Thursday, September 3, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Smash-and-grab robbers clean out Apple store in 31 seconds

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:40 PM PDT

Watch these smash-and-grab burglars clean out the Sagemore Apple store in Marlton, New Jersey in 31 seconds (skip to 0:56 to see it). Reminds me of the game-show where contestants had to fill their shopping carts with the most valuable groceries in a big supermarket as quickly as possible.

(via Engadget)

What Wikipedia's new flagged revisions system actually means

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:54 PM PDT

You may have heard that Wikipedia has failed as a collaborative project, given up on letting anyone edit and instead put in a system where only a few trusted editors can work on bios of living people. You did?

It's a lie.

Turns out, what Wikipedia has done is instituted a system whereby a trusted editor can flag a bio of a living person as being vandalism free. This means that vandalism-fighters can simply look at all the edits since the last vandalism-free certification as a means of quickly finding and reverting bad edits.

Of course, that's complicated, useful, clever, and doesn't confirm the biases of all those people who are convinced that Wikipedia must fail.

The first is called "flagged protection". When this feature is enabled for an article, edits are possible but they will not be visible to the general public until an established editor flags the article as free of vandalism. This approach--the one discussed in the media--has been around for quite a while. It was adopted by the German-language Wikipedia in 2008 and following some high profile vandalism in January 2009, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales strongly advocated its adoption on the English version.

The second approach is called "patrolled revisions". It uses the same flagging system as the first but the flags are informational only; edits go live immediately but visitors can see whether the article has been vetted or not.

The truth about Wikipedia's flagged revisions (via Everything is Miscellaneous)
Previously:


Interactive map of Manhattan in 1609

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:49 PM PDT


The Mannahatta Project is an interactive map of Manhattan as it appeared in 1609, indexed by streets. You can enter a landmark name or address and zoom into your favorite New York neighborhood as it appeared in a more primeval time. Shown here, the site of the iconic Flatiron Building: 23rd and 5th.

The Mannahatta Project (via Making Light)

KFC as pot dispensary

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 09:35 PM PDT

Squidink Kfc
This former Kentucky Fried Chicken in the Palms community of West Los Angeles is now Kind For Cures, a medical marijuana dispensary. And the Colonel's counsel calls in 3... 2... 1... "New KFC Opens In Palms? Sort of..."

Dude gags on dead frog (or toad?) floating in Pepsi can

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 05:15 PM PDT

art.pepsi.denegri.jpgSay what you will about Mark's grody kombucha, but it does not contain floaty dead amphibians: Frog or toad found in Pepsi can, FDA says

Pay-per-view feature films coming to YouTube?

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 05:00 PM PDT

In today's New York Times, Miguel Helft reports that YouTube is negotiating with major Hollywood studios over an agreement that would allow the web video service to stream feature-length movies to users for a fee:
YouTube_spotlight_20060710.jpgIf a deal is reached, it would be a major change for YouTube, which has largely offered free content supported by advertising. It would also put YouTube, which is owned by Google, in direct competition with services from Netflix, Amazon and Apple, which allow users to buy or rent movies online.

YouTube, which already offers some older free movies on its site, is talking with Lions Gate Entertainment, Sony and Warner Brothers about making newer titles available on the site, the person said. Scott Rowe, a spokesman for Warner Brothers, declined to comment, and representatives for the other two studios were not immediately available.

YouTube Said to Consider Pay Movies (New York Times)

@BBVBOX: recent guest-tweeted web video picks (boingboingvideo.com)

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 05:09 PM PDT


(Ed. Note: The Boing Boing Video site includes a guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. We'll post roundups here on the motherBoing.)

  • Andrea James: "Ave Maria" soloist on musical saw: Link
  • Richard Metzger: The Beatles do their own special version of The Barber of Seville (1965) Link
  • Jesse Thorn: Thomas Haden Church failed to heed the warnings: never follow Norm MacDonald on a late-night talk show. Link
  • Richard Metzger: The Soul Rock Sound of PP Arnold Link
  • Richard Metzger: Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner: The 2000 Year Old Man on video! Link
  • Xeni Jardin: RT @ericwareheim: new video from The Bird and the Bee "Diamond Dave" Link
  • Xeni Jardin: Anyone who can deliver an *11 minute* monologue on "fevah," donuts, divas + bitches is a true performer. Link
  • Sean Bonner: God bless Terry Techno, he can find anything to rave to Link
  • Richard Metzger: You don't have to be Sigmund Freud to figure this one out!! Link
More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com



We're all mutants!

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 04:05 PM PDT

Mutantsssss
Our heroic moderator Antinous spotted this thrilling headline from BBC News. Now, if we were all just Happy Mutants!

Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad 1963

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 03:51 PM PDT


Amazing demo of Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad computer design program, which he developed in the early 1960s.

"John, we're going to show you a man actually talking to a computer..." (via Tinsleman)

Levitation secret revealed (70 years ago)

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 03:22 PM PDT


Forgetomori has a good blog post exposing jackasses through the ages who pretend to levitate as a way of bilking deluded suckers.

Levitation Secret Revealed (70 years ago)

Mad Parisian mayors fight each other with road signs

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 02:40 PM PDT

The mayors of two Paris suburbs are so mad at each other that they made the D909 road one way in their districts, but one way in opposite directions. The mayor of Levallios-Perret, Patrick Balkany, did it first as a way to calm traffic in his area. Then Gillles Catoire, mayor of Clich-la-Garenne followed suit. From BBC News:
With the contradictory road-signs in place, the unsurprising result was gridlock, prompting the deployment of municipal and national police to direct traffic away from the area.

"What Clichy has done is not a long-term solution, but it is a response to a unilateral decision by the town of Levallois," Clichy's deputy mayor, Alain Fournier, was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

But Mr Balkany insisted: "The mayor of Clichy has taken a position that is unreasonable and is hurting his own constituents."
"Paris mayoral feud blocks street"

Tramaine de Senna: Double Dub

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 02:53 PM PDT


Tramaine de Senna, our creative assistant for sales and marketing at MAKE, is also a talented artist and musician. Here's an amazing song and video she created, called Double Dub. It's mildly NSFW.

The House of Louis Vuitton (SPOILER: yeah, it's a knockoff)

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 02:18 PM PDT

Louis-Vuitton-House-1_thumb.jpg

More at Dangerous Minds. Apparently it's somewhere in Mexicali. Pienso que prefiero éste sobre el otro que está en París. (via a number of Spanish-language blogs which trace back to this one: hazmeelchingadofavor/via Tara McGinley + Richard Metzger)

How to make the scariest pumpkin ever

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 12:04 PM PDT


At Make Online, Marc de Vinck shows you how to make the "scariest pumpkin ever." I love it.

The death of "locational privacy"

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:58 AM PDT

Good food for thought in this op-ed by Adam Cohen, which picks up on the work of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (disclosure: a group we're all big supporters of here at Boing Boing):
A little-appreciated downside of the technology revolution is that, mainly without thinking about it, we have given up "locational privacy." Even in low-tech days, our movements were not entirely private. The desk attendant at my gym might have recalled seeing me, or my colleagues might have remembered when I arrived. Now the information is collected automatically and often stored indefinitely.

Privacy advocates are rightly concerned. Corporations and the government can keep track of what political meetings people attend, what bars and clubs they go to, whose homes they visit. It is the fact that people's locations are being recorded "pervasively, silently, and cheaply that we're worried about," the Electronic Frontier Foundation said in a recent report.

People's cellphones and E-ZPasses are increasingly being used against them in court. If your phone is on, even if you are not on a call, you may be able to be found (and perhaps picked up) at any hour of the day or night. As disturbing as it is to have your private data breached, it is worse to think that your physical location might fall into the hands of people who mean you harm.

A Casualty of the Technology Revolution: 'Locational Privacy' (New York Times via Mitch Kapor)

Cocaine dealers hurt by recession

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:43 AM PDT

New York magazine reports that business has dropped off for cocaine dealers because of the recession. The article doesn't say how much coke is selling for these days. Could our coke-sniffing readers please provide that information in the comments?
Before condos in Williamsburg started selling at a loss and weekend flights to L.A. dropped to under $200, New York's cocaine dealers were supplying good times to people who indulged like the party wouldn't end. Before the recession, "I was making deliveries every night of the week," says Eddie, a middle-aged man who exclusively deals cocaine. (All names have been changed.) At the height of his career, in early 2008, Eddie sold eight-balls to hipsters, financiers, and Upper West Side high-school students. "Back then, I could afford to pick and choose. If I didn't know the address — forget it. If I didn't like their accent — forget it. On most nights, there were more people wanting than I could get to."
(Via DoseNation)

Electronic tongue

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:33 AM PDT

News Bigphotos Images 090901-Electronic-Tongue Big
Researchers have developed an electronic tongue. (Don't start.) The device is something like a litmus test for taste that, according to chemists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, is incredibly accurate at measuring sweet things. The system consists of a paper dotted with an array of color-changing gels that react to a variety of different sweeteners. The electronic device scans the color of the dots after the paper is exposed to a sample. The combination of the gels' reactions, represented by their color, reveals the "taste." There are already chemical or electronic methods to test for other flavors detected by human tongues: saltiness, sourness, and savoriness. From National Geographic:
Sourness is just another word for acidity, Suslick said, which any high school chemistry student can test for using litmus paper.

Savoriness - also called "umami" - and saltiness can already be measured by handheld devices sensitive to protein levels and sodium and potassium ions.

The final dimension of taste that remains to be cracked is bitterness, which is still somewhat of an unknown.

"We lump a whole bunch of things into that one word," said (UIUC professor Kenneth) Suslick, whose study appeared August 1 in the journal Analytical Chemistry. "It just isn't clear yet what the bitterness receptors [in the tongue] are and what they respond to."
"Electronic Tongue" Mimics Human Taste Organ

Previously:


Tatzu Nishi's weirdly displaced rooms

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:36 AM PDT

200909021129 200909021129-1

Tinselman likes these "weirdly displaced rooms" created by Tatzu Nishi.

Gen Art: Fresh Faces in Fashion show in NYC

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:33 AM PDT

StellalynnnGen Art is a fantastic organization that showcases young, innovative, and avant garde fashion designers, filmmakers, musicians, and visual artists through a series of high-profile events around the United States. Their 15th anniversary Fresh Faces in Fashion show is Tuesday, September 15, in New York City. I'm proud of my friend Stella Lee whose brand new line, Linus, will be featured in the show along with Cloak & Dagger, Duskin, Min Young Lee, Vicente Villarin, Yeojin Bae, S2VS, Dieppa Restreo (shoes), Samma (jewelry), and Wendy Nichol (handbags). Gen Art Fresh Faces in Fashion

Digital Synethesia: programming your senses

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:33 AM PDT

My latest essay for GOOD draws from research we're doing at Institute for the Future around the notion that "everything is programmable." The idea is that emerging technologies—from pervasive computers to synthetic biology—are making it possible to program our bodies and our worlds to desired specifications. Increasingly, we are looking at the entire world through a computational lens. In this piece, I look at how we might use technology to reprogram our senses. From GOOD:
Community Etling Brain-Device-9829U493What if you could see with your skin? Or taste what you see? While those kinds of experiences might suggest a mental disorder, or an acid trip, the ability to substitute your senses by choice is on the horizon. A confluence of new technologies are leading to a kind of digital synesthesia.

Synesthesia, of course, is the fascinating neurological phenomenon whereby stimulation of one sense involuntarily triggers another sensory pathway. A synesthete might taste sounds or hear colors. But the ability to reroute the senses could dramatically help blind individuals, for example, or restore the sense of touch to amputees wearing prosthetic limbs...
"Digital Synesthesia"

Previously:


Cloud computing skepticism

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:33 AM PDT

My latest Guardian column, "Not every cloud has a silver lining," is about the dirty secret of cloud computing: most of it is about making a buck off of you by supplying something you can do cheaply and easily for yourself.
Here's something you won't see mentioned, though: the main attraction of the cloud to investors and entrepreneurs is the idea of making money from you, on a recurring, perpetual basis, for something you currently get for a flat rate or for free without having to give up the money or privacy that cloud companies hope to leverage into fortunes...

Now, this makes sense for some limited applications. If you're supplying a service to the public, having a cloud's worth of on-demand storage and hosting is great news. Many companies, such as Twitter, have found that it's more cost-effective to buy barrel-loads of storage, bandwidth and computation from distant hosting companies than it would be to buy their own servers and racks at a data-centre. And if you're doing supercomputing applications, then tapping into the high-performance computing grid run by the world's physics centres is a good trick.

But for the average punter, cloud computing is - to say the least - oversold. Network access remains slower, more expensive, and less reliable than hard drives and CPUs. Your access to the net grows more and more fraught each day, as entertainment companies, spyware creeps, botnet crooks, snooping coppers and shameless bosses arrogate to themselves the right to spy on, tamper with or terminate your access to the net.

Not every cloud has a silver lining

WhatTheInternetKnowsAboutYou: your browser is giving away your history

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:31 AM PDT

Art sez,
We just launched a new Web-privacy-related webapp, and want to show it off to you.

The app is an example of using browser history detection to determine personal preferences of Web browser users and is located at http://whattheinternetknowsaboutyou.com. The history detection hack has been known for quite a while; it works by using the CSS :visited pseudoclass to style visited links differently from unvisited ones, in order to figure out which ones are present in the browser's history and does not require JavaScript.

There are over 20 tests to extract various kinds of information from the browser's history; the most obvious application is to check for visits to the most popular websites and blogs, which we grouped into categories (banks, pr0n sites, dating sites, social networks, etc.) We're also monitoring for more sensitive content, such as all visited Wikileaks articles and administrative pages, visited .gov and .mil websites, as well as Google search queries and zipcodes typed into forms. In addition to that, we're indexing over fifty most popular RSS newsfeeds (including Boing Boing, of course) to determine which recent news stories the user has read; also, for social news sites, we're trying to determine the user's username by detecting visited profile pages.

We also meticulously documented the problem and listed possible solutions in hope of educating casual Web users as well as browser vendors about this issue. Most people still have no idea that such history detection is possible, and in fact trivially easy to implement; what's worse, there are no simple ways to protect against this (other than disabling history altogether). I hope that by publicizing the issue we can get browser vendors to figure out sane ways of solving the problem to make our browsing histories private again, and would appreciate your help.

What the Internet knows about you (Thanks, Art!)

I will teach you how to make sauerkraut this Sunday in Los Angeles at Kraut Fest 2009

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 11:34 AM PDT

200909021009

If you want to learn how to make sauerkraut, kimchi, and choucroute garni, head over to Machine Project in Los Angeles this Sunday, September 6, for Kraut Fest 2009!

I'm teaching how to make sauerkraut (ridiculously easy) but I really am looking forward to learning how to make kimchi from Granny Choe!

UPDATE: the class is now SOLD OUT. If you signed up, I'll see you there!

Taught by Mark Frauenfelder, Erik Knutzen, Kelly Coyne, Jean-Paul Monsche, and the winner of Critter's 2009 Kimchi Competition, Oghee "Granny" Choe.

Come learn how to make your own sauerkraut, kimchi, and choucroute garni, the signature dish of Alsace (described to us as a ridiculous meat fiesta).

11am - Making Sauerkraut - click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring!

12pm - Making Kimchi - click HERE for a list of ingredients to bring!

1pm - Choucroute Garni presentation & sampling

You can register to make either kimchi or sauerkraut for $10, or both for $15. Registration gets you a "kraut kit" consisting of a bucket, a plate to fit in the bucket and a limited edition, hand-silkscreened poster (see here).

Participants will need to bring their own ingredients (we'll provide the shopping list). Funded in part by a grant from Slow Food LA. Thank you Slow Food LA!

Kraut Fest 2009! at Machine Project

Drew Friedman's Jerry Lewis illustration

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 09:54 AM PDT

200909020943

(CLick for big) Jerry Lewis likes Drew Friedman's NY Observer piece so much that he invited him to be his guest at the MDA Labor day Telethon this coming weekend in Las Vegas. I like it, too!

Recently on Offworld: stunt-man simulators, return of the M.U.L.E., Wii Opera set free

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:05 AM PDT

deathspankisle.jpg Officially now back at my Offworld post (following a long break away to the Bay Area, that, most excitingly, saw me complete the first leg of the journey through the infinitely fascinating reality game The Jejune Institute), we return with some catching-up coverage that includes breakneck stunt-man simulator Canabalt -- a five-day stripped-down Experimental Gameplay entry from Adam Saltsman -- a game whose one-button simplicity completely belies its action/sci-fi flick inspired roof-top leaping thrills. We also found the first details on DeathSpank (above) -- the upcoming Diablo/LucasArts adventure mashup from former Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion creator Ron Gilbert, and discovered that a remake of classic multiplayer strategy game M.U.L.E. was in development, including an upcoming port to the iPhone. Elsewhere we saw new footage of Offworld-favorite 2D/3D platformer Fez, Nathan Fouts' gloriously garish Grapple Buggy, and dug through a flurry of new announcements from Nintendo with new color DSis/Wii Remotes and an updated Wii Opera browser now available for free. Finally, we saw a tiny custom (Shadow of the) Colossus Munny, and an NES Ghostbusters instruction manual T-shirt, and our 'one shot's: Olly Moss's gorgeous new prints for This American Life-inspired games podcast A Life Well Wasted, and Vera Bee's carny/sideshow illustrations make their LittleBigDebut.

Torture Trading Cards

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 10:14 AM PDT

Files Resized Files Torture-Team-Stacks.300Wide.195High
The Center for Constitutional Rights published a set of Torture Team trading cards. You can see them all on the Torture Team web site. From Mother Jones:
Check out George W. and Condi, along with Cheney and his evil sidekick David "the Shadow" Addington, arguably the most ruthless driver of Bush-era torture policies and, according to a media quote on the card, "the most powerful man you've never heard of." Don't forget White House legal pariahs like John Yoo and Jay Bybee. Or the brass—former Pentagon top dogs like Don Rumsfeld, Guantanamo CO Geoffrey Miller (who helped involve doctors in torture) and the Iraq-bungling Douglas Feith. You can click to flip the cards and reveal each player's basic stats, along with fun tidbits and quotes in their own words. (Feith: "Removal of clothing doesn't mean naked.")
Torture Trading Cards

Movie poster paintings from Ghana

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 09:21 AM PDT

200909020903

Ephemera Assemblyman has a nice gallery of movie poster paintings from Ghana. Don't you wish the dog in Cujo really looked like this? It's ten times more nightmarish. (Thanks, Laura!)

Michael Jackson trufans, after his death: "Never Can Say Goodbye"

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 09:20 AM PDT

Above: Never Can Say Goodbye, a short documentary film by Dianna Dilworth that shows how hardcore Michael Jackson fans are mourning their idol's death. The documentary is a follow-up to her previous award-winning feature We are the Children (blogged on BB here), in which she followed a group of MJ trufans during his 2004-2005 trial on child molestation charges. In this new work, Dilworth reconnects with Michael Jackson impersonator Sean Vezina (MySpace profile), who has been dressing up as the pop star at Jackson's Hollywood star for the past five years. Vezina was also a featured character in We are the Children.

Video link:
* Never Can Say Goodbye (snagfilms.com)
* Never Can Say Goodbye (vimeo.com)

Previously:


Powerhouse: the biography of Raymond Scott, on stage in NYC

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 08:14 AM PDT

Jesse Garrison sez, "Powerhouse is a non-traditional biographical piece about Scott, told through a combination of puppetry, movement, swing dancing, physical comedy and live action. It follows the inverse paths of Scott's fall from success to obscurity and cartoons' (that used his music) rise to prominence in every American home."

It's 1936 and 27 year-old Harry Warnow has it all -- a beautiful wife, a hit record, a recording company, a publishing company, his very own swing orchestra and a new name: Raymond Scott. But in 30 years he would be virtually unknown. Secluded in his home studio, he would spend his time writing commercials and inventing futuristic music machines. Unbeknownst to Scott, however, his music had become imprinted on the minds of millions. For years, the animators at Warner Bros. had been scoring their Looney Tunes cartoons with Scott's life's work. This would be his legacy -- and he never knew. Due to its success, both critically and at the box-office, it's been granted an extended run in the Fringe Encore series.
At the Fringe: 'Powerhouse' (Thanks, Jesse!)
Previously:


Happy 40th birthday, Internet

Posted: 02 Sep 2009 07:33 AM PDT

September 2, 1969: Forty years ago today, in Leonard Kleinrock's UCLA lab, a group of computer scientists managed to pass bits of data from one computer to another over some some gray cable. In doing so, they created the first node of what we now call (long dramatic pause)... the Internet.

Kleinrock and colleagues were working with the government-backed Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET), without which I would not be blogging these words today.

Now, some folks believe the actual "birthday" was October 29, 1969 - when Kleinrock sent the first message between two nodes, UCLA to Stanford. The message? "LO." As in "LO AND BEHOLD, THE INTERNET." Well, okay, not really. It was supposed to be "LOGIN" but the system crashed after Kleinrock typed "L" and "O."

Video above: Kleinrock talks about that first connection. Here's an AP item. I was a guest for a discussion about this anniversary on the NPR show "Tell Me More" today (segment link).

BB readers: share your birthday greetings or early webternet memories in the comments. If any of you ARPANET O.G.'s are in the house, do fire up the old Interface Message Processor and give us a packet-switched shout. (TCP/IP first-bump)

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