The Latest from Boing Boing

ACLU fights gene patents Posted: 14 May 2009 04:52 AM PDT The ACLU is seeking to have patents on genetic tests overturned on constitutional grounds, arguing that genes are not inventions, and that patents on them do not advance science because the companies that win them are capricious and greedy and deny legitimate researchers access to the patented arts. On May 12, 2009, the ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law (PUBPAT) filed a lawsuit charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of four scientific organizations representing more than 150,000 geneticists, pathologists, and laboratory professionals, as well as individual researchers, breast cancer and women's health groups, genetic counselors and individual women. Individuals with certain mutations along these two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are at a significantly higher risk for developing hereditary breast and ovarian cancers... "Scientific research and testing have been delayed, limited or even shut down as a result of gene patents, stifling the development of new diagnostics and treatments," said Tania Simoncelli, ACLU science advisor. "The government should be encouraging scientific innovation, not hindering it." "Patenting human genes is counter to common sense, patent law and the Constitution," said Daniel B. Ravicher, Executive Director of PUBPAT and co-counsel in the lawsuit. "Genes are identified, not invented, and patenting genetic sequences is like patenting blood, air or e=mc2." ACLU Challenges Patents on Breast Cancer Genes (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)

Calendar laser-etched into thumbnails Posted: 14 May 2009 04:46 AM PDT Back in 2007, Bre Pettis etched a calendar into his thumbnails with a laser cutter. I'd love to gussy up my digits before a night out on the town with some etched bitmaps. Sure would be smarter than a boring old man-manicure (and it'd be great for cheating on exams). Why is this technology not ubiquitous? A Calendar Laser Etched Into Fingernails (via Sciencepunk) Can't see the video? Click here

Breathlyzer source-code sucks Posted: 14 May 2009 04:41 AM PDT After a long legal wrangle, some defendant-side attorneys have audited the source-code of Alcotest, the breathalyzer used in New Jersey DUI stops. Turns out it was programmed by muppets who don't know how to calculate an average and who throw out error messages by the dozen. Like voting-machine vendors, breathlyzer vendors go crazy when defendants ask to have their source-code audited, claiming that there's a bunch of top-s33kr1t stuff in there that their competitors would steal. And, just like voting-machine software, breathalyzer software appears to have been written by squirrels dancing on the keyboard until they got something that would compile. 2. Readings are Not Averaged Correctly: When the software takes a series of readings, it first averages the first two readings. Then, it averages the third reading with the average just computed. Then the fourth reading is averaged with the new average, and so on. There is no comment or note detailing a reason for this calculation, which would cause the first reading to have more weight than successive readings. Nonetheless, the comments say that the values should be averaged, and they are not... 4. Catastrophic Error Detection Is Disabled: An interrupt that detects that the microprocessor is trying to execute an illegal instruction is disabled, meaning that the Alcotest software could appear to run correctly while executing wild branches or invalid code for a period of time. Other interrupts ignored are the Computer Operating Property (a watchdog timer), and the Software Interrupt. SUMMARY OF THE SOFTWARE HOUSE FINDINGS FOR THE SOURCE CODE OF THE DRAEGER ALCOTEST 7110 MKIII-C (via Schneier)

Retrotech: I want my vinyl back, too Posted: 14 May 2009 04:42 AM PDT Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger. The New York Times reports that MTA city buses are losing the yellow rubber electronic strip in favor of the good ol' pull string connected to a bell. The electronic strip technology costs more to make and to maintain. For those of us who are old enough to remember the cord-pull system, it's a welcome return of a technology with more depth, character and dependability than the rubber strip. Perhaps the best thing about the pull wire is that you can really yank on it when you're mad or frustrated - as if to ring the bell louder - even though, for the driver, the bell has the same sound. So you get to express frustration in a fully gestural way, without actually annoying anyone, or spreading the anxiety any further. The New York Times

Wig purifier -- Boing Boing Gadgets Posted: 14 May 2009 04:18 AM PDT Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Lisa's spotted this nifty wig-sterilizer, because "bacteria can live in your hairpiece for weeks." The Wig Purifier is an airtight tube that you can stick your wig in at the end of the day for automatic sterilization and deodorization. Apparently it uses ozone air to work its magic--ten minutes in the faux-suede Purifier will give you a fresh head. It's $367. Check out the cheesy promo video below. Wig Purifier uses ozone power to clean your hair piece Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Lunar junk Posted: 14 May 2009 04:16 AM PDT Here's a pretty good roundup, courtesy of Scienceray, of all the human-made junk left behind on the Moon. I think you could probably finance a private moonshot by preselling all this stuff to museums and collectors! The Apollo program left behind it (as did Lunokhod 2) several vital pieces of Lunar laser ranging equipment. Lasers down here on earth are pointed at the ones on the moon and the time in which it takes the light to return is measured. In this way the distance to the moon can be measured and monitored. Apollo 11 left the first one in 1969 and it has had forty years of continuous operation ever since. Apart from these few pieces of equipment, the rest of the items on the surface of the moon are redundant - or destroyed by impact. Welcome to the most distant trash can we have. Lunar Leftovers: How the Moon Became a Trash Can (Thanks, RJ!)

Altruistic vaccines: take them after you get sick and your blood becomes mosquito-poison Posted: 14 May 2009 04:09 AM PDT A dengue fever vaccine being developed with funding from the Gates Foundation takes a novel approach: it's an "altruistic" vaccine that you take after you get sick. It renders your blood poisonous to the mosquitoes who spread the disease, which means that your neighbors won't catch your fever. Professor Young says dengue is a problem which affects millions around the world and mosquito transmitted pathogens such as dengue and malaria are a significant disease burden on the world's population. His aim is to develop a novel vaccine approach that is based on blocking mosquito transmission of these disease agents rather than inducing pathogen-specific immunity. Money from Bill and Melinda Gates will help beat Dengue fever in Australia (via /.) Can't see the video? Click here

Statues of Lenin with a boner for communism Posted: 14 May 2009 04:07 AM PDT Any statue of a man with one hand held out before him at waist height can be photographed in profile in such a way that the extended hand looks like a big ole boner. And Soviet-era statues of Lenin have this posture in spades. Hence this collection on Lenin monuments sporting vast, steely commie-ons. (Famously, you can reproduce this effect with the famous "Partners" statue at Disneyland, which depicts Walt holding Mickey's hand; from the right angle, Mickey's nose becomes Walt's stiffy). A Different Angle of View on Lenin Monuments (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Comics creators talk about their latest offerings Posted: 13 May 2009 06:20 PM PDT Warren Ellis has asked comics creators to talk up their latest creations, for people about to head down to the local funnybook emporium. The resulting thread is a great resource for people looking to discover new comix gems: So... any creators here have a book coming out this week? I'm putting out a call, and I'm suspecting it'll be a bust this week, but maybe...? If you do: want to mention it? Talk about it? Point at a website, a blog entry, a bit of art, whatever... let these many thousands of people with disposable income know about it? Printheads: This Week In Comics (13may09)

Copyright protects critics, but leaves fans out in the cold Posted: 13 May 2009 06:16 PM PDT In my latest Guardian column, "When love is harder to show than hate," I look at the fact that copyright protects critics who want to talk trash about creative works, but gives no real protection to people who want to say nice things about them. The damage here is twofold: first, this privileges creativity that knocks things down over things that build things up. The privilege is real: in the 21st century, we all rely on many intermediaries for the publication of our works, whether it's YouTube, a university web server, or a traditional publisher or film company. When faced with legal threats arising from our work, these entities know that they've got a much stronger case if the work in question is critical than if it is celebratory. In the digital era, our creations have a much better chance of surviving the internet's normal background radiation of legal threats if you leave the adulation out and focus on the criticism. This is a selective force in the internet's media ecology: if you want to start a company that lets users remix TV shows, you'll find it easier to raise capital if the focus is on taking the piss rather than glorifying the programmes. Second, this perverse system acts as a censor of genuine upwellings of creativity that are worthy in their own right, merely because they are inspired by another work. It's in the nature of beloved works that they become ingrained in our thinking, become part of our creative shorthand, and become part of our visual vocabulary. It's no surprise, then, that audiences are moved to animate the characters that have taken up residence in their heads after reading our books and seeing our movies. The celebrated American science-fiction writer Steven Brust produced a fantastic, full-length novel, My Own Kind of Freedom, inspired by the television show Firefly. Brust didn't - and probably can't - receive any money for this work, but he wrote it anyway, because, he says, "I couldn't help myself". When love is harder to show than hate

Spy-junk Posted: 13 May 2009 06:14 PM PDT Dark Roasted Blend's roundup of civilian-accessible spy gizmos will be largely familiar to attentive readers of this blog, but it's nice to have all this stuff in one place, from the hollow coins to the pens that turn into deadly! stabby! knives! Real Life Spy Gadgets - For the secret agent in all of us (via Beyond the Beyond) Can't see the video? Click here

Stinkum from fridge full of putrid cow-orker chow causes AT&T office evac Posted: 13 May 2009 06:11 PM PDT A worker at one of AT&T's San Jose offices opened a refrigerator full of rotten, forgotten cow-orker chow and released a gas so noxious that the building had to be evacuated and a hazmat team had to be called in. Authorities said an enterprising office worker had decided to clean it out, placing the food in a conference room while using two cleaning chemicals to scrub down the mess. The mixture of old lunches and disinfectant caused 28 people to need treatment for vomiting and nausea. Authorities said the worker who cleaned the fridge didn't need treatment -- she can't smell because of allergies. Rotten office fridge cleanup sends 7 to hospital (via /.)

Steampunk pre-school TV show from Weta Posted: 13 May 2009 06:06 PM PDT Pedro sez, "The WotWots is a pre-schooler's TV show with an elaborate steampunk aesthetic. The two main characters travel in beautifully rendered spaceship that is steampunk inside and out - apart from the pink and blue shagpile mattress on their oval brass bed. The show is made in New Zealand at the Weta Workshop - responsible for the special effects in Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies. According to their website, Richard Taylor, the creative lead at Weta, has received five Oscars, four Baftas and numerous other awards." The Wotwots (Thanks, Pedro!)

Why RIAA lawsuits matter to the Free Software Foundation Posted: 13 May 2009 06:04 PM PDT John from the Free Software Foundation sez, "When the RIAA chose to attack the Free Software Foundation over our submission of an amicus brief in one of their filesharing cases, it raised some questions -- not about the RIAA's legal strategy of suggesting that the FSF should not be able to file a brief at all, which was clearly baseless -- but about why an organization working on software freedom cares enough about these lawsuits to intervene, and about what exactly the FSF's position on copyright is, given that we rely on it for the GNU General Public license to protect free software." The War on Sharing: Why the FSF Cares About RIAA Lawsuits (Thanks, John!)

Moby-Dick in tweet form Posted: 13 May 2009 06:02 PM PDT Ape Lad sez, "Several months ago on Twitter I made a passing remark that it would be kinda neat if someone tweeted Moby-Dick. 12,849 updates later, and thanks to the wizardry of Dan Coulter, it's done. Enjoy Ishmael's adventure 140 characters at a time." Tweeting Moby Dick (Thanks, Ape Lad!) Previously: Homer's Odyssey on Twitter - Boing Boing

Invention of the space-coffee-cup Posted: 13 May 2009 05:59 PM PDT Marilyn sez, "NASA astronaut Don Pettit was tired of drinking from straws all the time in space, 'You feel like an insect sucking juices out of another insect,' so on a mission last November he fashioned a drinking cup that would work in zero gravity via capillary action. He used a sheet of plastic and some tape. You can see a photo of it on this National Geographic blog along with the mathematical calculations that explain how it works." Don Pettit did a great interview on NPR's Science Friday about this and his other space-inventions. No Gravity, No Straw: Birth of a Space Cup (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Worldchanging's charity auction -- kick-ass bargains! Posted: 13 May 2009 05:56 PM PDT Alex from Worldchanging sez, "We're doing an ideas auction to benefit Worldchanging: cool conference tickets, adventure science trips, art and design, all of which is about the kinds of innovation we cover here. Bidding is not exactly hot, which means somebody has the chance to walk away with some real steals here! This is really phenomenal stuff -- platinum passes to SxSW, original limited-edition Ed Burtynsky prints, a trip to see polar bears in their native habitat -- and most of it is currently going for a small fraction of the street price. Plus, because it's a charity auction (all proceeds benefit Worldchanging, a nonprofit), U.S. taxpayers can get a tax deduction as well! Awesome (and cheap) prizes, a good cause, and money saved on taxes. Seems like a good deal! The auction closes 10:00 a.m. Friday ({acific time). So only one day to get these deals!" Crazy-great bargains on awesome stuff at Worldchanging's charity auction (Thanks, Alex!)

Toronto Comic Arts Festival mini-documentary Posted: 13 May 2009 05:48 PM PDT Here's VepoStudios's great short documentary on last weekend's Toronto Comic Arts Festival -- a spectacular, creator-centric comics show that was free to attend and right in the middle of town. I managed to get there for an hour or so (I'm in Toronto for family stuff) and it was insanely great, made me wish I could have spent the weekend there! Toronto Comic Arts Festival 2009 Previously: Toronto Comic Arts Festival today!

Self-serve commercial licensing: HOWTO turn the makerverse into an R&D lab Posted: 13 May 2009 05:43 PM PDT In my latest Internet Evolution column, "Digital Licensing: Do It Yourself," I propose a new kind of self-serve, lightweight "commercial commons" that would allow makers to do small-scale commercial manufacturing of goods that remix copyrights and trademarks, with no upfront payments, and a fixed royalty rate that lets the makerverse operate as a giant, well-compensated R&D lab for products you should be selling: From edge to edge, the Net is filled with creators of every imaginable tchotchke - and quite a lot of them are for sale. And quite a lot of that is illegal. That's because culture isn't always non-commercial. All around the physical world, you can find markets where craftspeople turn familiar items from one realm of commerce into handicrafts sold in another realm. I have a carved wooden Coke bottle from Uganda, a Mickey Mouse kite from Chile, a set of hand-painted KISS matrioshkes from Russia. This, too, is a legitimate form of commerce, and the fact that the villager who carved my Coke bottle was impedance-mismatched with Coke and didn't send a lawyer to Atlanta to get a license before he started carving isn't a problem for him, because Coke can't and won't enforce against carvers in small stalls in marketplaces in war-torn African nations. If only this were true for crafters on the Net. Though they deploy the same cultural vocabulary as their developing-world counterparts for much the same reason (it's the same reason Warhol used Campbell's soup cans), they don't have obscurity on their side. They live by the double-edged sword of the search-engine: The same tool that enables their customers to find them also enables rights-holders to discover them and shut them down. It doesn't have to be this way. Digital Licensing: Do It Yourself Can't see the video? Click here

Shane Speal plays "Blue Raga" on cigar box guitar Posted: 13 May 2009 04:04 PM PDT "Shane Speal performs 'Blue Raga' at the 3rd annual Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza in Huntsville, Alabama. Speal is accompanied on cigar box lyre by Timothy Renner. This song is featured in Songs Inside The Box, the cigar box guitar documentary directed by Max Shores."

Obama Reverses Promise to Release Detainee Torture Photos Posted: 13 May 2009 08:09 PM PDT President Obama announced today that he will move to block the release of photos documenting American military personnel torturing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan, saying the images could "further inflame anti-American opinion." What BS. You know what will help dampen those flames? An end to war crimes impunity, and the dawn of that true transparency he promised America during his presidential campaign. Instead, we're dealt yet another civil liberties disappointment. Snip from NYT story: As he left the White House to fly to Arizona for an evening commencement address, Mr. Obama briefly explained his abrupt reversal on releasing the photographs. He said the pictures, which he has reviewed, "are not particularly sensational, but the conduct did not conform with the Army manual." He did not take questions from reporters, but said disclosing the photos would have "a chilling effect" on future attempts to investigate detainee abuse. The president's decision marks a sharp reversal from a decision made last month by the Pentagon, which agreed in a case with the American Civil Liberties Union to release photographs showing incidents at Abu Ghraib and a half-dozen other prisons. At the time, the president signed off on the decision, saying he agreed with releasing the photos. Read the NYT story here, and the ACLU's statement on today's news is here. Snip: The Obama administration's adoption of the stonewalling tactics and opaque policies of the Bush administration flies in the face of the president's stated desire to restore the rule of law, to revive our moral standing in the world and to lead a transparent government. This decision is particularly disturbing given the Justice Department's failure to initiate a criminal investigation of torture crimes under the Bush administration. Obama isn't just "Bush Lite" with regard to these issues, he's continuing the exact same policies of the Bush administration and in some matters, expanding those powers further. Nothing "lite" about that. Read more about the torture documents the ACLU obtained under FOIA here. Update: Mark Frauenfelder tweets, "Here's a quick form to email President Obama telling him you support transparency and accountability."

The New Brighton Archeological Society Posted: 13 May 2009 01:47 PM PDT Scott says: The New Brighton Archeological Society by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon, published by Image Comics, is one of the very best all ages graphic novels in years. It proves that there can be an outlet to introduce kids to the world of picture-based story telling without pandering to them or horrifying their innocent sensibilities. A recent review by Optimous Douche at Ain't It Cool News effectively captures the spirit of the OGN: To build this world Smith put a brilliant spin on past literature ranging from children’s tales like Peter Pan, fantasy lore like Lord of the Rings and even a nice smattering of some tales from eastern cultures. Despite the fact I had read most of the source of material, his imaginative take on telling these tales through the eyes of a child made all of the concepts feel as fresh and exciting for me as a reader as they were for the new Brighton Archeologists. The New Brighton Archeological Society

Good deal on cardboard US flags for caskets Posted: 13 May 2009 01:27 PM PDT The opening bid for this lot of 100 cardboard US-flag casket covers with Department of Defense logos on each end is just $150. Think of the possibilities. I don't think I'll bid on it, though. My takeaway from this is that I get to start yelling at my kids to clean up all their goddamn "miscellaneous fabricated nonmetallic material" scattered around the house. Government Liquidation: LOT (APPROX 100) CASKET CARRYING CASE AMERICAN FLAG CARDBOARD TOP WITH DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE LOGOS ON EACH END, ASSEMBLED DIMENSIONS 36" X 84" X 23", WOOD BOTTOM DIMENSIONS 32" X 87" X 4" (Thanks, Tom!)

Flies make ants into zombies? Posted: 13 May 2009 01:16 PM PDT The attention-grabbing headline above is about a University of Texas at Austin effort to use parasitic flies as a defense against fire ants. Apparently, phorid flies control the fire ant population naturally in South America. From the Associated Press: The flies lay eggs on the fire ants, and the eggs hatch into maggots inside the ant and eat away at the pest's tiny brain. The ant will get up and wander for about two weeks while the maggot feeds, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin. "There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly," he said. About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off — and a new fly emerges ready to attack another fire ant. "New weapon turns fire ants into headless zombies" (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!) Previously: Excavation of an ant colony - Boing Boing Bug-sting scale with funny definitions - Boing Boing Laser-controlled headless zombie flies - Boing Boing

TV Documentary: Survival of the Half Ton Teen Posted: 13 May 2009 01:06 PM PDT Survival of the Half Ton Teen air Sunday, May 17 at 8 PM (ET/PT) on TLC. [It] features Billy Robbins – better known as the world’s heaviest teen and his continuing journey to lose weight and gain control of his life. At 18-years old, Billy peaked at a staggering 850 pounds. In an effort to save his life, he must lose more than half his own body mass. The first TLC special, “Half Ton Teen” aired in January 2009 and followed Billy as he underwent skin surgery and shed 200 pounds. In this follow-up special, TLC continues to document Billy’s journey as he undergoes bariatric surgery. From the risky gastric sleeve surgery to the difficult recovery to his eventual transformation, the cameras follow him every step of the way. Through the process, Billy encounters the greatest obstacles of his life, which include changing his sedentary lifestyle and cutting the unhealthy bond between he and his mother so he can learn how to take care of himself.

Sound Opinions music podcast Posted: 13 May 2009 12:31 PM PDT BB pal Jess Hemerly says: A friend recently turned me on to a great podcast put out by Chicago Public Radio called Sound Opinions, hosted by two Chicago music critics, Jim DeRogatis (Chicago Sun-Times) and Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune). The show has been on Chicago Public Radio since 2005, and all of the episodes are available on the site. These guys LOVE music. They have such insane knowledge of music and musicians that they not only make amazing connections across genres and eras, but they also have on many occasions pointed out amazing parts of songs I've never noticed but have heard 20,000 times. To wit: I never realized how truly amazing Ernie Isley's guitar solo is in Isley Brothers' "Who's That Lady?" or that "Sympathy for the Devil" is inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. But they are also not such huge snobs that they're unwilling to admit that it's very difficult to distinguish between Parliament and Funkadelic. They make me want to move to Chicago and befriend them (I mean that in a completely non-creepy way). Sound Opinions

BB Video: "Sebastian's Voodoo" - Vote for it, for Cannes! Posted: 13 May 2009 12:27 PM PDT In today's Boing Boing Video episode, we revisit "Sebastian's Voodoo," a beautiful animated work by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin, which we first featured on our daily video program about a year ago. We're returning to this enchanting, dark, fanciful work today because... drum roll... it has been nominated for a short film award at the Cannes Film Festival, which opens today! It's really exciting to see the work of a young, talented animator like Joaquin get this kind of recognition. I am voting for Joaquin right now, and if you dig his work, I hope you will too. And after you vote for Joaquin, here's some related reading: New Scientist has an interesting article up today about the "science of voodoo" -- well, more accurately, the science behind people who believe they've been "witched" or cursed, and end up becoming ill or dying because their believe in that "reverse placebo" is so powerful. I like to remind people that voudun, or "voodoo," is more truthfully a broad, deep, and very misunderstood religious tradition that originates in West Africa. Voudun doesn't really have anything do with sticking pins in dolls, or convincing people you don't like that they have cancer. While ad hominem "witching" does exist, to say this defines voudun is unfair and uninformed. RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic)

Synesthesia: new book by Dr. Richard Cytowic Posted: 13 May 2009 02:38 PM PDT Richard Cytowic, MD, is one of the world's leading researchers on synesthesia, a mindblowing neurological condition in which two or more senses are linked so that you might, for example, "taste" sounds or "hear" colors. Cytowic and neuroscientist David Eagleman have a new book out, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, about synesthesia, exploring the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, and the subjectivity of reality. Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide, interviewed Cytowic for Scientific American. From SciAm: LEHRER: What can synesthetes teach us about the nature of human perception? CYTOWIC: Far from being a mere curiosity, synesthesia is a consciously elevated form of the perception that everyone already has. Minds that function differently are not so strange after all, and everyone can learn from them. Synesthesia has opened up a window onto a broad expanse of the brain and perception. Younger researchers are now active in 15 countries. Because the trait runs strongly in families, it is easy to collect DNA from a large number of synesthetic relatives. This means that synesthesia may be the very first perceptual condition for which science can map its gene. This inherited quirk is teaching us that cross-talk among the senses is the rule rather than the exception--we are all inward synesthetes who are outwardly unaware of sensory couplings happening all the time. For example, sight, sound, and movement normally map to one another so closely that even bad ventriloquists convince us that whatever moves is doing the talking. Likewise, cinema convinces us that dialogue comes from the actors' mouths rather than the surrounding speakers. Dance is another example of cross-sensory mapping in which body rhythms imitate sound rhythms kinetically and visually. We so take these similarities for granted that we never question them the way we might doubt colored hearing. "When Senses Intersect" (SciAm) Buy "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Amazon) Previously: Hearing-motion synesthesia - Boing Boing These words taste blue: Synesthesia in SciAm - Boing Boing Technological synaesthesia - Boing Boing Can't see the video? Click here

Guatemala: Bloggers are Livestreaming Protests Calling for President To Step Down Posted: 13 May 2009 11:22 AM PDT Just went live moments ago on Ustream. This is history. Previously: Slain Lawyer's YouTube Video Plunges Guatemala into Crisis ... Guatemala: Protests for Assassinated Lawyer Streamed Live from ... Guatemala: In YouTube Video Shot Before His Death, Attorney Blames ... Tech Forensics in Guatemala Results in Groundbreaking Arrest for ... BBtv debuts "BBtv World" series. Episode 1: El Molinero (Guatemala ... (Guatemala) Letter to a Forcibly Disappeared Son - Boing Boing BBtv WORLD: Migration, and a Mayan Sweat Bath. (Guatemala) - Boing ... BBtv WORLD: Through the eyes of the pueblo. (Guatemala) - Boing Boing NPR Xeni Tech - Guatemala: digital archives may help find ... NPR Xeni Tech: Storm Victims' Remains Exhumed in Guatemala - Boing ...

BB on GOOD: "Fast People, Slow Food - Better Living Through Homemade Yogurt" Posted: 13 May 2009 11:04 AM PDT The Boing Boing editors have been having fun with some guest-writing over at GOOD, and my latest contribution has just been published. It involves NOM. Here's a snip: When the economy took a nosedive, I did the same thing a lot of other Americans did: I looked at my household expenses and my lifestyle with newly frugal eyes, and began thinking about costs and personal priorities in new ways. That included food. Rethinking what I cook and eat post-econopocalypse meant simpler, slower food; a more local and traditional diet which, in fact, makes good sense in any economic weather. But I live an urban life. I spend a lot of time online or working in short attention bursts. I don't have a lot of time to cook or prepare food, and my city apartment doesn't afford room to raise goats or grow tomatoes. Despite this, I've gradually eased into a number of new rituals and good habits that reduced my grocery bill and make me feel happier and healthier. One of them is making yogurt each week. It takes maybe 20 minutes of actual work and attention, zero equipment beyond stuff I already had in my kitchen, and yields a yummier, healthier, and yes, "probiotic" product that costs five to 10 times less than the store-bought stuff. Here are the basics of rolling your own yogurt the lazy Xeni way... Read the rest of the essay here, with step-by-step HOWTO. Photo courtesy Flickr user (cc) Biology Big Brother (Special thanks to my co-editor, BB founder Mark Frauenfelder, for putting the yogurt bug in my head, so to speak.) Previously: Boing Boing on GOOD: "DIY Funerals and the Quest for Authenticity ... GOOD: Lake Mead is drying up Boing Boing on GOOD - Dahomey Diary: Notes from Benin (Xeni ... Boing Boing on GOOD: "All the Web's A Stage" Boing Boing on GOOD: You Are Your Data - Boing Boing Boing Boing on GOOD: "My Ecologically Correct Move." - Boing Boing Boing Boing on GOOD: A Mayan Village Reacts to Obama - Boing Boing Boing Boing on GOOD: Digital TV Now! - Boing Boing Boing Boing posts on GOOD! - Boing Boing Can't see the video? Click here

You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Inbox too full? Subscribe to the feed version of Boing Boing in a feed reader.
If you prefer to unsubscribe via postal mail, write to: Boing Boing, c/o Google, 20 W Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610