The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Bank of America demands thumbprint from man with no arms
- Movie posters for minimalists
- American woman marries auto-rickshaw driver
- Madagascar Institute's jet-powered merry-go-round
- Trailer for movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road
- The Official Appreciation Page for the Best of the Wikipedia Rejects
- Wingnut extreme: Glenn Beck says "Story of Stuff" is Commie propaganda
- Typhoon, Floods in the Philippines: first-person BB report from Audrey N. Carpio of The Philippine Star
- Fridge full of BO
- UPDATED: Zeitoun Book Giveaway Haiku Contest
- Early 1990s TV commercial - pay $2 a minute to hear a story that will make you cry
- Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions
- Afghan girl killed by Royal Air Force leaflet drop
- The Occult and Hip Hop
- Today at Boing Boing Gadgets
- Women Are Heroes by JR
- The Pakistan Blogistan
- Boing Boing Video: Coachella Time-Lapse (dir. Ray Klein, music by Hawke)
- Britain seeks ban on glass pint-glasses to prevent bar-brawl injuries
- Trotsky: the graphic biography
| Bank of America demands thumbprint from man with no arms Posted: 01 Oct 2009 01:52 AM PDT The Bank of America in Tampa, Florida has a no-exceptions policy requiring a thumbprint when cashing a check. And they do mean no exceptions: the bank refused to cash a check for a man with no arms because he couldn't provide a fingerprint. "They looked at my prosthetic hands and the teller said, 'Well, obviously you can't give us a thumbprint'," Steve Valdez told CNN on Wednesday.No thumbprint, no money, bank tells armless man (via Lowering the Bar) |
| Posted: 01 Oct 2009 01:45 AM PDT  Flickr user Graphic Nothing has a delightful set of "Movie Posters for Minimalists" that contain the minimum visual information necessary to convey a sense of the film. I have a feeling that a lot of these would work better for people who've already seen the movies, rather than as enticement to go to the cinema in the first place, but I'm still very pleased by them. Movie Posters for Minimalists (via Wonderland) Previously:
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| American woman marries auto-rickshaw driver Posted: 30 Sep 2009 08:29 PM PDT Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog celebrating the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY. It was just another hot day in Jaipur when Harish, an autorickshaw driver, sees Whitney, a University of Chicago student, in the distance and was awestruck. He asks her out for a cup of tea and she says no. He asks again, and she says no again. But Harish's persistence pays off, by the fourth time she comes around and they both grab a cup of tea. He shows her around Jaipur and, at the end of the day, he proposes to her. She accepts. I'll admit, there is a part of me thinking, "typical colonized South Asian men always chasing after white women. I give it two months." And to that part of my brain I say shut it,let them bask in their happiness. What do you guys think? |
| Madagascar Institute's jet-powered merry-go-round Posted: 30 Sep 2009 03:07 PM PDT All aboard the Madagascar Institute's jet-powered merry-go-round! (Thanks, Benjamin!) |
| Trailer for movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road Posted: 30 Sep 2009 02:22 PM PDT  Here's the trailer for the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's bleakly horrific, post-apocalyptic novel The Road. It looks mighty grim. I'll be first in line to see it on November 25. |
| The Official Appreciation Page for the Best of the Wikipedia Rejects Posted: 30 Sep 2009 01:47 PM PDT It's been a couple of years since I checked on Clifford Pickover's The Wikipedia Knowledge Dump, a blog about deleted (or marked for deletion) Wikipedia articles. I forgot how much fun it is!
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| Wingnut extreme: Glenn Beck says "Story of Stuff" is Commie propaganda Posted: 30 Sep 2009 01:11 PM PDT Chris sez, In December of 2007, Free Range Studio released the excellent video, "The Story of Stuff", in an attempt to educate people about over-consumption. It has been so well-received that many schools include it in their curricula.Take the 'The Story of Stuff' Quiz (Thanks, Chris!) |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 12:39 PM PDT  Photos, above and after the jump, shared with Boing Boing by Audrey N. Carpio of The Philippine Star. Her first-person account from the ongoing disaster follows, and includes recommendations on how you can help the victims. She shot the photos in this post two days after the typhoon, on a relief drive in a town called Tumana. Link to Flickr set. Typhoon Ondoy by Audrey Carpio Typhoon Ondoy, aka Tropical Storm Ketsana dumped 40 cm of rain on the Philippines last Saturday before he/she left to wreak watery havoc upon Vietnam and Cambodia. But Manila and its surrounding environs are still in various states of calamity, with many parts of the city still submerged under dirty brown water and others, while drying out, caked in leptospirosis-inducing mud. The government and its presidentiables have been slow to act upon what could've been their Hurricane Katrina-hero moment but quick to seize upon relief efforts for electioneering. Instead, it is thanks to the generosity and ingenuity of the Filipino people who mobilized themselves through Twitter and Facebook that hundreds of thousands of victims have been fed, clothed and sheltered. As early as Saturday evening, when people began to realize that floods have flashed rather quickly and videos of drowning trucks emerged on YouTube, relief plans grew almost organically on the networks. Tweets encouraging people to gather food, blankets, and clothing for donations were some of the earliest; by the next day there was an updatable and sharable Google spreadsheet on all the drop-off and volunteer centers; by Monday, almost all status updates and tweets had to do with emergency hotline numbers, relatives of friends who were stranded on a rooftop, and traffic advisories warning which roads were impassable. A Google map of people in need of rescuing was uploaded, although its usefulness is questionable, considering the general low-techness of the National Disaster Coordinating Council's rescue squads they only had 13 rubber boats with which to deploy to the affected barangays †or villages (to put it into perspective, 1.9 million people were inundated with flood water, nearly 380,000 have been evacuated into schools, churches and other emergency shelters, and 246 people have died. It has been four days since the deluge, and Metro Manila is still struggling and on survival mode. Donation tweets have been getting more specific: "Please bear in mind need for halal food aid for Muslim flood victims in Maharlika Village," and "Folks, volunteerism is flourishing but not enough goods. Women need sanitary napkins, babies diapers, antitetenus injections, can openers." This country was not prepared for a disaster of this sort; climate change wasn't even on the agenda. A new storm is about to come in -- we'll keep you posted on how we do. In the meantime, watch this video. You may donate here (UNICEF) or here (Red Cross/Philippines). (Special thanks to Karen Marcelo for her kind assistance.) |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 12:14 PM PDT  Aaron sez, "George Preti has a fridge full of human body odor samples. John Daly of the National Institute of Diabetes had a refrigerator packed to the gills with amphibian toxins. Ivan Amato, a C&EN editor and avid photographer, is collecting photos of interesting lab refrigerators. If you have any good pics, send them to i_amato@acs.org ." What's in your fridge? (Thanks, Aaron!) |
| UPDATED: Zeitoun Book Giveaway Haiku Contest Posted: 30 Sep 2009 11:48 AM PDT Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY. UPDATE: We just got word from the Eggers camp that they will be providing us signed copies of Zeitoun! Not sure how many we'll be given for the giveaway, but will tell you all as soon as we know. Also, there's a new deadline - tomorrow, Thursday at 7 AM PST. We'll announce winners this Friday! It'll be hard to top zombie haikus, but let's try! We've disabled comments here so write your Haiku in the original posting - Zeitoun Book Giveaway Haiku Contest |
| Early 1990s TV commercial - pay $2 a minute to hear a story that will make you cry Posted: 30 Sep 2009 10:45 AM PDT A TV commercial for a 900 number that makes people cry. (Via Filled with Chocolate Pudding!) |
| Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions Posted: 30 Sep 2009 10:28 AM PDT After I linked to a post of mine on Credit.com about miserable lottery winners, I was directed to this book, Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions, by Ed Ugel. After listening to a This American Life story about him, I had to get the book.
Money for Nothing: One Man's Journey through the Dark Side of Lottery Millions |
| Afghan girl killed by Royal Air Force leaflet drop Posted: 30 Sep 2009 10:17 AM PDT  Over at Wired's Danger Room blog, news that The Royal Air Force accidentally killed a young girl in Afghanistan -- by dropping a box of leaflets on her. The British Ministry of Defence is carrying out a full investigation. Meanwhile, the seemingly-antiquated practice of leaflet bombing continues. In the 21st century, it remains one of the primary tools of psychological warfare; U.S. Special Operations Command is even looking to build leaflet-carrying missiles.(thanks, Noah Shachtman) |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 09:59 AM PDT Boing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers.  Since the late 1960s a very original and unclassifiable inner-city mystery religion called the Five Percenters has served as an inspiration behind some of the language and imagery of New York's hip hop scene. I recently spoke with All Things Considered host Guy Raz about the strange (and persistent) appearance of occult and esoteric themes in the work of Jay-Z. "Jay-Z: A Master Of Occult Wisdom?" |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 10:15 AM PDT  Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we found a dismal PS3 Ad, Peek is offering lifetime subscriptions again, and Dell has a gorgeous wirelessly-charged laptop out. • We visited Mercedes-Benz's R&D labs: the 2010 E-Class is full of high-tech safety equipment (and odd textures) -- in a few years it'll practically be driving itself. • Gizmodo offers thoughts on the iTab: is it really a Kindle killer? • Palm's appstore isn't easy to get into if you don't like PayPal. • Charlie Brooker rants beautifully on the greatest dilemma of our age: Microsoft's awfulness or Apple's creepiness.. • Not all Windows 7 launch parties are stiff and artificially enthusiastic. Let's get swinging. • Behold! A horrid, pulsating tumor that plugs into your motherboard. • A $40 netbook? Not quite. Neat fact: about a third of Boing Boing readers use Macs, and of those, 21.28 percent have already upgraded to Snow Leopard. |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 09:16 AM PDT Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY. To be honest, I was indifferent to JR's work in the slums until I saw this video. Thank you, Wooster Collective. |
| Posted: 30 Sep 2009 09:13 AM PDT Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.  Pakistan's longest motorcycle, courtesy of All Things Pakistan I was in high school when 9/11 happened and the next day I was crowned Ambassador Muslim. From World History to Geometry class I was defending Islam and 1.5 billion of its followers. Thinking that most of the problems with Muslim were cultural, I divorced myself from all dealings with South Asian culture. At the time, it was an easy cop out to say "Oh its the culture, not the religion." It was only in college did I realize that my Muslim and Pakistani Identity weren't mutually exclusive and they both made the other stronger and more vibrant. When I came to this realization, I knew I had a lot of years of cultural education to make up. And what better place to learn about my peeps than the Pakistani blogosphere? I am highlighting two of my favorite Pakistani blogs. All Things Pakistan - I am culturally illiterate when it comes to Pakistan. All Things Pakistan seems to be on a mission to educate folks like me and share a part of their Pakistani experience. Most of the people that check this site are expats of Pakistan. Here's a link to where they talk about the Pakistani Eid experience - Eid Adventures in Pakistan CHUP! Changing Up Pakistan is a great blog ran by Kalsoom Lakhani. While All Things Pakistan deals more with the Pakistani experience, CHUP! gives more of an analysis on hard news. Here is a great article on the sideline discussions officials of Pakistan and India had on during the UN General Assembly Meetings. Her coverage on the Swat crisis is phenomenal, or as we say in Pakistan - A 1! |
| Boing Boing Video: Coachella Time-Lapse (dir. Ray Klein, music by Hawke) Posted: 30 Sep 2009 10:26 AM PDT WATCH: Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube / more at boingboingvideo.com. Ever wondered what a giant, sprawling, three-day music festival in the desert would look like if it were nano-crammed into just a few minutes? Here you go. Boing Boing Video presents this ambitious timelapse video of the 2009 Coachella Music and Arts Festival directed by filmmaker Ray Klein. Ray says: This was my third year taking time lapse at Coachella, and it was one of the best. I always find it interesting to see the ebb and flow of people throughout the day, and the hardcore fans who show up when gates open and lie out in the field in their bathing suits! Coachella is always great about supporting the arts and this is another example of their commitment. Enjoy!The music you hear is "Everything is Happening At The Same Time," by Hawke, courtesy of Eighth Dimension Records. His new record, "+++," comes out next week.
Ray adds: "Special Thanks to Bill and Leo from Coachella for making it happen, Hawke and QBAM and Eighth Dimension Records for the music, and TJ Martin for the output."
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| Britain seeks ban on glass pint-glasses to prevent bar-brawl injuries Posted: 30 Sep 2009 06:24 AM PDT The British Home Office is looking for proposals to make it harder to attack people with pint-glasses, including a mandate that all pint sleeves be made from plastic, or coated with shatter-resistant plastic. Because, you know, most bar-brawlers are fundamentally upset at the pint, not the people around them, and if they can't smash a pint sleeve, they will contain their anger and not use a chair, bottle, or imposing scarred forehead. Not surprisingly, the British Beer and Pub Association is not in favor of the plan and does not want the new glasses to be mandatory. "For the drinker," said a BBPA representative, "the pint glass feels better, it has a nice weight and the drink coats the glass nicely. . . . Is it necessary to replace the much-loved pint glass for safety reasons in the vast majority of pubs where there is no problem?" Yes, said the Home Office Minister. "Innovative design has played an important role in driving down overall crime," he claimed, though it wasn't clear what innovative design he was referring to, maybe the knives. "This project will see those same skills applied to the dangerous and costly issue of alcohol-related crime and I am confident that it will lead to similar successes."British Government Considers Mandating Plastic Pint Glasses |
| Trotsky: the graphic biography Posted: 17 Sep 2009 05:21 AM PDT  Rick Geary's Trotsky: A Graphic Biography summarizes and illustrates some of the great biographies of Russian revolutionary leader Leon Trotsky (notably the Isaac Deutscher bios, which my father, a lifelong Trotskyist, speaks highly of). Trotsky was an amazing figure: brilliant and fiery, an impassioned rhetorician and propagandist, who fought fiercely with Lenin on ideological grounds -- but eventually reconciled -- and was purged (and then assassinated) by Stalin after Lenin's death. The unlikely story of how Trotsky -- the son of a wealthy landowner -- became a revolutionary fighter and general is improbable, exciting, and thought-provoking, and Geary's comic-book retelling does it great justice. From his theory of "permanent revolution" (the idea that the Soviet Union could only sustain its revolution by bringing on revolutions in every other country) to his doomed affair with Frida Kahlo, Trotsky's genius, hubris, frailty and strength are well covered in this volume. (Actually, my dad takes some issue with this, "Geary's facile description (which, by the way, echoes the Stalinist perception of Trotsky's theory) really misses the point: Yes, the theory did have something to do with the extension of the revolution abroad, but that was merely an aspect of it. Trotsky's theory, influenced by Parvus, was that the historically distinct stages of social evolution (barbarism, feudalism, mercantile capitalism, capitalism) was not so distinct any more. In the age of capitalist expansion (primitive accumulation), capitalism was penetrating social systems of previous historical stages and combining with them. Russia, characterized as a form of feudalism, had by the time of the rolling in of the 20th century been penetrated by some very large scale capitalist enterprises by foreign investors. So, here was a society in which serfdom had only been recently abolished, still with an absolute monarch, overwhelmingly peasant and illiterate, but also experiencing the growth of a nascent industrial proletariat as a result of foreign capital. Trotsky's view was that the historical tasks normally assigned to the bourgeois forces emerging within the bosom of feudalism could not be accomplished by the Russian bourgeoisie. They were too weak, already bypassed by foreign capitalists, and therefore unwilling to carry out the democratic reforms appropriate to the normal development of capitalism. So, Trotsky said, the new revolutionary forces would have to do double duty, carry out a bourgeois revolution and a socialist one.") (That said, Dad adds, "I did enjoy reading his graphic bio") The only thing really missing from this is Trotsky's own words. He was an incredible and inspiring writer, and his autobiography, My Life (written while exiled in Turkey) is an excellent companion to this introductory text. Previously: |
Maja Einstein is the younger sister of great scientist Albert Einstein. Maja was the only friend of Albert during his childhood. When little Albert saw his sister for the first time he thought she was a kind of toy and asked: "Yes, but where does it have its small wheels?"
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