit the internet today. TEN$ION, the South African band's new album scheduled out February 7, will be their first release since breaking up with Interscope. Die Antwoord leave Interscope, will release "TEN$ION" on their own ... Die Antwoord: "Fok Julle Naaiers" (music video) - Boing Boing A farewell to Leon Botha ...
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Ornate Victorian typewriter

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 24, 2012 01:13 am

AntiqueTypewriters.com has a great section on the Crandall New Model, "one of the most beautiful typewriters ever made." It has a wonderful curved and ornate Victorian design and is lavishly decorated with hand painted roses, accented with inlaid mother-of-pearl! Lucien S. Crandall was born in Broome County New York in 1844. He would become one ...
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A.D.D. comic book: Exclusive essay and excerpt by author Douglas Rushkoff

By Douglas Rushkoff on Jan 24, 2012 12:34 am

Everyone seems to have A.D.D. these days. (In case you've been too distracted by your Twitter feed to remember, A.D.D. stands for Attention Deficit Disorder -- the inability to focus on any one thing for too long, the urge to do nine things at once, and the hyper, constantly shifting, unsettled feeling that goes along ...
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Make: Talk 002 - Bob Knetzger, Toy Inventor

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 24, 2012 12:01 am

Here's the second episode of MAKE's new podcast, Make: Talk! In each episode, I'll interview one of the makers from the pages of the magazine. We created Make: Talk to find out about the people who write the how-to articles in MAKE. As you might guess, MAKE's authors are often as interesting as the projects ...
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Secret history of the SOPA/PIPA fight

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 11:48 pm

Carl Franzen's history of the SOPA/PIPA fight on Talking Points Memo is a fascinating account of the behind-the-scenes stuff that created the series of ever-larger protests that resulted in the bills' demise. Of particular note is his credit to Tiffiniy Cheng, who, along with Nicholas Reville, and Holmes Wilson, forms a trio of Boston-bred activists ...
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Marx Brothers history

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 10:23 pm

The latest installment from the great pop culture podcast Tank Riot is an in-depth look at the Marx Brothers. The lads cover the Marx's personal lives, their filmography, their place in the histories of Vaudeville, film and radio, and more besides. MP3
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Gweek 036: Grab bag of comics, book, gadgets, apps, and websites we love

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 23, 2012 09:32 pm

Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff. My hosts on episode 36 are cartoonist Ruben Bolling, whose comic, Tom the Dancing Bug, premieres weekly on Boing Boing, and Dean Putney, ...
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Notes towards a practice of responsive comics

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 08:53 pm

Here's the very talented Pablo Defendini -- developer, designer, artist, digital guy -- describing how "responsive" comics can be made using HTML and CSS that intelligently format themselves for a variety of devices, and addressing the writing and illustration challenges this gives rise to. He's not talking about "motion comics" -- he's talking about comics ...
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New Righthaven offers hosting service "with a spine"

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 23, 2012 08:40 pm

After snatching a notorious copyright troll's name at auction, a Swiss company is turning Righthaven.com into a web hosting service. The intended customers? Publishers worried about the kind of abusive legal threats spewed out by the domain's previous owner. "The Swiss courts don't play games and registrars here cannot be scared," said Stefan Thalberg of ...
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US record labels trying to sneak SOPA's provisions into Canada's pending copyright legislation

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 07:59 pm

Michael Geist sez, The Internet battle against SOPA and PIPA generated huge interest in Canada with many Canadians turning their sites dark (including Blogging Tories, Project Gutenberg Canada, and CIPPIC) in support of the protest. While SOPA may be dead (for now) in the U.S., lobby groups are likely to intensify their efforts to export ...
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Vermin Supreme: strong teeth for a strong America

By Dean Putney on Jan 23, 2012 07:21 pm

Meet presidential candidate Vermin Supreme, the tyrant you should trust. He's wearing a boot as a hat and he knows what's best for you. If you let him control your life, you'll enjoy mandatory daily toothbrushing, free ponies for all Americans, fantastic wordplay and zombie energy generation. Stick around for the end when he glitterbombs ...
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Preppers: suburban survivalists

By David Pescovitz on Jan 23, 2012 05:52 pm

Reuters profiles "Preppers" who are getting ready for total and complete societal breakdown due to natural disaster, terrorism, economic collapse, pandemic, or a good ol' fashioned apocalypse. Of course, they speak to Prepper patron saint James Wesley Rawles, author of How to Survive the End of the World as We Know It who also offers ...
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Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory

By David Pescovitz on Jan 23, 2012 05:08 pm

When Apple fanboy Mike Daisey saw photos from someone's iPhone that were ostensibly from inside Foxconn and not wiped before shipment, he became deeply curious about the goings on in the factory that makes a lot of our high-tech crap. So he went to Shenzhen, stood outside the plant, and talked to the workers. His ...
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Room 237: documentary about The Shining

By David Pescovitz on Jan 23, 2012 04:46 pm

Room 237 is my old friend Rodney Ascher's curious new documentary about the hidden (imagined?) meanings and metaphors in Stanley Kubrick's The Shining. It premiers today at the Sundance Film Festival! Above is a short video about the score to Room 237. As the vocoder-esque narration says, "Kubrick's film was scored in large part with ...
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Museum photos: Mummified Ice-Age bison

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 23, 2012 04:31 pm

Kirk Johnson is a paleobotanist at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. He took this photo at the University of Alaska Museum during a recent trip to Fairbanks. What you're looking at is a mummified bison from the Ice Age. It was frozen in solid soil and uncovered by gold miners who were artificially ...
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Testing suborbital rocket navigation on Earth

By David Pescovitz on Jan 23, 2012 04:31 pm

When planning a mission to another planet, or even the moon, a big challenge is testing the sensors and instruments that actually land the payloads on the planetary surface. In this video, Draper Laboratory demonstrates how their Guidance Embedded Navigator Integration Environment (GENIE) -- a guidance, navigation, and control system -- can control a Xombie ...
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Inside a malware company's trouble-ticket system

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 04:25 pm

Brian Krebs has been through the support forums for the "Citadel" trojan, a piece of commercial malicious software (spun out from the notorious ZeuS trojan) you can buy and use to take over other peoples' computers to make botnets for sending spam or taking down websites with traffic-floods. The fun-loving crooks running Citidel take their ...
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John Cale on "I've Got A Secret" (1963)

By David Pescovitz on Jan 23, 2012 04:09 pm

While the amazing John Cale is best known as a founder of the Velvet Underground, his association with the group followed Cale's deep involvement with the avant-garde classical music scene. During the early 1960s, Cale performed with John Cage, La Monte Young, Tony Conrad, and many others, and pioneered the drone/minimalist sound that continues to ...
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Local snow does not disprove global climate change

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 23, 2012 04:08 pm

Even with all those Snowpocalypseses(?), NASA says that 2011 was still the ninth warmest year on record since 1880—and all but one of the top 10 warmest years have happened in the last 11 years. 1998 is third-hottest, although it's worth noting that the top six years are all close enough that they may as ...
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Supremes to GPS-snooping cops: come back with a warrant

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 04:01 pm

The US Supreme Court has unanimously overturned several lower courts and ruled that police can't hide GPS trackers on your car without a warrant.
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I will not put a pun in this headline

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 23, 2012 03:46 pm

You may be pleased to know that there is an International Forum for the Study of Itch. And it has a regular conference, which just leads to inevitable jokes.
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Good news: Whale and dolphins are friends

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 23, 2012 03:39 pm

Sometimes, you need to start off your week with a dose of happy news. For instance, this video from the American Museum of Natural History details two recent instances where scientists have observed a whale and several dolphins interacting in ways that are something we might classify as "play". It's hard to talk about animal ...
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Funny titles mask serious science

By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 23, 2012 02:54 pm

Sabina Hossenfelder, an assistant professor of high-energy and nuclear physics at Sweden's Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics, is collecting a list of scientific research papers with hilarious names. I've long known that humanities researchers have a good deal of freedom in titling their work—ever since running across the seminal work "Like a Thesis: A post-modern ...
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Petition: investigate Chris Dodd for fraud

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 01:21 pm

A petition to the White House asks for an official investigation of former senator and now-MPAA CEO Chris Dodd, who strongly implied that he believes his members' contributions to election campaigns are bribes. "This is an open admission of bribery and a threat designed to provoke a specific policy goal. This is a brazen flouting ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-23T06:03:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Hilda, kids' comic in the tradition of Miyazaki and Moomins
White House petition to end support for ACTA
Hair rental: you know it makes sense
Foreign journalist claims corruption, brutality, death threats from Japanese airport officials
Lies, damned lies, and piracy statistics
Poor Chris Dodd
Italian Isaac Asimov graffiti
Polish anti-ACTA site
Breakdancing Filipino traffic-cop
Newt 2012 sticker: "America is my wife now"
HOWTO lay a wood floor on top of the carpet in your rental apartment

Hilda, kids' comic in the tradition of Miyazaki and Moomins

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 12:04 pm

East London's Nobrow Press sent me a review pack last week, including a couple of kids' comics featuring Luke Pearson's Hilda. Poesy is almost four, and we recently graduated from wordless comics (like Régis Faller's Polo) to Art Spiegelman's wonderful Jack and the Box, and I was curious about how she'd like these. My own ...
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White House petition to end support for ACTA

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 23, 2012 05:29 am

ACTA is a secretly negotiated copyright treaty that obliges its signatories to take on many of the worst features of SOPA and PIPA. The EU is nearing ratification of it. ACTA was instigated by US trade reps under the Bush Administration, who devised and enforced its unique secrecy regime, but the Obama administration enthusiastically pursued ...
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Hair rental: you know it makes sense

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 22, 2012 11:52 pm

Lamar Smith, are you reading this? (Via Mitch O'Connell)
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Foreign journalist claims corruption, brutality, death threats from Japanese airport officials

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 07:16 pm

Christopher Johnson, a Canadian journalist residing (until recently) in Japan published a ghastly account of his return to Tokyo after a short pre-Christmas trip. He was flagged at the border (he implies that this is related to his coverage of Fukushima), held, threatened, and shaken down for bribes before being detained without counsel or a ...
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Lies, damned lies, and piracy statistics

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 06:04 pm

Julian Sanchez is on fire in this Ars Technica article on the funny accountancy and outright lies that underlie the harms-from-piracy stats cited in policy debates about Internet censorship and surveillance proposals like SOPA and PIPA: As a rough analogy, since antipiracy crusaders are fond of equating filesharing with shoplifting: suppose the CEO of Wal-Mart ...
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Poor Chris Dodd

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 05:57 pm

The former senator and now CEO of the MPAA can't catch a break: "You've got an opponent who has the capacity to reach millions of people with a click of a mouse and there's no fact-checker." Must be terribly hard to represent the largest media empires in the world, who collectively own all the major ...
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Italian Isaac Asimov graffiti

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 04:17 pm

Chrisperfer sez, "I randomly came upon this Isaac Asimov graffiti when attending a birthday party in Rome for my 4 year old daughter's friend." Isaac Asimov
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Polish anti-ACTA site

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 04:06 pm

For Polish readers: StopACTA.pl is your clearinghouse for action in the Polish fight against the punitive ACTA copyright treaty.
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Breakdancing Filipino traffic-cop

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 03:06 pm

Here's a Filipino traffic-cop performing his duties while breakdancing, to the great delight of a large and excited crowd. Filipino Traffic Cop Doing His Job Like A Boss (via 3 Quarks Daily)
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Newt 2012 sticker: "America is my wife now"

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 02:03 pm

Inspired by a Warren Ellis tweet, Robert made this fitting Newt bumper-sticker. Newt 2012 (via Super Punch)
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HOWTO lay a wood floor on top of the carpet in your rental apartment

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 01:14 pm

Sumitsumit sez, "Tired of carpet, want wood floors, but living in a rental apartment? If you have the low-pile variety, here's an economical way to make yourself a great new floor without damaging the underlying carpet. From the guy who brought you 'rope bondage for laptops.'" How to Install a Wood Floor on top of ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Irish journalist humiliates EuroBank technocrat who won't stop ducking hard questions
Happy birthday to us
Satellite photo of Costa Concordia shipwreck
John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah
Puppets re-enact no-cameras-allowed corruption trial on the nightly news
Chris Dodd to Obama: Hollywood will stop supporting you because you were soft on SOPA and PIPA
SOPA/PIPA mashup: how much Hollywood money did your lawmaker take? Name and shame with fellow voters

Irish journalist humiliates EuroBank technocrat who won't stop ducking hard questions

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 09:12 am

In this video from a European Central Bank press-conference in Ireland, journalist Vincent Browne demands that the ECB representative explain why the ECB required the Irish people to bail out a bank's uninsured creditors. The bureaucrat mouths bland reassurances, then asserts (despite all appearances to the contrary) that the question has been resolved. Browne doesn't ...
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Happy birthday to us

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 22, 2012 06:23 am

Boing Boing's blog incarnation is 12 today!
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Satellite photo of Costa Concordia shipwreck

By David Pescovitz on Jan 22, 2012 04:47 am

From DigitalGlobe, this striking satellite image of the Costa Concordia shipwreck off Giglio, Italy.
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John Cale's cover of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah

By David Pescovitz on Jan 22, 2012 12:08 am

Avant-garde hero John Cale performs his cover of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah" in 1992. Cale's version is available on the highly-recommended multi-artist cover album, "Leonard Cohen: I'm Your Fan," from 1991. And yes, perhaps you also heard it in Shrek.
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Puppets re-enact no-cameras-allowed corruption trial on the nightly news

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2012 03:44 pm

Channel 19 in Akron, Ohio was disappointed that it wouldn't be allowed to take cameras into the corruption trial of Jimmy Dimora, a former county commissioner. But when life gives you SARS, you make sarsaparilla: they bring the courtroom proceeding to their viewers' TV sets by re-enacting them with puppets. As Lowering the Bar notes, ...
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Chris Dodd to Obama: Hollywood will stop supporting you because you were soft on SOPA and PIPA

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2012 02:33 pm

Former Senator Chris Dodd, now head of the MPAA, is pissed at Obama. He's threatened to withhold entertainment lobbyist money from Obama's upcoming re-election war chest over the administration's lack of support for SOPA and PIPA. As an ex-Senator, Dodd is prohibited from directly lobbying Congress for a couple more years, and some insiders tell ...
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SOPA/PIPA mashup: how much Hollywood money did your lawmaker take? Name and shame with fellow voters

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2012 01:24 pm

With PIPA off the legislative calendar and SOPA paused, this tool may seem a bit redundant, but it's a nice piece of advocacy work. Creator Jonathan Vanasco sez, "I tossed together a mashup over a few hours while sick on the couch. It uses the data from Propublica and SunlightLabs to create very-shareable profile pages ...
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The Latest from Boing Boing

2012-01-21T06:02:00.001-08:00

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Undercover UK cops infiltrated environmental groups, seduced women in the groups, fathered children with them, abandoned them
Van Dyke Parks singles project
Students for Sensible Drug Policy question presidential candidates
FLORA, Adafruit's new wearable electronics development platform
How To: Mark your tools for easy identification
Ice Cube
Mondo Media NewsHit: Rock the Caucuses
SOPA is dead
Skeptical take on the Green Revolution
Etta James and Johnny Otis, RIP
Conjoined II art show in Santa Monica
Shit Baristas Say
HOWTO typeset Call of Cthulhu spells to make them look like the scrawlings of a gibbering madman
Report from the Orchid Olympics
Playboy's "The Smoking Jacket" talks to Chester Brown
Make money fast with the sensational new T.V. Bank
Microsoft text adventure game!
Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo
Senate postpones PIPA vote
Split Decision pie-pan for baking two different half-pies in one go
NSFA: extracting a gauze-pack from a broken nose
Cthulhu carpets

Undercover UK cops infiltrated environmental groups, seduced women in the groups, fathered children with them, abandoned them

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 21, 2012 09:39 am

Undercover police agents in the UK infiltrated environmental groups, had sex with their members, struck up long-term relationships with women in these groups, fathered children with these women, and then abandoned the children. Two undercover police officers secretly fathered children with political campaigners they had been sent to spy on and later disappeared completely from ...
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Van Dyke Parks singles project

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 21, 2012 12:01 am

Van Dyke Parks has a new singles project! Michael Leddy (who wrote the "imaginary liner notes" for the first four singles) says Parks is "putting out six 45s with cover art by E Ruscha, Art Spiegelman, Charles Ray, Frank Holmes (who did the SMiLE cover), Klaus Voorman, Billy Edd Wheeler, and Sally Parks (VDP's wife). ...
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Students for Sensible Drug Policy question presidential candidates

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 09:33 pm

[Video Link] Irina Alexander, Chair of SSDP (Students for Sensible Drug Policy) Board of Directors says: Two weeks ago, SSDP members took over New Hampshire before the primary, confronting presidential candidates about the drug war left and right! Within the span of a few days, we were able to capture videos of Gingrich, Romney, Santorum, ...
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FLORA, Adafruit's new wearable electronics development platform

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 09:24 pm

Our friends at Adafruit Industries just announced FLORA, a new wearable electronics development platform. For the last few years Ladyada has been thinking about everything she wanted in a wearable electronics platform for Adafruit’s community of makers, hackers, crafters, artists, designers and engineers. After months of planning, designing and working with partners around the world ...
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How To: Mark your tools for easy identification

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 07:58 pm

Steve Hoefer (a fantastic maker who I interviewed on the Make: Talk podcast earlier this week) has come up with a great way to clearly mark his tools so they don't get lost when he brings them to a hackerspace. I also work at community workshops quite a bit, and while they often have a ...
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Ice Cube

By David Pescovitz on Jan 20, 2012 07:09 pm

Ice Cube shares his appreciation for Charles and Ray Eames. "Ice Cube Celebrates The Eames" (via Gabe Adiv's Pinterest)
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Mondo Media NewsHit: Rock the Caucuses

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 06:51 pm

[Video Link] This reminds me of the SubGenius photo manipulations I enjoyed on alt.slack.
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SOPA is dead

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 06:05 pm

Mashable: "Lamar Smith, the chief sponsor of SOPA, said on Friday that he is pulling the bill 'until there is wider agreement on a solution.' ... and ... "'In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote on the PROTECT IP Act,' said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) in a statement ...
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Skeptical take on the Green Revolution

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 05:19 pm

CBC's long-form/big think radio program Ideas recently featured a lecture called "Feeding Ten Billion" from Raj Patel, an Africa development scholar formerly with the World Bank, and author of The Value of Nothing. Patel's perspective on global agriculture and social justice is incisive and contrarian. I've never heard anyone talk about the demerits of the ...
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Etta James and Johnny Otis, RIP

By David Pescovitz on Jan 20, 2012 04:57 pm

The world lost two musical greats this week. Etta James died today at age 73. Johnny Otis passed away on Tuesday. He was 90.
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Conjoined II art show in Santa Monica

By David Pescovitz on Jan 20, 2012 04:49 pm

Artist Chet Zar curated Conjoined II, a mind-bending group show that opens tomorrow night at Santa Monica's CoproGallery. Featured artists include Charles Krafft, Ron English, Jason Hite, and many others. Above is the absolutely stunning La Petite Mort, by Christopher Conte. Chet Zar's : Conjoined 2 in 3D / Copro Gallery / Jan 21 –Feb ...
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Shit Baristas Say

By David Pescovitz on Jan 20, 2012 04:30 pm

Zachary Carlsen and Jordan Michelman of the excellent Sprudge.com coffee news site took the "Shit Girls Say" meme into my favorite San Francisco cafe, Four Barrel Coffee. Hilarity ensues. "There's no 'X' in espresso." Shit Baristas Say (Thanks, Matthew Williams!)
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HOWTO typeset Call of Cthulhu spells to make them look like the scrawlings of a gibbering madman

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 04:28 pm

Gnat sez, "The only thing cuter than this Game Master asking TeX gurus for help making his RPG notes 'look like they were scrawled by a gibbering madman, unhinged by the horrors he has witnessed' is the serious responses, with examples of output. He even got an answer saying how to typeset an Elder Sign! ...
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Report from the Orchid Olympics

By David Pescovitz on Jan 20, 2012 04:21 pm

JG Bryce took these incredible photographs at the 20th World Orchid Conference, aka "The Orchid Olympics" that took place in Singapore last November. Bryce's photos illustrate a feature at Smithsonian about the competition. From Smithsonian: Members of a South African orchid society, disappointed that international trade regulations had denied them permission to bring real animal ...
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Playboy's "The Smoking Jacket" talks to Chester Brown

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 04:10 pm

Playboy's website The Smoking Jacket interviewed cartoonist Chester Brown about his autobiographical novel, The Playboy. Jessica Campbell of Drawn & Quarterly (publisher of The Playboy) says, "OK, am I the only one who didn't know that Hugh Hefner wrote to Chester after the publication of The Playboy to express concern about his guilt? This interview ...
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Make money fast with the sensational new T.V. Bank

By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 20, 2012 03:55 pm

(Insert quarter into your computer to enlarge the image above. If not thrilled and delighted beyond words, your quarter will be returned.) After the MPAA orders its minions in the Justice Dept. to shut down Boing Boing, I will continue to earn a living with the sensational new Television Bank. (Via The Big Blog of ...
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Microsoft text adventure game!

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 20, 2012 03:25 pm

"Microsoft has jumped onto the free-to-play bandwagon with its latest game, a text-driven adventure called Visual Studio 2010. The innovative new game marries the traditional interactive fiction text adventure with its arcane commands and exploration with the free-form, open-ended gaming" [Ars Technica, following the introduction of gamification and "achievements" to the coding app]
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Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo

By Rob Beschizza on Jan 20, 2012 03:00 pm

Our thanks to Watchismo for sponsoring Boing Boing Blast, our once-daily delivery of headlines by email. Watchismo and Devon Works have announced details and a sneak peek of the Devon Tread 2, the eagerly anticipated follow-up to the groundbreaking Tread 1. The Tread 2's movement relies heavily on aerospace technology such as glass-reinforced Nylon Time ...
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Senate postpones PIPA vote

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 02:19 pm

James Losey from the New America Foundation sez, "Great news, the PROTECT-IP Senate vote scheduled for Tuesday has been postponed!" Washington, D.C. – Nevada Senator Harry Reid [ed: D-NV, Senate Majority Leader] released the following statement today on the Senate's PROTECT I.P. Act: "In light of recent events, I have decided to postpone Tuesday's vote ...
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Split Decision pie-pan for baking two different half-pies in one go

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 02:10 pm

The Split Decision pie-pan lets you bake two pies in the same receptacle, settling any arguments about which sort of pie should be had that day and generating handsome, smooth half-pies the like of which humanity was not meant to ken of. I'm not enough of a baker to know if different sorts of pies ...
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NSFA: extracting a gauze-pack from a broken nose

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 02:05 pm

Don't click this if you're at all squeamish, but there's something terrific (in ever sense) about the extraction of a gauze-pack from a healing broken nose, like watching a kind of horrible stillborn mouse being birthed from a cringing man's sinus cavity. (Thanks Fipi Lele!)
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Cthulhu carpets

By Cory Doctorow on Jan 20, 2012 01:11 pm

Denmark's EGE Carpets sells a line of carpeting inspired by HP Lovecraft illustrations called Dark Water. They were created by Kirill Rozhkov, who has a nice gallery of them on Behance. Dark Water (Thanks, KayKay!)
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