Wednesday, March 24, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Ada Lovelace Day hero: Cindy Cohn

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 02:27 AM PDT


Happy Ada Lovelace Day! Today is the day when bloggers around the world celebrate women in technology who have inspired them.

My Ada Lovelace hero this year is Cindy Cohn, the Legal Director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Cindy is a litigator, which means that she really, really understands how to construct an argument (and how to demolish someone else's argument). She was my co-worker at EFF for half a decade and remains a dear friend, and I can't count the number of times I've had my mind changed for the better by Cindy's principled, reasoned, civil libertarian stands on technology.

I remember a lunch with Cindy, before I went to EFF, where we talked about DRM (I was for it -- Cindy is one of the people who helped me understand why DRM was a bad idea). I had what I thought of as a pretty reasonable position: creators could offer deals to the public and they'd be able to pick which deals were good ones and which were bad ones. Cindy took me through the illegitimacy of a vendor declaring that something that was a sale -- as defined in law -- was, in fact, a contract, where all the buyer's rights went away. I walked away from that lunch a changed man.

Cindy argued the famous Bernstein case, where the principle that code is a form of expressive speech, protected by the First Amendment, was established in law. Specifically, Bernstein got rid of the NSA's ban on publishing, using and disseminating strong crypto (they said that any scrambling system that the cops couldn't descramble was a munition and had to be regulated accordingly). Today, every purchase you make online, every ATM you use, every private email you send or receive -- everything you do that has some element of privacy! -- is legal because of Cindy's ability to convey nuanced technical arguments to nontechnical lawmakers.

I've been privileged in my life to know many astute technologists, policy people, and activists, but few who combine brilliance in all three realms the way Cindy does. She could go into private practice in a heartbeat and increase her salary by 5-10X, but for more than a decade, she's stayed at EFF, pulling long hours and working under tough conditions to make a difference in the world.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day, Cindy!

Ada Lovelace Day

Previously:


Ghost Stories: London stage show scared the hell out of me

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 02:13 AM PDT

Last night, a gang of us went to see Andy Nyman's Ghost Stories, a horror stage-show on at the Hammersmith Lyric theatre in London. I know Andy through his work as a writer/director for Derren Brown's excellent shows, and the times I've met him, he's struck me as a sweet, laid-back guy, so even though I'd heard Ghost Stories was properly scary, I went in feeling pretty easy about the evening.

That lasted until about the third second of the show. I don't want to give away any spoilers by telling you too much about the plot, but I can tell you this: Andy plays a parapsychologist giving a lecture to an audience about the absurdity of believing in ghost stories. His character is also sweet, though not very laid back, and the stories he recounts are, in fact, scary as fuck. Especially when combined with the most menacing sound-design I've ever had vibrate through my colon, and some extremely clever staging, and really excellent acting from the small cast.

There were about eight of us last night -- including a couple of magicians, some game designers, and various kind of media creators -- and every one of us came out of there visibly shaken. When we got home, my wife made me get out of bed to make sure the doors were all locked (and I turned on the lights before I did).

The show runs until April 17, and there's even a midnight show on Friday. I don't get out very often -- the exigencies of having a toddler at home -- and every time I do, I ask myself whether this is going to be worth the expense in babysitters and missed sleep (the kid gets up at 5AM every day). This one was absolutely worth it.

Ghost Stories

Previously:


Stop DRM on UK TV! Sign onto ORG's comments

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 10:08 AM PDT


The Open Rights Group is looking for British individuals and organisations to sign onto its comments to the UK TV regulator, who is on the verge of giving into blackmail from the BBC and an offshore DRM cartel, crippling TV in Britain forever.

The BBC has asked Ofcom, the UK telcoms regulator, to give it permission to put DRM on digital TV signals. Anyone who wants to make a receiver that can unscramble the DRM will have to sign up with an offshore consortium called DTLA, agreeing to a whole raft of DRM requirements, including a ban on making TV receivers and recorders that users can modify (which amounts to a ban on free/open TV equipment like MythTV, as well as free/open drivers for laptop TV cards).

This is a bad idea for lots of reasons: it's our TV, paid for with the license fee. The BBC claims that some unspecified rightsholders will withhold some unspecified programming from TV if they don't get this, but so far, no one's come forward to specifically say, "I won't release the following programmes," so we're just left with this kind of vague, nonspecific threat.

If that wasn't bad enough, the BBC hasn't identified anyone who has promised to make programmes available if the DRM is added -- so we're being asked to turn regulatory control over the public service broadcaster to a corporate cartel without even being promised anything in return!

Worst of all: the BBC's DRM scrambles a block of data that includes the assistive information used by visually impaired and hearing impaired people to watch TV, meaning that it will be harder than ever to deliver low-cost, robust technologies for these audiences. Fancy using blind and deaf people as human shields in the copyright wars! Now that's public service!

The rightsholder companies made the same threats in 2003 when the USA was considering adding DRM to its digital TV, and none of them followed through. The idea that broadcasters will simply stop airing programmes, or that new suppliers won't show up to sell shows if old ones boycott the system, is just ludicrous. These businesses have shareholders who want to see a return on their investment, not a public tantrum.

ORG has written a thorough response to the Ofcom consultation on BBC DRM, and now we're looking for individuals and organisations to sign on to it. We've already got sign-on from the Free Software Foundation, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Somethin' Else, and many other consumer rights groups, tech groups, and entertainment companies are considering signing up.

We're open to signons from any license payer or UK resident, but we're especially interested in:

  • Programmers, especially those who work on digital TV technologies
  • Video creators, especially BBC suppliers
  • MythTV users and users of tuner cards with open/free drivers
  • People with visual and hearing disabilities
  • Teachers and tinkerers who play with receiver technology
  • People who travel within the EU and would have to buy a second TV or card specifically to receive DRM broadcasts from the BBC
  • Anyone else who feels an especially strong connection to the public service value of open platforms
Stop BBC "Digital Rights Management" from disabling your HD TV
Previously:


Student programmers: Get paid to hack liberty-enhancing code with EFF this summer!

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 02:01 AM PDT

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is looking for student programmers to do paid work on various liberty-enhancing technologies this summer, paid for by Google, through its excellent Summer of Code project. This summer, there's funding for programmers to work on TOR (The Onion Router -- a system for evading censorwalls and enhancing online privacy by bouncing your traffic through several volunteers' computers), TOSBack (tracking changes to the terms of service of the Internet's most popular websites), OurVoteLive (tracking problems in elections with US polling places and voting machines) and Switzerland (a passive IP-layer network neutrality testing system).

Previous Summer of Code workers have had wonderful experiences working with EFF (as a former employee, I can testify to what a great workplace it is). Not only do you get to do paid, meaningful work, but you get to do it surrounded by some of the most astute, passionate and clever people in the technology world. For the right student, this is the chance of a lifetime.

Work With EFF and TOR for Google's Summer of Code

Previously:


Makers is a finalist for the Prometheus Award

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 12:07 AM PDT

I'm absolutely tickled to announce that my novel Makers is up for the 2010 Prometheus Award, given annually by the Libertarian Futurist Society. My last novel, Little Brother won in 2009, and it was an incredible honor. Once again, I'm sharing the ballot with some tremendous books and authors, including Liberating Atlantis by Harry Turtledove and The Unincorporated Man by Dani and Eytan Kollin.

EFF panel: Architecture is policy

Posted: 24 Mar 2010 12:04 AM PDT

One of the Electronic Frontier Foundation's founding principles was Mitch Kapor's aphorism, "Architecture is politics." The design of systems determines the kinds of politics that can take place in them, and designing a system is itself a political act. As part of EFF's ongoing 20th anniversary celebrations, it held a panel called "Architecture is policy" at Carnegie-Mellon, featuring Ed Felten, Dave Farber, Lorrie Cranor, John Buckman, and Cindy Cohn -- all heavy hitters in their own right, and dynamite together. This is one of the more thoughtful and thought-provoking hours you could spend today.

Video: EFF Panel on "Architecture Is Policy"

Previously:


Steampunk Star Wars costumes

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:58 PM PDT

HOWTO spot a handgun, the beautiful information edition

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:51 PM PDT


Back in 2007, Edward Tufte featured Megan Jaegerman's NYT graphic on spotting a hidden handgun (click through below for the whole thing). It's not only informative, it's also beautiful. The same page features many of Jaegerman's other NYT graphics, each a little work of information art.

Megan Jaegerman's brilliant news graphics (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Previously:


Secret ACTA fights over iPod border-searches

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:17 PM PDT

Michael Geist sez, "The leak of the full consolidated ACTA [ed: the secrete global copyright treaty] text will provide anyone interested in the treaty with plenty to work with for the next few weeks. While several chapters have already been leaked and discussed, the consolidated chapter provides a clear indication of how the negotiations have altered earlier proposals as well as the first look at several other ACTA elements. For example, last spring it was revealed that several countries had proposed including a de minimis provision to counter fears that the border measures chapter would lead to iPod searching border guards. This leak shows there are four proposals on the table."

The copyright industries wanted border-searches on anything digital you were carrying that could be used to infringe copyright, from your phone to your iPod to the laptop that had your confidential client documents, your personal email, your finances, pictures of your kids in the bath, etc. Various countries proposed loophole-riddled ways of exempting your personal goods from a search, mostly hinging on whether they're "non-commercial goods" of a "personal nature." Except that every time I cross the US or Canadian border, they tell me my laptop is "commercial goods" because I do business with it.

ACTA's De Minimis Provision: Countering the iPod Searching Border Guard Fears (Thanks, Michael!)

Previously:


Today is a special day in Simpsons history

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 10:01 PM PDT

simspons.jpg

Boing Boing pal David Silverman, who shares the classic Simpsons sketch above, says, "23 years ago today on March 23rd, 1987, we had a meeting with Matt Groening. And then Wes Archer, Bill Kopp, and I started animating the very first Simpsons short for The Tracey Ullman Show, in a studio on 729 N. Seward Street. We all thought it was pretty funny." [And we do too, David.—XJ]

Chinese Communist Party newspaper accuses Google of colluding with U.S. spies

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 09:53 PM PDT

"For Chinese people, Google is not god, and even if it puts on a full-on show about politics and values, it is still not god. In fact, Google is not a virgin when it comes to values. Its cooperation and collusion with the U.S. intelligence and security agencies is well-known. All this makes one wonder. Thinking about the United States' big efforts in recent years to engage in Internet war, perhaps this could be an exploratory pre-dawn battle." —Excerpt from a commentary on Google in the overseas edition of People's Daily, the primary newspaper of China's ruling Communist Party. A related commentary in the same paper accuses Google of continuing to censor search in other countries, including the USA.

The Incredible Animation of Frédéric Back

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 07:57 PM PDT

With each frame hand-drawn in pencil and smudged into the next, Oscar-winning animator Frédéric Back tells the story of Elzéard Bouffier, a lone shepherd in the Alps near Provence who boldly decides to single-handedly reforest the desolate valley where he lives, one acorn at a time. Not only is the story defiantly romantic, I'm in love with the way Back's patient devotion to each drawing mimics the methodical tree-planting of his main character. Along with being unabashedly earnest and quietly inspiring, it's some of the most stunning and startlingly original animation that I've seen.

I really recommend watching all three parts in one sitting, and especially recommend finding or buying a proper copy of it so you can see it in higher definition, because the detail and motion of it is unreal.

The Man Who Planted Trees is based on the short story by Jean Giono. Christopher Plummer narrates, (Phillippe Noiret does the honors in the original French version).

OK Go free show at Hammer Museum in LA tonight (March 23, 2010)

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 04:46 PM PDT

Flux Ok Go

Sorry for the last minute notice, but our pals in OK Go are playing a free show at the Hammer Museum tonight.

Flux kicks off spring and the third annual season of the Flux Screening Series with a magical night of short film, videos and live performance. Among the highlights are new videos from Massive Attack, Air, OK Go and the Liars introduced by the directors who made them, as well as rarely seen work from Denmark, Japan, France and the UK.

The program includes Saman Keshavarz's Luv Deluxe video which just won Best Music Video at the 2010 SXSW Film Festival. Also featured will be the innovative new video by L'Ogre for Hold Your Horses song "70 Million", in which bandmembers bring to life art masterpieces by Michelangelo, Kahlo, Mondrian, Warhol, Caravaggio, Van Gogh and others.

The evening will culminate with a very special live acoustic performance by OK Go in the Hammer Courtyard.

Filmmakers in attendance:

The creative team behind the epic Rube Goldberg Machine video "This Too Shall Pass" - OK Go, Synn Labs and and filmmaker James Frost (Radiohead, Coldplay).

Paris-based director Edouard Salier (Massive Attack, Air)

Saman Keshavarz (winner of Best Music Video at SXSW 2010)

Andy Bruntel (Bats for Lashes, Modest Mouse, No Age)

Tuesday, March 23, 2010
7PM: Pre-reception with guest DJ Tim Nordwind (OK Go)
8PM: Screening and Filmmaker Presentations.
10PM: After-party featuring acoustic performance by OK Go.

Event is free and open to the public. Box office opens at 7PM. The HAMMER CAFE will be selling food and drinks all night. Parking is available under the Museum. There is a $3 flat rate after 6:30 p.m. Visit flux.net for more information.

Hammer Museum
Billy Wilder Theater
10899 Wilshire Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
310.443.7000

RSVP for OK Go show at Hammer Museum

Previously:


Anti-immigrant xenophobe attacks leftwing female mimes wielding "hateful whistles" and balloons

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:26 PM PDT

Roy Beck is director of the immigration restrictionist group, NumbersUSA. He joined thousands of protestors in Washington DC gathering to support comprehensive immigration reform, and gave commentary on the event as it happened via a live video stream on his organization's website. But as seen in the video above, the anti-immigration activist got into an altercation with a group of left-wing female mimes, whom he claims threatened him and his bodyguards with "constant efforts at crushing physical intimidation" instigated by "blowing hateful whistles" and waving balloons.

There are two sides to every wacky story. Let's hear from the mimes. Lena Graber is one of three you see in the video who later pressed charges against Beck's bodyguard. She told the blog Wonk Room:

mimeth.jpgThey were pretty aggressive and they would sort of elbow us out of the way and say "Don't touch me" as they were doing so. One of the bodyguards had white makeup all over his elbow and he was all upset that the mimes had gotten makeup on him...but our makeup was on our faces and I wasn't face-bunting anyone so I felt like that was more incriminating evidence than anything else.

We each started with about 15 balloons that were on ribbons and the taller bodyguard had a pocket knife and he would grab the balloons and pop them with the knife. And at one point when I still had a lot of balloons they were tied around my upper arm...and I felt this yank on my arm where they were tied around. And I turned and he was pulling on all of the ribbons...so that was the only time I talked, I said "OW, that hurts. That's attached to my arm, stop that." And he didn't stop and so I screamed as loud as I could.

Anti-Immigrant Leader's Bodyguard Arrested For Allegedly Assaulting Mimes At Immigration Rally / YouTube: Amnesty March Highlights [Wonkroom via Chris Baker]

Maker Business: Crestview Doors

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:31 PM PDT

201003231526

Make: Online has a new section called Maker Pro, which focuses on individuals and small groups who have turned their enthusiasm for making into a business. Our most recent interview is with David and Christiane Erwin of Crestview Doors. John Park, who purchased a door from them a couple of years ago (I've seen it and it is beautiful), conducted the interview.

201003231523 David and Christiane Erwin, of Austin, TX, founded mid-century modern door company Crestview Doors to provide other design-conscious homeowners with an alternative to the colonial-style front doors you can get at a big box store. The Park house proudly sports the orange "Burbank" model pictured below! They now sell DIY Doorlite Kits, so you too can build the door of your dreams. Read on to find out how this maker couple does it.

How did you make the leap from renovating your house to starting your own business?

David Erwin: We remodeled our house in 2006. When I went shopping for a new door for our house, I honestly thought I would just pick one up at the big box store. When I didn't find a simple three-square window door on the shelf, I tried a local custom door shop. When I didn't find one there, I looked on the internet. It really bugged me that I couldn't buy a cool retro door for my house!

Christiane Erwin: We honestly thought remodeling our house was a ton of fun, and we were itching for a new project to work on together. David mentioned that he was interested in making the leap from graphic to industrial design. I was ready to launch another startup, but I wanted to go retail this time.

DE: It was February 2007. I was finishing up some details around the house, and when I went to the big box store, I noticed all the other people grimacing at the ugly doors.

CE: Plus, we saw all of the traffic our post about our retro door was bringing to our houseblog, so we knew there was some potential there. It was really David that took the plunge while I stood back to see where it was headed.

DE: I suggested to Christiane that we could make a few doors for fun and a little extra folding money.

CE: I didn't think it would take off. At best, I thought it would be a fun little side-business. We were both shocked when the 12 doors we thought it would take a year to sell were gone in just six weeks!

And then, Joe Biden said ...

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 02:38 PM PDT

Joe Biden thinks health care reform is a big fucking deal. (See video above. In related news, Joe Biden continues to come in a close second behind the Apostle Peter as my personal Patron Saint of ADHD.) If you read the papers of record, however, you will see him quoted as saying "...", "[expletive]" or "profane term". Sadly, "fracking" does not yet seem to be AP style.

Personally, I like NPR's Ian Chillag's take ...

"This is a big lovemaking deal, Mr.President."

Did Nissan (or their ad agency) rip off cut-paper-map artist and Etsy-er Karen O'Leary?

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 03:01 PM PDT

NISSAN.jpg

I'm no lawyer, and I'm no detective, but there are some unmissable similarities between this ad campaign by Nissan and Lew'Lara/TBWA, Brazil (above) and the long-established body of work from artist Karen O'Leary (left).

oleary.jpg O'Leary's Etsy site is here, more of her images here. We've featured her beautiful and unique cut paper city maps on Boing Boing a number of times, and they've been featured at lots of other design and art blogs around the web. She's been doing them since at least 2004, by my count, but her work really received a big popularity boost and sort of went viral in late 2009-early 2010. No, she's not the only artist in the world who uses cut paper as a medium, but give me a break.

Above, the Nissan campaign, detailed here at Ads of the World. Inset at left, one of Karen's most recent maps: Paris (there's even a Paris map in the Nissan campaign). Many details, down to the white paper, the way O'Leary frames each piece, the way she photographs her pieces by having someone hold them, are disappointingly similar. I reached out to Nissan and the ad agency in Brazil several times over the past week about the matter, and not one person has responded. Double-dog-lame, guys.

Previously:


The TEDxConejo Conference: March 27, 2010

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 02:30 PM PDT

Don Levy says:
Tedx Logo Small The first-ever TEDxConejo Conference, a one-day locally organized gathering of renowned thinkers and doers produced in association with the Conejo Valley Unified School District, will bring a diverse line-up of speakers to the Scherr Forum at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Center on March 27, 2010 for a remarkable day of discovery. A limited number of tickets are still available.

The conference is built on the model and under license from the TED Conference, an annual gathering of some of the world's most fascinating and influential people. This local edition, brings together some of the leading minds in the area to share ideas, insight and discussion. In addition to the internationally recognized presenters, the organizers have identified several outstanding area students who will speak or perform.

The daylong program is organized around the theme, "What's The Big Idea," and is divided into three sessions: "Thinking," "Doing," and "Seeing." Topics to be covered include the neuroscience of beliefs, healthcare, meaningful enterprise, education, computer science, art, effective communication, microfinance, psychology, human behavior, and music. Among the presenters are world music artist Yuval Ron, designer Steed Strand, Wired Executive Editor Thomas Goetz, Amgen Scientist Scott Patterson and author Mark Robert Waldman in a diverse program of more than 20 speakers and performers.

The TEDxConejo Conference: March 27, 2010

Vintage Sambo's restaurant photos

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 01:55 PM PDT

Sambo's is a politically incorrect name for a business, but these vintage photos of the chain restaurant are wonderful.

201003231353

Tim Putz writes, "From 1960 to 1970, I photographed the first 100 Sambo's in the country. Today, only the first is still in operation here in Santa Barbara. At one time there were about 1200 locations from coast to coast."

Vintage Sambo's Restaurant Photos

Disneylands' Swiss Family Robinson treehouse construction photos

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 01:49 PM PDT

201003231343

Artist and designer Kevin Kidney posted photos of the construction of the Swiss Family Robinson Treehouse at Disneyland in 1962.

It's the early part of 1962 and six tons of steel are rapidly becoming the Family Robinson's island homestead. Had construction stopped right here it still would have  been a very impressive work of minimalist modern art.
The Swiss Family Tree Sprouts

An article about Cary Grant's fondness of LSD

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 01:37 PM PDT

201003231333

Kliph Nesteroff wrote a long article for WFMU's blog about Cary Grants' LSD experiences.

Cary Grant was the first mainstream celebrity to espouse the virtues of psychedelic drugs. Whereas novelist Aldous Huxley's famous 1954 treatise The Doors of Perception recounted his remarkable experiences with mescaline, Huxley was hardly mainstream - a darling of intellectual circles to be sure, but a far cry from a matinee idol. Grant was one of the biggest stars Hollywood had to offer when he jumped headlong into Huxley's Heaven and Hell. His endorsement of subconscious exploration, arguably, created more interest in LSD than Dr. Timothy Leary who was largely preaching to the converted. Grant on the other hand was the fantasy of countless Midwestern women. He convinced wholesome movie starlets like Esther Williams and Dyan Cannon to blow their minds. When Ladies Home Journal and Good Housekeeping interviewed him, the topic of conversation wasn't Cary's favorite recipe or "the problem with youth today." Instead, Cary Grant was telling happy homemakers that LSD was the greatest thing in the world.
Destination Subconscious: Cary Grant and LSD

Placebo isn't a dirty word

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 01:35 PM PDT

When a fake treatment works as well as, or better than, the real thing, that's usually when medical researchers go back to the ol' drawing board. To which Harvard's Ted J. Kaptchuk asks, "Why to the who what now?" Kaptchuk is pushing placebo, not as a cure-all, but as a way to sooth pain when "real medicine" doesn't work.

Though recurring tummy aches from irritable bowel syndrome are among patients' most common complaints, drugmakers have had trouble coming up with a safe and effective treatment.

[Kaptchuk's] magic cure: fake acupuncture delivered with lots of warm talk from a sympathetic acupuncturist—but no needles. In a trial of 262 patients with severe IBS, 62% of those who received the fake treatment got better, according to results published in the British Medical Journal [2008]. By comparison, only 28% of a control group of patients put on a waiting list saw their symptoms improve markedly. A third group who got the fake acupuncture, but without any warm talk, showed in-between results: 44% improved.

Forbes: The Nothing Cure

This link, btw, came from Wired's Steve Silberman, who wrote his own amazing story about the power of placebo last year.

Have Organ, Will Swing

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 05:04 PM PDT

201003231328

Buddy Cole's delightfully-titled album, Have Organ, Will Swing is available on Amazon.

UPDATE: This is the original cover (less leggy, but with the same great title!). The 'shopping on the above cover is evident here. If you share my juvenile sense of humor, visit the Vinyl Organ Flickr pool.

New baby scare tactics

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 07:02 PM PDT

babyvulture.jpg

Bernie Krause, (who recorded this clip), says that this baby vulture in Ecuador is using the the tree trunk it's installed in as a resonator to make its voice more intimidating to possible predators. I think it's working!

Click on the picture to have a listen.

Taste testing the world's hottest pepper

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 01:07 PM PDT

The bhut jalokia, or ghost chili, has a Scoville heat measurement of 1 million units—compare to jalapenos, which top out around 8000 units. Prior to 2003, it was just a myth, lacking even photographic evidence. Now, it's in the Guinness Book and will soon be the key ingredient in tear-gas hand grenades used by the Indian military. Apparently, it also has an appealing citrus flavor, followed by a horrible burning sensation.

For a quick look at what jolokia hath wrought, fast forward to about six minutes into this video. There's much less running about screaming than I would have guessed, but the man ends up looking very physically ill—pale, sweaty and generally like he just came down with a bad case of flu.

Previously:

Pictured in thumbnail: A far braver human than I will ever be, courtesy Flickr user wstryder, via CC

Bacon-flavored toothpicks

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 12:40 PM PDT

bacomntooth.png This would not make my teeth feel clean.

[via @nickbilton]

Idelsohn Society's Passover music compilation

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 12:18 PM PDT

Artworks-000001139048-6Y8Tbw-Original Co-founded by my pal David Katznelson, the Idelsohn Society is a non-profit dedicated to the musicology of great old Jewish music by the likes of Irving Fields, Gershon Kingsley, and The Barry Sisters. Following up on their killer Hanukkah Mix last year, the Idelsohn gang put together "Exodus 2.0," a new free compilation in celebration of Passover, which starts on sundown March 29. Josh Kun from Idelsohn says, "It's a taste of what's to come on our June release, BLACK SABBATH: THE SECRET MUSICAL HISTORY OF BLACK-JEWISH RELATIONS, featuring Nina Simone, Aretha Franklin, Johnny Mathis, & many more."

Exodus 2.0: Idelsohn Society Passover Mix 2010

Springtime on Mars

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:48 AM PDT

434950main_PIA12957_800-600.jpg

Image: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona. Springtime is unfolding on Mars, and the expanses of dry ice covering the red planet's north polar sand dunes are withering away. Above, streaks of dark basaltic sand are carried from beneath the ice layer to form these lovely blooms on top of the seasonal ice. It looks like it smells of cherry blossoms.

Study suggests fast food logos make us more hasty and impatient

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:40 AM PDT

In Science Blogs today, report of a study by human behavior researchers Chen-Bo Zhong and Sanford DeVoe which suggests that exposure to fast food logos and environments alters our behavior in ways not directly related to food consumption. "[The study] showed that subliminal exposure to fast food symbols, such as McDonalds' golden arches, can actually increase people's reading speed. Just thinking about these foods can boost our preferences for time-saving goods and even nudge us towards financial decisions that value immediate gains over future returns. Fast food, it seems, is very appropriately named." (via PSFK)

Poisoned by ads: Malware analysis shows Yahoo, Fox, Google delivered most in 6-day period

Posted: 23 Mar 2010 11:35 AM PDT

js_prontexi_chart.gif

Above, a chart (larger size here) showing incidences of malware distributed by various internet ad delivery platforms over a six-day period in February, as detected by antivirus software maker Avast. Yahoo and Fox have the highest counts in this study. (via CNET)
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

CrunchyTech

Blog Archive