The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- MySpace cost Murdoch at least $1B
- Publishing in the Internet era: connecting audiences and works
- YMCA commemorative table made from 100+ "significant objects"
- Pythons reunite for animated adaptation of Graham Chapman's Liar's Autobiography
- Designer spy-watches that shoot 720p
- Odd innovations from 1960
- Overburdened Finnish army recruit
- Video: Boing Boing Google+ accidental chiptunes dance party
- How to ensure total privacy in Google+
- Smurfette advertising things now
- Lytro's fancy and focus-free camera explained
- Talking about science at Netroots Nation: Fact versus fear
- Thaitanium: Gangsta Rap straight outta Phuket, Thailand
- Biz Stone on Twitter's relationship with US gov: "You don't want it to look like you're in [their] pocket"
- JFK runway closed due to turtles all the way down
- Every Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster ever, in one video
- Brooding, beautiful black-velvet tiki paintings
- Science-based running
- Amazing trains that never were
- Book about the cultural history of shoplifting
- Archipod: prefab garden offices
- What happens when middle-aged ladies swear
- Candy Crystal Skulls
- Strange lights in the sky
- The Smithsonian Institution to get down, get funky
- Amazon: associates program in California to be terminated (Update: Gov. signs tax law)
- Copyright troll's biggest fan commits terminal irony
- Interview with The Lizardman
- Looking for a journalism job? AP's hiring for North Korea bureau
- Audio: Blagojevich trying to sell Obama's senate seat
| MySpace cost Murdoch at least $1B Posted: 29 Jun 2011 10:40 PM PDT Ars Technica's Anders Bylund does some guesstimating about the total losses incurred by Newscorp in their purchase of MySpace, coming up with a figure of at least $1B, including operating losses since the acquisition. Doing the math on News Corp.'s disastrous MySpace years |
| Publishing in the Internet era: connecting audiences and works Posted: 30 Jun 2011 04:27 AM PDT My latest Guardian column, "Publishers and the internet: a changing role?" looks at how today it's possible to "publish" a work without distributing it, without duplicating it, without doing any more than connecting a work with its audience, sometimes without knowledge (or permission) from the work's creators: In a world in which producing a work and getting it in front of an audience member was hard, the mere fact that a book was being offered for sale to you in a reputable venue was, in and of itself, an important piece of publishing process. When a book reached a store's shelf, or a film reached a cinema's screen, or a show made it into the cable distribution system, you knew that it had been deemed valuable enough to invest with substantial resources, not least a series of legal agreements and indemnifications between various parties in the value chain. The fact that you knew about a creative work was a vote in its favour. The fact that it was available to you was a vote in its favour.Publishers and the internet: a changing role? |
| YMCA commemorative table made from 100+ "significant objects" Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:03 PM PDT  The Dressler brothers created this amazing commemorative table for the YMCA of Canada, integrating more than 100 "significant objects" donated by nationwide YMCA associations into its design. I really dote on this kind of assemblage of sentimental stuff -- it makes the whole thing feel like the product of some kind of spell. Compare with the wonderful Six-String Nation. Commemorative Table for YMCA Canada by Brothers Dressler (via CribCandy) |
| Pythons reunite for animated adaptation of Graham Chapman's Liar's Autobiography Posted: 29 Jun 2011 10:55 PM PDT  The surviving members of Monty Python's Flying Circus have reunited to voice an animated adaptation of Graham Chapman's incredibly funny, very weird memoir A Liar's Autobiography. The film will include recordings of Chapman reading from the book as well. Regrettably, the movie will be in 3D, but with luck I'll be able to find a screen where it's showing without the need for dark, greasy, migraine-inducing prosthesis. Monty Python members reunite for Graham Chapman film (via /.) |
| Designer spy-watches that shoot 720p Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:16 PM PDT  These new spy watches from Korean manufacturer ECWOX are capable of recording at 720p, and are waterproof. They'll be available worldwide later this year. |
| Posted: 30 Jun 2011 02:07 AM PDT  The "It's New" section from the Jul, 1960 issue of Mechanix Illustrated featured a particularly and deightfully demented grab-bag of innovations of the day, from a French electric monorail to a gas machine of anesthetizing large mammals. FIRST successful gas machine for anesthetizing large animals is demonstrated on nag by Dr. E. Wynn Jones. U. of Okla.IT'S NEW! (Jul, 1960) |
| Overburdened Finnish army recruit Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:19 PM PDT  Redditor Oskario uploaded this image of himself, armed to the teeth and beyond ("Context: Myself in conscript training in the Finnish Army, 2007"). A top-rated comment from afnj: "You are over encumbered and can not run." Lurker's first post. Armed to ward away the downvotes. (i.imgur.com) (via Super Punch) |
| Video: Boing Boing Google+ accidental chiptunes dance party Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:27 PM PDT Rob, Dean and I from Boing Boing were out with various friends in Google+ video chat ("Hangout") for the first time this evening. A number of Boing Boing readers and random internet people also popped in and out of the hangout. Dannel Jurado from Etsy rocked out to some dance music. David Ulevitch from OpenDNS ran Tor. Everyone was in different cities around the US and other countries. We are all wearing sunglasses to ensure privacy. This whole thing is very serious business. We captured a little video, above. Related: Here's a way to import your entire Facebook graph, if you're so inclined. |
| How to ensure total privacy in Google+ Posted: 29 Jun 2011 10:32 PM PDT  Wear sunglasses at all times while using it. We're all in a [hangout] right now having a transcontinental chiptunes dance party. Come join us until it breaks. We figured out how to upgrade it to 3D. |
| Smurfette advertising things now Posted: 29 Jun 2011 09:13 PM PDT  Oh my God. If you needed final, definitive notice that The Smurfs is going to be horrifying even by the standards of 3D-animated remakes of 1980s cartoons that were not as good as you remembered anyway, here you go! Smurfette is advertising Marc Jacobs-esque fare, neither within the price range of mortals nor haute enough to be ironic or actually cool. Thank you, Harpers Bazaar and Sony! She does look pretty smurfy in Vuitton, though. |
| Lytro's fancy and focus-free camera explained Posted: 29 Jun 2011 08:34 PM PDT  At The Economist, Glenn Fleishman reports on Lytro's first-to-market implementation of computational photography. The result: you can refocus the shot after taking it. a novel approach to photographic imaging is making its way into cameras and smartphones. Computational photography, a subdiscipline of computer graphics, conjures up images rather than simply capturing them. More computer animation than pinhole camera, in other words, though using real light refracted through a lens rather than the virtual sort. The basic premise is to use multiple exposures, and even multiple lenses, to capture information from which photographs may be derived. These data contain a raft of potential pictures which software then converts into what, at first blush, looks like a conventional photo.I still don't quite get the talk about ray tracing. The part that makes sense to me, however, seems to explain it all: the camera has a wide-open aperture and an infinite depth of field on the main optics, but a bubble-wrap like plane of different lenses in front of the sensor, which thereby ends up capturing a fly-eye myriad of differently-focused fragments of the same scene. The software assembles a final composite depending on which of these you later focus on in post. It improves upon established focus stacking techniques because every image is taken simultaneously as a single exposure, at the cost of dividing up the sensor's megapixelage between them. Something like that, anyway. I'm going to play Minecraft. Previously: Lytro promises focus-free shooting |
| Talking about science at Netroots Nation: Fact versus fear Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:45 PM PDT  There were two things I learned watching the Netroots Nation panel on Science Policy in Unexpected Places. First, more science communication is happening, in more ways. Scientists are taking initiative to talk to the public and to journalists, helping to make sense of the flood of information so that people come away educated, instead of overwhelmed. And advocates are finding fun ways to bring basic science—the stuff that isn't fresh news, but sure does help when you need to actually understand the news—to people who have traditionally been overlooked by science education programs. Sports fans, for instance. That's the good stuff. The bad stuff: Turns out, it's frustratingly easy for science to become as polarized as politics, with a mentality that divides the world into the Smart People (who already know everything) and the Idiots (who won't ever know anything). I don't normally go for political conventions. But I did choose to attend this year's Netroots, a gathering of capital-P Progressive bloggers and activists that took place in downtown Minneapolis between June 16 and 19. Josh Rosenau, a science blogger and the programs and policy director at the National Center for Science Education invited me to watch the panel he'd put together, all about how to engage the public on science—especially the sort of science that intertwines with politics. I came away from the experience both charmed and frustrated. I'll start with the charm, because, frankly, that made up the bulk of the experience. You know that special sort of glee you feel when it turns out that the issues you're concerned about are at the top of somebody else's radar, too? There was a lot of that. For example, one of the things I love about writing for BoingBoing is that I'm able to reach the portion of our audience that isn't necessarily prone to picking up science magazines or regularly reading science news websites—the only places my work would otherwise turn up. Sure, there's a lot of overlap between readers of BoingBoing and readers of, say, Discover. But it's not a 100% overlap. Come for the cute cat videos, stay for deconstructions of the concept of "peer review." That's what I always say. But here in the warm embrace of the Internet it's easy to forget how little science news makes its way to the general public. Dedicated science journalists were among the first people laid off at newspapers and TV channels. That's why I like what Dr. Heidi Cullen and Climate Central are trying to do. Most Americans get their news from local television, Cullen said, and they consider local news to be more honest than cable. So Climate Central works with TV meteorologists (often the closest thing to a science reporter or a scientist in an average American's life) to help them find ways to insert quality climate science into nightly newscasts. King Context Another thing I've been thinking a lot about lately is the problem of context. These politically contentious issues—climate change, vaccinations, stem cell research—we tend to talk about them primarily in the context of political tension. They come across as contests to be won, rather than as actual issues of science and average people end up unsure of who to trust. That's probably why Americans understand controversial science less well than they understand the basic stuff. In 2008, 44% of Americans could correctly define DNA, but only 20% could do the same for stem cells. I don't necessarily think the key to solving this problem is more (bigger! harder!) repetition about the facts behind controversial science issues. Instead, I think the solution starts with the basics. If you help people understand why peer review is valuable in a context that doesn't press their political buttons, they're probably more likely to respond well when you call them back to that information later, in a more controversial context. I love what panelist John Abraham and the Climate Science Rapid Response Team are doing—matching scientists with journalists to make sure that science gets its say on controversial topics. But I think that the work of another panelist, Darlene Cavalier, is just as important ... even though it might not seem so at first. Cavalier is the brains behind the Science Cheerleaders, which is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. There are cheerleaders. They are talking about science. And you ought to resist the urge to brush this off as fluff. That's because Cavalier is using the concept as a way to get often-ignored populations excited about the basics of science. At Netroots, she told the audience about taking a team of Science Cheerleaders into a Philadelphia bar during a football game to talk about geometry. When you've got a drunk guy swiping your megaphone to yell about vectors, I actually think you're doing something right. (Plus, it was more than a little awesome to watch her video clip wherein several pro-sports cheerleaders discussed their other careers in medicine, biology, neuroscience, and math.) If you assume cheerleaders are bimbos and bar patrons won't care about math, then you're never going to get those people thinking seriously about the science of climate. A Bad Case of the Stupids Which brings me to what I didn't like. Shawn Otto has done some good things, including promoting Science Debates for political candidates. But the perspective on science education that he presented at Netroots Nation was way off-base. No discussion about how to reach the general public with science should start with a clip from Idiocracy. Otto's message was basically this: Most of America is just stupid and they aren't capable of understanding science in any meaningful way. So we, the enlightened ones, are going to have to push them over to our side on science-based political issues by using fear and a good public shaming. I might have agreed with that a year ago. But that's before I finished researching Before the Lights Go Out, my upcoming book about the future of energy in America. Along the way, I learned some pretty interesting things. First off, Americans have a lot of reasons to care about energy. One person's list of concerns might not match yours, but they might still be interested in the same solutions. The Climate and Energy Project, a Kansas-based non-profit, found this out when they did a series of focus groups. They expected to find a lot of people who thought climate change was a lie. What they didn't expect was that many of those people would be taking action on energy change, anyway. A guy can call environmentalists liars, and still choose to own a Prius and swap out his light bulbs for CFLs. So, maybe, instead of calling him stupid, we should ask him why he did that and try to find some common ground. Politicians may have manipulated climate change into becoming a straw man for partisan slap fights, but that doesn't mean Americans are stupid. You can see this reflected in the polls. Between 2006 and 2010, American concern about climate change fell. But during the same years, American interest in alternative energy and sustainable lifestyle choices remained strong. Today, somewhere on the order of 60% of us believe that climate change is a serious threat supported by evidence. But, depending on the poll and the specific questions being asked, between 70% and 90% of us support things like increasing funding for alternative energy and mass transit, raising fuel efficiency standards for cars, instituting tougher energy efficiency standards on other areas of our lives, and requiring utility companies to get more of their energy from renewable sources. Even a majority of self-described Republicans support alternative energy and energy-change policies that you might suspect they'd be against. My point here is that writing the majority of Americas off as idiots isn't going to solve your political problems, and it doesn't even reflect the political reality that those Americans profess to believe in. The lack of political action on climate change is a big a problem, but we're more likely to get that solved using the ideas of Heidi Cullen, Darlene Cavalier, and John Abraham, than those of Shawn Otto. Image: Earth Egg, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from azrainman's photostream |
| Thaitanium: Gangsta Rap straight outta Phuket, Thailand Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:49 PM PDT "What's Up," by Thaitanium. This is the country that invented Muay Thai boxing, so have no doubt that there are indeed genuine badasses among the citizenry. (thanks, Alex Ringis!) |
| Posted: 29 Jun 2011 05:03 PM PDT Alexis Madrigal at The Atlantic has a snippet of Biz Stone's talk at the Aspen Ideas Festival in which he seems to express some unease about Twitter's cozy relationship with the US State Department. The thing we're facing now is that, you know, the State Department is suddenly really cozy with Twitter because they are like, "Oh wow, we were trying to get this done with AK-47s and you guys got it done with Tweets. Can we be friends?" |
| JFK runway closed due to turtles all the way down Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:13 PM PDT New York's JFK airport had to shut down a runway today because more than 150 diamondback terrapin turtles were hanging out and gettin' it on. |
| Every Ray Harryhausen stop-motion monster ever, in one video Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:08 PM PDT [Video Link]. As Mark explained in a prior BB post, "Ray Harryhausen is a stop-motion-animation wizard who is widely regarded as the master of old-school special effects." (via Aaron-Stewart Ahn) |
| Brooding, beautiful black-velvet tiki paintings Posted: 28 Jun 2011 09:52 PM PDT  Jfrancis sez, "If you've written off black velvet paintings, give these a look. The artist's handling of light and mood is excellent." The artist in question is Robb Hamel, and I fully concur. This is the sort of thing that makes me regret not having more wall-space. BLACK V E L V E T A R T T H A T E M B R A C E S T H E D A R K S I D E O F T I K I (Thanks, Jfrancis!) |
| Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:34 PM PDT Ooooh. Dave Munger, the co-founder of ResearchBlogging.org, has a new blog—Science-Based Running. Coverage includes topics like the connection between marathoning and heart disease, and the evidence (or lack thereof) behind ideas like carbo-loading. |
| Amazing trains that never were Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:28 PM PDT  In honor of Japan's decision to build a $100 billion maglev train from Tokyo to Osaka, the Infrastructurist blog has put together a list of ambitious train projects that were never completed. Or, in some cases, never even begun. It's not meant as a knock against the Japanese maglev, which will (in approximately 34 years) carry passengers 320 miles in a mere 67 minutes. Instead, this is more about the way imagining what could be reminds us of what might have been. Some of the things on the list are relatively practical—like Germany's "Rail Zeppelin." Other projects are a little more, shall we say, fanciful. Like the image above, which depicts a proposed network of rail lines leading directly to St. Paul, Minnesota, from such exotic locals as London and, um, the North Pole. |
| Book about the cultural history of shoplifting Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:08 PM PDT Here's an interesting book: The Steal: A Cultural History of Shoplifting. Apparently, the author's previous book was about the history of striptease. Next up: Gluttony? (Via Graham Farmelo) |
| Archipod: prefab garden offices Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:18 PM PDT  I once had a job where the company, which was based in a house, built me an office in a prefab shed in the backyard. I liked it a lot, but it didn't have the pop futuristic appeal of an Archipod! But it wasn't $34,000 either. 'The Pod' is an insulated sphere of approx. 3m in diameter.Archipod (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!) |
| What happens when middle-aged ladies swear Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:03 PM PDT  A couple of years ago, some researchers at Keele University in England published a study purporting to show that swearing relieved pain. It was a small study (just 67 participants) and the explanation—that swearing perhaps triggers a fight-or-flight response from the amygdala that suppresses awareness of pain—is completely speculative. But even if that study is right, some new research may have uncovered a flaw in the "Swear and Feel Better" plan. Swearing may deaden physical pain, but it could also deter other people from offering you emotional support. At the very least, swearing in front of other people is associated with feeling like they aren't offering you as much emotional support.
Of course, there could also be some socio/cultural factors at work here, too. All the participants in this study were middle-aged women. Would middle-aged men—or, for that matter, women of a younger, more-swearing-prone generation—feel the same way? There's a possibility that this study could have more to say about what middle-aged women expect from themselves, or who other people expect them to be. Image: F bomb, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from richardsummers's photostream |
| Posted: 28 Jun 2011 09:56 PM PDT  From Cryptocurium, the confectioner who brought you Chocothulhu and the Lovecraft Lollipops, comes these Candy Crystal Skulls: "Each skull measures 3 1/2 inches long by 2 1/2 inches tall (about the size of a baseball) and is made of solid hard candy. Each has also been mystery flavored with six different flavor possibilities.The skull pictured has been dyed an ethereal green however custom color requests are welcome as always." CANDY CRYSTAL SKULLS (Thanks, Jason!) |
| Posted: 29 Jun 2011 12:40 PM PDT This amazing video was shot at an astronomical observatory in Hawaii. It's real, according to Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait. In fact, there's another camera that captures the same phenomenon from a different angle. So the question becomes, "What the hell is that?" Plait details a possible explanation, worked out by members of the Astronomy Picture of the Day forum.
In his original post, Plait also explains why he thinks this is the true explanation, and why several alternate ideas don't hold up. |
| The Smithsonian Institution to get down, get funky Posted: 29 Jun 2011 12:25 PM PDT The Smithsonian has acquired Soul Train. And there's a party tomorrow night to celebrate. (Via Dr. Hypercube) |
| Amazon: associates program in California to be terminated (Update: Gov. signs tax law) Posted: 29 Jun 2011 04:22 PM PDT Amazon announced today that its Associates program is to be terminated in California, in response to a new sales tax bill there. The move appears to be pre-emptive hardball to try and avert the bill being signed into law. UPDATE: Gov. Jerry Brown has signed the law. Here's the text of an open letter mailed to associates: Hello, For well over a decade, the Amazon Associates Program has worked with thousands of California residents. Unfortunately, a potential new law that may be signed by Governor Brown compels us to terminate this program for California-based participants. It specifically imposes the collection of taxes from consumers on sales by online retailers - including but not limited to those referred by California-based marketing affiliates like you - even if those retailers have no physical presence in the state. We oppose this bill because it is unconstitutional and counterproductive. It is supported by big-box retailers, most of which are based outside California, that seek to harm the affiliate advertising programs of their competitors. Similar legislation in other states has led to job and income losses, and little, if any, new tax revenue. We deeply regret that we must take this action. As a result, we will terminate contracts with all California residents that are participants in the Amazon Associates Program as of the date (if any) that the California law becomes effective. We will send a follow-up notice to you confirming the termination date if the California law is enacted. In the event that the California law does not become effective before September 30, 2011, we withdraw this notice. As of the termination date, California residents will no longer receive advertising fees for sales referred to Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. Please be assured that all qualifying advertising fees earned on or before the termination date will be processed and paid in full in accordance with the regular payment schedule. You are receiving this email because our records indicate that you are a resident of California. If you are not currently a resident of California, or if you are relocating to another state in the near future, you can manage the details of your Associates account here. And if you relocate to another state in the near future please contact us for reinstatement into the Amazon Associates Program. To avoid confusion, we would like to clarify that this development will only impact our ability to offer the Associates Program to California residents and will not affect their ability to purchase from Amazon.com, Endless.com, MYHABIT.COM or SmallParts.com. We have enjoyed working with you and other California-based participants in the Amazon Associates Program and, if this situation is rectified, would very much welcome the opportunity to re-open our Associates Program to California residents. We are also working on alternative ways to help California residents monetize their websites and we will be sure to contact you when these become available. Regards, The Amazon Associates TeamThe move follows similar shutdowns in other states, most recently Arkansas and Connecticut, where similar laws have been enacted. A similar bill is under consideration in Tennessee. California, however, is by far the largest U.S. state and represents an enormous revenue source for Amazon and associates. Headquartered in Seattle, Wa., Amazon says it should not have to collect sales tax in states where it has no physical presence. States want a cut of sales with a local connection, however, and Amazon's associates system blurs the location of economic activity in a way that looks mighty fat to the taxman. Who is making the sale? Where does the sale occur? And so on. Amazon chief Jeff Bezos has called for federal legislation that determines the issue once and for all. |
| Copyright troll's biggest fan commits terminal irony Posted: 29 Jun 2011 01:33 PM PDT  Sherman Frederick is a great fan of Righthaven, the copyright troll spun out of the Las Vegas Review Journal where Frederick was CEO. Righthaven isn't faring well in the courts these days, and Frederick is lashing out at critics of his cherished conceit of making a fortune suing bloggers for quoting small snippets of text. Here's where it gets good. His extended ad hominem in the Review Journal makes extensive use of poorly cited quotations from GametimeIP, a blog that -- in Frederick's view -- supports his position. These sorts of quotations are precisely the sort of quoting that Righthaven is suing over, with one important difference. Righthaven doesn't actually have the right to sue over quotations from the Review Journal, because, as judges have ruled, the agreement that assigns "just enough copyright" to sue people is ridiculous and has no basis in law or reality. On the otherhand, GametimeIP's author Patrick Anderson does, in fact, hold those rights, and he's putting them up for sale. Presumably, anyone who buys them could then sue Frederick on the same grounds that Righthaven used. And if Frederick won the case, it would establish that the sort of quoting Righthaven decries is fair use. If Frederick loses, well, he loses -- DMCA damages run to $150K per act of infringement. Frederick also believes that linking without permission is illegal. In the event that he wants to link to this post, he should be aware of our linking policy. |
| Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:50 AM PDT  Happy mutant Erik "Lizardman" Sprague, who I'm proud to say is an active member of the BB community, was immortalized in a wax figure unveiled last weekend at Ripley's Believe It or Not! Times Square Odditorium. I was delighted to see a new video interview with Erik on Huffpost Weird News. Bummer that HuffPo won't provide an embed link, but you can go here to see it: "Erik "The Lizard Man" Sprague at HuffPost Weird News"
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| Looking for a journalism job? AP's hiring for North Korea bureau Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:34 AM PDT Who says good jobs in the news biz are hard to find? A post in Pyongyang sounds like a rip-roarin' good time. |
| Audio: Blagojevich trying to sell Obama's senate seat Posted: 29 Jun 2011 11:26 AM PDT Blago Audio: Barack Obama's senate seat is "a valuable thing - you don't just give it away for nothing." |
So all things considered, MySpace has cost Murdoch's empire something like $1.3 billion. Even if my assumptions are way off, the final cost can't be less than $1 billion. That fiasco isn't putting Murdoch out of business: News Corp turned a $2.9 billion dollar profit in the last four quarters and generated $2.2 billion in free cash flow, for example. But it still stings as Murdoch's dreams of an end-to-end interactive media empire falls apart. And his shareholders have been trailing the broader market as well as rivals Viacom and Disney over those five painful years. 
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