The Latest from Boing Boing |
- Makers Canadian launch in Toronto tonight!
- MPAA shuts down entire town's muni WiFi over a single download
- Venn diagram tee shows the bittersweet between happy and sad
- Apocalyptic art-photography from Stefano Bonazzi
- 8-way video card
- Bioshock Hypo replicas
- Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate time-travel life of Galileo, GALILEO'S DREAM
- HOWTO kill wiretaps when making a phone call
- Oil running out faster than the International Energy Agency admits, says whistleblower
- Jeff VanderMeer and SG Browne in San Francisco, Nov 14
- World's most awesome cheap Chinese toy
- Choose your own visualization
- Fist sledgehammer
- Theme Park Maps through the ages
- Thinking off
- Clock on a bicycle chain
- EFF lawyers grin like holy fools, surrounded by a fan of formerly secret government documents
- Aerobics championship video from 1987
- Virus loads child porn on unwitting users' computers
- Deer butt face taxidermy
- Eye exercise may boost creativity
- Dogs welcome soldiers home
- 3D medical viz system with Xbox controller
- McDonald's Gitmo is hiring!
- EFF to represent Yes Men in Chamber of Commerce lawsuit
- Sean Hannity plans to blame liberals for his mis-use of video
- Graph compares rock music quality with US oil production 1949-2007
- Eleven myths of de-cluttering
- Pratchett's "Unseen Academicals" - a gift to Discworld lovers and an argument for the importance of sport
- Make Volume 20 features Adam Savage
Makers Canadian launch in Toronto tonight! Posted: 12 Nov 2009 02:23 AM PST Tonight, I'm launching my latest novel, Makers in Canada, at the excellent Toronto sf reference library, the Merril Collection, at 239 College St. (3rd floor), east of Spadina. The event starts at 7PM, and I'll be doing a reading, taking questions, and signing books. Books are being sold by Bakka Phoenix, and if you can't make it tonight, they're happy to take your pre-orders for signed, personalized copies -- I'll sign them tonight and they'll ship them out right away. They're at +1 416 963 9993 or inquiries@ bakkaphoenixbooks. com. Hope to see you there! |
MPAA shuts down entire town's muni WiFi over a single download Posted: 12 Nov 2009 02:09 AM PST The MPAA has successfully shut down an entire town's municipal WiFi because a single user was found to be downloading a copyrighted movie. Rather than being embarrassed by this gross example of collective punishment (a practice outlawed in the Geneva conventions) against Coshocton, OH, the MPAA's spokeslizard took the opportunity to cry poor (even though the studios are bringing in record box-office and aftermarket receipts). Mike LaVigne, IT director, said the number of people who access the Internet using the connection varies widely, from perhaps a dozen people a day to 100 during busy times such as First Fridays and the Coshocton Canal Festival.Illegal movie download forces shutdown of free Wi-Fi (Thanks, Dan!) |
Venn diagram tee shows the bittersweet between happy and sad Posted: 12 Nov 2009 02:04 AM PST Diesel Sweeties' R. Stevens and Ariana Osborne are offering this wordy Venn diagram shirt showing the bittersweet territory between happiness and sadness for $18-19, and taking pre-orders now. (Happy()Sad) Diagram Shirt (via Warren Ellis) Previously:
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Apocalyptic art-photography from Stefano Bonazzi Posted: 12 Nov 2009 02:00 AM PST Stefano Bonazzi's "Last Day on Earth" series of photographs are stellar apocalyptic dreams of stark landscapes and weirdly armored figures. The last day on earth (via JWZ) |
Posted: 12 Nov 2009 01:58 AM PST It's gadgets like this Matrox 8-way video card -- which lets you drive eight 2560 x 1600 displays at once -- that make me think seriously about going back to a desktop machine and abandoning laptops. If only I could find 1) room for eight displays and 2) a graceful way of using the home partition on my laptop as my desktop's home partition as well, without sacrificing speed (NFS), or having to reboot each time I sit down. Matrox M9188 PCIe x16 (via Red Ferret) |
Posted: 12 Nov 2009 01:53 AM PST As Alice at Wonderlandblog points out, it's rare to see official merch as good as these Bioshock 2 EVE Hypos -- you usually have to find some fetishistic fan art. But this is an actual in-store tchotchke, and it's a corker. |
Kim Stanley Robinson's alternate time-travel life of Galileo, GALILEO'S DREAM Posted: 12 Nov 2009 02:19 AM PST Here's the Guardian's Alison Flood's detailed look at Kim Stanley Robinson's latest novel, Galileo's Dream, a fictionalized biography of Galileo that features time-travel. What he came up with was three different temporal dimensions - the first moving very fast, at the speed of light, the second very slow and "vibrating slowly back and forth, as if the universe itself were a single string or bubble", the third - antichronos - in reverse. We experience them as one, creating a three-way interference pattern, which accounts for sensations such as foresight, déjà vu, nostalgia and precognition. The compound nature of time, Robinson writes, "creates our perception of both transience and permanence, of being and becoming". He's shown the novel to people who are "much more serious about the time travel stuff" and they're "having a blast". "They immediately map my three strands of time onto their system. They think I've partially discovered the real thing," he says gleefully...Kim Stanley Robinson: science fiction's realist (Thanks, Robert!) Previously:
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HOWTO kill wiretaps when making a phone call Posted: 12 Nov 2009 01:43 AM PST CALEA is the terrible US federal law that requires that all switches that carry voice-traffic be built with an easy-to-access remote wiretapping capability so that cops (or bad guys who know cop secrets) can listen in on your voice conversations without cooperation from the phone company. A team of University of Pennsylvania researchers (already notorious for finding flaws in the previous version of the CALEA standard that let callers lock out wiretaps) have found a solid theoretical attack against the newer, shinier CALEA standard. "We asked ourselves the question of whether this standard is sufficient to have reliable wiretapping," said Micah Sherr, a post-doctoral researcher at the university and one of the paper's co-authors. Eventually they were able to develop some proof-of-concept attacks that would disrupt devices. According to Sherr, the standard "really didn't consider the case of a wiretap subject who is trying to thwart or confuse the wiretap itself."How to Deny Service to a Federal Wiretap (Thanks, Adam!) Previously: |
Oil running out faster than the International Energy Agency admits, says whistleblower Posted: 11 Nov 2009 08:11 PM PST Guardian: "The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying." |
Jeff VanderMeer and SG Browne in San Francisco, Nov 14 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 05:41 PM PST The last of this year's excellent "SF in SF" reading series is coming up on Nov 14, at 7PM: Jeff VanderMeer, recent Guest of Honor at the World Fantasy Convention 2009, is touring for his final novel in his Ambergris Cycle, "Finch," published by Underland Books, and for his writers' guide "Booklife," published by Tachyon Publications. His associated Booklifenow website focus on sustainable creativity, and is a unique writing guide to sustainable careers and sustainable creativity - the first to fully integrate discussion of the role of new media into topics that have always been of interest to writers.. With his wife, Ann VanderMeer, he's edited the charity anthology "Last Drink Bird Head," "New Weird," and "Steampunk." His short fiction has appeared in Conjunctions, Library of America's American Fantastic Tales, and several year's best anthologies. He writes nonfiction for The Washington Post Book World, Omnivoracious, The New York Times Book Review, the B&N Review, and many others.SF in SF Reading/Event (San Francisco, CA) (Thanks, Rina!) Previously: |
World's most awesome cheap Chinese toy Posted: 11 Nov 2009 04:54 PM PST |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 04:27 PM PST Intriguing visualizations of the possibilities and paths from various classic Choose Your Own Adventure books. Now, someone do Fighting Fantasy! [Samizdat] |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 03:04 PM PST DesignMartus's portfolio has some beautiful metalwork on display, around a motif of hands and fists. This wonderful fist sledgehammer would be a fine addition to any toolkit. Early Tools (via Make) |
Theme Park Maps through the ages Posted: 11 Nov 2009 03:01 PM PST Theme Park Brochures, a superb gallery of theme-park maps from the 30s onwards -- I especially love the hand-drawn ones. Theme Park Brochures (via MeFi) |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 03:01 PM PST Big Think video: "According to Rutgers psychology professor Barry Komisaruk, some women are able to achieve orgasm through mental activity alone. What can their brains tell us about the neurological basis of sexual pleasure, and can these discoveries help patients who are unable to orgasm at all?" |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:53 PM PST A reader writes, "The Catena wall clock harkens back to traditional mechanical clocks. Copper digits mounted onto a bicycle chain place emphasis on the cyclical nature of time. This clock is a striking clock, literally and figuratively." Well, not literally. But figuratively. And man, was this thing ever designed to fire up the desiderata center of my brain. |
EFF lawyers grin like holy fools, surrounded by a fan of formerly secret government documents Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:53 PM PST Followers of Boing Boing will know that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been battling in court to force the US government to disclose documents related to the illegal mass wiretapping that the phone companies and Uncle Sam engaged in as part of the "war on terror." Now the government has blinked, and EFF has the photos to prove it. Hugh from EFF sez, "A photo of what it looks like when the gov't says 'uncle': EFF lawyers with a mountain of telecom immunity docs." nate&marcia (Thanks, Hugh!) Previously:
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Aerobics championship video from 1987 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:48 PM PST |
Virus loads child porn on unwitting users' computers Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:45 PM PST Another good reason to get a Mac or use Linux. A Windows-only virus can "visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute" filling the unsuspecting computer owner's hard drive with child pornography. It has already ruined at least one couple's life. |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:31 PM PST Above are examples of deer butt face taxidermy art. Yes, indeedy. For more about this fine craft, visit "Make your own redneck art." Note that the description of the process, and reference to a hunter's "game dressing tool" called "Butt Out," may be offensive to some. Deer butt face mounts can also be found on eBay. (Thanks, Michael-Anne and Barnaby!) |
Eye exercise may boost creativity Posted: 11 Nov 2009 03:20 PM PST A study in the scientific journal Brain and Cognition suggests that increasing the "crosstalk" between the brain's left and right hemispheres can increase creativity. Researchers from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey ran an experiment on 62 people to gauge creative thinking. After a first try at the task, some of the participants were told to shift their eyes horizontally back and forth for 30 seconds, an exercise that boosts the communication between the hemispheres. Those subjects performed much better on the test the second time around than a control group who stared straight ahead. The scientists published the results of their study in the journal Brain and Cognition. From the British Psychological Society Research Digest: An important factor that the researchers took note of was the participants' handedness. Prior research has suggested that people who have one hand that is particularly dominant, so-called "strong-handers", have less cross-talk between their brain hemispheres compared with people who are more ambidextrous or "mixed handed"..."Performing horizontal eye movement exercises can boost your creativity" |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:03 PM PST To commemorate Veterans Day, Mental Floss collected videos of very happy dogs greeting returning soldiers. |
3D medical viz system with Xbox controller Posted: 11 Nov 2009 01:56 PM PST Iowa State University researchers developed a system to converts common 2D MRI and CAT medical scans into 3D visualizations, enabling physicians to fly through the body using an Xbox controller. Apparently, their software is much simpler to use, and the visualizations easier to explore, than existing 3D medical imaging technologies. The engineers have now spun out their innovation in to a start-up, called BodyViz. Their hope is that the software can be used to train medical students and enable physicians to try procedures before doing them on live patients. The PC software sells for $4,995, plus $69 for the wireless Xbox controller. From Iowa State: Two-dimensional imaging technologies have been used in medicine for a long time, said (BodyViz co-founder) Eliot Winer, an Iowa State associate professor of mechanical engineering and an associate director of Iowa State's Virtual Reality Applications Center. But those flat images aren't easily read and understood by anybody but specialists."Iowa State engineers develop 3-D software to give doctors, students a view inside the body" |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 01:43 PM PST Joe sez, "The McDonald's franchise at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is looking for an assistant manager. The ideal candidate will have previous restaurant management experience, a valid U.S. passport and a willingness to relocate to Cuba. Apparently, no special security clearance is required. Perks include great weather, potential tax free status for year-round residents, and half of the successful candidate's stateside rent paid by the company. The Gitmo McDonald's has been in operation since 1986, and serves the base's 6000 inhabitants, including military personnel, their families, Jamaican and Filipino guest workers. and 215 detainees, who can make take-out orders for Big Macs, fries and other items." Guantanamo-based McDonald's seeks applicants (Thanks, Joe!) Previously:
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EFF to represent Yes Men in Chamber of Commerce lawsuit Posted: 11 Nov 2009 01:41 PM PST Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "More news about the Yes Men and the Chamber of Commerce. BoingBoing reported on the lawsuit the Chamber filed over the activists' political criticism of the Chamber's stance on climate change and the Chamber's DMCA takedown attempt. Now it's official: EFF and Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP, will defend the Yes Men and other activists involved in the action. As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry says: "The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities. This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment." Next step in the case -- a response to the Chamber's complaint is due later this month in the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia." "The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment. We're very pleased that Davis Wright Tremaine -- with its long, successful history of protecting free speech rights of Americans -- has joined us in helping these activists battle a transparent attempt at censorship."EFF to Represent Yes Men in Court Battle Over Chamber of Commerce Action (Thanks, Rebecca!) Previously: |
Sean Hannity plans to blame liberals for his mis-use of video Posted: 11 Nov 2009 01:22 PM PST Predict what excuse Sean Hannity will use to explain why he misused old video to back up his claim that a large crowd came to Washington to protest the health care bill. (One rule: his excuse must somehow blame the liberals). |
Graph compares rock music quality with US oil production 1949-2007 Posted: 11 Nov 2009 02:59 PM PST From GOOD: "The remarkable similarity between the arcs of U.S. oil production and songs in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" by year is staggering." (Graph created by Overthinkingit.com) |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 12:50 PM PST Gretchen Rubin, author of the forthcoming book, The Happiness Project, offers several good de-cluttering tips in a blog post titled "Eleven Myths of De-Cluttering." Here are the first three: 1. "I need to get organized." No! Don't get organized is your first step.In short, she's a fan of getting rid of stuff. Me, too! |
Posted: 11 Nov 2009 12:36 PM PST I always celebrate when a new Terry Pratchett novel hits the stands -- doubly so now that health problems are slowing him down from his normal superhuman output to a merely impressive one. But I confess I was a little less excited to learn that the newest Pratchett Discworld book, Unseen Academicals, was about football (AKA soccer). I'm not a sports fan. I wasn't a hockey fan when I lived in Canada. I wasn't a baseball fan when I lived in the US. I'm not a footie fan now that I live in the UK. But I gave it a whirl: this is Terry Pratchett, after all. I'd read his grocery lists. A word about Pratchett for the uninitiated. Terry Pratchett is an incredibly funny, warmly human British fantasy (mostly) novelist. He writes at an impossible rate. Most of his books are part of a sprawling, infinitely varied fantasy series called Discworld, about a flat, disc-shaped planet that is carried on the backs of four gigantic elephants who tramp in slow circles around the back of a vast, interstellar turtle called A'Tuin. On Discworld, everything happens. There are imperial battles and barbarians; witches and trolls and dwarves in the hills; animist spirits on lost continents; and there is a vast and wonderful and terrible city called Ankh-Morpork. Ankh-Morpork is presided over by a tyrant called Lord Vetinari, who is quite progressive as tyrants go. For one thing, he's let the trolls, vampires, medusae, dwarves, werewolves, zombies, and assorted other nonhumans into the city. For another, he's organized the thieves into a guild to whom one can pay an annual license and be guaranteed a life free from official thieving (freelance thieves are dealt with most firmly by the guild). You can read the Discworld books in almost any order. Some of them run in little trilogies that follow the same characters, but even if you picked up the second or third volume of these, you'd probably get along OK -- Pratchett is quite good at getting newcomers to Discworld up to speed on its basics. Back to Unseen Academicals. Here's the setup: the wizards of Unseen University have discovered that a key grant from a former Archchancellor requires them to keep a football team that plays regular matches. It's been decades since the last UU team was fielded, and they're in imminent danger of losing a substantial source of funding. Meanwhile, football itself -- as played on the streets of Ankh-Morpork -- is a vicious game that is more riot than sport, and the wizards of UU have no intention of getting involved in that mess. So they cook up a plan to reform football -- and to field a team of their own, coached by Nutt, a mysterious (and erudite) goblin who has been heretofore employed as a candle-dribbler (no self-respecting wizard wants to do magic by the light of a pristine, unmarked candle) in the cellars of UU. That's the setup. Here's the payoff: it's brilliant. The novelist's best trick is to make you care about stuff you don't care about. It's what Fever Pitch does. And it's what Unseen Academicals does, too. Pratchett shows us how sport is part of the emotional life of a city, and how its significance resonates across generations, across regional parochialism, across social strata, uniting us behind something that transcends the mere game. What's more, Pratchett shows us how fragile a thing this is, how vulnerable it is to greed and thuggishness and venality, and how those who defend the game do so for the best reasons imaginable. As Pratchett says, "The thing about football is, it's not about football." I wouldn't call this the best Discworld novel ever (I think my vote for that honor would go to Monstrous Regiment, which, incidentally, can be read without having read any of the other Pratchett novels). But it's in the top five. A word of warning: it's also one of the most inside-baseball (you should forgive the expression) of the Discworld books, requiring a fair bit of familiarity with the previous books in the series to be fully appreciated. It's a real gift from Pratchett to his fans, in other words, and I, for one, am grateful for it. Unseen Academicals (Amazon US) Unseen Academicals (Amazon UK) Previously:
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Make Volume 20 features Adam Savage Posted: 11 Nov 2009 12:21 PM PST MAKE, Volume 20 is out (and will be on newsstands and in bookstores next week) and it's one of my favorite issues. The special theme of this issue is kid-friendly projects. Our projects editor, Paul Spinrad, sat down with Adam Savage to talk about his childhood as a maker. Adam is on our cover, which was illustrated by our pal Ape Lad (aka Adam Koford). Here's an excerpt: Paul: I think of enthusiasm as the opposite of coolness, and adolescence is a turning point for this. Children are all enthusiastic, they're into what they're into, and it's great and they love it. But then something happens, and suddenly some of the kids start looking down on that enthusiasm and seeing it as immature or dorky. So they invent coolness as an alternative. I always gravitated away from that because I was interested in too many things. Adam: Yes, and enthusiasm also makes you vulnerable. When you like something, someone can take it away from you. I once gave a sculpture to some friends as a wedding present, and they turned it down. That was really upsetting to me. And that vulnerability itself is also embarrassing. The two emotions are deeply linked, which is why people try not to cry in public.
One of my favorite articles in the issue is "Productive Plastic Playthings," written by toy design Bob Knetzger. He takes a look at 1960s "maker" toys like the Vac-U-Form, the Time Machine, the Thingmaker, and the Mold Master. I had a lot of these toys when I was a kid, and when I read Bob's piece, it brought back the smell of Plastigoop. Of course, we've got a bunch of great projects in this issue, including a hydrogen-oxygen bottle rocket (use electricity to split tap water into the two gasses), a laser light show you can fit into vintage metal lunchboxes, a DIY van Leeuwenhoek microscope, a guide to lashing, and much more. For a look at the complete table of contents, go to the MAKE Vol. 20 page at makezine.com |
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