The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Peter Watts blogs from near-death experience with flesh-eating bacteria
- Mysterious cyborg collie
- iPad 2 hands-on demo: National Geographic and FaceTime (VIDEO)
- iPad 2 hands-on demo: SmartCover (VIDEO)
- iPad 2 hands-on demo: GarageBand digital guitar and piano (VIDEO)
- iPad 2 hands-on demo: jQuery gallery Javascript test (VIDEO)
- Wisconsin Capitol still on limited-access lockdown
- Fish, and the people who eat them
- The Hathaway Effect
- The saga of the Swindling Geologist
- Death and the velvet worm
- Army files new charges against Manning, with potential death penalty
- HOWTO get a tractor out of mud
- Libya Calling
- Han Solo in carbonite throw-pillow
- Outrage at Japanese boy band's outfits
- Student suspended for politely holding door open
- Explaining creativity to a Martian
- Scott Walker smuggles ringers into the capital for the legislative session
- 3D printed food-sculptures
- Live at the iPad 2 event (It looks all white to me)
- Scattered Trees' Sad Stormtroopers video
- Mitch Horowitz: When is a religion a cult?
- Hollywood's conservatism: why no one wants to make a "risky" movie
- Maho Beach: like sunbathing on a runway
- Heidi Taillefer's Venus Envy painting
- Measuring radio's penetration in 1936
- Boing Boing boxes find new homes
- Harpo Marx v. Milton Berle, 1959
- Physicist/musician's CD comes with a Petri dish and scientific paper
| Peter Watts blogs from near-death experience with flesh-eating bacteria Posted: 02 Mar 2011 11:43 PM PST Science fiction writer Peter Watts can't catch a break. After being brutally beaten without provocation by US customs guards last year and then charged with a felony, he's now contracted "flesh-eating bacteria" (that is, necrotising fasciitis) in his leg after a routine skin biopsy in a Toronto hospital. He came close to dying, and ended up having a huge piece of his calf removed, leaving his leg an "open canyon" with the muscles bare to the environment (and yes, Peter has posted pictures). He's in hospital now, and blogging it with a combination of scientific dispassion (he's got a PhD in biology) and auctorial vividness. Get well, Peter. We're all rooting for you. A word of caution: the photo above is not representative of the extreme gore in Peter's "Moving Pictures" post, which is not for the faint of stomach.
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| Posted: 02 Mar 2011 11:46 PM PST  I have no idea what's going on in this uncredited scan from a unnamed Cyrillic (Russian?) book illustrating the many ways in which a collie dog could be converted to a terrifying, but friendly mecha walker cyborg. You Don't Want to Know (via Super Punch) |
| iPad 2 hands-on demo: National Geographic and FaceTime (VIDEO) Posted: 02 Mar 2011 06:01 PM PST Boing Boing's Dean Putney covered Apple's unveiling of the new iPad today in San Francisco, and shot video at the event of hands-on tests he performed with the updated device. In this video, Dean tests the National Geographic app and FaceTime with the device's two cameras. Related posts: • iPad 2 hands-on demo: SmartCover |
| iPad 2 hands-on demo: SmartCover (VIDEO) Posted: 02 Mar 2011 06:03 PM PST Boing Boing's Dean Putney covered Apple's unveiling of the new iPad today in San Francisco, and shot video at the event of hands-on tests he performed with the updated device. About the video in this post, Dean explains: A quick video of the SmartCover on the iPad 2. This worked alright, it didn't quite roll up as easily as I thought it would, but it aligns very simply and you could probably get by with one hand to snap it on.[Video Link]
Related posts: • iPad 2 hands-on demo: National Geographic and FaceTime |
| iPad 2 hands-on demo: GarageBand digital guitar and piano (VIDEO) Posted: 02 Mar 2011 06:03 PM PST Boing Boing's Dean Putney covered Apple's unveiling of the new iPad today in San Francisco, and shot video at the event of hands-on tests he performed with the updated device. About the video in this post, Dean explains: Showing the GarageBand digital instruments on the iPad 2. I played with the piano and the guitar. You can't hear much because it was really noisy in the room.[Video Link] Related posts: • iPad 2 hands-on demo: SmartCover |
| iPad 2 hands-on demo: jQuery gallery Javascript test (VIDEO) Posted: 02 Mar 2011 06:03 PM PST Boing Boing's Dean Putney covered Apple's unveiling of the new iPad today in San Francisco, and shot video at the event of hands-on tests he performed with the updated device. About the video in this post, Dean explains: Testing Javascript on the iPad 2. This went pretty smoothly. I worked on a Javascript-intensive site for the original iPad, but when I tested it on the device it didn't work nearly at all. Animations were slow and jerky.[ Video Link ]
Related posts: • iPad 2 hands-on demo: SmartCover |
| Wisconsin Capitol still on limited-access lockdown Posted: 02 Mar 2011 04:43 PM PST  A Wisconsin judge ordered the Capitol Building opened to the public yesterday, but that order is being interpreted very narrowly—with only eight constituents allowed in, per legislator. Those eight must leave before another eight can enter. In response, some Wisconsin lawmakers have taken their desks outside, to meet their constituents under less-constrained circumstances. With limited access to food, and no way to leave for work and then return later, the number of protesters left in the building from the weekend has dwindled to under 50. But friends in Madison tell me that people are still showing up outside, in the cold. Via Chris Hayden. Photo taken by MissPronouncer |
| Fish, and the people who eat them Posted: 02 Mar 2011 04:23 PM PST "In the end, despite our best intentions, much of what we're told or assume about the provenance of the seafood we eat is essentially a fish story." —journalist Erik Vance, in a fascinating story about the restaurant seafood supply chain, and why even some fish that are supposed to be sustainable really aren't. |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2011 04:17 PM PST |
| The saga of the Swindling Geologist Posted: 02 Mar 2011 04:13 PM PST  For the better part of a decade—1884 to 1891—this man criss-crossed the United States, using a string of aliases and forged credentials to gain access to scientists and steal their valuable books and specimens. To this day, no one knows who he actually was. Here's what we do know: He was missing a hand, had a penchant for pretending to be deaf and mute, and knew enough about geology and paleontology that the very people he attempted to swindle were certain that the con artist was, himself, a trained scientist. The Skull in the Stars blog has the full story, culled primarily from letters written to the editors of Science and other journals. It's amusing to watch as, over the years, the mystery man goes from scourge of the American scientific community, to someone scientists seem to genuinely pity. In fact, in the last mention of the "Swindling Geologist", the scientist targeted by the Swindler actually ended up having a heart-to-heart with him.
Skull in the Stars: The Saga of the Scientific Swindler |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2011 03:30 PM PST There's something oddly soothing about hearing David Attenborough say the words, "soft, slumpy legs." Almost like he's talking about Winnie the Pooh, rather than a carnivorous worm that eats its prey alive. How does the velvet worm trap creatures long enough to slowly consume them? In the video, you can see it spraying out a sticky, quick-hardening slime that engulfs a cricket and renders it motionless. The trick, according to some cool research written about by bloggers Brian Switek and Scicurious, is that the slime is 90% water. Once exposed to air, the water evaporates out, leaving behind an ever-tightening net. |
| Army files new charges against Manning, with potential death penalty Posted: 02 Mar 2011 03:43 PM PST The U.S. Army on Wednesday filed 22 additional charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning, who is accused of downloading tens of thousands of classified military and State Department documents, and believed to have then made them available to WikiLeaks. "The most serious of the new charges is 'aiding the enemy,' a capital offense which carries a potential death sentence." |
| HOWTO get a tractor out of mud Posted: 02 Mar 2011 02:53 PM PST |
| Posted: 02 Mar 2011 02:08 PM PST  An Egyptian man who fled the unrest in Libya talks on a phone provided by Telecom sans Frontiere (TSF) at a refugee camp near the Libyan and Tunisian border crossing of Ras Jdir March 1, 2011. (REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra) |
| Han Solo in carbonite throw-pillow Posted: 02 Mar 2011 09:44 PM PST  Xanadoodle crocheted this 16" x 9" Han Solo in Carbonite throw-pillow, which would make a lovely addition to any smart home. Han Solo in Carbonite Throw Pillow (via Neatorama)
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| Outrage at Japanese boy band's outfits Posted: 02 Mar 2011 12:26 PM PST  Sony has apologized for Japanese boy band Kishidan's attire in a recent TV appearance. The BBC reports: The Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organisation based in Los Angeles, said it was shocked and dismayed by the broadcast. The band, Kishidan, wore the uniforms - complete with iron crosses and red armbands - for an interview on MTV. Sony Music Artists said there was no ideological meaning to the outfits.The band usually goes for a sort of Sanrio-tastic "Hello Bismarck" uniformed get up; it's easy to see how they might have wandered across this particular fault line in European military iconography without noticing the shitstorm waiting on the other side. Apology [Sony Music Artists of Japan] Sony apology over Japan boy band Kishidan's Nazi gaffe [BBC] |
| Student suspended for politely holding door open Posted: 02 Mar 2011 02:02 PM PST An "A" student at a Virginia middle school was given a one-day suspension for holding open a door for a known adult who had her hands full. This violated the school security policy, which holds that the doors may only be opened centrally after visitors are vetted by a CCTV camera. Superintendant Charles Turner explained, "You have to have a system, and that system has to be consistent. We have to stay within the rules and stay secure." But as Lenore Skenazy writes on the Free Range Kids blog, "what the school fails to understand is that the student was an even BETTER security system! The student has a heart, a brain and hands. This incredible carbon-based security system can open the door when that makes sense!" Middle school student suspended for opening door (via Free Range Kids) (Image: coin school doors, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from pandora_6666's photostream)
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| Explaining creativity to a Martian Posted: 02 Mar 2011 10:22 AM PST My latest Locus column takes the form of a thought-experiment in which I try to make sense of how we treat creative work on behalf of a notional Martian: Cory Doctorow: Explaining Creativity to a Martian (Image: Martian Face 2, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 33942000@N00's photostream) |
| Scott Walker smuggles ringers into the capital for the legislative session Posted: 02 Mar 2011 10:17 AM PST  The Awl's Abe Sauer is at the Wisconsin state house with press credentials, and he describes the scene after rogue governor Scott Walker defied a court order and violated state law by locking the public out of the capitol. But then something even weirder and creepier happened: a cadre of out-of-town ringers in suits were smuggled into the gallery through the civil defense tunnels to bleat their approval for Walker's budget proposal: Walker entered to thunderous applause, though not from the Democrats, who refused to rise. At least two-thirds of the East audience galley was loudly applauding but they had nothing on the West coast. It was now clear who the men in business attire were. Nearly without exception, the west gallery was all men in black suits and, when the governor said something meaningful, they all rose and applauded, and they did it with verve and volume. I'm not saying these guys were not from Wisconsin, but if you know Wisconsin, you know for a fact that even for most businessmen, black suits are not part of the wardrobe. In general, the only time one will see a large gathering of Wisconsin men in black suits is at a funeral, or, apparently at a Governor Walker budget address.In Madison: Scott Walker Packed His Budget Address With Ringers
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| Posted: 02 Mar 2011 02:05 AM PST  Cornell University and the French Culinary Institute are collaborating to modify 3D printers to output delicious, detailed, edible objects. They puree materials such as "chocolate, cheese and hummus to scallops, turkey, and celery" and feed them to at Fab@Home open-source 3D printer. Shown here is a tiny Space Shuttle made of ground scallops and cheese. "It lets you do complex geometries with food that you could never do by hand," said Jeffrey Lipton, a researcher and graduate student at the lab..."3D printers create edible objects Printing Food (Cornell University) (Image: Cornell University/French Culinary Institute) |
| Live at the iPad 2 event (It looks all white to me) Posted: 02 Mar 2011 11:09 AM PST  Attention Apple fans! Dean Putney is liveblogging Apple's press conference in San Francisco, where executives will soon announce the latest iPad. Expected are front and rear-facing cameras; hoped for is an ultra high-res display, technically unlikely as it may be. Watch the liveblog at boingboing.net/live. UPDATE - Highlights of the new iPad: • It's 33% thinner, 8.8mm thick, and has pointy edges instead of the bevel. What's the bet the iPhone 4 will lose it, too? • Dual-core A5 processors are "up to 2x faster." Graphics are "9x faster" ... it can run a 3x3 grid of streaming videos. • It'll weigh 1.3 pounds. Video cameras front and back. • Ships worldwide on March 25. Same prices, starting at just under $500. • It will be available in white. HDMI out, too, with an adapter. • Apple will offer a bizarre minimalist magnetic screen cover thing in polyurethane and leather. It folds off to become a stand. • iOS 4.3. Javascript is twice as fast. Personal hotspot. Still 3G. |
| Scattered Trees' Sad Stormtroopers video Posted: 02 Mar 2011 10:11 AM PST Scattered Trees made a Star Wars tribute video to go with their new song, "Love and Leave." Directed by J.M. Harper, it features sad stormtroopers and Boba Fett on drums. Scattered Trees' new album, Sympathy, comes out on April 5th. (Submitted by David Marek) |
| Mitch Horowitz: When is a religion a cult? Posted: 02 Mar 2011 09:25 AM PST  "Medication," from Andrew Brandou's Jonestown series When does a religion become a cult? That's the question former BB guestblogger Mitch Horowitz, author of the excellent Occult America, recently tackled in the Wall Street Journal:To use the term cult too casually risks tarring the merely unconventional, for which America has long been a safe harbor. In the early 19th century, the "Burned-over District" of central New York state—so named for the religious passions of those who settled there following the Revolutionary War—gave rise to a wave of new movements, including Mormonism, Seventh-Day Adventism and Spiritualism (or talking to the dead). It was an era, as historian Sydney E. Ahlstrom wrote, when "Farmers became theologians, offbeat village youths became bishops, odd girls became prophets....""When Does a Religion Become a Cult?" |
| Hollywood's conservatism: why no one wants to make a "risky" movie Posted: 02 Mar 2011 02:22 PM PST Noting that this year's film lineup sports "four adaptations of comic books. One prequel to an adaptation of a comic book. One sequel to a sequel to a movie based on a toy. One sequel to a sequel to a sequel to a movie based on an amusement-park ride. One prequel to a remake. Two sequels to cartoons. One sequel to a comedy. An adaptation of a children's book. An adaptation of a Saturday-morning cartoon. One sequel with a 4 in the title. Two sequels with a 5 in the title. One sequel that, if it were inclined to use numbers, would have to have a 7 1/2 in the title," Mark Harris writes in GQ about the "death of the great American art form," the cinema. Harris blames the fact that arty, story-driven movies don't bear rewatching the way that blockbusters do (and thus are less likely to earn a lot on DVD sales). I think that the real culprit is the cheap money bubble of the past decade, which fuelled an arms race that made a virtue out of spending money on a film's production. I remember covering Lost in Space for the Sci-Fi Channel's magazine and the press materials all stressed that this was the most expensive film the studio had ever made, as though that were some sort of selling point. When the credit bubble started to make ever-greater sums available to the studio system, suddenly every movie seemed to break the $50M barrier, and no one wants to risk that kind of money on an unproven product: Hollywood's conservatism: why no one wants to make a "risky" movie (via Kottke)
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| Maho Beach: like sunbathing on a runway Posted: 02 Mar 2011 09:11 AM PST  What you see in this photo is a common occurrence at Maho Beach on the Caribbean island of Sint Maarten. Photographer Thomas Prior spent a week there taking pictures on the dunes, where there's even a flight schedule chalkboard so you're not taken by surprise. From Turnstyle: "Runway Beach" |
| Heidi Taillefer's Venus Envy painting Posted: 02 Mar 2011 08:59 AM PST  Heidi Taillefer created this stunning painting titled "Venus Envy." Taillefer is best known for painting the poster art for Cirque du Soleil's "Dralion." von Scaramouche Gallery is now offering limited-edition lithographs of Venus Envy. Heidi writes: The painting "Venus Envy" is a work emphasizing the beauty and potency of women and motherhood. The name "Venus Envy" is a play on words of the Freudian "Penis Envy", and implies the enviable female advantage of being the carrier of new life. With the predominance of taboos and limitations against women in so many cultures throughout the world, the piece exposes with pride and irreverence, female characteristics, whether beautiful or unsettling. It is an attempt to absolve women of their generally complex nature, and free them from harsh social standards foisted upon their physical, social, and spiritual selves. It also explores the sensuality of pregnancy, and the mystical and intimidating power with which it was once regarded."Venus Envy" prints (von Scaramouche) |
| Measuring radio's penetration in 1936 Posted: 01 Mar 2011 11:05 PM PST  Here's a scan of a 1936 report on the state of radio penetration, commissioned by CBS as a sales tool to convince advertisers to shift their spending to broadcast. Bary sez, "The book and pamphlet present ownership, listenership broken down by age, sex, income and other demographics. In addition it includes number of tubes replaced and regional maps of the US." As such, this booklet completes the CBS study: RADIO IN 1936. The two volumes combine into a reference service for any basic consideration of how to sell more merchandise to the people with money enough to pay..."Radio in 1936 (Thanks, Bary, via Submitterator!) |
| Boing Boing boxes find new homes Posted: 02 Mar 2011 07:52 AM PST  The folks randomly selected to get one of three mystery boxes have started receiving them! Ms. H. blogs her box's contents here. Ms. B. of California emailed to say she'd gotten hers (she had a special box with only one item). Which leaves Mr. L., a resident of Canada who had a bit of a mailing wait and even set up a microblog for his box: he reports that it's just arrived, but he hasn't has a chance to open it up yet. One reader speculation, however, I can confirm as incorrect. |
| Harpo Marx v. Milton Berle, 1959 Posted: 01 Mar 2011 10:53 PM PST Germy Shoemangler sez, "On the Kraft Music Hall, Harpo plays the clarinet (and blows bubbles out of it), accuses Milton Berle of using cocaine, and holds up seven fingers on one hand when asked how long he's been playing the clarinet. A surreal moment in late '50s TV. Harpo was over seventy years old when he made this appearance, and he was younger than ever." It's true: Harpo was always the embodiment of anarchy: funny, relentless, and steadfastly unserious. If I can't honk, I don't want to be a part of your revolution! Harpo Marx & Milton Berle 1959 Kraft Music Hall (Thanks, Germy Shoemangler!) |
| Physicist/musician's CD comes with a Petri dish and scientific paper Posted: 02 Mar 2011 05:16 AM PST Oliver sez, "I came across this extreme example of Dr Martin Austwick, an independent artist (and practising physicist) going the extra mile with the presentation of his CD album package for 'Songs from the scientific cabaret':" A micrograph of stained penicillin is printed onto the CDs, which are presented in an attractive Petri Dish setting. The album sleeve notes come in the form of a 20-page scientific paper, telling you all you could ever wish to know about the origins, methods and results of this art/science endeavour, as well as full lyrics and some scientific background to explain the songs.Songs from The Scientific Cabaret Limited Edition CDs (Thanks, Oliver!)
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My doctor keeps jamming on his commitment to fork over the shots he took in surgery, the ones showing the necrotic tissue spreading across my leg. Fuck it; I've kept you waiting too long (only partially due to the above reason, granted; I'm also still comatose for a good chunk of the day), and I would be remiss in my educational mandate if I put this off any longer. 
According to an anonymous e-mail sent to The Tidewater News, the "A" student opened the door for a woman he knew, who had her hands full. The e-mail also indicated the student received a one-day, out-of-school suspension. 
It's about this time that the Martian notices our distinctly contradictory relationship with copying. On the one hand, copying is inextricably tied up with this idea of ''human progress'' (itself the basis for venerating creativity). We copy the words invented by our ancestors. We copy the storytelling forms passed down to us by our literary forebears. Painters copy each others' conventions and brushstrokes (not to mention mechanical techniques from gesso to frame-stretching). Filmmakers copy like crazy: everything from extreme wide shots to dollying in and out are techniques that were invented in living memory. 
Such an unrelenting focus on the sell rather than the goods may be why so many of the dispiritingly awful movies that studios throw at us look as if they were planned from the poster backward rather than from the good idea forward. Marketers revere the idea of brands, because a brand means that somebody, somewhere, once bought the thing they're now trying to sell. The Magic 8 Ball (tragically, yes, there is going to be a Magic 8 Ball movie) is a brand because it was a toy. Pirates of the Caribbean is a brand because it was a ride. Harry Potter is a brand because it was a series of books. Jonah Hex is a brand because it was a comic book. (Here lies one fallacy of putting marketers in charge of everything: Sometimes they forget to ask if it's a good brand.) Sequels are brands. Remakes are brands. For a good long stretch, movie stars were considered brands; this was the era in which magazines like Premiere attempted to quantify the waxing or waning clout of actors and actresses from year to year because, to the industry, having the right star seemed to be the ultimate hedge against failure. 
"The jet blast is like a 150 degrees and (the blowing sand) feels like rocks." Prior said, "There were 60 planes that week, and I was there for every one of them." Nearly six million people have watched a YouTube video of a 747 blowing beach goers dozens of feet into the ocean. Prior says he was hoping to capture that over and over again — sunbather after sunbather hurtling into the ocean in a Wizard Of Oz-like hail of sand clouds. He sounded disappointed when he added, "Only one or two of them had the power to blow people into the water."| You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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