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- South Park turns 200: Matt Stone and Trey Parker (Boing Boing Video)
- Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hank Williams
- Hollis Brown Thorton, Atari & Flower Wallpaper
- Wired's robotic spider gallery
- Stars budding near the Rosette Nebula: new image from Herschel Space Observatory
- Get your friends to join EFF, go to Defcon!
- Zombie birthday cake
- Teenage prostitutes don't want to end up like their parents
- Iowa teen crafts prom dress from gum wrappers
- Fun with parasitic worms
- Abraham Lincoln's incompetent bodyguard
- Hitting computers with rocks: the history of publishing
- Digital Economy Bill preview
- Animal Review combines insult comedy, fun zoology facts
- Operation Teen Book Drop: getting 10,000 books into the hands of native American teens
- Homemade centrifuge solves pressing questions of our time
- Bookends with silhouettes of people reading
- Art deco skyscraper desk
- Maps on the back of detective novels
- Jetta: cute space girl from the 1960s by famous Archie artist Dan DeCarlo
- Digital Pledges for the UK election
- UK MPs call for ID cards and surveillance, but demand privacy for themselves
- America blackmails the world on ACTA transparency
- International trade can't ration finite fossil fuels or tuna, but enthusiastically restricts infinite knowledge
- Nasty, Brutish and Short: wonderful animal behavior science-stories
| South Park turns 200: Matt Stone and Trey Parker (Boing Boing Video) Posted: 13 Apr 2010 12:22 AM PDT In this Boing Boing Video exclusive, South Park co-creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker speak with Boing Boing's Xeni Jardin on the eve of the 200th episode of the hit Comedy Central series. Stone and Parker reveal their plans to revisit battles over the boundaries of what can and cannot be done on television—including a quest to see just how many celebrities they can manage to piss off in a single episode, and whether Comedy Central will once again try to stop them from depicting the image and voice of a cartoon version of the Muslim prophet Mohammed on the show. Fan tributes: South Park 200 (southpark200.com) (Special thanks to the production team of Matt West and Eric Mittleman)
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| Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hank Williams Posted: 12 Apr 2010 10:39 PM PDT Meet the newest recipient of a special Pulitzer Prize citation. Damn right. I love this music. It reminds me of my Great-Granpa Frank and Granma Rosella, who'd be frankly tickled to hear Hank Williams won a Pulitzer. Plus: Special bonus cameos by June and Anita Carter! (Also, Stealth!Roy Acuff. Thanks for pointing that out, Suburbancowboy.) (Tip of the—wide-brimmed, natch—hat to Greg Mitchell for finding this footage. Fabbo!) |
| Hollis Brown Thorton, Atari & Flower Wallpaper Posted: 12 Apr 2010 08:02 PM PDT  Still life with Yars' Revenge, by Hollis Brown Thorton, available in desktop-wallpaper sizes alongside a healthy selection of similarly rustic game-y art at his flickr, some available in print via 20x200. |
| Wired's robotic spider gallery Posted: 12 Apr 2010 03:52 PM PDT  Wired.com has a fun gallery of robotic spiders and critters. This one, created by Stanford mechanical engineer Sangbae Kim, was based on a cockroach. It has an aluminum chassis, an electronic motor, and a power-transmission system that allows it to move up to about seven and a half feet per second. |
| Stars budding near the Rosette Nebula: new image from Herschel Space Observatory Posted: 12 Apr 2010 03:43 PM PDT  From NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory today, this gorgeous new image from The Herschel Space Observatory: "a cosmic garden of budding stars, each expected to grow to 10 times the mass of our sun." The image was taken using infrared light by Herschel, a European Space Agency mission with important NASA participation. More here, including higher-resolution formats. (thanks, Whitney Clavin) |
| Get your friends to join EFF, go to Defcon! Posted: 12 Apr 2010 04:24 PM PDT The good folks at Defcon have donated a wicked goodie-bag worth of prizes for an Electronic Frontier Foundation contest. You win by talking your friends into joining EFF. Just register for the Defcon Getaway Fundraising Contest and receive a personalized referral link to send your friends and family. (Registration is free; please don't spam.) If your invitees become EFF members, you will be credited the amount they donate through the link. The contestant to raise the most money for EFF between now and June 30, 2010, will win:EFF Proudly Presents the First Annual Defcon Getaway Fundraising Contest! Previously:
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2010 02:36 PM PDT  Jana sez, "Check out this fantastic zombie girl birthday cake (complete with brain!) a mom made for her daughter's 8th birthday! Pretty sure she's the coolest mom ever." Oh, I do concur. There, comrades, is an eight year old on the path to a mighty and fearsome happy mutanthood. Zombie Girl with Brain cake in 3-D (Thanks, Jana!) Previously:
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| Teenage prostitutes don't want to end up like their parents Posted: 12 Apr 2010 03:33 PM PDT In a recent survey conducted in Aichi Prefecture in Japan, 70% of teenage prostitutes said (in Japanese) they didn't want to end up in family lives like their parents. via @jakeadelstein |
| Iowa teen crafts prom dress from gum wrappers Posted: 12 Apr 2010 02:34 PM PDT A teenager in Iowa made her prom dress — and a matching vest for her date — out of blue gum wrappers. It's actually kind of pretty! |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:25 PM PDT How to get all the benefits of being infested with parasitic worms without, you know, being infested with parasitic worms? Science is hard at work on a solution! (Via Kristina Grifantini) |
| Abraham Lincoln's incompetent bodyguard Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:00 PM PDT So where the hell was Abraham Lincoln's bodyguard detail the night he was assassinated? The answer, via Smithsonian: Getting drunk at a nearby saloon. |
| Hitting computers with rocks: the history of publishing Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:53 PM PDT  From the early days of computerized publisher, Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden explains the mystical thing they did with the rock: "For years, Tor had one computer: an IBM PC AT with an amber monitor. Towards the end of its life, in the late 1980s, it could only be rebooted by smartly hitting its CPU on the side with a particular rock. Several people shared the computer and each person had his or her own style of rock banging, and over time, the side of the CPU gradually bowed in due to repeated impacts. Claire Eddy still has the rock, kept in a high place of honor in her office." |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:55 PM PDT |
| Animal Review combines insult comedy, fun zoology facts Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:15 PM PDT  Yesterday, my Awesome Friend Leah introduced me to the wonders of Animal Review, the blog that reviews animals, as though they were books, albums or snooty French restaurants. For instance, in a contrarian drubbing, the likes of which haven't been seen since Christopher Hitchens laid into Mother Teresa, Animal Review gave pandas an "F" (later revised to an "F+"), saying, ... whatever their charms or ability to symbolize goodwill between us and a brutal Communist regime, the panda species leaves much to be desired. My initial skepticism—isn't this just a rip-off of F**k You, Penguin?—was quickly laid to rest, however, when I realized that Animal Review was about more than comic insults directed at wildlife. There are real science facts in here, people. In fact, it's kind of a fun way to learn the basics of comparative zoology. Fun facts I've learned/been reminded of just reading through the archives today:
Image courtesy Flickr user fox_kiyo, via CC |
| Operation Teen Book Drop: getting 10,000 books into the hands of native American teens Posted: 12 Apr 2010 12:32 PM PDT Young adult author Lorie-Ann Grover sez, "In 2008 and 2009, readergirlz, GuysLitWire, and YALSA orchestrated publishers' donations of 20,000 new young adult books to hospitalized teens across the country. For 2010, If I Can Read I Can Do Anything has joined forces with these three organizations to drop over 10,000 new YA books, donated by publishers, into the hands of teens on Native Tribal Lands. Nationwide, librarians, over 100 YA authors, YA lit lovers, and teens will drop YA books in their own communities on April 15th, 2010, to raise awareness for Operation TBD 2010 and Support Teen Literature Day. They will participate further by purchasing books from the TBD Powell's Wish Lists during National Library Week. Purchases will be shipped directly to enrich one of two Native American libraries. Everyone will join an online party that evening at the readergirlz blog." Operation Teen Book Drop (Thanks, Lorie-Ann!) Previously: |
| Homemade centrifuge solves pressing questions of our time Posted: 12 Apr 2010 11:55 AM PDT Would a lava lamp work properly on Jupiter? Google software engineer Neil Fraser built his own centrifuge in order to find out, using an Android phone app to measure the G forces.
Turns out, the lava lamp would, in fact, function on Jupiter ... and the accelerometers in the Nexus One are poorly calibrated. Those problems resolved, we look forward to what Big Questions Mr. Fraser and his centrifuge will tackle next. [Via Kottke] |
| Bookends with silhouettes of people reading Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:10 PM PDT |
| Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:09 PM PDT  This desk, designed by Roderick Vos of the Netherlands, is made to look like an Art Deco skyscraper. It's a bit much for my liking, but fun to look at. [via Dezeen] |
| Maps on the back of detective novels Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:09 PM PDT  Strange Maps points us to an interesting collection of 577 "map backs" published by pulp magazine company Dell Publishing — illustrations that pinpoint exactly where incidents happened in famous detective novels published between 1943 and 1952. This one is from Alfred Hitchcok's The Rope; other authors represented by Dell included Agatha Christie, Dashiell Hammett, and Lange Lewis. Maps of Murder: Dell Books and 'Hard-Boiled' Cartography [Strange Maps] |
| Jetta: cute space girl from the 1960s by famous Archie artist Dan DeCarlo Posted: 12 Apr 2010 01:13 PM PDT  Comic book historian Craig Yoe has a knack for finding long-forgotten comic book gems. His latest full-color hardback book contains all three issues of Jetta, a Judy Jetson-esque space girl that predates The Jetsons by at least a decade. Jetta was created by Dan DeCarlo, the cartoonist responsible for the famous look of Betty and Veronica (Bob Montana created Archie, but DeCarlo's bold, fresh rendering of the characters are the ones we remember). Yoe's homage to Jetta also includes sample of DeCarlo's work as a prolific pin-up artist, and 37 pages of Jetta drawings by contemporary cartoonists. Craig kindly invited me to contribute a drawing of Jetta for the anthology, and I eagerly obliged. Examples of the pin-up art can be see after the jump. Buy Dan De Carlo's Jetta on Amazon.com
Here is a list of all the artists who contributed:, Alan Gutierrez, Andrew Pepoy , Becky Dreistadt, Ben Tan, Bill Morrison, Bill Presing, Brandon Ragnar, Colleen Coover, Clizia Gussoni, Craig McCracken, Danny Hellman, David Reddick, Dominic Marco, Fabrizio Pasini, Jay Stephens, Jenny Lerew, Joakim Gunnarsson, Hedvig Häggman-Sund, Justin Ridge, Kali Fontecchio, Katie Rice, Leslie & Anna Cabarga, Luke McDonnell, Mark Frauenfelder, Mike Maihack, Molly Crabapple, Paul Guinan, Robert Ullman, Ryan Hungerford, Scott Tolleson, Stephanie Gladden, Stephen Silver, The Savanella Sisters, Tracy Mark Lee Buy Dan De Carlo's Jetta on Amazon.com |
| Digital Pledges for the UK election Posted: 12 Apr 2010 07:43 AM PDT Tom Watson -- the principled and technologically savvy UK Labour MP who led the fight against the Digital Economy Bill -- has begun to campaign for re-election, starting with a draft set of "digital pledges" outlining his beliefs on what a responsible parliamentarian should promise as regards the internet: 1. I will support and campaign for more transparency in the public and private sector.My digital pledges |
| UK MPs call for ID cards and surveillance, but demand privacy for themselves Posted: 12 Apr 2010 07:33 AM PDT Guy from Power2010 sez, "Power2010 have released a brief report showing examples of hypocrisy by UK ministers and MPs when it comes to privacy and personal information. We are timing the release of the report alongside a 'speak out' campaign targeting all parliamentary candidates which allows people to message their candidates asking them to take a different approach to privacy and transparency and end the 'one rule for us, one rule for them' approach. " One rule for them | POWER 2010 |
| America blackmails the world on ACTA transparency Posted: 12 Apr 2010 07:27 AM PDT Michael Geist sez, "The U.S. Trade Representative issued a release just prior to the launch of the New Zealand round of ACTA [ed: The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret copyright treaty that includes measures on border searches, internet censorship and disconnection, as well as internet surveillance] negotiations that has left no doubt that the U.S. is the biggest barrier to official release of the ACTA text. The full text of the release is couched in terms of improving transparency, but is really a thinly-veiled shot at the European Union's public demands for release of the text. Unlike most other ACTA countries that have called for transparency without condition, the U.S. has set conditions that effectively seeks to trade its willingness to release the text for gains on the substance of the text. The only thing needed to reach consensus on sharing the text with the public is for the U.S. to give the go-ahead. This statement indicates they will only do so for a price." U.S.: No ACTA Transparency Unless Other Countries Cave on Substance Previously:
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| Posted: 12 Apr 2010 07:32 AM PDT Colin Jackson, a commenter on a blog, on the miserable state of international law: "What a pity international governments don't seem to be able to make an agreement to ration finite resources like tuna, atmospheric carbon or fossil fuels, but instead devote their time to making an international agreement enforcing controls over something that costs no resources to copy." |
| Nasty, Brutish and Short: wonderful animal behavior science-stories Posted: 22 Jan 2010 05:16 AM PST  The experience of reading Nasty, Brutish, and Short: The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Animal Sex and Other Weird Behaviour is eerily similar to the experience of listening to Quirks and Quarks on CBC radio: a series of short, pleasurable, informative stories told with a lot of charm and enthusiasm. The Quirks team have made Bob McDonald, the presenter, into Canada's greatest science teacher, a font of fascinating facts and corny jokes that grab your attention and make you smarter. Nasty, Brutish and Short is written by long-time Quirks producer Pat Senson, and draws heavily from the animal behavior stories that have appeared on the show, following their format as well: some introductory material (with a corny joke), comments from a scientist who's discovered something remarkable, and then a deeper explanation with context grounding. Die-hard fans of the show (like me) will even recognize scientist quotes transcribed from the interviews conducted for the show. And, like the show, each segment takes just a few minutes to read and digest (making it perfect for reading aloud to friends, keeping by the toilet, or using for a goodnight story), but stays with you afterwards for days and weeks. Animal behavior is a great and fundamental subject, dealing as it does with sex, poop, kids, fighting (and more sex and more poop). Nasty, Brutish and Short has got everything you need to satisfy your sciento-prurient interest, from two-penised spiders that tear one organ off at mating time so they can keep up with their mates to crazy spiralling duck-penises to savage bowerbird love-battles to bisexuality in beetles to sea slug aqua-orgies. They also do a good job covering the awesomely weird and gross world of parasitism, as well as an illuminating chapter on what scientists have to do to get up close and personal with their subjects (my favorite: the neuro-anatomist Bruce Young, who's made a name for himself by aggravating wild cobras in order to track the beautiful geometric patterns made by their venom-spitting). I was raised on Quirks and Quarks, driving around with my parents to the grocery story on Saturday or sitting around the house listening on the kitchen radio. It inspired and fed my love of science. Today, even though I live thousands of kilometers away on another continent, I still listen to the podcast religiously (or, rather, atheistically). Nasty, Brutish and Short really captures the feeling of the show, and will enliven your family's car-trips, lazy weekends, and pleasure reading. Nasty, Brutish, and Short: The Quirks and Quarks Guide to Animal Sex and Other Weird Behaviour Previously:
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- two Defcon 18 Human badges;
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