The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Fixers' Collective: people learning to make broken stuff work again
- Scholars to stop pretending they don't use Wikipedia; will work out best practices instead
- LOLFOODZ
- Happy 80th birthday, William Shatner! (and happy Talk Like William Shatner Day, everyone else!)
- Nuclear reactors of the world: vintage wall charts
- Japan Quake: Tokusatsu super heroes tweet in character to reassure scared young people
- Art print to benefit Japan disaster relief
- It's that eggs-boiled-in-urine time of year!
- Google fined for collecting WiFi data from hotspots in France
- My essential Mac research applications
- Japan: Boing Boing Live video discussion with Matt Alt in Tokyo, 7pm ET/4pm PT/8am Japan time
- US Army apologizes for "repugnant" photos in which soldiers pose by slain Afghan civilians
- Candy sushi kit
- Video of The Integratron, a rejuvenation and time machine
- Hotline for saving bees in L.A.
- Prosecutor: fight over stolen clothes led to Lululemon yoga shop murder
- Will the Harper government receive a #MEGAFACEPALM for C-393?
- Amateur radio sleuths intercept US psyops messages to Libya (audio)
- Killing Bill C-393 equals killing period. A visual aid for Canadian politicians.
- Pakistani Actress Veena Malik schools a mullah about Islam
- Lunnaya Raduga: 1984 Russian science fiction film
- How to: Make a hamantaschen Sierpinski triangle
- The Appalachian Trail in 4 minutes
- Residents of South Carolina warned of "Zombies Ahead"
- DIY video event in San Francisco: fair use, mashups, spoofs, Mozilla, and videoblogs
- Japan: "The sea overwhelming the land, not only with water, but with fire"
- More mega-quakes: Coincidence, or cause-and-effect?
- Alex Pardee print to benefit Japan
- How earthquakes work—a nice video demonstration
- Dollar store toy wreath
| Fixers' Collective: people learning to make broken stuff work again Posted: 22 Mar 2011 12:44 AM PDT  Here's an inspiring story about the Fixers' Collective in Brooklyn, a co-op that holds free open surgeries where people can bring their broken stuff for repair. The Fixers make no guarantees (they learned to fix stuff by taking it apart and trying to get it back together again), but they also don't charge anything; what's more, they'll teach you what they know so you can fix your stuff yourself. "It makes people feel proud of themselves - a little less helpless," Ms. Pittman says. "Everything breaks. Everything. These days, and especially with all this electronic equipment, we have no clue - no idea at all - how to fix stuff. We are pretty much at the mercy of our computers, our cellphones. The Fixers' Collective helped us become a little more self-sufficient. It is an attitude as much as anything."The art of the fix-it |
| Scholars to stop pretending they don't use Wikipedia; will work out best practices instead Posted: 21 Mar 2011 11:49 PM PDT Some students and profs London's Imperial College have decided to stop using scary anaecdotes to frighten students away from Wikipedia; instead, the scholars will acknowledge that kids use Wikipedia, that there's lots of good there, and will work out evidence-based best practices for learning with Wikipedia. "Students know there is an inherent unreliablity, as it's open edited. We're not trying to hide that.Academics to 'embrace Wikipedia' |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:42 PM PDT  Click for the whole thing. There's rather a lot of it. (via Chuck Anderson) |
| Happy 80th birthday, William Shatner! (and happy Talk Like William Shatner Day, everyone else!) Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:29 PM PDT [Video Link]. Happy 80th Birthday, William Shatner! (Thanks, Paul Camuso) |
| Nuclear reactors of the world: vintage wall charts Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:16 PM PDT  Image: Wylfa Magnox, Wylfa, Anglesey, UK. Wall chart insert, Nuclear Engineering, 1965 Now seems like a good week to revisit this set of 105 reactor wall charts, uploaded by the University of New Mexico. The dates next to each chart relate to the issue of Nuclear Engineering International magazine in which they first appeared. Ronald Knief, a nuclear engineer from Sandia National Laboratories, assembled the image collection. More about the images, and links to the complete set, here at Bibliodyssey. Here's the direct Flickr set link. (via BB Submitterator, thanks cinemajay) |
| Japan Quake: Tokusatsu super heroes tweet in character to reassure scared young people Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:00 PM PDT "In light of last week's events in Japan, a Twitter account has surfaced with encouraging comments from heroes on tokusatsu shows such as Ultraman, Super Sentai and Kamen Rider. The person behind this twitter account is Teruaki Ogawa (NinjaRed on Kakuranger)." (Submitterator, via Boing Boing reader Andrew Howat) |
| Art print to benefit Japan disaster relief Posted: 21 Mar 2011 05:25 PM PDT  Barnaby Ward (the illustrator who created the 16 Miles to Merricks graphic novel I wrote about last week ) is selling a beautiful print for $60 to benefit Japan disaster relief. Reconstructed Deity is 18" x 24" limited edition print. It will be available until Monday, March 28. The edition number will be decided at the end of the week, based on the total number of sales. All proceeds to go to the Red Cross Japan earthquake and tsunami relief efforts. Numbered and stamped.Reconstructed Deity art print to benefit Japan disaster relief See also: Alex Pardee print to benefit Japan |
| It's that eggs-boiled-in-urine time of year! Posted: 21 Mar 2011 05:15 PM PDT Translation from China Daily article courtesy Google Translate: Dongyang Urine boiled egg with the lad lad named to the local non-genetic eggs (Thanks, Jimwich!) |
| Google fined for collecting WiFi data from hotspots in France Posted: 21 Mar 2011 04:47 PM PDT  Photo by Sunghwan Yoon. Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license. Google's cute Street View cars were caught snorking private data from WiFi hotspots as they putt-putted their way through France. Now they must pay a US$142,000 fine. Sergei et Larry, vous mauvais garçons! For example, at 12:45 p.m. on June 2, 2008, at an address in Marseille, France, precisely located by its GPS coordinates, Google recorded the username and password of someone logging into a pornographic website. On March 26, 2009, at 3:03 p.m., Google recorded the username and password of someone logging into a site used to arrange sexual encounters with strangers, along with the person's location along a sparsely populated rural road north of the town of Carcasonne, France.France fines Google for Street View collection of Wi-Fi data |
| My essential Mac research applications Posted: 21 Mar 2011 04:35 PM PDT A few weeks ago Mark Frauenfelder posted a list of essential mac applications. He had a bunch of great suggestions that reflected his graphics and writing needs. As a long-time Mac consultant and a grad student, I thought a similar listed aimed at the research community might be a good idea. The following applications are the go-tos for my research and content creation needs -- I hope you find them useful. My apologies to Linux and Windows users -- many of these don't exist for other platforms. I'm hoping that you can suggest alternatives and software that I've missed in the comments.
You may have noticed that I left EndNote off the list. This wasn't an oversight. While it remains a popular bibliographic engine and does a good job of integrating with Word, the lack of real integration into other word processors is a big negative. In addition I'm tired of buying a new version when Apple releases a new OS or Microsoft releases a new version of Office. The new "cite anywhere" technology built into Papers means I can free myself from continued reliance on EndNote, and I'm happy to leave it and $100 upgrades behind. |
| Japan: Boing Boing Live video discussion with Matt Alt in Tokyo, 7pm ET/4pm PT/8am Japan time Posted: 21 Mar 2011 03:22 PM PDT  At 7pm ET/4pm PT/8am Japan time today (that's at the top of the coming hour), BoingBoing's tech guru Dean Putney and I will log into a live video discussion with Tokyo-based author [ Video link for Boing Boing Live ] We'll be talking with Matt about the March 11 earthquake, tsunami, and ongoing nuclear crisis in Japan--and more specifically, how things are going for folks in Tokyo, what perceptions of foreign media coverage are like, and how rescue and recovery efforts are going. This won't just be a conversation we have with each other. We're doing this through Livestream, a system that allows people watching the video to comment along in a chat room, and on Twitter. Dean will be serving as our live, on-air proudcer, taking questions from those feeds and forwarding them on to us. If there's something you've been dying to know, this will be a good way to get it on our radar. If you want to join the conversation, just click on our Livestream page. Again, we'll start talking at 7:00pm Eastern/ 4:00pm Pacific/8am Tuesday in Japan. And, if you can't make it in time for the live chat, we'll post the full video here later. |
| US Army apologizes for "repugnant" photos in which soldiers pose by slain Afghan civilians Posted: 21 Mar 2011 03:09 PM PDT The US Army today apologized for the actions of soldiers shown posing by the dead bodies of civilian villagers in Afghanistan. In the photos, the soldiers pose as one might with slain game on a hunting expedition. Der Spiegel published the photos here. |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2011 03:44 PM PDT [Video Link] My 7-year-old daughter and I had a great time making candy sushi from the $5 Popin' Cookin' sushi candy making kit. I made a video about it. |
| Video of The Integratron, a rejuvenation and time machine Posted: 21 Mar 2011 03:42 PM PDT Ross Harris said: "We beat the rain [in Los Angeles] with an Integratron visit. I brought my son Banjo who is Autistic for the soundbath. He loved it. [Video Link]" The Integratron is in Landers, CA, near Palm Springs. From The Integratron's website: The Integratron is the creation of George Van Tassel, and is based on the design of Moses' Tabernacle, the writings of Nikola Tesla and telepathic directions from extraterrestrials. This one-of-a-kind building is a 38-foot high, 55-foot diameter, non-metallic structure originally designed by Van Tassel as a rejuvenation and time machine. Today, it is the only all-wood, acoustically perfect sound chamber in the U.S. |
| Hotline for saving bees in L.A. Posted: 21 Mar 2011 02:50 PM PDT The folks at Google Voice interviewed my friend Amy Seidenwurm, one of the co-founders of Backwards Beekeepers, a no-treatment beekeepers club I belong to. Google Voice: Helping save bees in L.A. |
| Prosecutor: fight over stolen clothes led to Lululemon yoga shop murder Posted: 21 Mar 2011 02:39 PM PDT Prosecutors in the case of a murder in Bethesda, MD, say an employee at upscale yoga clothing shop Lululemon brutally murdered her co-worker after the co-worker spotted what was believed to be stolen garments in her bag. Brittany Norwood, 28, is said to have then attempted to conceal the killing by tying herself up, self-inflicting wounds, and blaming the attack on two masked men. |
| Will the Harper government receive a #MEGAFACEPALM for C-393? Posted: 21 Mar 2011 02:49 PM PDT A few weeks ago, I was lecturing during a global issues course (ASIC200), when it became immediately clear that on some occasions, a solitary single facepalm is simply not enough. In fact, there seemed to be many things and events in this world that would merit many many simultaneous facepalms, or as we've been calling it in class, a MEGAFACEPALM! Anyway, when I looked it up on the internet, there didn't seem to be any pictures of large groups of people doing the facepalm, and so I thought, why not make our own? And so after a few clicks on my camera, and a handy "Make your own motivational poster" website, here is how it turned out:  Of course, then the big question was for what occasion should we bestow this honour - this first unaltered photographic MEGAFACEPALM image? Well, I had a chat with the class the other day, and it seemed that the issue of Bill C-393 seemed like a worthy cause. Therefore: I would like to declare that this MEGAFACEPALM will be awarded to the Harper government should: 1. Their members of Senate kill Bill C-393 by voting not to pass it. and/or 2. They indirectly kill the Bill C-393 by "ignoring" the Bill: especially if it has anything to do with some false nonsense about election calls. Yes, we know that maybe there will be an election call, but that is neither here nor there. So, Prime Minister Harper: the outcome is in your hands... p.s - I realize that technically, we shouldn't call it a MEGAFACEPALM, since the name would infer the presence of a million (=mega) people doing it - but oh well, I figured this was a still good start. Besides, you can also consider this a challenge for others to create even bigger MEGAFACEPALM pictures. LINKS: |
| Amateur radio sleuths intercept US psyops messages to Libya (audio) Posted: 21 Mar 2011 02:22 PM PDT "If you attempt to leave port, you will be attacked and destroyed immediately." This was the message broadcast by a secret U.S. military propaganda plane in the skies around Libya on Saturday night, just as air strikes commenced. The "Commando Solo" aircraft told Libyan ships to remain in port, or risk NATO retaliation—and a Dutch radio geek monitoring the airwaves for information about "Operation Odyssey Dawn" heard the transmission and tweeted it. This from Wired Danger Room's Noah Shachtman, who reports:
On Sunday alone, "Huub" has identified the tail numbers, call signs, and movements of dozens of NATO aircraft: Italian fighter jets, American tankers, British aerial spies, U.S. bombers, and the Commando Solo psyops plane. Listen to the US warning in English, French, then Arabic, here:
You can follow the Frequency Monitor Centre in the Netherlands here on Twitter. Read the whole story at Wired Danger Room. (thanks, Noah Shachtman) |
| Killing Bill C-393 equals killing period. A visual aid for Canadian politicians. Posted: 21 Mar 2011 08:04 AM PDT  For the interest of discussion, I've made the above visual aid for members of Canada's Senate, since this is the week that they have a chance to pass a Bill that "aims to make it easier for Canada to export affordable, life-saving, generic medicines to developing countries." I wrote about this Bill C-393 earlier, stating how the right choice (passing the bill and not killing the bill) is obvious. But then it occurred to me that if the decision was so obvious, then why is there so much "push back" from the pharmaceutical industry (as well as the Harper government). It turns out the reason appears to be about Bill C-393 representing a trend that "could potentially" lead to a loss of control over the status quo. This being the status quo that provides the pharmaceutical industry with an inordinate amount of lobbying power to set prices; a business model that values huge profits above innovation; and something that they are so focused on protecting that even the smallest of losses must be avoided no matter the consequences. Which is simply reprehensible - because with this Bill, the consequences are not just about patent control: it's about the livelihood of millions of people, where the decision to "kill" or "not kill" the Bill could literally be a matter of life or death. Please send an email to the Harper government by using this Avaaz link. |
| Pakistani Actress Veena Malik schools a mullah about Islam Posted: 21 Mar 2011 12:15 PM PDT [Video Link] Veena Malik is a Pakistani actress who appeared on the very popular Indian TV show Bigg Boss (the Indian version of Big Brother). In the clip above, a mullah tells her she brought shame on Pakistan with her behavior on the show, and that 100% of Pakistanis agree with him. The mullah also admits he didn't watch the show himself, but knows all of this to be true. Veena responds by pretty much mopping up the floor with him. She points out out how her religion backs up her actions, where he's in violation of the same rules he's taking her to task for. She also says if he wishes to defend Islam, there are countless targets more deserving of close inspection, but here he is instead wasting his time complaining about an actress. It's fantastic. The world needs to see more of this. Go Veena! (via soupsoup) |
| Lunnaya Raduga: 1984 Russian science fiction film Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:45 AM PDT Strange Attractor's Mark Pilkington pointed me toward this enticing taste of Lunnaya Raduga (Лунная радуга), a 1984 Russian science fiction that looks terrific! Here's a description from AllMovie: In this watchable sci fi story based on a novel by Sergei Pavlov, the time is the 21st century, and the space security organization has a dangerous situation on its hands -- it seems four individuals from outer space have the ability to change form and to affect radio transmissions and magnetic fields. Their powers could threaten governments on earth and seem to derive from an unusual accident on one of the moons of Uranus shortly after four astronauts landed. Now the space police have to bring this potentially disastrous situation under control. |
| How to: Make a hamantaschen Sierpinski triangle Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:39 AM PDT  Seattle local food blogger Deborah Gardner has made something truly amazing—combining the delicious Jewish traditional filled cookies called hamantaschen with wondrous math geekery.
Instructions (and some neat Sierpinsky Triangle facts) can be found at the Seattle Local Food blog. Via Roger Highfield |
| The Appalachian Trail in 4 minutes Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:22 AM PDT I don't know about you, but I could use something kind of soothing this morning. Please enjoy this 4-minute video journey through the entire Appalachian Trail, and have a happy Monday. Via Minnesota Public Radio's News Cut |
| Residents of South Carolina warned of "Zombies Ahead" Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:12 AM PDT The Fort Mill Herald newspaper of South Carolina reports that "two electronic road signs on S.C. 160 near the York-Lancaster county lines were apparently tampered with sometime before 4 a.m. Sunday, according to Lance Cpl. Billy Elder of the Highway Patrol." One sign read "Zombies Ahead" and rotated to "Watch for Hunters." On the other side of the road, another sign read "Be alert for Tanks." Photos here. |
| DIY video event in San Francisco: fair use, mashups, spoofs, Mozilla, and videoblogs Posted: 21 Mar 2011 12:11 AM PDT A free upcoming symposium in San Francisco in April, "24/7 2011: The State of the Art in DIY Video," looks like a hell of a good time. Jason "Lawgeek" Schultz mentions, "We have Mozilla doing a DIY Video Workshop to show off their new popcorn.js metadata interface and Jen Urban and I are running a DIY Fair Use workshop too, all before the main event." 24/7 2011: The State of the Art in DIY Video San Francisco (Thanks, Jason!) |
| Japan: "The sea overwhelming the land, not only with water, but with fire" Posted: 21 Mar 2011 10:08 AM PDT "Keiichi Nakane, a local reporter, described it as "surreal... I felt I was watching a science-fiction movie.' Yoshikatsu Hatakeyama, who watched the scene unfold, said that it was 'like something from the Middle Ages." Kesennuma, a town on Japan's northeast coast, was first shaken by the 9.0 quake, then hit by the tsunami, then a third disaster: a fire kindled by the first two disasters, which caused large tuna fishing ships in the harbor to collide into one another and catch fire, only to then be carried by waves in into neighborhoods which then burnt to the ground when the tsunami receded. (Australian, via @silberman) |
| More mega-quakes: Coincidence, or cause-and-effect? Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:46 AM PDT "What is clear is that for the 6.2 years since 2004, there have been more great earthquakes around the world than in any 6.2-year period throughout the 110-year history of seismic recordings," says Thorne Lay at the University of California, Santa Cruz. — from a New Scientist article about geologists attempting to find connections between the recent spate of mega-quakes. Important point: There simply may not be a connection. The number of mega-quakes is still so small that this really could just be a coincidence. |
| Alex Pardee print to benefit Japan Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:39 AM PDT  The devastating quake and tsunami in Japan has inspired many artists to release limited edition prints with the proceeds benefiting organizations helping the survivors rebuild their lives. Over at Ransom Notes, I was struck by Alex Pardee's "Amity Smurf," offered by Zero Friends in an edition of 100 for $50/each with all the money going to the Japanese Red Cross."Amity Smurf" |
| How earthquakes work—a nice video demonstration Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:38 AM PDT In my chat with Jesse Bering for Bloggingheads, I tried to explain a little bit about why earthquakes happen at subduction zones, like the one near the coast of Japan. Lacking props, I used my hands to mock up the motion of one tectonic plate sliding beneath another. This video—made by science blogger Matt Kuchta—does a much better job of demonstrating the same thing. If you want to understand earthquakes a little better, I highly recommend reading the whole blog post that goes with this video.
Via Chris Rowan |
| Posted: 21 Mar 2011 09:37 AM PDT  This looks like a fun project to do with your kids! Kevin Kelly says: My son Tywen and I made a toy wreath. First we cut a torus from a piece of scrap plywood. Then we hot glued on to it several bags of plastic toys from the dollar store. It was fun building up patterns. Time flowed quickly. It made us giggle at times. The thing is completely useless. But it evoked something vague when we hung it outside my studio door. It's pleasing in a strange way. Looks like art to me.Art Is What You Get Away With |
In Dongyang, has already formed such an old custom: the street vendors who sell eggs boy or lad boiled eggs to their own people, would mention a plastic bucket to a school boy to collect the urine. 
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1. Tell us about your organization. The Backwards Beekeepers are dedicated to saving the native honey bee population by teaching chemical-free beekeeping. We have monthly meetings in L.A. and also advise beekeepers all over the world. 
The theme of the 2011 show is "collective action," as videomakers reach out to others, creating active communities in dialogue. The program includes examples from the most prominent forms of amateur video production: | 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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