The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything... Bohn Aluminum's hypermodernist futuristic wartime ads War on General Purpose Computing auf Deutsch Claude Coats, the background artist who made the Haunted Mansion feel infinite Sir Jonathan Ive Penn Jillette: An Atheist's Guide to the 2012 Election Pound On My Muffin (NSFW language, cupcakes) 60beat GamePad controller plugs into iOS sound jack Inside the Apple archives at Stanford Libraries Marvel's lawyers get into fanboy flamewar with IRS about human-status of its mutants Tea infuser meets junkbot Now more than ever, it's time to pull your domains from GoDaddy Chocolate hat of the day Friday Freak-Out: The 13th Floor Elevators perform "You're Gonna Miss Me" MIT and the future of open-source education Why tornadoes and hailstorms are more common during the workweek Bukkakepool Stephen Hawking needs a new technician Printer malware: print a malicious document, expose your whole LAN Lego's old line of toys for girls Interview with jolly old Maurice Sendak BREAKING: U.S. Congress clueless, ignorant Hurd harassment lawyer letter posted Danish company helped Iran with surveillance program that identified journalist who was arrested and tortured Transcript of my 28C3 keynote   Bohn Aluminum's hypermodernist futuristic wartime ads By Cory Doctorow on Dec 31, 2011 12:49 pm Here's a gallery of advertisements from the Bohn Aluminium and Brass Corporation, illustrated in super-modernist, streamlined style by Arthur Radebaugh. They run the gamut from future farms to future vehicles to exploded engine diagrams, with monorails and super-jumbos and transparent curvy refrigerators for all. They're full of wartime pluck, with ad copy like, "When peace ... Read in browser War on General Purpose Computing auf Deutsch By Cory Doctorow on Dec 31, 2011 08:04 am Christian Wöhrl has produced a German translation of my 28C3 talk, The Coming War on General Purpose Computing. Thanks, Christian! Read in browser Claude Coats, the background artist who made the Haunted Mansion feel infinite By Cory Doctorow on Dec 31, 2011 05:42 am Long Forgotten, the world-beatingly insightful blog on the history and design of the Haunted Mansion rides at Disneyland, Walt Disney World and other parks, has a new lavishly illustrated post up, this one on the contribution of background artist Claude Coats. HBG2, the site's author, makes a compelling case for Coats' draftsmanship and sense of ... Read in browser Sir Jonathan Ive By Rob Beschizza on Dec 31, 2011 01:15 am Apple's design chief, Jonathan Ive, is named a Knight Commander in Britain's new year's honours list. [BBC] Read in browser Penn Jillette: An Atheist's Guide to the 2012 Election By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2011 10:15 pm [Video Link] Here's a great video from Big Think by Penn Jillette called "An Atheist's Guide to the 2012 Election." I have tried with friends to say the most blasphemous sentence I can possibly say and it does not come close to the blasphemy of Michelle Bachman saying that earthquakes and hurricanes were the way ... Read in browser Pound On My Muffin (NSFW language, cupcakes) By Rob Beschizza on Dec 30, 2011 09:01 pm Behold the inexplicable Shira Miss Muffin, who appears to be Pittsburgh's answer to Rebeccah Black. [Thanks, Heather! Thanks a lot.] Read in browser 60beat GamePad controller plugs into iOS sound jack By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2011 08:49 pm [Video Link] This $50 controller looks cool, and the man in the video seems much nicer than Paul Christoforo. 60beat GamePad controller Read in browser Inside the Apple archives at Stanford Libraries By David Pescovitz on Dec 30, 2011 08:35 pm In 1997, Apple gifted the Stanford University Libraries its historical collections of paperwork, hardware, software, artifacts, and other materials documenting the organization since Woz and Jobs founded it in 1976. The Associated Press toured the collection. No, it's not available for public viewing. Read in browser Marvel's lawyers get into fanboy flamewar with IRS about human-status of its mutants By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2011 08:06 pm A classic fanboy-type argument has real-world tax implications. If the IRS decrees that Marvel's comic book mutants are human, then Marvel will have to pay more taxes. In the non-fictional world, our world, Marvel is taking the position that mutants are not humans at all. But this isn't an ideological or a moral stance. Instead, ... Read in browser Tea infuser meets junkbot By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2011 07:54 pm Now in the Boing Boing Shop, the Robot Tea Infuser, because tea is always better with robots. Read in browser Now more than ever, it's time to pull your domains from GoDaddy By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2011 07:31 pm Todd Wasserman of Mashable says "It's time to cut GoDaddy a Break." Marco Arment (creator of the fabulous Instapaper) disagrees: Even if you're OK with their support of SOPA, their sexist and tasteless commercials, and their elephant-killing CEO, they're still a terrible registrar: their upselling is misleading, sneaky, and sleazy, their control panel is horrendously ... Read in browser Chocolate hat of the day By Rob Beschizza on Dec 30, 2011 06:15 pm Photo: Aly Song, with Reuters Read in browser Friday Freak-Out: The 13th Floor Elevators perform "You're Gonna Miss Me" By David Pescovitz on Dec 30, 2011 06:14 pm Friday Freak-Out: The 13th Floor Elevators performing "You're Gonna Miss Me" on Dick Clark's American Bandstand in 1966. The track is available on the essential album "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators."  You're Gonna Miss Me - a documentary about the musician Roky ... Roky Erickson's Devotional Number One - Boing Boing Book ... Read in browser MIT and the future of open-source education By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 30, 2011 06:11 pm MIT has long offered thousands of undergrad and graduate level course materials for free online. This month, they announced plans to significantly update and expand that effort, creating an open-source education system called MITx that will basically allow anyone to virtually take an MIT class, participate in laboratories, and get individual assessment on whether or ... Read in browser Why tornadoes and hailstorms are more common during the workweek By David Pescovitz on Dec 30, 2011 05:58 pm A new study suggests that in the summertime, tornadoes and hailstorms in the eastern US occur significantly more often during the middle of the week. Why? There's more pollution during the workweek due to commuting and other factors. From National Geographic: …Moisture gathers around specks of pollutants, which leads to more cloud droplets. Computer models ... Read in browser Bukkakepool By Rob Beschizza on Dec 30, 2011 05:44 pm The English seaside resort of Blackpool is currently coated in a mysterious white gunge, blowing in from the Atlantic ocean on storm-force winds. "We know it happens occasionally and can disappear again quite quickly so we will be looking further into what triggers it," said a spokesman for Britain's Environment Agency. Read in browser Stephen Hawking needs a new technician By David Pescovitz on Dec 30, 2011 05:27 pm Sam Blackburn is the technician who for five years kept Stephen Hawking's communication systems running. Now Hawking is looking for a new Technical Assistant. To get a sense of the job, New Scientist interviewed Blackburn. Stephen's voice is very distinctive, but you say there might be a problem retaining it? I guess the most interesting ... Read in browser Printer malware: print a malicious document, expose your whole LAN By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2011 04:51 pm One of the most mind-blowing presentations at this year's Chaos Communications Congress (28C3) was Ang Cui's Print Me If You Dare, in which he explained how he reverse-engineered the firmware-update process for HPs hundreds of millions of printers. Cui discovered that he could load arbitrary software into any printer by embedding it in a malicious ... Read in browser Lego's old line of toys for girls By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 30, 2011 04:34 pm   A couple of weeks ago, Mark told you about Lego's new line of products aimed at girls. It includes new minifigs that look more like dolls and cutesy playsets with names like Heartlake City. This week, Cory introduced you a little girl who is very frustrated with excessively gendered toys. I played with a ... Read in browser Interview with jolly old Maurice Sendak By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 30, 2011 03:49 pm [Video Link] "Go to hell. Go to hell." Maurice Sendak interview on NPRMommy? Maurice Sendak's monstrous kids' pop-up book'The Hobbit' illustrated by Maurice Sendak? The ... - Boing BoingMaurice Sendak's working on a pop-up book about 1930s monsters Read in browser BREAKING: U.S. Congress clueless, ignorant By Rob Beschizza on Dec 30, 2011 02:43 pm Miller-McCune's Emily Badger: When members of Congress earlier this month considered the Stop Online Piracy Act — better known to anyone who actually hangs out on the Internet as #SOPA — the most notable feature of the debate turned out to be the sheer ignorance of the elected officials discussing it. One after the other, ... Read in browser Hurd harassment lawyer letter posted By Rob Beschizza on Dec 30, 2011 02:14 pm ILLUSTRATION. Photos: Shutterstock, HP. All Things D's Arik Hesseldahl posts the lawyer letter that got Mark Hurd fired by HP: Hurd asked her to stay the night. Fisher's reply: "Absolutely not. I barely know you and you are my boss." An hour later, after more alleged pressure from Hurd, Fisher said she wanted to leave ... Read in browser Danish company helped Iran with surveillance program that identified journalist who was arrested and tortured By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2011 02:06 pm RanTek, a Danish company, is reportedly supplying Iran with censor/spyware technology, which was part of a larger effort that was used to identify a dissident journalist who was arrested and tortured. Until he was arrested, he worked for Mehr, the official Iranian news agency. He received information from all over the country about protests and ... Read in browser Transcript of my 28C3 keynote By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2011 01:08 pm Joshua Wise transcribed my 28C3 lecture, The Coming War on General Purpose Computation. He's released the text under Creative Commons Attribution. The text is on GitHub, in Markdown format, and Joshua says, "The format is both markdown and probably also machine-parseable, with some manual intervention." The Q&A hasn't been transcribed, but I'd welcome that if ... Read in browser More to read: Ebert: film industry is losing money because they charge too much and deliver too little Zooey Deschanel plays "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" on ukulele Killer whale kills great white shark Free e-book on life cycles Inside a fossilized cell  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Sent by 2011 Boing Boing, CC. You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe immediately. Our mailing address is: Boing Boing 905 Wettach St Pittsburgh, Pa 15122 Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything... Ebert: film industry is losing money because they charge too much and deliver too little Zooey Deschanel plays "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" on ukulele Killer whale kills great white shark Free e-book on life cycles Inside a fossilized cell Inside a British Cold War bunker Why we shouldn't let Google (or anyone else) claim their private services are public spaces Teens React to Rick Perry's anti-gay commercial Talented shoplifting family show their stuff on video Searching for Africa's living dinosaur Stockhausen on humanity in electronic art Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo State of Adversarial Stylometry: can you change your prose-style?   Ebert: film industry is losing money because they charge too much and deliver too little By Cory Doctorow on Dec 30, 2011 06:04 am Roger Ebert poo-poos the idea that piracy is at the root of dropping film revenues and ascribes the phenomenon instead to crappy movies and crappy theaters that charge too much. 2. Ticket prices are too high. People have always made that complaint, but historically the movies have been cheap compared to concerts, major league sports ... Read in browser Zooey Deschanel plays "What Are You Doing New Years Eve?" on ukulele By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 29, 2011 11:10 pm [Video Link] Accompanied by Joseph Gordon-Levitt on guitar. Sophie Madeleine performs "Oil & Gold" on ukulele -- Boing Boing exclusiveLisa Hannigan performs "Knots" on the ukuleleTaimane Gardner plays Bach's Toccata on ukuleleSavannah Smith performs "Ventriloquism" on ukuleleSarahsukulele plays "Object of the Game" on ukuleleHawaii82 plays "In Your Hawaiian Way" on ukuleleJam Hands plays "Modest Geologist" ... Read in browser Killer whale kills great white shark By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 29, 2011 10:08 pm Demitri Martin has observed that whale watching is often indistinguishable from watching people be disappointed. But not all the time. National Geographic has a short video about a 1997 whale watching excursion when the people got to watch a killer whale take down a great white shark. (Feel free to make heavy metal devil hands ... Read in browser Free e-book on life cycles By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 29, 2011 09:56 pm   This is a page from Lifecycles, a short pamphlet by Manvir Singh. The mini-book collects illustrated accounts of reproductive cycles—how various flora and fauna create replacements for themselves and how those replacements grow into adults. It's a great, short read that would be perfect for a grade-school aged kid to explore. (There is a ... Read in browser Inside a fossilized cell By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 29, 2011 09:25 pm Here's something that's just a little mind-blowing: Synchotron tomography, a type of medical imaging related to CT scanning, allows scientists to look inside the cells of fossils. Check out this post on Lawn Chair Anthropology about a recently published paper that used synchotron tomography to study clumps of fossilized cells and rule them out as ... Read in browser Inside a British Cold War bunker By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Dec 29, 2011 09:09 pm If Britain had been attacked by a nuclear bomb during the Cold War, its government would have survived by retreating to a massive, 35-acre complex buried beneath the county of Wiltshire. I call it a bunker in the headline, but it was more like a small town—large rooms linked by roads, built on the site ... Read in browser Why we shouldn't let Google (or anyone else) claim their private services are public spaces By Rob Beschizza on Dec 29, 2011 08:55 pm Photo: Shutterstock. At Google+, Tom Anderson argues that Google's "don't be offensive" policy is good precisely because Google+ is a public space. On the contrary, it's the insistence that Plus is a public space that makes such policies troublesome, rather than mere quality control. Conduct rules are, by and large, a good thing for any ... Read in browser Teens React to Rick Perry's anti-gay commercial By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 29, 2011 08:52 pm [Video Link] The Fine Brothers (who make the entertaining "Kids React to Viral Videos" videos) made a "Teens React to Rick Perry's Strong" video. Read in browser Talented shoplifting family show their stuff on video By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 29, 2011 06:58 pm [Video Link] Here's a family that works together like a well-oiled machine to steal a case of beer. I wish there were more episodes of their show. They probably have other neat tricks up their skirts. Read in browser Searching for Africa's living dinosaur By David Pescovitz on Dec 29, 2011 06:19 pm For hundreds of years, Westerners have heard tales from pygmies living in the Congo river basin of a living dinosaur called the Mokèlé-mbèmbé, the "one who stops the flow of rivers." The BBC World Service talks to several explorers on the search for this beast that apparently may resemble a sauropod, elephant, rhinoceros, or perhaps ... Read in browser Stockhausen on humanity in electronic art By David Pescovitz on Dec 29, 2011 05:47 pm Are electronics dehumanizing music and art? Here's what pioneering composer Karlheinz Stockhausen had to say on the matter back in 1972. Midway through, he riffs on the proto-human scene in 2001. For a nice point-of-entry into Stockhausen's work, I suggest Kontakte (1959-1960), his first composition that melded traditional instrumentation with electronics, including a tape recording ... Read in browser Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo By Rob Beschizza on Dec 29, 2011 05:00 pm Our thanks to Watchismo for sponsoring Boing Boing Blast, our once-daily delivery of headlines by email. Watchismo has the latest Torgoen T18 Chronograph and Torgoen T30 GMT Alarm watches. Bold black steel cases and carefully selected bright colors combine to put fun back into the fundamentals of analog timing. Torgoen's entire line of Flight Computer ... Read in browser State of Adversarial Stylometry: can you change your prose-style? By Cory Doctorow on Dec 29, 2011 03:01 pm Today at the Chaos Computer Congress in Berlin (28C3), Sadia Afroz and Michael Brennan presented a talk called "Deceiving Authorship Detection," about research from Drexel College on "Adversarial Stylometry," the practice of identifying the authors of texts who don't want to be identified, and the process of evading detection. Stylometry has made great and well-publicized ... Read in browser More to read: State of the arms race between repressive governments and anti-censorship/surveillance Tor technology (and why American companies are on the repressive governments' side) Linguistics, Turing Completeness, and teh lulz The golden age of journalists noticing new blogs is over Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse: 200 foreskins as a wedding price for a bride "Zilla March": flexing in the New York subways  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Sent by 2011 Boing Boing, CC. You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe immediately. Our mailing address is: Boing Boing 905 Wettach St Pittsburgh, Pa 15122 Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing Is this email not displaying correctly? View it in your browser. WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything... State of the arms race between repressive governments and anti-censorship/surveillance Tor technology (and why American companies are on the repressive governments' side) Linguistics, Turing Completeness, and teh lulz The golden age of journalists noticing new blogs is over Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse: 200 foreskins as a wedding price for a bride "Zilla March": flexing in the New York subways Dieter Rams, designer of Braun electronics 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketting Priests fight with broomsticks at Church of the Nativity Charles Bukowski's 1971 letter outlines terms for poetry reading Joe Bussard talks John Fahey and Fonotone, the last 78 RPM label Scottish gentleman is bewildered by newsreader's amazing appearing pen Three inventions to keep livestock off railroad tracks LA's Lee Baca tied with Joe Arpaio as the worst sheriff in the Oort Cloud Video: Clerk knocks out robber Quest, a Saul Bass short fim based on Bradbury's "Frost and Fire" Robot that paints random graffiti TOM THE DANCING BUG: What Message Did We Receive From Outer Space?? Map shows when solar will be cheaper than grid electricity in North American areas Google given the finger Apps For Kids 002: Robot Wants Kitty Young girl rages over pink toys and gendered play-choices Load DRM-free media on the Kindle Fire with Miro   State of the arms race between repressive governments and anti-censorship/surveillance Tor technology (and why American companies are on the repressive governments' side) By Cory Doctorow on Dec 29, 2011 12:50 pm Last night's Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) presentation from Jacob Applebaum and Roger Dingledine on the state of the arms race between the Tor anti-censorship/surveillance technology and the world's repressive governments was by turns depressing and inspiring. Dingledine and Applebaum have unique insights into the workings of the technocrats in Iranian, Chinese, Tunisian, Syrian and other ... Read in browser Linguistics, Turing Completeness, and teh lulz By Cory Doctorow on Dec 29, 2011 06:35 am Yesterday's keynote at the 28th Chaos Computer Congress (28C3) by Meredith Patterson on "The Science of Insecurity" was a tour-de-force explanation of the formal linguistics and computer science that explain why software becomes insecure, and an explanation of how security can be dramatically increased. What's more, Patterson's slides were outstanding Rageface-meets-Occupy memeshopping. Both the video ... Read in browser The golden age of journalists noticing new blogs is over By Rob Beschizza on Dec 29, 2011 06:32 am Jeremiah Owyang writes that the golden age of blogging is over. The reasons, in brief: many top blogs have sold out; staff turnover saw "star" voices slip off the radar; younger audiences like social networking more; and advertising revenue is increasingly hard to get at. All the reasons given are true, but they're not reasons ... Read in browser Wednesday-Weird-Bible-Verse: 200 foreskins as a wedding price for a bride By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 09:14 pm (Image of 1 Samuel 18:27 used with the kind permission of Brendan Powell Smith, from his book The Brick Bible, available on Amazon.com.) Dan Kimball is one of my oldest friends. We went to college together, moved to London, and played in a band in the 1980s. He's an excellent cartoonist, an amazing drummer, and ... Read in browser "Zilla March": flexing in the New York subways By Dean Putney on Dec 28, 2011 08:00 pm Flexing, or bone breaking, is a mix of street dancing and contortionist movements mostly specific to Brooklyn. This video in particular is mesmerizing, almost ritualistic with this group of shirtless guys in gas masks all dancing together in the subway. Other riders seem to either not notice them or look on in a trance. [Video ... Read in browser Dieter Rams, designer of Braun electronics By David Pescovitz on Dec 28, 2011 07:16 pm Over at Domus, my dear pal John Alderman reports on "Less and More: the Design Ethos of Dieter Rams," a retrospective exhibition about the German designer that's currently at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Rams is best known for the gorgeous electronic products he designed for Braun from 1961 to 1995. He defined ... Read in browser 7 Habits of Highly Effective Marketting By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2011 06:53 pm 1. The Customer Is Usually Wrong. Ensure they understand this by sending them illiterate, angry emails. That bitch got told. 2. It's Not A Lie If You Believe It. Mayor of Boston come on Bud you run a show that's all you do. 3. Devote your hypothetical 125-strong PR team to a smear campaign of ... Read in browser Priests fight with broomsticks at Church of the Nativity By David Pescovitz on Dec 28, 2011 06:09 pm A priestly brawl broke out this morning at the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. They did battle with broomsticks. Unfortunately, no video. (Video!) From CNN: Several dozen Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests were cleaning the interior of the church Wednesday morning when, according to witnesses, two of them began fighting. The fight quickly escalated, ... Read in browser Charles Bukowski's 1971 letter outlines terms for poetry reading By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 05:55 pm "I am available for a poetry reading but don't know if you have the stakes. It would take round-trip air (which, I imagine would be a great deal from L.A. to Florida), plus $200." (Via This isn't Happiness) Read in browser Joe Bussard talks John Fahey and Fonotone, the last 78 RPM label By David Pescovitz on Dec 28, 2011 05:52 pm Joe Bussard, 75, has perhaps the world's greatest collectors of 78 RPM records. Back in 2004, I posted about Bussard and his remarkable collection of blues, folk, gospel, and Americana shellac records. But Joe wasn't just a collector. From 1957 to 1970, he ran Fonotone Records, the last 78 RPM record label, from his basement ... Read in browser Scottish gentleman is bewildered by newsreader's amazing appearing pen By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 05:36 pm [Video Link] Via Arbroath Read in browser Three inventions to keep livestock off railroad tracks By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 05:24 pm Why do cows and horses like standing on railroad tracks? Here are three inventions to encourage them to loiter elsewhere. One involves a jet of hot water, another adds a whistle to the water jet, and a third involves a humanoid automaton that waves its hands and strikes a gong. I agree with Greg of ... Read in browser LA's Lee Baca tied with Joe Arpaio as the worst sheriff in the Oort Cloud By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 05:09 pm "Hundreds of people have been wrongly imprisoned inside the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department jails in recent years, with some spending weeks behind bars before authorities realized those arrested were mistaken for wanted criminals, a [Los Angeles] Times investigation has found." More recent misdeeds from the ongoing Baca debacle. Read in browser Video: Clerk knocks out robber By David Pescovitz on Dec 28, 2011 04:35 pm Mostafa Kamel Hendi, armed with what was later identified as a pellet gun, attempted to rob the We Buy Gold shop in Hendersonville, North Carolina. The store clerk, Derek Mothershead, punched him in the nose and knocked him out. While waiting for police to arrive, Mothershead handed Hendi a roll of paper towels and made ... Read in browser Quest, a Saul Bass short fim based on Bradbury's "Frost and Fire" By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 04:32 pm [Video Link] Avi Solomon says: "Quest is a short film made in 1983 by Elaine and Saul Bass (the iconic designer) based on Ray Bradbury's 1946 story 'Frost and Fire.'" "Frost and Fire" was a memorable Bradbury story for me. I first read it in a 1966 paperback edition of R is for Rocket that ... Read in browser Robot that paints random graffiti By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 04:13 pm [Video Link] This post offered another opportunity for auto spellcheck to point out my unwillingness to learn that it's not spelled "grafitti." The good stuff starts about 50 seconds in. (Thanks, onym!) Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: What Message Did We Receive From Outer Space?? By Ruben Bolling on Dec 28, 2011 04:10 pm Attention Earthlings: Visit the TOM THE DANCING BUG WEBSITE, and follow RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER. End transmission. Read in browser Map shows when solar will be cheaper than grid electricity in North American areas By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 04:08 pm Existing grid-supplied electricity is becoming more expensive. Electricity from solar panels is getting cheaper. Here's an animated map of North America that shows when the rising-grid-cost and falling-solar-cost curves will intersect for different metropolitan areas. We used the following assumptions in the construction of this animated map: The cost of solar in 2011 is $4.00 ... Read in browser Google given the finger By Rob Beschizza on Dec 28, 2011 04:07 pm Google removed journalist MG Siegler's avatar because of the posture of his middle finger. Representative Alex Joseph explained why: As the first point of interaction with a user's profile, all profile photos on Google+ are reviewed to make sure they are in line with our User Content and Conduct Policy. Our policy page states, "Your ... Read in browser Apps For Kids 002: Robot Wants Kitty By Mark Frauenfelder on Dec 28, 2011 03:03 pm Jane and Mark review the platformer, Robot Wants Kitty. Download Apps For Kids 002 as an MP3 | Subscribe via iTunes | Subscribe via RSS | Download single episodes as MP3s Apps for kids is on Stitcher! Read in browser Young girl rages over pink toys and gendered play-choices By Cory Doctorow on Dec 28, 2011 02:55 pm Young Riley, seen here in a video shot in a toy store, drops some science about the way that toys are marketed to boys and girls, and demands better from the world. Riley on Marketing (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Read in browser Load DRM-free media on the Kindle Fire with Miro By Cory Doctorow on Dec 28, 2011 02:00 pm Nicholas from the Participatory Culture Foundation: Although Amazon tries to push their users towards DRM'ed media, the new Kindle Fire can in fact play your DRM free videos, if you can get them on there. Amazon doesn't make it easy to convert and sync videos and music to your device without going through their servers, ... Read in browser More to read: Podcast of "The Machine Stops" The Coming War on General Purpose Computation Article about the Baghdad Country Club Hymn For Her - cigar box guitar music How to make sure you don't waste credit card rewards  follow on Twitter | friend on Facebook | forward to a friend  Sent by 2011 Boing Boing, CC. You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe immediately. Our mailing address is: Boing Boing 905 Wettach St Pittsburgh, Pa 15122 Add us to your address book  unsubscribe from this list | update subscription preferences