The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Denmark bans Marmite
- Tornado weather
- Frontline on Wikileaks
- Google invests $55 million in wind farms in California's Mojave desert
- Cute U900 Rabbit and Bear Ukes
- More Sony customer info plundered
- Comic Book Legal Defense Fund auctions massive Molly Crabapple original
- Grain Wars
- NYT's James Risen served with subpoena in CIA leak case
- How to publish a Hindu newspaper in Pakistan
- Trailer for The Wave
- Left4Dead boomer necklace
- Sarkozy's false-flag E-G8 attracts withering scorn
- Color palette of glorious hues of the golden age of comics
- 50 years of NASA art at National Air and Space Museum in DC, opening May 28
- Cartoon about a polymath cartoonist by Kevin Huizenga
- 11 minutes of Dead Island gameplay
- Can municipalities enforce local Net Neutrality?
- Dumpster Drive: file-sharing application that recycles digital files
- Fun with digitized magazine archives
- Comet coming on October 16
- Falun Gong sues Cisco over complicity in China's "Golden Shield" - allege torture, murder
- Photos from post-atom bomb Hiroshima
- Sleep culture in the West, and elsewhere
- Doctors use copyright agreements to silence patients
- Stanford students answer environmental questions
- Reader-made trailers for Robopocalypse, an upcoming sci-fi thriller novel
- Joplin and Minneapolis: Grassroots tornado-recovery & info-sharing on Facebook
- Scenes from Los Angeles's teacher-librarian witch-hunt
- Laughing gas for ladies in labor
| Posted: 25 May 2011 02:26 AM PDT  Denmark has banned Marmite on the grounds that the spread's Vitamin B fortification puts it into conflict with Danish food safety regs. The Danish Veterinary and Food Administration has allegedly made the importation of Marmite illegal, apparently on the grounds that the yeast extract is fortified with vitamin B, and therefore doesn't meet strict safety guidelines. (It's not the first time Marmite has been banned for health reasons - a few years ago some Welsh schools removed it from breakfast menus because of its salt content.) The possibility of a Marmite war with Denmark seems remote - the half of the UK population who find Marmite disgusting are unlikely to be outraged - but if the ban (which also includes Ovaltine and Horlicks) continues, what Danish produce can Britain boycott in retaliation?This will teach the Danes to ban Marmite! (Image: marmite, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from hodgers's photostream) |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 08:30 PM PDT  This photo of the sky over downtown Kansas City, MO, was taken today at around 1:00 pm Central by Gary Lezak, a local television meteorologist. Meanwhile today, tornadoes plowed through the Oklahoma City area, killing four. (Thankfully, from my perspective, the neighborhood where my Dad lives was spared.) Two more people were killed in the small town of St. John, Kansas. And, while I can't find news confirmation on this yet through Google, I have friends on Facebook saying that Joplin, MO, is in the middle of another tornado warning. Stay safe, everyone. This is getting ridiculous. |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 08:36 PM PDT [Video Link: teaser for Frontline's "Wikisecrets" episode. Watch the full documentary here.] PBS Frontline aired an episode on the Wikileaks saga tonight: "WikiSecrets," produced by Martin Smith. You can watch the video online here, and you can also buy a DVD or download via iTunes. Casual reactions I'm reading from journalists on Twitter who have followed the story closely, and from Wikileaks supporters, are generally negative. Greg Mitchell describes it as a "yawner," but notes an interesting cameo by Adrian Lamo's pet fish: The mountain labored, and in the end, it gave birth to a mouse. Or rather, a goldfish. One of the only bits of new information in the much-ballyhooded PBS Frontline program on WikiLeaks, Assange and Bradley Manning which aired tonight was: The man who fingered Manning, Adrian Lamo, secluded in California, has a large goldfish in his apartment. The other scoop: It was Manning's aunt who made the final update to his Facebook page, announcing his arrest. Come to think of it, maybe that one came out before. But we've still got that goldfish. The rest of the program, from beginning to end, was nothing but re-hash, much of it from news reports going back to last June or a ltitlle later. Wikileaks and Julian Assange published a "behind the scenes" and "unedited" version of the Assange interview portion here. Wikileaks and Assange take the position that the Frontline story "is hostile and misrepresents WikiLeaks' views and tries to build an 'espionage' case against its founder, Julian Assange, and also the young soldier, Bradley Manning." Frontline's redacted reconstruction of accused leaker Bradley Manning's Facebook page is here. Other voices in the piece include Wikileaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg, New York Times executive editor Bill "Twitter Makes You Stupid" Keller, and Bradley Manning's father, Brian. In related news, Adrian Lamo has been summoned to testify in the case against Bradley Manning. Wired News:
Almost one year to the day Army investigators arrested intelligence analyst Bradley Manning on suspicion of leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks, the ex-hacker who turned him in is set to meet with the chief prosecutor on the case for the first time. |
| Google invests $55 million in wind farms in California's Mojave desert Posted: 24 May 2011 07:45 PM PDT  Google announced today that it will invest $55 million in a large Mojave Desert wind energy farm. The LA Times reports that the search giant is partnering with Citibank, "which is also shelling out $55 million to help finance part of the Alta Wind Energy Center, one of the world's largest wind installations," and that the move is seen as a "key step in California's efforts to regain its once enviable title as the world's capital for wind power." When the project is complete, it will be capable of generating 1.5 gigawatts, enough to power 450,000 homes. Google invests $55 million in Mojave Desert wind farm (LA Times) (Image: Wind farm, Tehachapi Pass, CA, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from ticky's photostream) |
| Cute U900 Rabbit and Bear Ukes Posted: 24 May 2011 04:44 PM PDT  [Video Link] Gary Peare says: "Fans of U900 will adore these aNueNue sopranos for sale at Elderly. Complete with custom soft case." They cost $125 each. I really don't need another uke in my house, but I sure am tempted... |
| More Sony customer info plundered Posted: 24 May 2011 04:29 PM PDT Another 2,000 customer records were looted from a Sony-related site, this time from the Canadian branch of the online cellphone store it runs with Ericsson. The third such event in the last few weeks was executed using SQL injection, according to a cracker who has already posted half of the records online. CEO and president Howard Stringer once wisecracked about giving up on trying to figure out how many products Sony and its myriad of divisions, subsidiaries and partnerships sells. I guess they have the same situation with security flaws, too. |
| Comic Book Legal Defense Fund auctions massive Molly Crabapple original Posted: 24 May 2011 03:48 PM PDT  Bob Self of Baby Tattoo books says, "Dr. Sketchy's founder Molly Crabapple asked me to forward this to you in the hopes you will blog about it. The auction is a fundraiser for the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund, and the art is pretty incredible." Molly Crabapple wanted to make a huge statement about her support for Free Speech. With attacks on comics on the rise and border searches increasing, Crabapple saw a need to do her part. So, she created a monstrous masterpiece to benefit CBLDF -- a masterpiece that you can bid on!Bids can be placed online here. |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 02:46 PM PDT |
| NYT's James Risen served with subpoena in CIA leak case Posted: 24 May 2011 02:32 PM PDT New York Times: "Federal prosecutors, with the approval of Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr., are trying to force the author of a book on the C.I.A. to testify at a criminal trial about who leaked information to him about an effort by the agency to sabotage the Iranian nuclear program at the end of the Clinton administration." |
| How to publish a Hindu newspaper in Pakistan Posted: 24 May 2011 01:59 PM PDT 
The guy literally carries around a desktop PC on his shoulders to get the prepped content to the printer; he taught himself how to use the computer over the course of 8-10 years, and learned how to do desktop publishing with tools we'd consider antiquated in the wealthy US. He sells the paper for cheap, because the audience is poor; mostly boot-polishers and farmers. On some nights his family goes hungry because he uses all their resources to put out the paper. An inspiring story. A technical note: TIME's video player annoyingly crops out all the subtitles, play it full screen so you can read them (unless you're a Hindi speaker, in which case you won't need them). |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 02:01 PM PDT The trailer for The Wave reminds me of The Stanford Prison Experiment and Lord of the Flies. On behalf of Sundance Selects, we're pleased to share the first trailer from the teen political drama THE WAVE! From acclaimed German director Dennis Gansel, the film will release theatrically this Friday in New York City. Additionally, the film will be available nationwide on video-on-demand in more than 50 million homes across the country beginning June 8th.The Wave |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 01:38 PM PDT  This little £6 Left4Dead Boomer necklace from Etsy seller DeadlyPretty is awful lovely. LEFT 4 DEAD Special Infected BOOMER Necklace |
| Sarkozy's false-flag E-G8 attracts withering scorn Posted: 24 May 2011 01:35 PM PDT Nicolas Sarkozy's false-flag E-G8 project has blown up in his face. The French leader convened a meeting of "digital thinkers" that was supposed to be a kind of levelheaded discussion of how to "civilize" the Internet -- Sarkozian code for censor, surveil and control. But the very people he hoped to woo spotted his project's hidden agenda straight away. The E-G8 White Paper is sharply critical of the exercise, and a coalition of civil society groups used the occasion to call on world leaders to fight censorship and surveillance and establish Net Neutrality. France attempts to "civilize" the Internet; Internet fights back (Image: François Revol) |
| Color palette of glorious hues of the golden age of comics Posted: 24 May 2011 01:27 PM PDT  Ed Piskor sez, "I located an 'antique' chart of the exact mixtures for the 64 colors which were used in comics and newspaper strips for decades and I created a PSD file to share so that people can use these hues digitally. It's sort of a tool that also will remind guys to practice some restraint when doing their own work. I can't think of a reason anyone would need to use thousands of colors on a page, but a lot of colorists insist on it. Forward this to your illustrator friends." old comics 64 color guide PSD (ZIP file) (Thanks, Ed!) |
| 50 years of NASA art at National Air and Space Museum in DC, opening May 28 Posted: 24 May 2011 01:23 PM PDT  Above, "Sunrise Suit-up," Martin Hoffman, 1988, mixed media: "Television screens in the media area at the Kennedy Space Center. The launch pad can be seen in the distance beyond Banana River. It is one moment of calm before the frenzy of launch activity." This work is on display at the National Air and Space Museum's Mall building from May 28 to Oct. 9, 2011, as part of the "NASA | Art: 50 Years of Exploration" exhibition. |
| Cartoon about a polymath cartoonist by Kevin Huizenga Posted: 24 May 2011 01:13 PM PDT  "The Body of Work," by Kevin Huizenga is a beautiful one-page comic strip about a talented and self-doubting cartoonist. |
| 11 minutes of Dead Island gameplay Posted: 24 May 2011 01:00 PM PDT [Video Link] I didn't watch all of this video about Dead Island, because I don't want to spoil it, but the parts I watched looked good! (Release date is September 30, 2011). |
| Can municipalities enforce local Net Neutrality? Posted: 23 May 2011 10:31 PM PDT Jeff sez, "Instead of waiting for Congress to pass a bill to enforce Net Neutrality, net activists should take a cue from Pittsburgh, whose city council recently passed groundbreaking legislation banning fracking (an environmentally polluting form of natural gas drilling). While fracking and Net Neutrality have little in common, Pittsburgh's ordinance uses powerful legal concepts that may be useful for preserving Internet freedoms. Like Pittsburgh has done with fracking, any community can enact an ordinance that enforces Net Neutrality at the local level, as the Internet Freedom, Broadband Promotion, and Consumer Protection Act of 2011 aspires to do at the federal level. And, they can do so now ... without waiting for Congress. Firstly, the Pittsburgh ordinance enforces the right of communities to democratic self-governance. Second, the ordinance strips corporations of their Constitutional rights if they seek to engage in fracking. The organization that assisted Pittsburgh in drafting the ordinance explains how these ordinances are designed to work:" The ordinance seeks to undo over a hundred years' worth of law in the United States which gives corporations greater rights than the communities in which they do business. Those rights come in two primary forms -- first are corporate constitutional rights and powers (including court-bestowed constitutional rights of persons, or 'personhood' rights), and second, are corporate rights that have been codified by statewide laws, which liberate the corporation from local control in individual issue areas.I admit I'm not entirely convinced by this approach. I've been talking it over in email with Thomas Linzey, counsel for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund in Spokane, Washington. He suggests that the legal principle here expand the rights of natural people, and that this is fundamentally different from a "states' rights" approach that gives rise to, say, segregation. In the case of Net Neutrality, this seems mostly symbolic (since the FCC's jurisdiction is pretty clear), a way of reframing the debate and shifting opinion to make change at levels beyond the local. Why Wait for Congress? Enforce Net Neutrality through Local Law (Thanks, Jeff!) |
| Dumpster Drive: file-sharing application that recycles digital files Posted: 24 May 2011 11:35 AM PDT [Video Link] Justin Blinder says: Dumpster Drive is a file-sharing application that recycles digital files. Using dumpster diving as a model for recirculating unwanted objects, Dumpster Drive allows others to dig through files that you delete on your computer in a passive file-sharing network. Instead of simply erasing data from your computer, the software allows users to extend the lifecycle of their unwanted files and pass them on to others.For more information about the project, and to download the software visit Dumpster Drive |
| Fun with digitized magazine archives Posted: 24 May 2011 11:09 AM PDT 1847 Scientific American wants to tell you about the romantic and tragic story of a lovelorn gazelle's suicide. |
| Posted: 24 May 2011 11:03 AM PDT Mark your calendars. On October 16th, Comet Elenin—or, as it's known to friends, "C/2010 X1"—will make its closest approach to Earth. If you're lucky and well-prepared, you might be able to spot it. NASA has called this comet "wimpy" and says you'll probably need a clear night, a very unobstructed sky, and a good pair of binoculars to catch a glimpse. |
| Falun Gong sues Cisco over complicity in China's "Golden Shield" - allege torture, murder Posted: 23 May 2011 10:02 PM PDT  Members of Falun Gong have sued Cisco for its role in building China's "Golden Shield" (called "PoliceNet" in Cisco marketing literature). Falun Gong members claim that Golden Shield was used to identify members to China's police, who arrested, detained, and tortured and executed them. For me, the case hinges on the extent to which Cisco knew -- or should have known -- how its products were used. China's record with respect to Falun Gong and other dissident groups is well-known. Cisco's vigorous denial of any knowledge of the oppressive use of its technology just don't pass the giggle test. It will be interesting to see what the court case reveals about the ongoing relationship between Cisco and the Chinese security apparat -- if Cisco had on-site techs helping to create and maintain Golden Shield, it will be hard for them to argue that they didn't know what was going on. Here's a old post on Policenet and China from Rebecca McKinnon, the best authority on technology and censorship in China. The lawsuit, which seeks class-action status, alleges that Golden Shield--described in Cisco marketing materials as Policenet--resulted in the arrest of as many as 5,000 Falun Gong members. Cisco "competed aggressively" for the contracts to design the Golden Shield system "with full knowledge that it was to be used for the suppression of the Falun Gong religion," according to the lawsuit.Lawsuit accuses Cisco of aiding Chinese repression (Image: Rebecca McKinnon) |
| Photos from post-atom bomb Hiroshima Posted: 24 May 2011 10:53 AM PDT  After we dropped an atom bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, the U.S. government used the remains of that city as an engineering research project—a place to study what nuclear blasts did to physical structures, and how we could build homes, shops, and schools that would withstand nuclear war better than those in Japan did. The photos taken by the United States Strategic Bombing Survey have survived to this day. Some of them are featured in a photo essay at the New York Times. The one I've posted here is the least disturbing of the lot. Via Brain Picker |
| Sleep culture in the West, and elsewhere Posted: 24 May 2011 10:39 AM PDT  Science journalist Jessa Gamble has a new book coming out that's going to be about the cultural differences that determine how humans perceive time. Awesome! In a post at the Last Word on Nothing blog, Gamble talks about how these differences affect the way we sleep.
Via Ed Yong Image: Sleeping with Bo, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from joi's photostream |
| Doctors use copyright agreements to silence patients Posted: 24 May 2011 11:22 AM PDT Some doctors are requiring patients to hand over copyright in anything they might write about them as a condition of treatment. Meet Dr. Ken Cirka of Philadephia, made an example of today by Ars Technica, who is seemingly under the impression that such agreements can even bind people who haven't signed it. The twist? The copyright clauses are legally implausible—top review site Yelp says it would ignore any take-down requests based upon one— and Ars suggests doctors are being sold a bill of goods by legal boilerplate factory Medical Justice. |
| Stanford students answer environmental questions Posted: 24 May 2011 10:17 AM PDT Some of the environmental questions recently answered by Stanford's student-run SAGE service: Are batteries really a sound environmental decision?; What's the carbon debt of constructing high-speed rail?; and How do you tell the difference between clothes that are actually sustainably produced, and those just marketed that way? (Via Treehugger) |
| Reader-made trailers for Robopocalypse, an upcoming sci-fi thriller novel Posted: 24 May 2011 10:20 AM PDT My favorite of the seven is the one shown above. Reader-made trailers for Robopocalypse, an upcoming sci-fi thriller novel |
| Joplin and Minneapolis: Grassroots tornado-recovery & info-sharing on Facebook Posted: 24 May 2011 09:54 AM PDT  Trying to contact people in tornado-ravaged Joplin, MO, or somewhat-less-ravaged North Minneapolis? Interested in finding out what you can do to help these communities and the people who survived last weekend's storms? Social media can help. Yesterday, I found a Facebook page that's aggregating information and updates on North Minneapolis. It includes info for volunteers and victims, including places where newly homeless can find food and shelter, and how to tell if the contractor who showed up at your house after a storm is trying to scam you. That site linked me to another, Joplin-centric information clearinghouse, also on Facebook. Like the Minneapolis site, it includes information for survivors looking for food, shelter, and services like a mobile laundromat (!), as well as providing a forum where people can ask about the fate of loved ones, and find out where to donate and what's really needed. These sites aren't perfect—for instance, while the Minneapolis community seems to be managed, it looks like anyone can post on the wall of the Joplin site, so there's nobody verifying that all the information posted is correct—but they do provide necessary info in a centralized, constant, and populist way that wouldn't have been possible pre-Internet. Great stuff! Image: North Minneapolis Storm Damage, a Creative Commons Attribution No-Derivative-Works (2.0) image from diversey's photostream |
| Scenes from Los Angeles's teacher-librarian witch-hunt Posted: 23 May 2011 09:42 PM PDT Bfarn sez, "I don't know if you've been following the Los Angeles Unified School District's witch hunt, but they've been trying to lay off their entire staff of librarians. They've been conducting McCarthy-esque trials, forcing teacher-librarians to defend both their personal worth and their district-defined credentials. One brave teacher has been blogging about the experience (as retweeted by Neil Gaiman!) and was singled out by LAUSD lawyers for her efforts. They won, and lost their best teacher in the process." Message Received (Thanks, Bfarn!) (Image: mediafront - cropped, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from info_grrl's photostream) |
| Laughing gas for ladies in labor Posted: 24 May 2011 09:33 AM PDT  Apparently, nitrous oxide—the stuff they give you at the dentist—is a safe anesthetic to use on women who are giving birth. Pretty surprising to this American. I've always generally had the impression that gas was dangerous for pregnant ladies—in fact, I've had dentists who wouldn't let pregnant nurses administer nitrous to me. But the case made in this Slate article by Libby Copeland sounds well-supported by evidence. Even more interesting, none of this is likely to raise eyebrows in Europe, where lots of women have used nitrous during labor for decades. So why isn't this normal in America? From the sounds of things, it's a combination of a difference in mid-century medical culture, and some really bad timing.
Copeland points out that, unlike an epidural, nitrous doesn't so much eliminate pain as make you not really care that pain is happening. That rings true for me. Personally, I credit nitrous with getting me over a paralyzing fear of needles. Back in junior high, I once panicked and tried to run during an MMR booster, and nearly got the needle broken off in my arm. But in college, when I faced my first cavities, my then-dentist suggested nitrous. I still felt the shot. But I didn't feel the terror, and the nitrous made the pain of the shot seem like not such a big deal. Today, when I get a cavity, I don't even use the gas any more. I'm still probably more anxious about shots than the average person, but the gas really helped me break down the mental block I had, so I can actually get the medical treatment I need now. I doubt shots are really a good metaphor for the pain of childbirth, but the pain of childbirth certainly is scary to a lot of women. If you don't think you want an epidural, but do want something to take the edge off, nitrous does sound like it could be a nice third option—somewhere between toughing it out and using effective painkillers that have the unfortunate side-effect of preventing you from walking around or peeing on your own. Women are different, and have different needs. It would be nice if they had more than two ways to deal with labor pain. Image: Nitrogen day, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from recphoto's photostream. This is NOT how doctors administer nitrous to pregnant women. |
The shelf must be graining under the weight of all that wholesome goodness. [Hat tip: 
Internet governance and civil society groups issued a statement charging that the "e-G8 Forum is organized by large Industry with access given only to industry and government actors... Big businesses already have a disproportionately large influence on public policy processes. For governments to sanction a dedicated meeting with top G8 leaders and officials to plan the global agenda for Internet related policies is inappropriate." 
After an hour of testimony and an hour lunch break, I returned to the stand feeling pretty good. I had answered well and was confident that I would continue to do so. That was until my entire personal blog, 90 pages of posts dating back to 2007, was brought out in printed form and submitted to the court. The lawyers had scoured my musings for ammo, and they found some key posts that did, in fact, make me look like a bit of an idiot for a moment or two. Taken so far out of the context of a school, and particularly my school, some of these posts made it seem as if I was full of it when I testified that I am a competent and active teacher. I wrote about days when I didn't feel much like teaching, or days when I didn't feel that I had taught very much. I wrote about the nature of my job in the library and its clerical demands, and how on some days I felt like I did nothing but shelve books. I wrote about allowing students to watch a movie trailer for Twilight. I wrote about having a slow day in the library. I wrote about times when my teaching practice seemed to be eroding slowly because of the cuts in clerical staff, meetings, etc. I wrote about times when kids worked collaboratively as I stood back and observed, therefore not directly 'teaching'. I wrote about feeling frustrated over the struggle to teach certain content. I wrote honestly and emotionally, reflectively, as one does on one's personal blog. | 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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