Thursday, March 31, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Britain's back-room negotiations to establish a national, extrajudicial Internet censorship regime

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 02:30 PM PDT

Ed Vaizey, the UK Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries has admitted that he is in talks with ISPs to create a voluntary national firewall. Big copyright companies would petition to have sites they don't like added to the secret national blacklist, and the ISPs would decide -- without transparency or judicial review -- whether to silently block Britons from seeing the censored sites.

Peter from the Open Rights Group adds, "Website blocking is a bad idea, especially on a self-regulatory basis where vital judicial oversight is bypassed. The good news is that he has promised to invite civil society groups to participate in future discussions on the matter. You can help explain the problems by writing to your MP at ORG's website." Minister confirms site blocking discussions (Thanks, PeterBradwell, via Submitterator!)

 


Father of "Jessi Slaughter," girl in "You Dun Goofed" video, arrested for child abuse

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:42 PM PDT

Gene Leonhardt, 53, better known as the father of "Jessi Slaughter" of viral video and internet bullying news headlines, was recently arrested for child abuse. His 12 year old daughter told Florida police that she was arguing with her father when he "punched her, causing her to have a bloody and swollen lips" [sic]. Originally reported on TSG, link dead as I post this, also reported on a local TV news site. (via Sean Bonner)

BP loses laptop with unencrypted personal data for 13,000 oil spill claimants

Posted: 31 Mar 2011 12:15 AM PDT

Oil giant BP reports that an employee lost a laptop containing personal data for 13,000 people seeking compensation for the 2010 Gulf oil spill. The data included SSNs, phone numbers, and other identifying info; it wasn't encrypted, and the circumstances in which the device was lost aren't clear. BBC, CNN, AP.

Japan nuclear crisis: restriction on sale of crops near Fukushima led farmer to commit suicide, family says

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:41 PM PDT

In the Japanese newspaper Asahi, a report that a 64-year-old cabbage farmer from Fukushima prefecture killed himself one day after the government imposed restrictions on the sale of produce from the region. (via Green Action blog, via Brian Ashcraft)

Libya: Operation "Turd Sandwich"

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:06 PM PDT

"NBC White House reporter Savannah Guthrie told her viewers that sources had heard the president label the military action in Libya a 'turd sandwich' in a closed-door meeting." (abc.net.au, via Sean Bonner)

Nose Candy app for Android devices

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:51 PM PDT


[Video Link] If you want to play the Nose Candy game, you must run it on an Android device. It's not available for the iPhone.

Nose Candy for Android

Samsung deliberately infecting new laptops with keyloggers?

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:58 PM PDT

According to Mohamed Hassan (a security expert and IT professor) Samsung has admitted to shipping laptops with covert, undisclosed keyloggers installed, there to "monitor the performance of the machine and to find out how it is being used." Their PR department refuses to discuss the issue: "In other words, Samsung wanted to gather usage data without obtaining consent from laptop owners." (via /.)

Monkeys race in tiny cars

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 08:39 PM PDT

"Meat glue" sounds kind of awesome

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 05:27 PM PDT

Norungel0047.jpg

I know this story on Planet Green—all about the edible "meat glue" that holds together everything from imitation crab sticks and chicken nuggets to modernist chef cuisine—is supposed to make me freak out and only want to eat organic, whole foods from the farmer's market.

Trouble is: I kind of think meat glue sounds pretty cool. I like the fact that we've found new ways to use scraps and parts of meat that aren't sell-able on their own. That alone is nothing new. Humans have been doing that for centuries (See: sausage, soup stock). Transglutaminase—meat glue's real name—is just a newer tool. And it doesn't even sound particularly scary or gross. At least, not to this honest-with-herself omnivore.

Technically called thrombian, or transglutaminase (TG), it is an enzyme that food processors use to hold different kinds of meat together. TG is an enzyme that catalyzes covalent bonds between free amine groups in a protein, like lysine, and gamma-caroxminid groups, like glutamine. These bonds are pretty durable and resist degradation once the food has been formed.

Thrombian is made from pig or cow blood, though you'll see it on labels, if at all, as "composite meat product."

It's a naturally occurring enzyme, derived from animal blood. When you put it that way, it's easy to understand why the EU—which tends to be more stringent on rules about food additives than the United States—voted nearly unanimously in favor of allowing transglutaminase to be used in products sold in EU countries.

Personally, I'm with wrecksdart, who Submitterated this, in wondering where I can get transglutaminase, and what ridiculous foods I can make at home with it. Animal-shaped meatloaf pops, here I come.

Kinect makes UAV even more autonomous

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 02:31 PM PDT

A group of MIT students have used a Microsoft Kinect sensor-package to enable a UAV to map and fly circuits around a room:

Students have developed a real-time visual odometry system that can use a Kinect to provide fast and accurate estimates of a vehicle's 3D trajectory. This system is based on recent advances in visual odometry research, and combines a number of ideas from the state-of-the-art algorithms. It aligns successive camera frames by matching features across images, and uses the Kinect-derived depth estimates to determine the camera's motion.
MIT SLAM quad using Kinect (Thanks, Mark!)
 


Manager at CA nuclear plant sues over firing, claims whistleblower retaliation

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 03:28 PM PDT


(photo by Jason Hickey)

The Orange County Register reports that a manager at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station claims he was fired after reporting safety concerns, according to a suit filed today.

According to the suit, a nuclear power watchdog group received in February 2010 calls and emails from workers in the plant regarding shortcuts on testing new generators, safety violations, and a "culture of cover-up." The Nuclear Regulatory Commission then sent a letter to Southern California Edison regarding the "chilling effect" of the work environment at the plant, the suit claims. The letter was to make sure the company encouraged workers to speak up about safety concerns.

The suit claims that when Diaz told his boss, Pamela Panek, about concerns brought to his attention by other employees, he was told not to address the complaints. According to the suit, management also told the employees they should not have talked to him about the problems.

Previously on Boing Boing: "So. California's San Onofre nuclear plant, near fault line and sea, built to withstand less than Japan plant"

Followup: Reports of cellphone tracking prompt concern in Congress

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:57 PM PDT

Politico today reports an update related to a BB item earlier in the week: A NYT story (sparked by this story in a German newspaper) "revealed the extent to which Deutsche Telekom tracked and stored location data for one German politician." Congresscritters Ed Markey and Joe Barton read the Times piece, and were so upset, they "fired off letters Tuesday afternoon to top carriers AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile, asking them to detail the kind of cellphone location data they collect, how they collect it, how the data is stored and for how long. More here. (via EFF)

MAD logo concept sketch by Wally Wood

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:36 PM PDT

wwlogomad.jpg

Bhob Stewart says: "There were variations on the Mad logo by several artists. This is Wood's concept plus quick sketches and a few random free associations." See it bigger over at Bhob's excellent site about (mainly) EC publications, Potrzebie.



Carson Lighted Magnigrip Tweezers

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 06:30 AM PDT

Carson Optical Magnigrip with 4X Magnifier.jpeg I received these lighted magnified tweezers as a stocking stuffer a few years back, and although I am fortunate enough to have great eyesight these tweezers are absolutely amazing for inspecting and removing any splinters that might find there way under your skin. They use a single LED light that is perfectly pointed at the tips of the tweezers and a large 4x magnifying lens that helps to see those skin-colored cactus spines or tiny pieces of glass. The tweezers themselves are extremely sharp and are made for getting in there, more so than any other purpose. The only drawback is that the tweezer tip protector is easily misplaced and without it the tweezer tips can pierce toiletry bags and get bent. Overall, these are fantastic tweezers for finding your way around minuscule splinters or other small jobs in need of magnification and illumination. -- Anton Benson Carson Optical Magnigrip with 4x Magnifier $9 Don't forget to comment over at Cool Tools. And remember to submit a tool!

Creepy vintage ad: the Car Chic

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:29 PM PDT

car-chics.jpg

From artist Mitch O'Connell's bottomless trove of mind-bending ephemera: the Car Chic. (See also: Vibra-Finger.)

Car Chics

Libya: Obama authorized covert support for rebels

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:31 PM PDT

Reuters reports that President Barack Obama signed a no-longer "secret order" authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces attempting to overthrow Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi. The approval came weeks ago, but news "leaks" today as the administration considers sending arms and military support directly to the opposition forces.

Unfortunately named websites

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:39 PM PDT

wtf-photos-videos-classic-grandmas-bookmarks.jpg

As Jack Chick's jolly devil would say, "Haw Haw Haw!"

Classic: Grandma's Bookmarks

UPDATE: CSMcDonald commented: "Unfortunately it looks like Cumming (town in Georgia north of Atlanta) has changed their domain name - cummingfirst.com now goes to a site that is definitely not the church. The church is now at http://www.cfumcga.com/"

Japan nuclear crisis: IAEA, Greenpeace report high contamination outside evacuation zone

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 12:36 PM PDT

RTR2KLQH.jpg

Consequences of the nuclear crisis in Japan continue to expand. The March 11 quake and tsunami left 28,000 people dead or missing, and triggered a series of increasingly grave problems at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant.

Separately, both the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Greenpeace have measured radioactivity levels outside the exclusion zone that exceed the limits established by the government of Japan.

From the IAEA's update, which includes details on the data readings and locations:

The highest values were found in a relatively small area in the Northwest from the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant. First assessment indicates that one of the IAEA operational criteria for evacuation is exceeded in Iitate village. We advised the counterpart to carefully access the situation. They indicated that they are already assessing.

These findings may add to pressure for the government of Japan to widen the exclusion zone beyond 20 kilometers (12 miles) around the Fukushima power plant.

In related news, earlier today smoke was seen rising from electrical equipment in the turbine building at the No.1 reactor of the Fukushima Daini nuclear plant.

PHOTO—CLICK FOR LARGE: A medical staff screens a boy for signs of radioactivity contamination at an evacuation center in Fukushima, northern Japan, on March 30, 2011. (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Japan: Seawater contaminated near Fukushima; removal of radioactive water inside plant hits new problems

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 12:00 PM PDT

RTR2KJKC.jpg

PHOTO, CLICK FOR LARGE: An aerial view from a height of some 1,500 meters (4,920 feet) and distance of more than 30 kilometers (18 miles) from the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station, March 29, 2011. From right are the No. 1, No. 2, No. 3 and No. 4 reactors. (REUTERS/Kyodo)

The government of Japan today announced that levels of radioactive iodine-131 in a seawater sample near the Fukushima plant were measured at a concentration of 3,355 times the maximum level permitted under law.

The leak is believed to be ongoing, and to have originated from the cores of nuclear reactors (probably in buildings 1 or 2, if I'm reading this right) where fuel rods have partially melted.

From the English edition of the Mainichi Daily News:

Hidehiko Nishiyama, a spokesman for the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency, said the exact cause of the high iodine concentration remains unknown but that data collected by the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. indicate radiation that has leaked at the site during the ongoing crisis "somehow" flowed into the sea. He reiterated that the polluted seawater does not pose an immediate risk to health because fishing is not being conducted in the evacuation zone within 20 kilometers of the plant and radiation-emitting substances would be "significantly diluted" by the time they are consumed by marine species and then by people.

In related news, workers inside the Fukushima plant are today struggling to drain thousands of metric tons of water highly contaminated with radioactivity from the basements of turbine buildings.

Plutonium in low quantities has also been detected in the earth near the plant, and is presumed to come from "at least one" of the reactors there, according to news reports out of Japan:

"Considering the ratio of radioisotopes, it undoubtedly came from nuclear fuel," said Kazuya Idemitsu, professor of nuclear fuel engineering at Kyushu University.

World's hottest pepper plants for sale

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:01 PM PDT

bhut-jolokia.jpg
Photo of bhut jolokia fruit by Matt Rudge. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

David sent me an ad for bhut jolokia pepper plants, which have a Scoville rating of slightly more than one million. They cost $16 including shipping.

Also known as the ghost pepper, or dorset naga, it is listed in the Guiness Book of World Records as the world's hottest pepper.

To give you an idea of how hot this pepper is, here's an excerpt from an article I wrote a long time ago called "The Cult of Capsaicin."

Chileheads are hooked on high doses of capsaicin, gobbling up ultra-hot peppers and food smothered in blistering sauces like Cyanide DOA, Satan's Blood, and Toxic Waste. This stuff is almost unimaginably hot. You have to taste some to understand. Try this: put a couple of drops of Tabasco Sauce on your tongue. Hot, right? Tabasco Sauce rates between 2,500 and 5,000 on the Scoville scale, the standard measurement system for chile pepper heat. Now try a drop of Mad Dog Inferno, a ridiculously hot sauce that clocks in at 90,000 Scoville units. As I chewed ice cubes and blinked away tears after touching a miniscule droplet of Mad Dog Inferno to my tongue from the tip of a toothpick, I knew I'd never make it as a chilehead.

That's because I'm not a nontaster, explains Dave DeWitt, author of 30 books about chile peppers and spicy foods, including The Whole Chile Pepper Book and The Hot Sauce Bible. DeWitt is referring to a Yale surgeon's study in the 1970s that identified three types of people: nontasters, medium tasters, and supertasters. Nontasters are born with as few as 11 taste buds per square centimeter of tongue, while supertasters can have as many as 1,100 taste buds crammed into the same area. Capsaicin has no taste, but taste buds not only sense flavor, they also transmit pain and temperature signals to the brain. That's why nontasters can tolerate high doses of spice, says DeWitt, who considers chileheads to be on the far right side of the pepper bell curve. "In any movement you have your fringe element," he says.

For a chilehead, 90,000 Scovilles is pabulum. Andy Barnhart, a recently retired chief scientist for a telecommunications company in Maryland, likes to dump habanero powder (400,000 Scovilles) on his ice cream "until it turns almost black." But even that doesn't turn Barnhart's crank like it used to. "I've now gotten into Pure Cap; that is really hot stuff," says Barnhart, 61. "I blend it with a little alcohol to preserve it and I put it in a bottle with an eyedropper and I carry it around with me." (Pure Cap, a 570,000 Scoville unit extract, isn't the same as pure capsaicin, which, at 16 million Scovilles, is as hot as it gets.) If Barnhart comes across a bowl of soup or a drink that doesn't provide a sufficient jolt, he pulls out the eyedropper and gives it a squirt.

Ghost Pepper plants for sale

TOM THE DANCING BUG: U.S. Bombs U.S. Schools

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:17 AM PDT

1031cbCOMIC news - bomb schools.jpg

Google building free high-speed broadband network in Kansas City

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 11:20 AM PDT

From the Google Blog today, news that the company will build an "ultra high-speed network" in Kansas City, Kansas. "We've signed a development agreement with the city, and we'll be working closely with local organizations, businesses and universities to bring a next-generation web experience to the community."

Studying invasive giant pythons' partially-digested meals

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:59 AM PDT

Images Atm-Guts-And-Glory-Ranger-With-Burmese-Python-520
The native wildlife of the Florida Everglades is under attack by thousands of Burmese Pythons, thought to be the spawn of pet snakes that have escaped or were abandoned by their owners. To understand the impact of these predators on endangered birds, wildlife biologists at Everglades National Park have sought the help of Carla Dove, head of the National Museum of Natural History's Feather Identification Lab. Dove's specialty is identifying dead birds that have been hit by planes, for examples, or, in this case, are inside the bellies of captured (and killed?) pythons. From Smithsonian:
Birddddd The first way to prove the danger they're causing to the environment is to figure out what they're eating and how much of it they're eating," Dove says. So (Everglades biologist Skip) Snow began sending Dove stomach samples from captured pythons.

Identifying any birds in such samples is messy, time-consuming work—a task Dove embraces with gusto. "My job is not so glamorous," she says, picking up a brown glob in a plastic sandwich bag. She washes it in warm water, then dries it with compressed air: "Feathers are made of keratin, like your hair, so they are very durable and easy to clean and dry." She examines them under a microscope, looking for fine variations in color, size or microstructure that tell her which taxonomic group a given bird belongs to.

Dove then takes the sample into the museum's collection of 620,000 specimens from more than 8,000 species of birds and looks for a match; it can take anywhere from a few hours to a few days. "This is the way we've been doing it for 50 years," she says. "We have DNA now, but DNA is not going to help us in this case"—the python's digestive system has destroyed or contaminated the genetic material—"so you really have to rely on those basic skills of identifying things based on your experience and your knowledge..."

"This is pretty close to the most memorable work I've done," Dove says, "because it's been really smelly."

"Attack of the Giant Pythons"

photos: top, national park service; above left, Stephen Voss

To do (for free) in NYC today: massive red and white quilt show, may induce "Amish heart attack"

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:49 AM PDT

Boing Boing reader cinemajay says,

My wife and I just returned from NYC where we saw "Infinite Variety," an exhibition of 650 red and white quilts. As the husband of a quilter I'm used to going to craft-related events, but this was absolutely breathtaking in scope and presentation. It was nothing short of magical, and I say that with the seriousness of an Amish heart attack. So if you're in NYC today, (the last day of the exhibit) do yourself a favor and check it out--oh, the event is also totally and completely free.

More about the exhibit in the Financial Times. "Infinite Variety: Three Centuries of Red and White Quilts" takes place at Armory on Park. Image: untitled work from the collection of Joanna S. Rose, photo by Gavin Ashworth.

Kobi Levi's curious sculptural shoes

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:30 AM PDT

Slingshotttt Hoessss
Israeli footwear designer Kobi Levi handmakes delightful shoes-as-sculptures that he photographs and posts to his blog. Kobi Levi Footwear Design

Super glue creator Harry Coover, RIP

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 10:14 AM PDT

Harry Coover, creator of Super Glue, died on Saturday at age 94. Coover stumbled upon the chemical, called cyanoacrylate, in 1942 while developing gun sights for Eastman Kodak. From the Washington Post:
Uperglu "The damn problem was everything was sticking to everything else," he told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette in 2005. "We had a hard time using it in molds."

In 1951, Dr. Coover was testing a heat-resistant polymer for use in aircraft windshields when he remembered his encounter with cyanoacrylate. <

When a colleague permanently bonded the lenses of an expensive optical instrument with a droplet of the liquid, Dr. Coover had an epiphany.

He found that the compound solidified after coming into contact with trace amounts of moisture, creating an extremely strong polymer layer between two surfaces.

"It suddenly struck me that what we had was not a casting material but a super glue," he said in 2005.

"Harry Coover, Super Glue inventor, dies at 94"

Tampons as vodka delivery system

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:54 AM PDT

German police are concerned about an increasing number of teens who are reportedly getting drunk using vodka-soaked tampons as the alcohol delivery system. The practice is known as "slimming," a term that hit the Urban Dictionary way back in 2008. From The Local:
Police in the Baden-Württemburg city of Tuttlingen responded Tuesday to growing online chatter among teenagers that they could become intoxicated using the vodka tampons without having alcohol on their breath.

This is not true, police said, denying that it was an effective way to get drunk. They also warned girls that the alcohol could damage vaginal walls and increase the risk of infection. Boys have reportedly also been using tampons anally.

"Teens warned of risks from 'vodka tampon' use"

Speaking on technology regulation today in Claremont (near LA)

Posted: 29 Mar 2011 09:38 AM PDT

Just a reminder for Southern Californians that I'll be speaking at Claremont McKenna College's Atheneum series tonight at 1845h, and it's free and open to the public. I'll be reprising and expanding on the "Little Bit Pregnant" talk on technology regulation that I gave earlier this month at the University of Toronto iSchool conference.

D*Face exhibit at Corey Helford Gallery in LA

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 09:13 AM PDT

d-face.jpg

British graffiti artist D*Face has a show at Corey Helford Gallery opening in LA this Saturday, April 9, 201, from 7:30-10pm.

D*Face: "Going Nowhere Fast"

$100k appraisal for single page of original art from Frank Miller's Dark Knight comic book

Posted: 30 Mar 2011 01:54 PM PDT

dark-night.jpg

Heritage Auctions estimates that the art for page 10 from issue #3 of Frank Miller and Klaus Janson's The Dark Knight Returns (1986) will fetch at least $100,000 when it goes on the block on May 5.

Prior to the four-issue series of The Dark Knight Returns, Batman had lost his perch among the superhero elite. When Miller's masterpiece debuted it created an almost instant buzz and rejuvenated Batman as DC's most popular character. In the process it also helped revitalize the comics industry as a whole.
UPDATE: Nick Rallo, Dallad Observer Web Editor, says: "Saw your post about the Frank Miller Dark Knight original -- thought I'd pass along our visit to Heritage Auction to get an up-close look at the page. Super exciting for us nerds over here."

Frank Miller and Klaus Janson Batman:The Dark Knight #3 Batman and Robin Iconic Splash Page 10 Original Art (DC, 1986)

Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

CrunchyTech

Blog Archive