The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Lego zombies!
- Twitter reschedules maintenance to avoid clobbering Iranian dissidents
- Fitzrovia Radio Hour: radio-drama revival troupe
- Cyberwar guide for Iran elections
- Little Brother fan-trans into Slovak
- Video for punk shed anthem
- Rare recording of James Joyce reading; Happy Bloomsday!
- Twitter comes to the Commodore 64
- Post one of Australia's banned links, get fined AU$11,000/day
- Bollywood primer, with videos
- Video of people watching porn
- US Army raises world's largest herd of white deer
- "It's something called the Internet"
- A New Peek Inside Saddam's Old Palaces
- Iran: Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime
- Lawsuit Against Former Bush Official Over Torture Claims Can Proceed
- Dr. Buzz Aldrin to Star in Web Comedy Video with Snoop Dogg
- Introducing the Atlas Obscura
- Quadrophenia scooter sold at auction
- Guest bloggers: Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras
- Oklahoma Highway Patrol finally releases video of trooper attack on paramedic
- Earth's magnetic field caused affected by ocean currents?
- PETA pushes to halt Seattle fish mongers from tossing fish
- Prairie dogs immediately escape from $500k escape-proof habitat
- Video reveals NYPD allegedly fabricating drug arrest
- Illustrators upset over Google's invitation to contribute free art
- Free young adult novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
- Iranian election uprising: Twitter tracks it real-time, Iranian bloggers evade 'Net Censorship
- Astronaut tubes for beer
- Jack Kirby and Joe Simon story from "Strange World of Your Dreams"
| Posted: 16 Jun 2009 05:01 AM PDT  Brian sez, "I did a series of small (4" x 3") canvases depicting Lego zombies. I thought you guys might dig it." Small Lego Zombie Canvases (Thanks, Brian!) |
| Twitter reschedules maintenance to avoid clobbering Iranian dissidents Posted: 16 Jun 2009 03:38 AM PDT From the Twitter blog: A critical network upgrade must be performed to ensure continued operation of Twitter. In coordination with Twitter, our network host had planned this upgrade for tonight. However, our network partners at NTT America recognize the role Twitter is currently playing as an important communication tool in Iran. Tonight's planned maintenance has been rescheduled to tomorrow between 2-3p PST (1:30a in Iran).Down Time Rescheduled Previously: |
| Fitzrovia Radio Hour: radio-drama revival troupe Posted: 16 Jun 2009 03:32 AM PDT Fitzrovia Radio Hour is a radio-drama performance troupe in the UK who do over-the-top, steampunky stories that pay homage to the golden age of British radio plays. I saw them perform live at one of the White Mischief steampunk nights at the Scala near King's Cross, and they were superb -- full costume, great period-appropriate foley gadgets, and wonderful performances. They've got a podcast, too! Fitzrovia Radio Hour (Thanks, Toby!) |
| Cyberwar guide for Iran elections Posted: 16 Jun 2009 03:25 AM PDT Yishay sez, "The road to hell is paved with the best intentions (including mine). Learn how to actually help the protesters and not the gov't in Iran." The purpose of this guide is to help you participate constructively in the Iranian election protests through Twitter.#iranelection cyberwar guide for beginners (Thanks, Yishay!) Previously: |
| Little Brother fan-trans into Slovak Posted: 16 Jun 2009 02:48 AM PDT  Pavol Hvizdos just posted a Slovak fan-translation of my book Little Brother -- Maly brat. Man, I love the cool stuff Creative Commons licenses lets people do with my books! |
| Posted: 16 Jun 2009 02:30 AM PDT Uncle Wilco from Shedblog sez, "Punks Not Dad have launched their video for the Shed Week Song - 'In me Shed' and if you like punk and sheds, then it's the video of the year for you." Offical song for Shed Week Video & Live Show for Shed Week (Thanks, Uncle Wilco!) Previously: |
| Rare recording of James Joyce reading; Happy Bloomsday! Posted: 16 Jun 2009 03:49 AM PDT  Happy Bloomsday! Here's a rare reading of James Joyce performing his own work; as John Naughton notes, "When I first heard it I was astonished to find that he had a broad Irish-country accent. I had always imagined him speaking as a 'Dub' -- i.e. with the accent of most of the street characters in Ulysses." (via Memex 1.1) (Image: Revolutionary Joyce Better Contrast.jpg, Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain) |
| Twitter comes to the Commodore 64 Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:42 PM PDT You know what it's like, you're out on the town, doing something cool, and you have an urge to tweet about it for your tweeps on Twitter, but the only device you've brought out with you is your Commodore 64. Now there's BREADBOX64, a Twitter client for the C64. BREADBOX64, a twitter client for the C64. (via Waxy) |
| Post one of Australia's banned links, get fined AU$11,000/day Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:35 PM PDT Alys sez, "The Australian communications regulator is going to fine those who link to sites that are listed on their blacklist. It threatened an online forum with an $11,000/day fine over a link posted to an anti-abortion website that was on the blacklist. To add insult to injury, several pages of Wikileaks have also ended up on their blacklist, due to their posting of the Danish list of banned websites." Electronic Frontiers Australia said the leak of the Danish blacklist and ACMA's subsequent attempts to block people from viewing it showed how easy it would be for ACMA's own blacklist - which is secret - to be leaked onto the web once it is handed to ISPs for filtering.Banned hyperlinks could cost you $11,000 a day Previously:
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| Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:29 PM PDT Mother Jones's "Bollywood for Beginners" special features clips from ten must-see Bollywood movies along with commentary. A fine way to spend an hour or two in a clicktrance... Video: Bollywood for Beginners (via Beyond the Beyond) Previously:
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| Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:25 PM PDT  Robbie Cooper's "Immersion: Porn" builds on his earlier work making video-recordings of gamers playing their favorite games; only this time, it's people talking about their relationship to pornography intercut with amazing, intimate footage of their faces as they watch the porn they enjoy.
Video: Robbie Cooper: Sex, Sighs & Videotape Immersion: Porn By Robbie Cooper | Video (via Kottke) Previously: |
| US Army raises world's largest herd of white deer Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:45 PM PDT Dylan Thuras is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dylan is a travel blogger and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Joshua Foer. .
Recovering from our experience being Boinged (Sysadmin, save me!) I thought I would share a wondrous site found in a less than exotic location... The story begins in 1941 at an army depot in Seneca County, NY when some soldiers noticed a couple white deer roaming inside their 24-square-mile fenced-off base. Realizing that something strange (and wonderful) was afoot, the General ordered the soldiers to protect the white deer. While the soldiers continued to hunt brown deer inside the confines of the reserve, the white ones were allowed to breed. With predators were kept at bay by a giant fence, and pressure put on the brown deer by hunting, the white deer population was able to explode. (These blanched deer are not albinos, as you might assume, but rather possess two copies of another rare recessive gene for whiteness.) There are now 200 of them roaming the grounds, the largest herd of white deer anywhere in the world. Today the base is no longer active, but the deer are looked after by a not-for-profit organization--Seneca White Deer Inc--devoted to managing the herd. They are currently fighting plans by developers to reduce the area to a fourth of its current size. |
| "It's something called the Internet" Posted: 15 Jun 2009 05:59 PM PDT Here's Tom Brokaw in 1994 talking about "something called the Internet," with guest appearances by Eric Schmidt (then at Sun) and Bill Gates. Bill tells Tom that "It's very hip to be on the Internet now." (Via Infectious Greed) |
| A New Peek Inside Saddam's Old Palaces Posted: 15 Jun 2009 04:41 PM PDT  Flavorwire has an interview up with photographer Richard Mosse, who recently returned from Iraq, where he photographed what remains of Saddam Hussein's many palaces, which American soldiers have repurposed as combat headquarters. Snip: This month, the American army is set to handover the last of the palaces back to the Iraqi army. Mosse, who has previously photographed war-torn areas of Eastern Europe and the Middle East, sat down with us to discuss his latest project and the deeply disturbing, though darkly humorous, aspects of the ongoing war in Iraq.The Architecture of War: A Look at Saddam Hussein's Palaces (image, Richard Mosse, thanks, Caroline Stanley)
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| Iran: Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime Posted: 15 Jun 2009 04:33 PM PDT More on the web-fueled uprising in Iran, where many are expressing outrage over presumed electoral fraud in the re-election of Mahmoud Ahmmedinajad. From Noah Shachtman at Wired: While demonstrators gather in the streets to contest Iran’s rigged election, online backers of the so-called “Green Revolution” are looking to strike back at the Tehran regime — by attacking the government’s websites.Activists Launch Hack Attacks on Tehran Regime (Wired Danger Room) Previously:
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| Lawsuit Against Former Bush Official Over Torture Claims Can Proceed Posted: 15 Jun 2009 04:11 PM PDT Over at the NYT, this story by John Schwartz about a ruling issued Friday by a judge in San Francisco that allows a civil lawsuit to go forward against former Bush administration official John C. Yoo... [L]awyers for the man suing Mr. Yoo, Jose Padilla, say it provides substantive interpretation of constitutional issues for all detainees and could have a broad impact.Judge Allows Civil Lawsuit Over Claims of Torture (NYT, thanks Mark Kleiman)
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| Dr. Buzz Aldrin to Star in Web Comedy Video with Snoop Dogg Posted: 15 Jun 2009 04:16 PM PDT A first for one of the First Men, spotted in a NYT Q+A with Dr. Buzz Aldrin: Q: What sort of music do you like?The Man on the Moon (via Robert Pearlman)
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| Posted: 15 Jun 2009 02:00 PM PDT Joshua Foer is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Joshua is a freelance science journalist and the co-founder of the Atlas Obscura: A Compendium of the World's Wonders, Curiosities, and Esoterica, with Dylan Thuras. Thanks so much, Mark, for that introduction. We're thrilled that you guys have lent us the keys to Boing Boing for the next few days.
The Atlas is a collaborative project whose purpose is to catalog all of the "wondrous, curious, and esoteric places" that get left out of traditional travel guidebooks and are ignored by the average tourist. Anyone can enter new places into the Atlas Obscura, or edit content that someone else has already contributed. We're counting on you, Boing Boing readers, to help us fill out the map and document all of the world's wonders and curiosities! What kind of places are we talking about? Here are a few that were recently added to the Atlas: - A hidden spot in the Smoky Mountains where you can find fireflies that blink in unison -A 70-year-old house made entirely out of paper - A giant hole in the middle of the Turkmenistan desert that's been burning for four decades - A Czech church built of bones - The world's largest Tesla coil - A museum filled with the genitals of every known mammal in Iceland - Enormous concrete sound mirrors once used to detect aircraft off the English coast - The self-built cathedral of an eccentric Spanish ex-monk - A museum of Victorian hair art in Independence, Missiouri - An underwater sculpture garden off the coast of Grenada - Galileo's amputated middle finger - An island in the Canaries where people communicate by whistling - The corpse of a 14th-cenutry Japanese monk who mummified himself while he was still alive Dylan and I are hopeful that we if can get a bunch of like-minded travelers (and armchair travelers) to share their obscure knowledge, we can build a truly awesome resource for everyone. So, please check the site out! Explore! Get involved! Add a curious place! First, though, a quick caveat: The site is still very much in beta. We're still adding features, making improvements, and sussing out bugs. So please let us know what works and what doesn't. Now, before handing the mic over to Dylan, I'd like to take a moment to abuse this very big soapbox by giving a quick shout out to the Atlas Obscura's amazing developer Adam Varga of Sawhorse Media, our genius fix-it guru Boaz Sender, and our slick designer Aaron Taylor Waldman. Thanks gentlemen! |
| Quadrophenia scooter sold at auction Posted: 15 Jun 2009 01:39 PM PDT  Jimmy's Lambretta scooter from the 1979 movie Quadrophenia sold at auction for £36,000. The scooter gained instant acceptance everywhere, its cleanliness and convenience in particular appealing to those who regarded the true motorcycle with suspicion. Scooters would eventually surpass their strictly utilitarian origins to become an integral part of British youth culture in the 1960s as favourite transport of the fashion-conscious 'Modernists', or 'Mods'. The scooter's enclosed engine and decent weather protection meant that its rider could arrive at a club, doff his parka and look like he'd just stepped out of a taxi, which was a definite advantage within a dandified sub-culture that placed a premium on smartness of appearance.Quadrophenia scooter sold at auction (via Dinosaurs and Robots) |
| Guest bloggers: Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras Posted: 15 Jun 2009 01:27 PM PDT Meet our new guest bloggers for the next two weeks: Joshua Foer and Dylan Thuras!
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| Oklahoma Highway Patrol finally releases video of trooper attack on paramedic Posted: 15 Jun 2009 12:02 PM PDT  It took a while for the Oklahoma Highway Patrol to release a video showing one of its troopers choking a paramedic who was taking an elderly patient to the hospital, and now that it's available on YouTube, you can understand why they tried to suppress it. I'm in awe of the dignified and articulate ambulance supervisor who bravely stands up to the sickeningly hotheaded trooper who is furious that anyone would dare to "jump out and talk to a State Trooper like that." Patricia Phillips, Oklahoma Crime Examiner, has been covering the story: An ambulance, with Maurice White acting as supervisor and paramedic, is taking an elderly woman, who had collapsed, to the hospital for treatment. Her worried family follows.J.D. Tuccille of Civil Liberties Examiner says: "Consider this a test case. If you don't see a paramedic's life-saving responsibilities as at least as pressing as the law-enforcement duties of a police officer, there probably is no limit to the authority you're willing to grant any government employee with a badge." Oklahoma Highway Patrol finally releases video of trooper attack on paramedic |
| Earth's magnetic field caused affected by ocean currents? Posted: 15 Jun 2009 12:35 PM PDT UPDATE: From Greg Laden's blog: The story was misreported. Is the Earth's magnetic field caused affected by ocean currents, and not its massive molten core, as is generally thought? Gregory Ryskin, associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University in Illinois, thinks that the motion of salty seawater generates electromagnetic waves. His paper will be published by Britain’s Institute of Physics’s New Journal of Physics. Earth’s magnetic field is vital for life, extending tens of thousands of miles into space and protecting the planet against radiation that would otherwise burn away the atmosphere and oceans.Oceans charge up new theory of magnetism (Via TDG) |
| PETA pushes to halt Seattle fish mongers from tossing fish Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:30 AM PDT PETA wants to stop the fishmongers at Seattle's 102-year-old Pike Place Fish Market from tossing dead fish to each other at an an upcoming veterinarians' conference. Seattle's Pike Place fishmongers under fire |
| Prairie dogs immediately escape from $500k escape-proof habitat Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:14 AM PDT The Maryland Zoo spent $500,000 to make an escape-proof prairie dog habitat, called Prairie Dog Town. The prairie dogs escaped within 10 minutes of being introduced to their new habitat. Zookeepers caught the escaped prairie dogs with nets. (Public domain photo of Black-tailed Prairie Dog taken by Adrian Pingstone) Prairie dogs immediately escape from $500k escape-proof habitat |
| Video reveals NYPD allegedly fabricating drug arrest Posted: 15 Jun 2009 10:00 AM PDT Undercover NYPD offices in New York arrested brothers Jose and Maximo Colon for selling cocaine in a night club. The men would almost certainly be serving lengthy prison sentences if it weren't for the fact that a surveillance video camera in the nightclub shows that the police made the whole thing up. Paperwork signed by "UC 13200" — Officer Henry Tavarez — claimed that he told a patron he wanted to buy cocaine. By his account, that man responded by approaching the 28-year-old Max, who then went over to the undercover and demanded to pat him down to make sure he wasn't wearing a wire.This isn't an isolated incident, either: On May 13, another NYPD officer was arrested for plotting to invade a Manhattan apartment where he hoped to steal $900,000 in drug money. In another pending case, prosecutors in Brooklyn say officers were caught in a 2007 sting using seized drugs to reward a snitch for information. And in the Bronx, prosecutors have charged a detective with lying about a drug bust captured on a surveillance tape that contradicts her story.Is it any wonder that police all over the world are trying to stop people from videotaping them? |
| Illustrators upset over Google's invitation to contribute free art Posted: 15 Jun 2009 09:40 AM PDT  The NY Times reports that Google recently asked dozens of illustrators to provide art skins for its Chrome browser. They offered a fee of nothing. Well-known illustrators who were invited, like Gary Taxali, Melinda Beck, and Joe Ciardiello, all turned Google down. Google's two-part explanation is that the artists will get great exposure, and that Google has done it before: In a statement responding to questions, Google said that the project was modeled after a similar one last year for iGoogle, a personalized home page, where artists and companies (including Jeff Koons, Bob Dylan and Gucci) contributed images to be used as skins.I'm one of the illustrators who contributed art last year for iGoogle. (My art, above, is called "Adventure in Lollipopland") I was not directly compensated, but Google did give a very substantial donation in my name to a charity of my choosing (I chose the Jewish Family Services' SOVA food pantries program). I was very happy with this arrangement. It sounds like Google skipped the charity-donation part this time around, though, because it wasn't mentioned in the NY Times story. |
| Free young adult novel, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making Posted: 15 Jun 2009 09:26 AM PDT A reader writes, "Catherynne M. Valente (Tiptree winner, Clarion Alumna and all-around-awesome speculative fiction writer) is putting up a wonderful piece of YA fantasy, one chapter a week, on her website for free: The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making." Lovely title, and that first chapter's a doozy! There's free audio of the author reading the book, too. The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making |
| Iranian election uprising: Twitter tracks it real-time, Iranian bloggers evade 'Net Censorship Posted: 15 Jun 2009 09:22 AM PDT Wagner James Au says, Iranians around the world are making extraordinary use of Twitter and Twitter APIs to send updates and coordinate the uprising that now disputes Ahmadinejad's election. (Some background from Andrew Sullivan here) Last night Tweets from Iran seemed to go silent for several hours, apparently after Iranian government intervention, but protesters just used TwitterFall.com and other workarounds to keep the information stream going. (As one developer supporter put it, "Open APIs equal freedom.") The mainstream media has been tragically slow to cover what seems to be a major social upheaval fueled by Twitter.BB reader Luke adds, Persiankiwi on twitter is tweeting like a crazyman about the protests happening RIGHT NOW in Tehran and has just posted this video on Youtube. Also this twitter user is posting. They reckon the protests are largely peaceful and also guess at least hundreds of thousands are on the streets.Link to Twitter search for hashtag "IranElection." Some Twitterers I'm following on this issue: @persiankiwi, @ johnperrybarlow , IranRiggedElect, @Pouyan. Here was a liveblog post over at HuffPo by Nico Putney. Here's a piece by Nasrin Alawi. Please add other resources you're following in the comments. |
| Posted: 15 Jun 2009 06:02 PM PDT Hey, microbrew-aficionado, fancy an astronaut-tube of beer? CarboPouch (via Dvice) |
| Jack Kirby and Joe Simon story from "Strange World of Your Dreams" Posted: 13 Jun 2009 10:50 AM PDT  Titan books, the publishers of the terrific Jack Kirby / Joe Simon Golden Age comic book anthology, The Best of Simon and Kirby, kindly gave me permission to run one of the stories in the book, from a delightfully weird comic book called The Strange World of Your Dreams. Click the thumbnail images to enjoy the story! Buy The Best of Simon and Kirby on Amazon
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Asserting that the practice of lobbing fish above the heads of patrons and tourists at the market and other venues is disrespectful to creatures that already have gone through a lot, an animal rights group is protesting plans to stage a flying-fish exhibition at an upcoming national veterinarians conference in Seattle. 
Aircraft wire, poured concrete and slick plastic walls proved no match for the fast-footed rodents, the stars of a new exhibit that opens today. 
The CarboPouch development allows craft draft beer brewers to fill on-site, a clean, ready-to- go Single45 or Single25 pouch with spout and cap. Storage and shelf-life requires refrigeration. Low-carbonated water and shelf-stable energy drinks can also be filled. The organoleptic film structure ensures no off flavor. The patented film structure is designed to handle the pouch "stretch" after filling and carbonation expansion. The automatic filling process is such that there is no headspace after filling. The three-side seal pouch has a smooth side comfort grip feature. The combination of these factors makes the CarboPouch a true economical innovation for distribution of craft draft beers to the consumer's home. Sports functions now have a package! 
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