The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Game controller ornaments
- Times Online claims 200K paid users: but where's the detailed breakdown?
- Duelling useless machines: a metaphor for polarized politics
- Revolting food adverts from the land food-stylists forgot
- Hari Prasad, India's evoting researcher, working to save Indian democracy from dirty voting machines
- Philippines: Actor on live film shoot is mistaken for gunman, shot dead by village watchman
- Can you spot a non-white person at the Rally to Restore Sanity?
- Mutant Mammal Monday
- Tomorow: Vote YES on Prop. 19 to legalize marijuana
- Calling the (live) Time Lady in 1950
- Meet the Heatless
- Eye-catching trousers from old JC Penny catalog
- Throwing dice and murder - a question about intentionality
- Video montage of signs at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear
- More tech-using time travelers spotted in archival film footage
- Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77
- Roman Mars on One-Way Trip to Mars
- VLC Player App May Violate GPL
- Michael Rea's wood sculptures of familiar and fictional objects
- iPhone serial port hack may be useful for network engineers
- 8-Bit Hitler t-shirt
- Playtime Computing: blended reality/robotic learning environment
- Drug stash found in C-section patient
- Inbox infinity
- Photos of atomic bomb tests
- Shelf made from pencil crayons
- What would an evidence-based drug policy look like?
- Caterpillar automaton from 1820
- Before the election, consider the climate
- The Day the Cow Sneezed: a fun kids' book from 1957 by James Flora
| Posted: 02 Nov 2010 01:29 AM PDT  Time to start planning your geeky Channukah Bush, Kwaanza Foliage or Christmas Tree with Etsy-seller UseYourDigits' laser-cut game-controller ornaments. Controller ornaments - Red Tint (via Wonderland)
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| Times Online claims 200K paid users: but where's the detailed breakdown? Posted: 02 Nov 2010 01:58 AM PDT Rupert Murdoch's Times Online paywall experiment has released some highly selective statistics this morning. According to the Times's spin, they've got some 200,000 paid users for their paywalled newspaper site, and that this means, "our journalism is valuable and that customers will respond to the investment, innovation and quality that are hallmarks of our titles and our company." But the numbers are a little odd. First of all, 100,000 of the 200,000 paid subscribers are Times print subscribers who get the online edition for free (proving, I guess, that people like free stuff?). Of the remaining 100,000 "paid subscribers," some unknown number are people who bought access to a single article or paid for a £1 trial subscription for a month, or bought the iPad or Android App. All of these categories are surely "paid customers," but they're not monthly subscribers paying full freight to access the site -- we don't even know how many people who paid for one day's access ever paid for a second day's access (or converted to a regular subscriber). In the best case the Times got 100,000 people to sign up for an ongoing, monthly subscription. In the worst case, 80,000 people paid £1 for a month's access and never re-upped; 10,000 people bought a single article and never came back, 9,000 people paid for the Android/iPhone app and stopped using it after the first day, and 1,000 people bought monthly subscriptions. The Times isn't saying which scenario is the correct one. As one commenter on the Guardian's front-page story points out, "If the answer looked good for this concept, they'd have told us about it, surely?" The last time I wrote about this, the Times's Tom Whitwell (Assistant Editor), wrote in to say that they weren't yet releasing "specific numbers," but that was back in July and now it's November, and the numbers are still pretty nonspecific. Times claims 105,000 online subscribers
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| Duelling useless machines: a metaphor for polarized politics Posted: 01 Nov 2010 11:47 PM PDT Here's an amusing metaphor for polarized US politics: take two Useless Machines (a box with a switch: when you press the switch, a hand shoots out of the box and switches it off again) and daisy-chain them so they battle to switch one another off. Political Machines! (via Neatorama!) |
| Revolting food adverts from the land food-stylists forgot Posted: 01 Nov 2010 11:43 PM PDT  The LiveJournal Vintage Ads group is holding a competition to dig out the grossest food advertisements of yesteryear. The competition is pretty fierce. I have to wonder, back in 1963 was it really true that Del Monte Green Beans Pizzarino made America's mouths water? Or, God help us, 1952's Del Monte Corn Pie (pre-vomited for your convenience!)? |
| Hari Prasad, India's evoting researcher, working to save Indian democracy from dirty voting machines Posted: 01 Nov 2010 11:34 PM PDT Hari Prasad is one of the winners of this year's Electronic Frontier Foundation Pioneer Awards; in Prasad's case, the prize was awarded based on his excellent work dissecting the (deeply flawed) electronic voting machines used in India's elections. Prasad was imprisoned by Indian authorities for pointing out the many vulnerabilities he and his colleagues discovered. Free again, Prasad continues to work for fair and honest elections in India, the world's largest democracy. EFF fellow Jim Tyre has written up Prasad's amazing story in a blog post. Prasad and the other Pioneer winners will receive their awards next Monday, November 8, at a ceremony at San Francisco's 111 Minna Gallery (I'm emceeing). Even after Prasad was released on bail in late August, he was mostly prevented for a significant period of time from returning to his home, family, and work in Hyderabad. The police in Mumbai had the right to question Prasad every day, and in fact did on most days. Because of the substantial distance between the two cities, returning to Hyderabad for more than a few very short trips was a practical impossibility until early October. During that time, the police repeatedly questioned Prasad about the identity of the anonymous source and little else, and told him that he would be discharged if he revealed the name. 2010 Pioneer Award Winner Hari Prasad Defends India's Democracy (Thanks, Jim!)
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| Philippines: Actor on live film shoot is mistaken for gunman, shot dead by village watchman Posted: 01 Nov 2010 10:06 PM PDT In the Philippines, a village watchman mistook an actor portraying a masked gunman for the real deal. The local lookout jumped onto his moving motorcycle and fatally shot the actor in what bystanders believed was just part of the filming. "As the director shouted 'Action!', actor Kirk Abella began to speed away on a motorcycle with a masked driver and the watchman feared he was going to escape... so he grabbed him by the shirt and shot him." (BB Submitterator, thanks batangbaler) |
| Can you spot a non-white person at the Rally to Restore Sanity? Posted: 01 Nov 2010 08:18 PM PDT Via the BB Submitterator, jimmosk says: "Since I did the same thing for Glenn Beck's rally [see "Can you spot a non-white person at the Glenn Beck Rally?"], fairness demands I ask the same thing about this one, which while somewhat more diverse still seemed to me more than 95% white. I had a fantastic time at it, and am glad I was there even if I increased its whiteness, but it still struck me as less than representative of the diversity of America. Link to *huge* panorama." |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2010 04:42 PM PDT  I would like to apologize for posting the same Mean Monkey Monday cover twice. To show you how sorry I am, here's a book cover depicting "20-foot-tall telepathic, teleporting beavers [that] terrorize mankind." (Spoiler) Here's the last page: "The third possibility," said Brogan. "The machine has undone the effects of the radiation. He is no longer a genius. He is a normal nine year old again."John Holbo asks, "Should the boy have 'gone Galt' instead?" |
| Tomorow: Vote YES on Prop. 19 to legalize marijuana Posted: 01 Nov 2010 04:17 PM PDT 500,000 Californians have been arrested in the past ten years for marijuana possession.Yes on 19 |
| Calling the (live) Time Lady in 1950 Posted: 01 Nov 2010 03:30 PM PDT Via the BB Submitterator, Boing Boing reader Pea Hix says, "This is an excerpt from a recording I found on an old wire spool (pre magnetic tape recording medium). On April 23rd, 1950, a New Jersey man by the name of Fred Weber was setting his wire recorder up to record a phone conversation, and to test the signal he called the local Time Bureau. On the surface this would appear to be a rather mundane recording, but it isn't until you hear the time lady sneeze that you realize - this is a LIVE person reading off the time in 15-second intervals! " Video link, and there are links to more recordings of this kind here in the video description on YouTube. |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2010 03:31 PM PDT |
| Eye-catching trousers from old JC Penny catalog Posted: 01 Nov 2010 02:04 PM PDT |
| Throwing dice and murder - a question about intentionality Posted: 01 Nov 2010 01:36 PM PDT  "If Brown hopes to throw a six in a game of dice and succeeds, we wouldn't say he threw the six intentionally. If Brown puts his last cartridge into a six-chambered revolver, spins the chamber as he aims it at Smith, his archenemy, pulls the trigger, and kills Smith, we'd say he killed him intentionally. Does that make sense? In both cases Brown hoped for a certain result, in both cases the probability of that result was the same. If Brown didn't intentionally throw a six, why did he intentionally shoot Smith?" -- Bad Acts and Guilty Minds: Conundrums of the Criminal Law, 1987 This puzzled me at first, but after I thought about it I decided that in both cases Brown intentionally did something knowing that it would have a one-in-six chance of achieving his desired outcome. Is there more to it? (Via Futility Closet) Photo by Pascal. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license. |
| Video montage of signs at the Jon Stewart/Stephen Colbert Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear Posted: 01 Nov 2010 01:30 PM PDT Boing Boing pal Eddie Codel says, I was in DC this weekend for Stewart & Colbert's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. The signs people made were amazingly creative and hilarious so I made a video montage of them.[Video Link]
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| More tech-using time travelers spotted in archival film footage Posted: 01 Nov 2010 10:14 PM PDT [Video Link] My co-editor Mark recently caused quite a stir here on Boing Boing when he blogged this highly controversial clip of a female figure clearly talking into a cell phone in 1928 footage of people lining up for the premiere of Charlie Chaplin's movie The Circus. There's a neologism for this stuff: Pluperfect PDA. Disbelievers gotta disbelieve, but with a new week comes new evidence: not one, but two new videos of time-travelers in footage of yore. In the video above, a very, very early adopter of Apple products. Special thanks to Bill Barminski for "research assistance." For all who seek proof, let us consider this "proofiness." Now here's that second video...
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| Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 Posted: 01 Nov 2010 01:44 PM PDT  "Seriously, WTF!" That was the reply I sent back to Glen E. Friedman the other morning when he sent me the photo above. I'd just woken up and could barely see without my glasses and was squinting at a tiny image on my iPhone— but a new image like this by him, for a band I'd never heard of was one of the last things I was expecting to see at that hour. I pulled myself together and read the rest of his e-mail: the band is The Bloody Beetroots Death Crew 77 [MySpace | Twitter] - an electronica/dance group hailing from Bassano del Grappa, Vicenza, Italy who have recently added what can only be described as punk rock guitars and vocals to their songs—two very un-electronica elements. With exciting results. Glen wrote a bit on his blog about meeting the band and his decision to shoot them the other night, and alludes to even more shots we may see soon. Any band with a manifesto instantly grabs my attention, but the fact that they also cover a Refused song suggests this experiment could be very interesting to watch.
If you still unconvinced, check out this self-directed video for their song "Domino."
[Video Link] |
| Roman Mars on One-Way Trip to Mars Posted: 01 Nov 2010 12:25 PM PDT Apropos of Maggie's entry on whether people would be willing to go to Mars if they knew they could never return, the eerily aptly named Roman Mars filed a radio report on the matter last year. It's beautiful and chilling, noting that a one-way trip is far cheaper and easier to manage. There would be plenty of volunteers. |
| VLC Player App May Violate GPL Posted: 01 Nov 2010 12:44 PM PDT A VLC developer has filed a copyright complaint against Apple for the way in which the free VLC player app is being distributed in the iOS App Store. Macworld explains that the DRM that prevents unrestricted redistribution of apps obtained from the App Store that include GPL-licensed code is a violation of that license's terms. Rémi Denis-Courmont did not develop the VLC app, nor did he ask Apple to remove the program. However, the likely action is that the software will be pulled by Apple. |
| Michael Rea's wood sculptures of familiar and fictional objects Posted: 01 Nov 2010 09:01 PM PDT  Michael Rea has a new show of his incredible wood interpretations of objects from film, fiction, and pop culture opening on Friday at Chicago's EBERSMOORE gallery. Above is an older piece, titled "Who Knew Starman Would Answer back" (wood, burlap, rope). He has also built the Ark of the Covenant, an M-16, an exoskeleton for Stephen Hawking, and an entire stage of rock and roll gear. From the gallery: Michael Rea
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| iPhone serial port hack may be useful for network engineers Posted: 01 Nov 2010 11:09 AM PDT  Computerworld ("The Voice of IT Management!") posts about the iPhone serial port hack, which apparently enables network engineers to use their iPhones in server rooms instead of laptops or terminals. The magazine posted a HOWTO with images. I like the basketball in the corner. From Computerworld: According to Chris Pollock at io Networks: "the real benefit in all of this is that there are so many console packages for iPhone in Cydia now that you can have a fully functional computer, as useful as a linux box, but without carrying around a laptop"."The great iPhone serial port hack" (Thanks, Ken Goldberg!) |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2010 10:58 AM PDT  Chris from GAMA-GO spotted this very odd 8-bit Hitler t-shirt at Chatuchak Market in Bangkok, Thailand. |
| Playtime Computing: blended reality/robotic learning environment Posted: 01 Nov 2010 10:36 AM PDT My friend David Robert and his colleagues at the MIT Media Lab's Personal Robots Group are building a pretty amazing mixed-reality and robotics educational system for kids called Playtime Computing. A virtual "Alphabot" emerges form the screen into the room where kids can interact with it as a tangible interface. The researchers are most excited for possible applications in distance learning and language education.
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| Drug stash found in C-section patient Posted: 01 Nov 2010 10:31 AM PDT January Newport, 24, of Dayton, Ohio, who had been in in jail for a night after allegedly stealing a computer from Walmart, was taken by guards to the hospital for a C section. Before beginning the procedure, the nurses found a stash of Xanax and Lorazepam in Newport's vagina. Apparently, she had hidden the pills before getting booked at the justice center and hadn't yet retrieved them. "Nurses find drugs in C-section patient" (Cincinnati.com, thanks Rick Pescovitz!) |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2010 09:59 AM PDT |
| Posted: 01 Nov 2010 09:54 AM PDT  Today is the 58th anniversary of the first hydrogen bomb detonation, a US test in the Pacific's Marshall islands. LIFE presents a gallery of A-Bomb Tests and related imagery. Terrible Beauty: A-Bomb Tests
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| Shelf made from pencil crayons Posted: 01 Nov 2010 08:26 AM PDT  Dominic Wilcox's "Colored Pencil Shelf" is made of two ranks of glued-together sharpened pencil crayons, mounted on brackets made from wooden pencil boxes. It's part of a larger project called Speed Creating that has him making a new thing from household objects every day for a month. Day 27: Pencil shelf (via Craft) |
| What would an evidence-based drug policy look like? Posted: 01 Nov 2010 08:22 AM PDT  A paper published in The Lancet suggests that, if we really cared about the evidence, we'd be more concerned about how much people have had to drink, and less concerned about whether they'd toked up recently. Basically, Giants fans may be safer than Rangers fans. When experts sat down and compared the effects of 20 different drugs, friendly old alcohol turned out to have a lot in common with big, scary drugs like heroin and cocaine. Researchers found that those drugs damaged the individual more, but alcohol abuse had a wider-reaching negative impact on society. The scoring system was subjective, but it was based on objective evidence taken from the United Kingdom.
The point isn't that alcohol should be banned—after all, there's a difference between casual and problem drinkers, and evidence also shows the prohibition doesn't work very well. Instead, the scientists behind this study say we ought to take alcoholism more seriously and rethink the way we classify and ban drugs across the board. I couldn't agree more. MSNBC: Study says alcohol more dangerous than heroin The Lancet: Drug harms in the UK, a multicriteria decision analysis Image: Some rights reserved by Helga's Lobster Stew |
| Caterpillar automaton from 1820 Posted: 01 Nov 2010 08:21 AM PDT Dug North sez, "The Ethiopian Caterpillar is an exquisite automaton from 1820 going to auction at Sotheby's November. Attributed to Henri Maillardet -- creator of the famous drawing automaton -- only six automaton caterpillars are known to exist. Its value is estimated to be somewhere between $350,000 and $450,000." Ethiopian Caterpillar automaton by Maillardet (Thanks, Dug North!)
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| Before the election, consider the climate Posted: 01 Nov 2010 07:56 AM PDT Republicans are planning a witch-hunt on climate scientists, as well as efforts to take away EPA's mandate to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. Seems like a good time as any to link to NASA's must-read comprehensive overview of the facts and evidence of climate change. Pretending all this evidence is part of a global socialist conspiracy to raise taxes is not going to make it go away. |
| The Day the Cow Sneezed: a fun kids' book from 1957 by James Flora Posted: 06 Sep 2010 11:38 AM PDT  Flora, who died in 1998, was also an accomplished children's book author and illustrator. He started writing kids' books after the fist of his five children was born. He went on to create 17 books for kids, and as far as I know, they've all been out of print for decades. I've long wanted to see Flora's kids' books, but used copies are expensive and hard to come by (A copy of The Day The Cow Sneezed is $189 on Amazon). Thankfully, a new publishing company called Enchanted Lion Books is republishing Flora's books in very attractive, large format, hard cover editions. They sent me an advance copy of The Day the Cow Sneezed, a 48-page tale about a cow that kicks off a pyrotechnic catastrophe involving a steamroller that flattens zoo animals and that ends with corporal punishment against a farm boy. They don't make kids' books like this any more! My seven-year-old daughter declared it to be one of the best books she's read. It's just $11.53 on Amazon. The Day the Cow Sneezed
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The intent of Michael Rea's work is to create something short of its outcome, to create the idea of an object or scenario that remains a dream. The objects he creates are based on fiction, rather than realities which is stemmed from a strong interest in the ephemeral worlds established in film, or even in popular culture. Rea says, "fiction or established hearsay allow for a flawed interpretation, which leads to a flawed result." The sublime is unattainable, and not an option. He amplifies this experience by only using my memory to construct my images. Failure is imminent, which allows him to find humor and enjoy the experience, which in turn builds humor into the worlds established by his work. Rea chooses to depict these states with unfinished wood, and other materials which convey a sense of the temporal and to the beauty in life that lies in between moments. Ultimately his work offers a sense of what could be and what could never be simultaneously.
Happy Monday. (Thanks, 
Top: A 1971 nuclear explosion in Mururoa Atoll, in French Polynesia, resembles something from another world. France announced on March 24, 2009, that it will compensate 150,000 victims of nuclear testing carried out in the 1960s in French Polynesia and Algeria, after decades of denying its responsibility. An initial sum of 10 million euros (14 million dollars) was set aside for military and civilian staff as well as local populations who fell ill from radiation exposure. 
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