Tuesday, December 7, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Pornoscan Santa xmas card

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 04:27 AM PST


This funny xmas card was in my PO Box this morning, courtesy of Eric Mueller!

Rapiscan Santa and reindeer, Xmas Card from Eric Mueller and Ramona Ponce

Julian Assange demonstration today in London 1330h Westminster Magistrate's Court

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 04:05 AM PST

Denver bomb squad defeats 8" toy robot after hours-long standoff

Posted: 07 Dec 2010 05:32 AM PST

Denver police stopped rushhour traffic near Coors Field for hours yesterday last week because they were scared that a tiny, 8" tall toy robot that someone had glued to the sidewalk was a bomb. They used a bomb-squad robot to blow it up, just to be on the safe side.
"Are you serious?" asked Denver resident Justin Kent, 26, when police stopped him from proceeding down 20th Street. Kent said that he lived just past the closed area, but was told he would have to go around via Park Avenue.

"I can't believe it. This is ridiculous," said Kent.

Traffic piled up at adjacent intersections as rush hour commuters were forced to detour around the closure...

A bomb squad robot was sent it to examine the troublesome robot before a bomb squad officer, dressed in heavy protective gear, took a turn.

[Denver Police Spokesman Matt] Murray said that the bomb squad couldn't be sure if the robot was safe or not, and so remotely detonated it at about 5:30 p.m. to "render it safe." The robot exploded into several chunks.

"It was cemented in. That's odd," Murray said.

Toy robot detours traffic near Coors Field (Thanks, LostMachine, via Submitterator)

(Image: thumbnail of larger photo by RJ Sangosti, The Denver Post)



UK govt demands an end to evidence-based drug policy

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 10:27 PM PST

A new proposal from the UK government will remove scientists from the advisory council that analyzes and makes recommendations on drug policy, and allow the home secretary to ignore the committee altogether and ban any substance for a year regardless of scientific evidence or advice.
Ministers will not be required to seek the advice of scientists when making drug classification policy in future, under new government proposals.

The police reform and social responsibility bill, published last week, contains an amendment to the constitution of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) that would remove the requirement on the home secretary to appoint at least six scientists to the committee.

A further amendment to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971 would allow the home secretary to place temporary controls on substances for a year by statutory instrument.

The proposals will be of concern to the many doctors and scientists who have criticised the government's treatment of scientific evidence in the wake of the sacking, last year, of ACMD chairman David Nutt. The then home secretary, Alan Johnson, removed Nutt from the post after the scientist criticised politicians for distorting research evidence and claiming alcohol and tobacco were more harmful than some illegal drugs, including LSD, ecstasy and cannabis.

Government proposes to scrap need for scientific advice on drugs policy

Geeky wreath

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 10:20 PM PST

Tintypes and ambrotypes of Civil War soldiers

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 10:16 PM PST


The Library of Congress's Flickr collection includes 700+ high-res scans of ambrotype and tintype photos of US Civil War soldiers -- they're looking for help from the public with identification for many of the anonymous images: "These fascinating photographs represent the impact of the war, which involved many young enlisted men and the deaths of more than 600,000 soldiers. The photos feature details that enhance their interest, including horses, drums, muskets, rifles, revolvers, hats and caps, canteens, and a guitar. Among the rarest images are African Americans in uniform, sailors, a Lincoln campaign button, and portraits with families, women, and girls and boys."

Civil War Faces (Thanks, Gmoke, via Submitterator)



Santastic 5: more holiday mashups

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 10:07 PM PST

Mashup impressario dj BC and friends have just released the fifth installment in their much-anticipated annual Santastic series of totally illegal, totally wonderful, totally unauthorized Christmas mashups -- this year with videos. They're all groovy, of course, but if I were you, I'd start with the last track, mojochronic's Motown Christmas.

SANTASTIC V: Snow, Man! (Thanks, dj BC!)



Mystery chocolate piece in advent calendar

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 09:26 PM PST

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My wife bought advent calendars for my two daughters from Trader Joe's. The calendars cost ninety-nine cents apiece. Behind each of the 24 little doors is a piece of chocolate with a symbol representing the holidays on it. One piece of chocolate had a sleigh with presents in it, for instance. All of the symbols have been easily recognizable, if somewhat crude. But the pieces of chocolate my daughters got today is a mystery.

None of us can tell what it is. It's not a squirrel; we already got a piece of chocolate that looked like a squirrel and this looks like nothing like that one.

This looks vaguely skull-like, or an H.P. Lovecraft monster, maybe. I don't know if the picture above is upside down, sideways or right side up. I have a feeling the readers of Boing Boing will be able to figure out what it is pretty quickly, though. And then it will snap into clarity. Or maybe not.

Microbiologist turns a skeptical eye on Mono Lake arsenic eaters

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 08:40 PM PST

Microbiologist Rosie Redfield explains why she, and other researchers, are critical of the ostensible discovery of arsenic-loving bacteria in California's Lake Mono. This is a nice, technical explanation, which digs into some flaws in the research methodology. Short story: We know the now semi-infamous paper isn't about alien life. But Redfield says it doesn't show solid evidence of bacteria incorporating arsenic into their DNA, either.

World map of lightning strikes

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 08:34 PM PST

world_grid_2010_05-10m.jpg

See that dark purple spot of heavy activity in North America? That's more or less centered over where I grew up. God, I miss thunderstorms.

And, speaking of deities, what is up with this, anyway? How did Kansas and Missouri anger Thor so very badly?

In reality, this picture is somewhat distorted. It only shows lighting strikes for the last six months. Look at NASA's documentation of all lightning strikes since 1998, and it becomes clear that the American Midwest, while an active spot, isn't quite the epicenter of the Lord's Righteous Wrath that it first appears. Instead, it's just one of several global hot spots. The place with the most lightning is actually in central Africa, specifically in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, "near the small village of Kifuka." NASA's Hugh Christian, project leader for the National Space Science and Technology Center's lightning team, explains:

And where does lightning strike most frequently? Central Africa. "There you get thunderstorms all year 'round," Christian says. "[It's a result of] weather patterns, air flow from the Atlantic Ocean, and enhancement by mountainous areas."

Image originally from the WeatherMatrix blog, via my friend Joe Jarvis. Although, it's worth noting that the WeatherMatrix blog makes some claims about lightning behavior—like, "it doesn't happen in the mountains"—that seem to be contradicted by the village of Kifuka's location .... in the mountains. Make of that what you will.



Tumblr takes a tumbl

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 09:01 PM PST

sad-cat2.jpg

Tumblr CEO David Karp has (finally) posted an update on the two-day outage causing outrage among users of the short-form blogging platform.

"Yesterday afternoon, during planned maintenance that was not intended to interrupt service, an issue arose that took down a critical database cluster," explains Karp. "This brought down our entire network while our engineers worked feverishly to restore these databases and bring your blogs back online."

"Sorry we let you down today," the post ends.

Even the hungover owls seem sadder than usual. But good news, Brooklyn: tumblogs are slowly coming back online tonight. All should be well in tumblandia by the morning, I'd wager.

(thanks Chris)

You know what science funding really needs? Its own reality show ...

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 08:07 PM PST

So this is it. We're going to die.

Pedantry of the Day: A "parsec" is a unit of distance, not time

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 07:46 PM PST

Science comedian Brian Malow rags on what he sees as the most grating scientific error in Star Wars: A New Hope.

I noticed the sketchy use of the word "parsec", too. But I'd always assumed the choice was part of Han Solo's characterization. After all, isn't he just the sort of lovable pirate scamp who'd try to scam a couple of yokels by exaggerating the slickness of his ride without, technically, lying about it? I'm sure the Millennium Falcon could make the Kessel Run in 12 parsecs ... just like everybody else's ship. Han was just hoping his potential passengers were too uneducated to know that.

Anyway, this is what I choose to believe.



SPECIAL FEATURE: The Avengers: A Celebration -- photo gallery

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 07:24 PM PST

An exclusive preview of the new photography book, The Avengers: A Celebration, by Marcus Hearn , with a foreword by Patrick Macnee. Published by Titan.

Read the rest



Sarah Palin, moose hunter?

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 04:04 PM PST

Sarah Palin, alleged moose hunter, doesn't sight in her inappropriately-chosen rifle, can't load her own shells, and couldn't hit the side of a bus from inside the bus. Abe Sauer at The Awl: "While Palin's hunting-for-TV jamboree certainly impressed the hockey moms, it seriously eroded her base of genuine hunters ... Palin's inexperience with guns is in no way more obvious than when she is handed the rifle and she asks, "Does it kick?"

Google 404 errors finally getting an update?

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 03:13 PM PST

google404.jpg For reasons unknown, Google still uses a mid-1990s 404 error, but at least Google Books has a 404 with a literary riff on Twitter's Fail Whale. (via Business Insider)

Oh, Qrap

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 03:12 PM PST

qrapping_paper.jpg I've been obsessed with QR Codes, those 2D tags that encode URLs and other information, for the last 18 months, having penned a couple of Economist pieces, and this item about bookmarkleting QR Codes here at BoingBoing. The inflection point in Seattle, at least, appears to have hit: I spotted six at a burger joint this lunchtime. My friend Ren Caldwell knows my horrible interest in this matter, and she IM'd me a link (via several intermediate sources) to QRapping Paper. $19.95 buys you two 20-by-30-inch sheets of paper with codes that link to 50 different online videos. This includes videos like Harry Truman in Heaven, and one in which a gingerbread man torches his foreclosed gingerbread house. It's a pricey novelty gift, but clever. I'm going to co-opt this idea. This sanctioned holiday period, every one of my gift recipients is going to get an empty but suspiciously heavy box wrapped in plain white paper with a QR Code pasted on top. The code will link to Never Gunna Give You Up. That's right: I'm gunna rickroll Christmas, all y'all! (Ren's officemate Dan asked, "All I want to know is: is it pronounced 'crapping paper'?") And with that, I...am...outta here on my guestblog gig! Thanks for the love, BoingBoing readers.

Awesome fan-poster for Green Lantern movie

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 02:11 PM PST

lantern_poster_v2.jpg
Unimpressed by the forthcoming movie's official poster, Signalnoise artist James White wanted to do something about it.
The Green Lantern happens to be my favorite hero, and out of disappointment for the official film poster release (can't even see his damn ring!) I took it upon myself to create my own poster the way I would like to see it ... The process behind this poster was extremely different then what I'm used to, but it was an excellent journey to nail down the effect I wanted. Having to create that hand from scratch was a strange one, but I'm happy to say it's ME wearing that Green Lantern ring.
Read the extremely detailed and useful how-to guide.

Nexus S smartphone

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:58 PM PST

ns-thumb-640xauto-18176.png Chew: You Nexus S, huh? I design your SD Card slot. Batty: Chew, if only you could see wh... wait, I don't have an SD Card slot. Google Unveils Nexus S Smartphone, Gingerbread OS [Gadget Lab]

Horrific medical booklet from 1939: living human fetal experimentation

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:56 PM PST

John Ptak, a scientific book dealer who has written many pieces for Boing Boing in the past, says:

"And so I came to this book.  It's one of the worst things that I have here, and I think it's time for it to go.  But in the meantime I posted this about it.

"It's an atlas of fetal movement -- stills taken from movies made of poking fetuses with needles in surgically removed placentas. It is concentration camp stuff, only done under the direction of the American Philosophical Society at the Medical School of the University of Pittsburgh in 1939.

"I think that this needs to be shared."

Wisely, John chose not to include any of the images from the booklet. I sure don't want to see them. Here's an excerpt from John's post on his blog:

201012061348I can think of no other more disgusting atlas than this -- not for the activities of the fetuses, but how they were made to be "active."

The "this" that I'm talking about is the way in which the fetuses pictured in this atlas of activity were made to be in motion: the fetuses experienced  needle stimulations to their faces, and hands, and arms, and so on.  Needles inserted, movie images made, experiments undertaken on the development of human fetal activity.  42 fetuses subjected to experimentation, physiological and morphological, poked with needles to determine how they would respond during the integral period of development of motility (from the 8th to 14th weeks, in regard to reflexes). The fetuses float in front of the camera unencumbered, and then the long and very pointed needle comes into view, finding its target, then a series of stills from the film made to show how the fetus moved in reaction to having been touched or abraised.

The subject fetuses were "derived from either hysterectomy or hysterotomy... undertaken in the interest of the health, sanity or life of the mother." My understanding from another source (a verbal description from 15 years ago from a very well placed historian of the history of medicine) was that all of the subjects/mothers were African Americans.

Horrific medical booklet from 1939: living human fetal experimentation

Home bomb factory to be exploded

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:55 PM PST

Remember the Escondido, California home that police found filled with "crates of grenades, mason jars of white, explosive powder and jugs of volatile chemicals" belonging to accused bankrobber/hoarder George Jakubec? It's so packed with junk that authorities can't take the risk of emptying it out by hand, and a robot apparently can't maneuver inside. So on Wednesday they're going to torch the place and hope for the best. Meanwhile, Jakubec has pled not guilty and is being held without bail. From the AP:
 Img Lg S Explosives-Keep-Out-Danger-Sign-S-1816 San Marcos Fire Chief Todd Newman acknowledges it is no small feat: Authorities have never dealt with destroying such a large quantity of dangerous material in the middle of a populated area, bordered by a busy eight-lane freeway...

They have analyzed wind patterns to ensure the smoke will not float over homes beyond the scores that will be evacuated. They have studied how fast the chemicals can become neutralized under heat expected to reach 1800 degrees and estimate that could happen within 30 minutes, which means most of the toxins will not even escape the burning home, Newman said.

The county has installed 18 sensors that will measure the amount of chemicals in the smoke and send the data every two minutes to computers monitored by the fire and hazardous material departments.

Experts also have mapped how far the plume will travel and predict it will not go beyond Interstate 15. They calculate that if there is an explosion, it would probably throw the debris only about 60 feet.

"It certainly would not be a detonation that would level a neighborhood," Newman said.

Crews are clearing brush, wood fences and other debris that could cause the blaze to spread beyond the property in a region hit by wildfires in recent years. They also are building a 16-foot-high fire-resistant wall with a metal frame between the property and the nearest home, which will be coated with a fire-resistant gel.

Firefighters, who will remain 300 feet away, are placing hose lines in the front and back yards and will have a remote-controlled hose aimed at the nearest neighbor's home. Ambulances also will be parked nearby.

"Explosive-laden Calif. home to be destroyed" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

Every Billy Joel hit played simultanously

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 02:01 PM PST

The food court in hell. Via Waxy.

Binishells domed structures

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 01:35 PM PST

 Frame Pictures Main8
Above is an architectural model of the Happy Mutant Retreat and Preschool we are currently building at an undisclosed location. Once the dome is in place to fend off the gamma rays, we will begin construction in earnest. The structures are called Binishells. Mike Mechanic says:
This is my old friend Nic Bini's company... His dad, Dante Bini, invented them as an architecture graduate student in Italy. As I recall, he had to borrow money from his aunt in order to prove the basic concept, which is that you sandwich wet concrete between layers of a neoprene-like material and pump the whole thing up with air to create these domes, which have been used to build homes, and malls and swimming pools in Australia... Binishell lay fallow for many years before Nic revived it in recent years, realizing the green potential—the building sector, as you may know, is a huge greenhouse-gas emitter, and these things are relatively low impact (plus you can put lawns on their roofs, apparently.) Anyway, Nic has big dreams these days — LEED-certified eco-resorts, futuristic condos...airport terminals!?
Binishells

Emeralds: minimalist synth drone band

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 12:40 PM PST


 Album Covers Does-It-Look-Like-Im-Here Emeralds are a droney, minimalist, vintage synth band from Cleveland. The good people at San Francisco's Aquarius Records turned me on to them a month ago and I've been trancing out nonstop to their latest release, "Does It Look Like I'm Here?". It gives me that warm analog feeling that I get from greats like Neu!, Tangerine Dream, and and Terry Riley. Over the last 5 years, the trio has arpeggiated their way through a slew of CD-Rs and even cassettes on several small labels. Now I'm eager to hear them all. The video above for the track "Candy Shoppe" wasn't made by the band, but I think it's a nice visual if you must open your eyes while listening to the song.

Balls

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 07:37 PM PST

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via @dcurtisj via @theremina.

Mean Monkey Monday 9

Posted: 18 Oct 2010 10:54 AM PDT

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"Chewed to bits by vicious hard-shelled mutant monkeys."

This concludes our Mean Monkey Monday series. We hope you enjoyed it!

More Mean Monkeys: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10

Cthulhu playing cards

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 12:51 PM PST


Paul sez, "The gentlemen of the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (who did the Call of Cthulhu film a few years ago) have produced a little something for the Holiday season: Lovecraftian Playing Cards. It's a 52 card deck (plus 2 jokers) of standard playing cards, but the face cards depict Cthulhu, Shub Niggurath and Nyarlathotep; the ace of spades has an Elder Sign and Lovecraft himself is the joker. All of them backed with a a suitable sigil of protection so you don't accidentally summon up something you can't put down.

Lovecraftian Playing Cards UK

Lovecraftian Playing Cards US

(Thanks, Paul!)



Clay Shirky's Nuanced Position on WikiLeaks

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 09:54 AM PST

clay_shirky_by_joi_ito.jpg I've been unable to nail down precisely why I don't like how WikiLeaks is releasing hidden, secret, classified, and other categories of U.S. government information. I don't believe the United States deserves the shroud of secrecy that protects incompetent, illegal, and malicious acts; neither do I trust Julian Assange's motives, presentation, or redaction. Every time I try to talk about the issue, it's like a life-or-death game of "paper or plastic bags" at the supermarket. Thankfully, Clay Shirky has laid bare the cognitive dissonance and teased apart distinctly different ideas that are being lumped into single categories:
As Tom Slee puts it, "Your answer to 'what data should the government make public?' depends not so much on what you think about data, but what you think about the government." My personal view is that there is too much secrecy in the current system, and that a corrective towards transparency is a good idea. I don't, however, believe in pure transparency, and even more importantly, I don't think that independent actors who are subject to no checks or balances is a good idea in the long haul.
I am conflicted about the right balance between the visibility required for counter-democracy and the need for private speech among international actors. Here's what I'm not conflicted about: When a government can't get what it wants by working within the law, the right answer is not to work outside the law. The right answer is to accept that it can't get what it wants.
Photo by Joi Ito via Creative Commons.

Swiss bank freezes Assange defense fund account as UK arrest warrant imminent

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 09:33 AM PST

A Swiss bank reportedly froze Julian Assange's defense fund today, and authorities in the U.K. have 'received the paperwork' needed to issue their own arrest warrant for Wikileaks' founder. Wikileaks posted a blog item this morning claiming Swiss Bank Post Finance froze the account because Assange used his lawyer's address for correspondence. Referring also to last week's decision by PayPal to shut off Wikileaks, the posting reports that €100,000 in donations is tied up in the two accounts. The paperwork for a U.K. arrest warrant for Julian Assange was received by the Met this morning, according to the UK Press Association. Assange is generally believed to be in London, where local police were apparently reluctant to arrest him on the basis of an international warrant issued last week. If you're tired of hearing about Wikileaks' woes, here's Umberto Eco's thoughts on the matter.

Always Look on the Bright Side of the Fence

Posted: 06 Dec 2010 07:29 AM PST

A routine peeping-tom/self-pleasuring report in a hyperlocal blog in Seattle is enlivened by the following detail:
According to witnesses, the man looked like he was in his 30's, white, with slicked-back dark-blond hair and was said to resemble Eric Idle.
Lemon curry?

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