Friday, January 14, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Alternate universe film-posters

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:56 PM PST


Sean Hartter's large collection of "Alternate Universe Movie Posters" (which includes numerous book covers and other ephemera) are extremely well-done and present a tantalizing view of a better world than this one.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE MOVIE POSTERS (via Neatorama)



Scary rope-bridge is Disney's Animal Kingdom

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:47 PM PST


The Animal Kingdom at Walt Disney World -- a beautiful and thoughtful safari park -- has just added a new attraction, the "Wild Africa Trek," which allows small groups of people to walk over and around the "African savannah" area of the park. The Trek includes a crazy, high-altitude, Indiana-Jones-style rope-bridge over a deep gorge.

Wild Africa Trek Adventures Begin This Weekend at Disney's Animal Kingdom



Death threat domain names

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 04:08 AM PST

Registering death threats as domain names is the hot new thing in psychopathic anti-Wikileaks action! GoDaddy's Domains by Proxy service is apparently the go-to registrar if you've got a public figure of your own in mind. [Vivant leakers via Artificial Eyes]

Thieves rip off SIM cards from Johannesburg's traffic signals

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 12:03 AM PST

Criminals in Johannesburg are raiding the city's traffic signals for the SIM chips that allow them to be monitored and reprogrammed using the phone network; the SIMs can be inserted into regular phones to make free, anonymous calls. T
The components were ripped out by the criminals from the traffic lights and used to make unlimited calls that have cost JRA a lot of money...

In early December 2010 there were also reports of thieves removing traffic light poles to sell them for scrap metal.

Robots theft 'a huge blow' (via Schneier)

(Image: Commissioner Street, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mister-e's photostream)



Discussing Wikipedia's first decade on The Takeaway, 7:20am Eastern

Posted: 14 Jan 2011 02:13 AM PST

For you early risers, I'll be discussing the tenth anniversary of Wikipedia with John Hockenberry on The Takeaway at 7:20 am Eastern time. Check your local listings or the live stream. I'll post a link when the show archive is online. The producers made a fun listener quiz for the occasion. Happy anniversary, Wikipedia!

Dan Clowes interview at The Strand Bookstore 2010

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:13 PM PST


Cartoonist Dan Clowes was interviewed last year at the Strand Book store in NYC last year, where he talked about Gilbert Ortiz' sad, striking photo of the great Wally Wood in his studio in 1978.

In the first all-new graphic novel [Wilson] from one of the leading cartoonists of our time, Daniel Clowes (joined here by David Hadju, author of The Ten Cent Plague: the Great Comic Book Scare and How it Changed America) creates a thoroughly engaging, complex and fascinating portrait of the modern egoist--outspoken and oblivious to the world around him. Working in a single-page-gag format and drawing in a spectrum of styles, the cartoonist of GhostWorld, Ice Haven and David Boring gives us his funniest and most deeply affecting novel to date.

Wood Chips 25: Daniel Clowes, David Hajdu, Gil Ortiz Video Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5

Unusual "safety certificate" from the 1940s

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 10:35 PM PST

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Christine of Feetlips writes: "This sits on top of my vanity. I found it at a flea market a few years ago, asked the guy how much he wanted, and he breathed, 'Just take it. Don't show it to my wife.'"

Safety Certificate

Art installation looks like burning building

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 10:28 PM PST

fire_with_fire_installation.jpg


Isabelle Hayeur, an artist from Montreal, created "Fire with Fire," an artwork that simulates a fire in a "four-storey heritage building in the downtown eastside."

Via Make: This building is not actually on fire

Bill Murray at the NBR

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 07:49 PM PST

Every time I think Bill Murray is a perfect and unimprovable paragon of cool, he does something to get cooler. Like this, his speech introducing writer/director Sofia Coppola at last night's National Board of Review Awards. Murray was perfectly suited to the task of winging an introduction for Coppola: She directed him in a titanic performance in 2003's "Lost In Translation," and he has for many years engaged in eccentrically good-natured public appearances that have added up a unique kind of improvisational performance art. (My favorite was last year at SXSW, when Murray showed up at an Austin joint and began tending bar, sloshing out slugs of tequila to the clientele, no matter what they'd ordered.) Anyway, here's Murray at the NBR, chewing on Red Hots and, in a deceptively easygoing fashion, making some moving points about life, work and the places where they meet.
..why do you encourage these people? Because now she's had this success, she's had this work, she has this life, she has this family, she has this thing going, and now is when people like you have chosen well to say, 'Let's give this person another boost, let's give this person another boost to say keep going, because now life will come to you hard, like it's come to everyone that's lived long enough. It comes hard and it gets in the way of your career; it stops your career, it stunts your life -- not necessarily your life, but it definitely will make your career go left. You show me an actor doing a shit movie, I'll show you a guy with a bad divorce. [Audience laughs.] Right? Right? [Looking around the room.] You know who I'm talking about.
Read the whole thing.

A delightfully geeky way to cook a delicious egg

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 07:46 PM PST

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In the upcoming MAKE, Vol 25, we have an article by Scott Heimendinger that shows you how to make a sous vide immersion cooker. What is it? It's a machine to slow-cook food (sealed in a plastic bag) in a water bath at a precise temperature.

We've put the complete article up at Make Projects.

From the intro:

Most sous vide (soo-veed) cooking machines are commercial models that cost north of $2,000, and the first "home" version, the countertop SousVide Supreme, is priced in the neighborhood of $450 (not including vacuum sealer), which is still a steep investment for something that essentially keeps water warm. I decided to build a better device on the cheap. Behold, the $75 DIY Sous Vide Heating Immersion Circulator! By scrapping together parts from eBay and Amazon, I created a portable device that heats and circulates water while maintaining a temperature accurate within 0.1°C. And unlike the SousVide Supreme, it mounts easily onto larger containers, up to about 15 gallons, for greater cooking capacity. The water is heated by three small immersion heaters and circulated by an aquarium pump to keep the temperature uniform. An industrial process temperature module controls the heaters, and an eye bolt lets you clamp the entire apparatus to the rim of a plastic tub or other container. To cook sous vide, you also need a vacuum sealer, which this project does not include. I bought a good one new for about $112.

From the "Kitchen Tests" section:

EGG-V2XuXuxhmstfTLLI.jpg

To reveal the power of sous vide, cook an egg in the shell (no plastic needed) at 64.5°C for 1 hour. This yields an amazing transformation: perfectly soft whites, not runny or rubbery, and a yolk with the consistency of a rich pudding. It's impossible to achieve this through any other cooking method, and it's spectacular the first time you experience it.

I expanded on this amazing transformation by breading the yolks and quickly deep-frying them to add a crunchy shell. See my recipe here.

Make Projects: Sous Vide Immersion Cooker

The ultimate Internet attribution instructive flowchart: "See Something? Cite Something."

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 06:28 PM PST

2011-01-13-seesomething.gif

"A joint chart and public service announcement from two comic artists who are sick of having their work miss- or unattributed to them. Here's the right way to show your artists some love."

What you see above is but a snippet. View the whole chart in its full mindboggling and ROFL-rofling beauty here.

(notquitewrong.com, thanks Rosscott via BB Submitterator)

Wikileaks: Manning's attorney files demand for speedy trial and release due to poor conditions

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 06:18 PM PST

David Coombs, the attorney representing suspected Wikileaks source Bradley Manning, has filed demands related to the lack of a speedy trial and the reportedly harsh conditions of Manning's confinement. More at Greg Mitchell's liveblog of all things Wikileaks, now at day 47.

Download full screenplay for 'The Social Network'

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 05:55 PM PST

If you don't follow the pirate sites that make screenplays available for download, Nikki Finke at Deadline.com has just made Aaron Sorkin's script for The Social Network available online. It's an excellent example of an adapted screenplay if you want to compare it to Ben Mezrich's book The Accidental Billionaires. Biopics and "ripped from the headlines" stories are among the hardest to write, and this is a good example of both. Her article also has a good Q&A with Sorkin: EXCLUSIVE: Aaron Sorkin's Full Screenplay For 'The Social Network' - Plus Q&A

Sweet little rotoscoped/timelapse video about a homecoming to Austin

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 01:13 PM PST

Arthur sez, "This video is what I felt like when I moved to Austin, home at last. I stop motion animated my brother in law for three weeks and then rotoscoped him and added in animation through Flash. I used some time-lapse photography at the end as well. Ben from Radical Face was cool enough to give me his blessing in using his song 'Welcome Home' for it."

Stop Motion Animated film with Radical Face Music

What America has learned of the UK justice system from UK Law & Order

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:42 PM PST


[Video Link]. "It's like OUR Law & Order—just more British."

Created for BBC America by Joe Sabia, whose work we've featured on Boing Boing, and on Boing Boing Video's Virgin America in-flight channel.

Ikea hamster home

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:40 PM PST

Hamsttttsike
Martina from Austria hacked an Ikea 5x5 Expedit into her "dream hamster cage." From Ikea Hacker:
I used a set of white Dioder strip lights for the cage illumination plus a red LED christmas light chain so I can choose between white and red light. Hamsters are red blind so you can watch them under red light without disturbing them.

The interior also contains Ikea products: the 2 houses were hacked from a Fira set and the little food bowls are actually Glimma tea light holders.

"Expedit hamster home" (via fp)



The Australian Floods: a photo gallery

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:04 PM PST

ausflood02.jpgHeavy equipment sits submerged in flood waters in an industrial area of Brisbane, Australia, on January 13, 2011. Flood water in Australia's third-biggest city peaked below feared catastrophic levels on Thursday but Brisbane and other devastated regions face years of rebuilding and even the threat of fresh floods in the weeks ahead.
(REUTERS/Tim Wimborne)

More photographs below.


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A snake crosses the Capricorn Highway which is under floodwaters 6km south of Rockhampton, January 3, 2011. Military aircraft flew supplies to an Australian town slowly disappearing beneath floodwaters on Monday, as record flooding in the country's northeast continues to cut coal exports and devastate wheat production.

(REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)

ausflood03.jpg


A tiger yard ornament is partially submerged in the front garden of a house at Depot Hill in Rockhampton, Queensland, Australia, January 5, 2011. Floodwaters eased in Australia's major coal mining region on Tuesday to allow some mines to slowly resume production, although most remain idle as devastating floods affect some 200,000 people and force towns to be evacuated. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)


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Roofs of houses are visible above flood waters west of Brisbane January 13, 2011. (REUTERS/Tim Wimborne)

ausflood05.jpg

A flooding sign is seen partially submerged in floodwaters in Rockhampton, Queensland, January 4, 2011. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)

ausflood06.jpg

Sunlight descends over flooded waters near Rockhampton, Queensland, January 6, 2011. Australia's record floods are causing catastrophic damage to infrastructure in the state of Queensland and have forced 75 percent of its coal mines, which fuel Asia's steel mills, to grind to a halt, Queensland's premier said on Wednesday. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)

ausflood07.jpg

Farm crops are seen flooded near the town of Theodore in Queensland, Australia January 2, 2011. Large parts of Australia's coastal northeast were flooded on Sunday in a spreading environmental disaster as thousands of residents fled their homes to avoid the runoff from a Christmas deluge. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)


ausflood08.jpg
Workers of a hardware store start to clean up after being affected by flooded waters in Bundaberg, Queensland, Australia January 1, 2011. Flood water rose across Australia's northeast on Friday, covering an area bigger than France and Germany combined, inundating 22 towns and stranding 200,000 people, and closing one of the country's major sugar export ports. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)


ausflood09.jpg

A man drinks beer as he sits in the entrance to a flooded car repair workshop in Brisbane January 13, 2011. Flood water in Australia's third-biggest city peaked below feared catastrophic levels on Thursday but Brisbane and other devastated regions faced years of rebuilding as a fresh flood threat loomed with a cyclonic storm building off the coast. (REUTERS/Tim Wimborne)

ausflood10.jpg

A fish is seen on the Capricorn Highway, which is partially submerged under floodwaters, 6 km (3.7 miles) south of Rockhampton, January 3, 2011. (REUTERS/Daniel Munoz)



Trip hop version of "Wild Mountain Thyme"

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:31 AM PST

I'm usually a purist when it comes to classic folk tunes and traditional music. In fact, I savor the snap, crackle, and pops of 78s, old vinyl, and field recordings even when the music has been reissued in a digital format. That said, I'm surprisingly into Keltik Elektrik's modern, trip-hoppy cover of William McPeake's 1957 song "Wild Mountain Thyme." According to Wikipedia, the song "is commonly described as a variant of "The Braes of Balquhidder" by Robert Tannahill (1774-1810), which was named after the braes, or hills, of Balquhidder near Lochearnhead, and has a similar lyric and tune." It's been recorded (sometimes with a different title) by everyone from Judy Collins and Joan Baez to The Byrds and Van Morrison. Keltik Elektrik's cover is included on Putumayo's Celtic Crossroads compilation.

Got photos from the snow day yesterday? Add them to the BB Flickr Pool!

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:07 AM PST

It was snowing pretty much all over the United States yesterday. And snow-covered ground makes for some pretty cool snowmen, sagging trees, and a great big blank canvas everywhere you look.

We're seeing a few great photos from the snow day yesterday in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool, but we're thinking you must have some great ones too. If you want to share some fun photos of the snow with us, like this image of a snowman by Gina Herold, please go ahead and add them to the pool. Please include the tag "snow" in your images so they're easier for me to spot. I'll be keeping an eye out for good ones today!

John Lennon's car for sale

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 10:57 AM PST

 Money 2011 01 12 Autos John Lennon Ferrari John Lennon Ferrari.Top-1
Baby you can drive his car. John Lennon's first car, a 1965 Ferrari, is up for auction. The estimated value is $155,000 to $220,000. One of the last cars he owned, an inconspicuous green 1972 Chrysler station wagon, recently sold for $5,500. From CNN:
Lennon got his first driver's license in 1965, by which time he and his band, the Beatles, were world famous. In passing his driving test, Lennon made national headlines. Within hours, high-end luxury car dealers were jamming the streets outside Lennon's Weybridge, England, with cars including Jaguars, Maseratis and Aston Martins, according to Bonhams. Lennon chose the Ferrari.

He owned the Ferrari for only a few months before selling it. By that time, he had already purchased a Rolls-Royce limousine which he had painted in a psychedelic color scheme. He also owned a Mini Cooper at the time.

"John Lennon's Ferrari for sale" (Thanks, Jason Weisberger!)

First look at iPad-only The Daily

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 10:47 AM PST

Poynter's Damon Kiesow offers an early first look at The Daily, Rupert Murdoch's failed iPad newspaper.

Miles O'Brien: Is technology rewiring teens' brains?

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:16 AM PST

My friend Miles O'Brien produced a cool piece for PBS News Hour about "what could be happening to teenagers' brains as they develop in a rapid-fire, multitasking world of technology and gadgets."

You may know the PBS correspondent best from his many years as space and science reporter with CNN—he also slummed it on a few BBTV episodes (1, 2, 3).

This News Hour segment (above) is great, but the companion chat with his kids (below) is also fun: a sober counter-point to the hysteria of "video games/texting/IM/the internet is destroying our minds." Suck it, tech-haters.

Watch video:
Is Technology Wiring Teens to Have Better Brains? (PBS News Hour)
Miles O'Brien: Teen Brains on Technology (a chat with News Hour host Hari Sreenivasan)



A life without left turns

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 09:50 AM PST

Driving with only right-hand turns—no lefts—saves on gas. But a new study suggests that it might also, surprisingly, save time. And reduce the number of car crashes.

What one study says about the effects of violent rhetoric in politics

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 09:45 AM PST

I had a conversation on Twitter Tuesday with several other science journalists and science bloggers about whether there's actually been much research done definitively linking violent political rhetoric to an increase in violent behavior. The connection makes common sense, but common sense and reality don't always line up. I've been curious what we actually KNOW about this, and how well we know it. Unfortunately, it didn't seem like there'd been much research specifically targeted at that question.

One thing that did turn up, via blogger Josh Rosenau, was a presentation put together by Nathan Kalmoe, a Ph.D. candidate in political science at the University of Michigan. The research doesn't focus on the rare, particularly heinous examples of violent rhetoric, but on far-more-common word choices, such as urging supporters to "fight".

Kalmoe ran an online survey, involving a diverse group of 412 adults from all across the United States. The survey respondents read two political ads—one that used neutral words like "work for", and the other that used metaphorically violent works, like "fight". Then they responded to statements about what was and wasn't acceptable behavior. Things like, "Some of the problems citizens have with government could be fixed with a few well-aimed bullets." Here's what he found:

Most people—across the board—are actively resistant to the influence of violent metaphor in political speech. At first glance, it looks like the vast majority of Americans—regardless of political leanings—are unlikely to turn violent rhetoric into violent action. But, there's a catch.

People who are classified as "trait aggressive"—those more likely to engage in aggressive social interaction, no matter the circumstances—DO respond to violent metaphor in political advertisements. What's completely safe for most of us can make a small minority feel more like acting out.

After Kalmoe controlled for those aggressive people, he saw other patterns. Among both the people who were naturally aggressive, and those who weren't, people under 40 were more likely to respond to violent rhetoric. Ditto with men, compared to women.

And he saw a small difference between political persuasions, too. Trait aggressive people—whether Republican or Democrat—responded about the same, with higher levels of support for physical violence. Among the trait passive, however, there was a small increase in support for violence among Democrats. The difference is small enough that you can't really say, "Democrats are more violent than Republicans!" At least, not without being really misleading. However, from Kalmoe's research, you most DEFINITELY can't say the opposite. Here's how Kalmoe puts it:

The results from this study provide some evidence rebutting partisan interpretations of political violence support, at least in the present form. Trait-aggressive Democrats and Republicans both expressed greater support for political violence following exposure to violent metaphors in political texts, though Democrats seem to show somewhat greater reactivity. Apparently, though Democrats and Republicans differ in many ways, support for political violence is not one of them.

It's worth noting that this is one study—a single data point. Just like it's a bad idea to draw conclusions based on common sense, it's also a bad idea to draw conclusions based on one study—and one based on surveys at that. This is interesting. But it will not be the final word. I want to make that clear. This is what one study says, not a definitive explanation of the way the world works. But you can't just dismiss it, either. Especially because it tells us that, whoever you're looking at, there's a small percentage of that group that could take violent words and turn them into violent action. That's definitely something that deserves more study, and it's something that should give all of us pause.



Repeat Viewings: fun science fiction animation about nostalgia for the 90s

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:39 AM PST

Quicklyfailing's senior thesis project was this short animated movie called "Repeat Viewings," of which he says, "An animated film about a man distant future rife coping with a peculiar breed of mid-1990's nostalgia and useful pets." It's a cute and fun 11 minutes' worth of stylish animation and wry humor.

Repeat Viewings (Thanks, Quicklyfailing, via Submitterator!)



Help identify the Galagabugs what feast upon the corn

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:35 AM PST


Benny sez, "A friend of mine shot this picture of some Galaga-looking bugs and shared it on Facebook. According to his description they seem oblivious to humans and are attracted to corn plants. Perhaps some happy mutant entomologists out there can help us identify the bugs. We live in Malaysia which has a tropical rainforest climate - perhaps that information will help a little. P.S. please credit the picture to Robert Chua from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia."

Why women shouldn't be "burdened" with the vote: 1915

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 12:33 AM PST


This 1915 Boston Journal ad warning against the dangers of women's suffrage lays all manner of dangers at the feet of "burdening" women with the vote, including increased taxes and divorce. It warns that extending the vote to women is a joint plot of the anarchist Industrial Workers of the World, socialists, and Mormons. Good to know that we've come so far in our political rhetoric.

1915 - Suffrage



God Hates Tucson: LIFE photographs inside Westboro Baptist Church

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 11:45 AM PST

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Ben Cosgrove of LIFE Magazine tells Boing Boing,

This morning LIFE published a gallery of exclusive, never-seen photographs by Anthony Karen (the same photographer who did our KKK gallery last year) taken at the Westboro Baptist compound in Topeka, Kansas, in June 2008, and other places where the church likes to hang out and picket grieving families, etc.

The gallery is a disturbing, thought-provoking, intimate look inside what might well be the most despised community in America right now, along with Anthony's insights into what makes these people tick.

Here is the full photo gallery at LIFE.com.

The church has been in the news this week for their characteristically offensive plans to protest at the funerals of shooting victims in Tucson. The government of Arizona took quick action to block this, by passing an expedited law that made protesting within 300 feet of a funeral or burial service illegal. NY Mag, CNN, ABC affiliate in AZ, Christian Science Monitor.

This person has some interesting theories on the church's founder.

westboro2.jpg



Cookie Monster teaches science with YouTube

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:50 AM PST

Dave from Sesame Street sez, "We've taken one of the interactive science games that we developed for our website and made it accessible and playable on YouTube. This is Sesame Street's first foray into YouTube gaming and we're pumped to lead with a game that teaches the scientific process to young kids."

Join renowned scientist Cookie Monster as he hosts an interactive science experiment for the YouTube community!

Ask a question, make a hypothesis, and observe what happens as you and Cookie Monster discover what floats in water and what sinks in water! Do underpants float? Find out with Sesame Street!

Sesame Street Science: Sink or Float?

NASA planet-builder game teaches valuable lessons, crushes dreams

Posted: 13 Jan 2011 08:40 AM PST

extremePlanet.jpg

In a really interesting follow up to the kerfluffles over Gliese 581g and arsenic-based life, NASA recently introduced an interactive website that explains what it takes to make a life-producing planet—by having you design your own.

The game starts with presets tuned to mimic either Earth, Gliese 581d (a planet that sits on the very edge of Gliese's habitable zone but seems, at this point, more likely to exist than 581g), or Mars. From there, you can alter factors like distance from the star, planet size, star type, and planetary age. That's probably-lifeless Planet Maggie pictured above.

If it seems like there's only a few, very limited ways to "win" this game ... well, that's kind of the point. The planet-builder is based on what we know about what it takes to produce life as we know it. And that list of requirements and contradictions really narrows your options. Ultimately, this site should make it clear why finding a "Goldilocks" planet is such a chore, and why everybody is so prone to get excited about the possibility that "life as we know it" isn't the same thing as "life". Lesson: Don't get too bouncy when you see headlines about either possibility. We might find extraterrestrial life someday, but this isn't a simple or easy thing to pull off.

Thanks to monekyodeath for Submitterating!



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