Friday, January 28, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

When dirty movies had great music

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 01:37 AM PST

This 1950s stag movie, "Sailor Martin in Peeping Tom's Paradise," not only contains less nudity than the average contemporary shampoo commercial, it also has a damned fine soundtrack -- makes you wonder how many great session players ended up on the breadline when dirty movies switched to all-synth drivel.

Sailor Martin in Peeping Tom's Paradise (Thanks, Mitch Wagner, via Submitterator!)

Poshing pop music

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 04:11 AM PST

The BBC's Today programme looks at the Word magazine article that accuses British pop of going posh, with "the majority of pop musicians... now privately educated, or went to stage school."
The magazine compared a Top 40 from a week in October 2010 to the same week in 1990, when it found nearly 80 per cent of artists were state school educated...

"This has been a gripe I've had for over 20 years, and particularly right now. It's never been worse," he says. "The major companies dominate and they see a CV and if you haven't got 96 O levels you ain't getting a job."

"In the old days you got a job in the music industry because you knew something about music. Now when they see your CV they don't take you unless you've been to university, full stop."

But does the same requirement for academic credentials dominate when it comes to bands trying to break through? "I think that when all the A&R people wear Jack Wills clothes it tells you where they're going. It's become snobbish. It's become a snobbish culture."

The article goes on to point out that whatever has happened to pop, grime and dubstep are both viable, popular genres dominated by working class people.

Has pop gone posh?

(Image: Harrods, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from herry's photostream)

 


Online science fiction writing workshop from StarShipSofa

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 04:02 AM PST

Tony writes, "The 2010 Hugo winning podcast StarShipSofa will now host a bi-annual online writers workshop. StarShipSofa built its reputation by featuring science fiction from the best authors of our time, from living legends whose works have inspired generations to the rising stars of the genre. StarShipSofa's focus on quality science fiction has brought it an enthusiastic worldwide audience as well as the honor of being the first podcast in history to receive the Hugo Award. Who better to host a workshop for aspiring science fiction writers? If you wish to raise your fiction to the next level, join StarShipSofa and its special guests at this exciting workshop. Guest lectures for the first workshop are Michael Swanwick, James Patrick Kelly, Sheila Williams, Gregory Frost and David Mercurio Rivera."

Exploring the world's ruined breweries

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 01:32 AM PST


Here's a list of seven beautiful, ancient, rotting, abandoned breweries that have been successfully spelunked by intrepid urban explorers (photographic evidence of same is included). Certainly does fire the imagination!
Although we know the Brasserie Eylenbosch in Schepdaal, Belgium was built in 1851 and closed in 1989, there aren't too many other details floating around about the specifics of this building. Its clear from what's left of the brewery that it had an incredibly beautiful interior tasting area, left almost completely undamaged.

We also know the factory produced an artisan beer called Eylenbosch which has a thick and almost sticky texture and a lengthy fermenting process. Since the beer took so long it make, it was expensive to produce, ultimately causing the brewery's demise.

Although it wasn't financially viable at the time, we hear there's a small but cut-throat market for any remaining bottles of the brewery's beer, especially the 1979 Druivenlambic, which is considered a real delicacy by beer connoisseurs.

Irony alert: the majority of these photos (which document unauthorized incursions into private property) are marked "All Rights Reserved" on Flickr!

7 Abandoned Breweries "Open" for Exploration (Thanks, Imorgan73, via Submitterator!)

(Image: Eylenbosch, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from carbone14's photostream)

 


Joe Biden says Mubarak isn't a dictator, questions legitimacy of protesters' demands

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 03:09 AM PST

US vice-president Joe Biden told PBS NewsHour that Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak (who as presided over a 29 year reign characterized by blatantly stolen elections, suspension of civil liberties, torture and arbitrary detention) isn't a dictator and questioned the legitimacy of protesters' demands. The USA provides $1.3 billion/year in military aid to the Mubarak regime.
Asked if he would characterize Mubarak as a dictator Biden responded: "Mubarak has been an ally of ours in a number of things. And he's been very responsible on, relative to geopolitical interest in the region, the Middle East peace efforts; the actions Egypt has taken relative to normalizing relationship with - with Israel. ... I would not refer to him as a dictator..."

Biden urged non-violence from both protesters and the government and said: "We're encouraging the protesters to - as they assemble, do it peacefully. And we're encouraging the government to act responsibly and - and to try to engage in a discussion as to what the legitimate claims being made are, if they are, and try to work them out." He also said: "I think that what we should continue to do is to encourage reasonable... accommodation and discussion to try to resolve peacefully and amicably the concerns and claims made by those who have taken to the street. And those that are legitimate should be responded to because the economic well-being and the stability of Egypt rests upon that middle class buying into the future of Egypt."

Joe Biden says Egypt's Mubarak no dictator, he shouldn't step down...

(Image: Hosni Mubarak - Official Photo, Wikimedia Commons)

 


Sukey: an anti-kettling app for student demonstrators in London

Posted: 28 Jan 2011 02:02 AM PST

The creators of the Google Maps mashup used to track and avoid police and kettling during student protests in London have now released a suite of apps called Sukey that automates the process, simplifying the preservation of the fundamental right to protest while still opening a line for dialogue between protestors and the authorities (the app has a function that allows the police to message demonstrators and explain what they are trying to accomplish):

Sukey is our name for a set of applications designed to keep you protected and informed during protests. When you see something interesting, you tell us. When we're confident that something has actually happened, we tell you.

If you have a smartphone with a good web browser, you can look at a really cool compass-thing we call "Roar". If you don't, you can use our SMS update service we call "Growl". Have a look at our guide to getting involved for more information on how to do this stuff.

You can get more details in our executive summary (we call it that because it sounds a bit formal... but its contents are good and informative). You might be able to extract something from our official press release too.

Sukey brings together in-house code (fuelled by many late nights), resources like Google Maps and open-source software like SwiftRiver. Thank you, thank you, thank you for sharing the workload.

Sukey (Thanks, Ben!)
 


After Egypt, Tunisia unrest, Syria cranks up the 'net censorship

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 09:28 PM PST

"Syrian authorities have banned programs that allow access to Facebook Chat from cellphones, tightening already severe restrictions on the Internet in the wake of the unrest in Tunisia, users said on Wednesday." (Reuters)

NYT: Wikileaks cables reveal details of US-Egypt diplomacy

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 09:10 PM PST

RTXX5QN.jpg

US State Department cables leaked by Wikileaks, and analyzed today in the New York Times, show how the Obama administration avoided "public confrontations" with Hosni Mubarak over issues human rights.

Another cable, dated March 2009, offered a pessimistic analysis of the prospects for the "April 6 Movement," a Facebook-based group of mostly young Egyptians that has received wide attention for its lively political debate and helped mobilize the protests that have swept Egypt in the last two days. Leaders of the group had been jailed and tortured by the police. There were also signs of internal divisions between secular and Islamist factions, it said.

The United States has defended bloggers with little success. When Ambassador Scobey raised several arrests with the interior minister, he replied that Egypt did not infringe on freedom of the press, but that it must respond when "people are offended by blogs." An aide to the minister told the ambassador that The New York Times, which has reported on the treatment of bloggers in Egypt, was "exaggerating the blogger issue," according to the cable.

American diplomats also cast a wide net to gather information on police brutality, the cables show. Through contacts with human rights lawyers, the embassy follows numerous cases, and raised some with the Interior Ministry. Among the most harrowing, according to a cable, was the treatment of several members of a Hezbollah cell detained by the police in late 2008.

Lawyers representing the men said they were subjected to electric shocks and sleep deprivation, which reduced them to a "zombie state." They said the torture was more severe than what they normally witnessed.

Cables Show Delicate U.S. Dealings With Egypt's Leaders (NYT, via Jim Roberts)

(PHOTO: A protester displays a message on a placard of the Egyptian flag during a demonstration outside the press syndicate in central Cairo January 27, 2011. Demonstrations demanding the resignation of President Hosni Mubarak, in power since 1981, have raged since Tuesday in several Egyptian cities, with the biggest clashes in Cairo and Suez. REUTERS/Yannis Behrakis)

What is happening in Egypt, explained

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 08:49 PM PST

Fatimah at the blog Promoting Peace has a helpful post up: a primer on what is happening in Egypt, and why.

Egypt: to thwart protests, government attempts to leave the internet

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 08:55 PM PST

egypt_outages.png

"Confirming what a few have reported this evening: in an action unprecedented in Internet history, the Egyptian government appears to have ordered service providers to shut down all international connections to the Internet. (renesys.com)

See also this related post at BGP.

Egyptian activists' protest plan, translated to English

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 08:46 PM PST

egyptguide.gif

As I publish this blog post, we're just a few hours away from the planned start time of mass protests in Egypt, possibly the largest yet in a week of historically large gatherings calling for Hosni Mubarak to step down from some 30 years in power. Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic tells Boing Boing,

A Twitter follower stepped up to translate excerpts from the Egyptian protest plan that's been floating around (the one that said don't use Twitter or Facebook). We're only publishing excerpts -- i.e. this is more general information and demands, not tactical stuff -- but they are amazing.
Translations and scans are here at The Atlantic.

Twitterers mock the "Everything Bagel"

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 02:01 AM PST

Kottke has collected some of the funniest Twitter snark about the falsehood-in-advertising moniker for the "Everything Bagel." Who knew carbs were so funny at 140 characters?
This "everything bagel" is great. Has onions, poppy seeds, garlic, cheese, q-tips, Greenland, fear, sandals, wolves, teapots, crunking...
-- @johnmoe

You call this an everything bagel?! Where are the french fries & the pizza & the pot brownie & the Taco Bell fire sauce?!
-- @ronniewk

Flossing after an everything bagel is important b/c as the name implies, you don't just have *something* in your teeth, you have every thing.
-- @phillygirl

The hilarious everything bagel

(Image: stack of everything bagels [it's the salt, stupid], a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from wwworks's photostream)

 


Neuhaus Laboratories' T-1: a pretty perfect tube amp

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:38 PM PST

Neuhaus Laboratories' T-1 is a beautiful and bizarre little tube amp with a modern set of features, including TOSLINK, USB and Bluetooth audio. It is unweildy, requires some assembly (linen gloves included), and demands space all to itself wherever you place it. Once done, however, the tubes' orange glow lurks warmly behind a stark enclosure, giving its appearance that distinctive love-it or hate-it quality.


I've never had a tube amp before, so you can stop reading now if you're looking for an expert opinion on the audio. But as a lover of pretty technology unwilling to put up with poor quality for the sake of looks, I found it warm, clear and satisfying even hooked up to cheapo M-Audio speakers; with a decent pair of Silverlines, it was fantastic.

Bluetooth, tested with an iPhone 4, connected without a hitch and sounded OK. When connected to a computer via USB, it bypasses the machine's chipset in favor of its own DAC; this can make for an audible difference, especially on cheap laptops with poorly-shielded headphone ports, such as an older Asus EeePC I tried. I didn't try the optical link.

If you want to fool around with bass, treble or equalization, you'll have to do it before it gets to the T-1, because it doesn't have any of that. There's just a volume control and an input selector.

One place where this unique-looking device really excelled was alongside a desktop computer. Given its small dimensions, it replaced my computer speakers with something far superior, without filling the desktop or snarling up the floor beneath it with extra cables and power bricks.

The T1 has a 15-day return guarantee. If you like the look of it but want something beefier, Leander Kahney at Cult of Mac reviewed the T2 a while back and liked it too.


T-1 Amplifier [Neuhaus Laboratories]

Removing the bars to take off the protective sheeting required a firm hand.

Small and perfectly formed, but its mirror finish picks up dust fast.

Caveat: the LED lights are very bright and the wireless one blinks constantly when Bluetooth is in use.

Old-fashioned metal knobs. The T-1 is well-made and feels like it'll last the distance.

Vacuum tubes: a dog whistle for audiophiles, but also pretty on the shelf.

The T-1 offers plenty of connectivity options, including TOSLINK, USB and two RCA pairs

Anyone got a duster?

DHS kills color-coded terror alerts

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:56 AM PST

After seven long, risible years, the US Department of Homeland Security has at last decided to end its color-coded terror alert scheme. As Wired's David Kravets puts it: "Apparently the terrorists have cracked the five-color threat advisory code."

DHS to End Color-Coded 'Threat Level' Advisories

 


Rickshaw's Mini Commuter Messenger Bag

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 04:14 PM PST

rickshaw_mini_commuter_messenger_bag_coal_front.jpg

When I was at the Maker Faire 2010 in San Mateo Kent Barnes had a Rickshaw bag loaded with camera gear and other stuff. I liked the way it looked and I asked him about it. He told me that the San Francisco-based company makes all their bags by hand, and that the quality is excellent. I needed something to carry around my iPad, so I got in touch with them and they sent me a Mini Commuter Messenger, and I'm very happy with it. I use it to tote my iPad, as well as chargers, cords, pens, cameras, sketch pads, and bags of cashews. From the product information page:

The Mini Commuter Bag is the perfect companion for the "digital minimalist". Best of all it fits perfectly in your bike basket for timely urban travel.

• Stand up design
• Waterproof liner
• Exclusive magnetic silencer
• Velcro and clip shut closure
• Quick-adjust should strap w/pad
• Zip shut front organizer
• Zip close slash pocket
• Space for pens, ID, phone and keys
• Rear organizational pocket
• Padded stand-up handle
• Assembled-to-order in SF
• 11"W x 7"H x 4"D
• Coal Cordura Nylon
• Seriously we could go on and on...

It comes in a variety of colors and fabrics. It's $100.

Rickshaw's Mini Commuter Messenger Bag

25 plausible tech/policy predictions for 2011

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:50 AM PST

On Freedom to Tinker, Timothy B Lee offers a list of 25 eminently plausible predictions for tech and policy for 2011. I don't often take predictions seriously, but if I were a gambling person, I'd give even odds on 80 percent of these bearing fruit:
1. DRM technology will still fail to prevent widespread infringement. In a related development, pigs will still fail to fly...

5. Some advertising networks and third-party Web services will begin to voluntarily respect the Do Not Track header, which will be supported by all the major browsers. However, sites will have varying interpretations of what the DNT header requires, leading to accusations that some purportedly DNT-respecting sites are not fully DNT-compliant...

9. 2011 will see the outbreak of the first massive botnet/malware that attacks smartphones, most likely iPhone or Android models running older software than the latest and greatest. If Android is the target, it will lead to aggressive finger-pointing, particularly given how many users are presently running Android software that's a year or more behind Google's latest--a trend that will continue in 2011.

10. Mainstream media outlets will continue building custom "apps" to present their content on mobile devices. They'll fall short of expectations and fail to reverse the decline of any magazines or newspapers...

18. Multiple Wikileaks alternatives will pop up, and pundits will start to realize that mass leaks are enabled by technology trends, not just by one freaky Australian dude...

20. Copyright claims will be asserted against players even further removed from underlying infringement than Internet/online Service Providers: domain name system participants, ad and payment networks, and upstream hosts. Some of these claims will win at the district court level, mostly on default judgments, but appeals will still be pending at year's end.

Click through for the rest.

Predictions for 2011

(Image: Pink Floyd - Bliss, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from oddsock's photostream)

 


Google won't autocomplete "bittorrent" but will autocomplete "how to kidnap a child"

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:53 PM PST

google-autocomplete.jpg

Google won't autocomplete searches for "bittorrent," but if you are interesting in learning how to kidnap someone, make meth, build a bomb, cheat on your taxes, or shoplift, they will happily autocomplete your search for you.

Google Censoring Torrent Search Suggestions: 7 Terrible Things They Don't Censor

Ford demos car-to-car networking for traffic-shaping: can you spoof it to beat traffic?

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 01:42 AM PST


Ford's Washington Auto Show booth showed off a new range of specialized car-to-car WiFi networks intended to allow cars to automatically negotiate following distances and lane-changes, so that drivers can be alerted to potential traffic hazards. It's a cool idea, but I immediately wondered if you could transmit bogus information about your car's location, speed, etc, in such a way as to cause all the other cars on the road to yield to you, convinced that they are about to get into a terrible crash. This is a new possibility opened up by allowing cars to self-report their locations and speed to one another, one that isn't there in today's advanced cars, which use sensors to determine for themselves who else is on the road and what hazards they present.
Ford's technology works over a dedicated short-range WiFi system on a secure channel allocated by the FCC. Ford says the system one-ups radar safety systems by allowing full 360-degree coverage even when there's no direct line of sight. Scenarios where this could benefit safety or traffic? Predicting collision courses with unseen vehicles, seeing sudden stops before they're visible, and spotting traffic pattern changes on a busy highway.

As much as 81 percent of all passenger vehicle crashes where alcohol isn't a factor are due to such hazards, according to Ford. That amounts to over 4.3 million incidents each year. Ford wants to reduce that number.

Beyond the safety aspect, Ford says V2V technology, if applied on a national scale, could reduce wasted fuel spent in traffic delays. According to the Texas Transportation Intisute, about 3.9 billion gallons of fuel were wasted in traffic in 2009. That's a lot of gas--$808 worth for the average commuter.

Ford Previews Vehicle-To-Vehicle Tech At Washington Auto Show (via /.)
 


India's most expensive movie yields most astonishingly violent and demented action-scene in cinematic history

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 06:51 AM PST

Yesterday, David wrote about the stunning climax of the Tamil movie Endhiran, the most expensive movie in Indian cinema history. I just got around to watching it and I was so completely boggled by its brilliance that I thought it was worth revisiting.

Imagine that you took the Axe Cop kid and teamed him up with the Wachowskis, along with every serious SFX wizard on the subcontinent, and said, "Go ahead kid, spend whatever it takes to make the most demented, blood-drenched, bullet-addled, ultra-super-duper-violent action sequence in the history of films." Then you waited a generation for another Axe Cop kid to be born and raised on the first kid's output, to grow to maturity, and you gave her the same challenge: that's about one tenth of one percent as demented, glorious and violent as this ten-minute climactic scene manages.

Killer robots, a seeming infinitude of them, outnumbered only by the endless cannon-fodder Indian soldiers, each with his own machinegun. There are many like it, but this one is his. And it will soon be the killer robots. They will form into enormous, improbable geometrical solids, and they will improvise with those guns to create enormous whirling ballistic buzz-saws of death, except when they're forming up into huge, stylized cobras and such. And there are lorries filled with gas bottles, daring kamikaze missile-firing choppers (each more doomed than the last), and, of course, a software worm with the power to overcome them. Or does it?

There are only two copies of this movie for sale on Amazon (as of this writing), though I expect that will self-correct shortly, as this clip (with its curiously fitting Russian-language descriptive track) is ripping through the Anglo Internet, where thousands of potential watchers wait only for the opportunity to snap up their own copy of this genuinely unprecedented monsterpiece.

Endihran DVD (Amazon)

YouTube - Best action scene ever. ever. ever. -- Endhiran (Robot)

 


Coney Island Snowstorm

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 12:06 PM PST

coney-island-palm_sm.jpg

Photograph by Clayton James Cubitt, NYC.

Publicly accessible and mutable Boing Boing API compiled overnight

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 12:06 PM PST

On Tuesday I released the last eleven years of Boing Boing posts all in one file to celebrate Boing Boing's recent anniversary. Large datasets are fun, and we wanted to see how the great minds of our readers would twist all this information into something more awesome.

We were not disappointed. This morning I found out that ntoll over at FluidDB collected all the information in the XML file into their centralized database system. ntoll's post on the FluidDB Boing Boing repository explains a little bit about the structure of their system and how to access it as an API for use in other web applications, programs or plugins.

The system is pretty easy to access using their various wrappers (in Python, for example). You can find the documentation for FluidDB here as well if you're interested in developing an application on top of this database system.

Clearly, this is a very interesting project with a lot of far-reaching implications for developers and interested people looking to play around with the Boing Boing archives. I'm looking forward to seeing what new applications of our data come out of this.

If you're working on something neat with this data, you can let me know directly either at dean@boingboing.net or via Twitter.

[How we made an API for BoingBoing in an evening] Thanks Tom!

Pirating the Oscars: 2011 edition

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 12:25 AM PST

Andy Baio has continued his excellent annual series, "Pirating the Oscars," which tracks each year's Oscar nominee's appearance on file-sharing networks, and keeps statistics on the method by which each nominee is captured and uploaded (camcordered, ripped from screener/pre-release cut, ripped from commercial DVD, etc). Because Andy does these stats on an annual basis, we get a longitudinal view into the way that file-sharing is changing in response to the studios' countermeasures, and in response to new technologies in general.

* This year, three films were leaked online within a day of their theatrical release -- Iron Man 2, Alice in Wonderland, and Harry Potter.

* The Rabbit Hole screener was leaked online eight days before its theatrical release, while Winter's Bone [ed: excellent film, but don't make the mistake I made -- it's not a date-night kind of movie!] was the slowest to leak online (so far) at 125 days after its theatrical release.

* Oscar-nominated films tend to get released late in the year, but how late? More nominated films have been released on December 25 than any other day, but the median date is October 20.

* For the first year, the first high-quality leak of a film -- Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows -- was a PPV rip, most likely from a hotel's new movie releases on pay-per-view.

* Retail Blu-Ray rips are now frequently being leaked online now before retail DVDs, so I've modified the "Retail DVD" column to include them.

Pirating the 2011 Oscars

Google Spreadsheet

 


Airport officials declare tiny toy gun a safety threat

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 10:58 AM PST

doyoulikemygun.jpg Ken Lloyd, a Canadian, went to England and purchased a toy soldier at the Royal Signals Museum at Blandford Camp in Dorset. The soldier was holding a 3-inch replica of an SA80 rifle. When he tried to bring the soldier back with him to Canada, airport security officials at Gatwick airport told him that he was not allowed to bring the "firearm" onto the plane. He had to snap the gun off of the toy soldier and mail it to his home in Canada.

Airport security officials brand three inch toy gun "firearm"

PirateBox: anonymous, stand-alone wireless filesharing node

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 11:46 PM PST

David Darts sez, "I've just created a self-contained mobile collaboration and P2P file sharing device called the PirateBox.PirateBox is a self-contained mobile collaboration and P2P file sharing device. Simply turn it on to transform any space into a free and open P2P file sharing network. Inspired by pirate radio and the free culture movement, PirateBox utilizes Free, Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) to create mobile wireless file sharing networks where users can anonymously share images, video, audio, documents, and other digital content. PirateBox is designed to be private and secure. No logins are required and no user data is logged. Users remain completely anonymous - the system is purposely not connected to the Internet in order to subvert tracking and preserve user privacy."

PirateBox (Thanks, David!)

 


Sergio Leone remix of truck-eating bridge

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 10:46 AM PST


It 11foot8.com, a website devoted to a low-clearance bridge in Durham, North Carolina that shaves the tops off of about a dozen trucks a year, created this video compilation of the nine trucks and one RV that were can opened in 2010. As Mr. Jalopy would say, "This is my favorite kind of problem - someone else's."

The Good, The Bad and Some Ugly Crashes

(Submitterated by yovo68)

Previously: Videos of 11-foot-8 trestle eating 12-foot trucks

State of the State of the Union's science

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 10:38 AM PST

In this handy video, a team of editors from Scientific American offers some context and outside perspective on all the science that was name-dropped in the State of the Union address Tuesday.

One key reference: The promise that, with work, we could get 80% of our energy from clean sources by 2035.

The Scientific American editors point that, according to an article which ran in their magazine 2009, this idea is plausible. But I think they're being a little misleading. The 2009 article, after all, is looking at whether it is technically possible to construct and site enough wind, solar, and water power to supply all the world's electricity needs by 2050. But it's only really talking about whether enough sites exist, and whether we have the materials to construct the generators, themselves.

One thing that story doesn't address: NIMBYism—something that would affect not only how many of those needed wind farms, solar panels, and hydro power stations are actually built, but whether we could build the transmission lines necessary to carry power to the people. Historically, that's been a big, fat, hairy deal. Not only does it slow construction on these kind of projects, it makes them prohibitively expensive.

The second big problem: That 2009 article glosses over difficulties involved with re-configuring the electric grid. This is also a serious issue. Currently, our electricity system doesn't involve storage. Electricity has to be used as it's made, and made as it's needed. Combine that fact with variable renewable generation—which isn't always available when you want it, and is often available when you don't need it—and you've got issues. Scientists say that we can get somewhere between 20%-to-30% of our electricity from sources like wind and solar before we'll need a lot of storage, a lot more controllable connections criss-crossing towns and states, or (more likely) both. There are ways of pushing that cutoff line a little higher, but we won't get to 80% without some serious investment, technology development, and work—of the sort that doesn't realistically happen in just 15 years.

Now, I'm not saying that big improvements aren't possible. Or that we couldn't reach 80% eventually. But I've spent the past year researching a book about the future of energy. Based on what I've learned, I'm very, very skeptical of 80% clean energy by 2035. I could be wrong here, though. So I'm going to check around, and report back to you all, hopefully next month. In the meantime, keep two things in mind:

• There's a longer lag time between laboratory discoveries and commercial feasibility than you probably think.

• Changing the way we make energy will involve more than just building new electric generators.

Army loses, then finds, 1/4 teaspoon of deadly nerve agent

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 10:27 AM PST


A quarter of a teaspoon of VX nerve agent ("one of the deadliest chemical agents ever created," according to the video above) disappeared from a Utah military research base earlier today. Over 1,000 people at the base were locked inside the facility during a search for the missing chemical weapon, which was found "early on Thursday." A press conference is scheduled for later today.

From Wikipedia:

VX is the most toxic nerve agent ever synthesized for which activity has been independently confirmed. The median lethal dose (LD50) for humans is estimated to be about 734 micrograms through skin contact and the LCt50 for inhalation is estimated to be 30-50 mg·min/m³.

Lost Army 'nerve agent' found after Utah base lock down (Thanks, Felipe Li!)

Non-Sterile Tongue Depressors

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 09:54 AM PST

Medline Sterile Tongue Depressors.jpeg I have gone through several boxes of these over the years. Not only are they great for stirring the last 2" of paint and epoxy, but they are also so precisely cut that I used them on a measuring table for shims when we measured parts for prototyping using a high accuracy measuring tool. You can build them up in almost perfect 1/16" layers and since they are made of hard wood they are surprisingly stable with moisture and temperature changes. I have repaired door jambs, precisely spaced decking, leveled flooring by taping bundles together, and tweaked jigs of all kinds for household projects. They are a must have for the creative handyman. Cheap and useful for a never ending array of things. --Dave Schwartz Non-Sterile Tongue Depressors $10 Comment on this at Cool Tools. Or, submit a tool!

Tale from the Disney World trenches, animated

Posted: 26 Jan 2011 11:42 PM PST

Jeffrey sez, "Here is a true-to-life scene from the trenches at Walt Disney World. his web animation recreates a recurring moment in the average day of a front greeter at the Great Movie Ride, written by a 20 year Disney veteran (flippyshark has been working as an imagineer and cast member at Walt Disney World since 1989). The deadpan delivery that results from the computer generated voices makes this cartoon even funnier. It was created with the free software at a site called xtranormal, and can also be seen at http://www.youtube.com/user/flippyshark#p/a/u/0/L16HHxiSPXA

I've heard and read some very funny true-life stories from the Disney trenches, but this one is a cut above on the facepalm hilarity scale.

Is This A Ride? (Thanks, Jeffrey!)

 


Detroit has grocery stores!

Posted: 27 Jan 2011 09:04 AM PST


James Griffioen's "Yes There Are Grocery Stores in Detroit" is a look at the oft-repeated "truth" that "Detroit has no grocery stores." Griffioen points out that while there aren't any national chains in the USA's 11th-largest city, there is a large regional chain, several good independent stores, and at least one fantastic local, community-oriented store:
What surprises most people who've heard that there are no grocery stores in Detroit is that there are actually independent stores far more appealing than any chain. One of the nicest grocery stores in Detroit is Honeybee La Colmena (I wrote an extensive profile about the store here). Honeybee is owned and operated by individuals who grew up and still live in the neighborhood where the store is located and they have created dozens of jobs for their neighbors. Honeybee has some of the best produce and prepared foods in the metro area, and it is actually a Detroit supermarket where people from the suburbs come into the city to shop.

In addition to Honeybee, Southwest Detroit is also served by several other excellent Supermercados, including E & L, La Fiesta Market, Gigante Prince, Ryan's, and dozens of smaller mom-and-pop grocery stores. The far east side has Joe Randazzo's Produce Market for extremely affordable produce, and the far westside has Metro Foodland, a fine independent supermarket serving Rosedale and Grandmont for more than 25 years. An individual recently purchased a vacant storefront in the middle class neighborhood of Lafayette Park (where I live) and plans to open a full-service supermarket there this Spring. He's bullish on its prospects despite another supermarket operating three blocks down the road and the neighborhood's close proximity to Eastern Market. A family that's been in the Detroit grocery business since the 1950s is reopening their Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe on Woodward Avenue in a new Midtown location this year, complimenting the offerings at Kim's Produce just down the road, as well as Goodwells Natural Foods a few blocks over.

Griffioen admits that many of the areas of the city are un- or underserved and living in "food poverty", but wants the press to focus on the innovative solutions the community has come up with to remedy this, like a church-owned ice-cream truck full of fresh produce.

Yes There Are Grocery Stores in Detroit (via Making Light)

 


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