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- Swept-wing Dodge with an observation lounge, 1957
- Police suspect deletion of email at News of the World
- Friday Freak-Out: Ready, Steady, Go psych/mod parody from "Bedazzled" film (1967)
- Papercraft The Internet from The IT Crowd
- O.A.R. and bowling ball shots
- Fanfic considered wonderful
- Man steals Picasso drawing this week, and other art thefts from history
- USA Today masturbatory infographic
- "I Love Science" lady really did love science
- Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program"
- My friend the space shuttle
- Apple's MobileMe email secretly blocks some outgoing messages based on content
- If Pee-Wee Herman's TV show were rebooted today
- The pixel 'n' vector art camera collection
- Dog DNA nails irresponsible owners
- Lovely Russian trilobites
- Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-135 crew, loading up for liftoff (photo)
- The mysterious protractors of Pittsburgh
- Entertainment/telcom cartel rewrites America's copyright laws, will begin sending threatening letters to guilty-until-proven innocent copyright "scofflaws"
- TSA agent stole $50,000 of fliers' stuff
- The Wubwub side of the force
- Sony kills MiniDisc Walkman
- Rapper claims planking is racist
- Cellular connection map of the U.S.
- Make 3D prints from Minecraft
- Canada's Net Neutrality failure: ISPs are dirty, but regulators refuse to investigate
- A fabulous history blog
- Why makers should learn Chinese
- European E. coli: Why more outbreaks could happen
| Swept-wing Dodge with an observation lounge, 1957 Posted: 08 Jul 2011 02:33 AM PDT  Who can resist a pitch for a "swept-wing" car with an "observation lounge?" Love the kid playing Machine Gun Kelly in the back seat. Now! Swept-Wing Wagons with the OBSERVATION LOUNGE! (Feb, 1957) |
| Police suspect deletion of email at News of the World Posted: 08 Jul 2011 01:48 PM PDT Whatever else they were up to, we'll probably never know: police believe Murdoch executives have destroyed 'massive quantities' of evidence. [Guardian] |
| Friday Freak-Out: Ready, Steady, Go psych/mod parody from "Bedazzled" film (1967) Posted: 08 Jul 2011 12:32 PM PDT Friday Freak-Out: Parody of TV show Ready, Steady, Go! from the 1967 film Bedazzled, starring Peter Cook and Dudley Moore. (Thanks, GuyInMilwaukee!)
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| Papercraft The Internet from The IT Crowd Posted: 08 Jul 2011 12:17 PM PDT  Blakewest found this papercraft version of The Internet, as seen in The IT Crowd, noting, "If you don't have the time or skills to make an actual electronic version of The Internet, here's a nice paper version that you can build and give to your tech-challenged co-worker for her speaking engagement." IT Crowd - The Internet Papercraft (Thanks, Blakewest!) |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 12:09 PM PDT "I'm not saying don't drink. Just don't do 13 shots out of a bowling ball," says O.A.R. manager Dave Roberge, about crowd control issues at the band's concerts. "The guy peeing where he's standing? That's a problem." "The Taming of the Fans" (WSJ, thanks Jess Hemerly!) |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2011 11:00 PM PDT Time's Lev Grossman feature about fan-fiction breaks with the long tradition of portraying fanfic as weird porn written by creepy adults who live with their parents, and instead discusses the good and the bad, and the long tradition (all the way back to Homer) of readers retelling and continuing the stories they love. He also debunks the stupid myth that writers who don't send legal threats over fanfic will lose their copyrights, something oft-repeated by the likes of Orson Scott Card, who should really know better. Grossman does a brilliant job of capturing the fun, improvisational nature of playing with stories and characters that others have created, and especially of doing so together with other fans, building alternate canons and tearing them down again. As an aside, could Time's randomly inserted links to earlier stories be any more intrusive and less appropriate? The Boy Who Lived Forever (via Making Light) (Image: portal_dalek.png, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from uriel1998's photostream) |
| Man steals Picasso drawing this week, and other art thefts from history Posted: 08 Jul 2011 11:46 AM PDT On Wednesday, San Francisco police arrested a 31-year-old man who allegedly snatched a Picasso sketch, valued at $275,000, from a ritzy downtown art gallery. Pegged on that news, the excellent Bay Citizen presents a gallery of famous art crimes and the masterminds behind them. From the Bay Citizen: "Inspired by the Picasso Art Heist: Gallery of Famous Art Crimes"
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| USA Today masturbatory infographic Posted: 08 Jul 2011 11:16 AM PDT  This excellent info-graphic appeared in last Friday's USA Today. Vann Hall, who forwarded it to me, had the perfect caption: "Sun stroke?" |
| "I Love Science" lady really did love science Posted: 08 Jul 2011 11:08 AM PDT  Earlier this week I posted a modified version of this photo, captioned to say "I Fucking Love Science!" by a poster at I Can Has Cheezburger. Now, thanks to the Life magazine archives, I can tell you a little about what's really going on in that shot. The photo was taken by Wallace Kirkland in 1954. The original caption that went with the photo read:
I've never heard anything about prenatal gender screening happening this way. And a quick search didn't turn up much, either. Do any of you know anything about this test? What was it looking for? How accurate was it? Thanks to Benedict and Brian Cosgrove at Life.com! |
| Half of US social program recipients believe they "have not used a government social program" Posted: 08 Jul 2011 11:30 AM PDT  "Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era," a paper by Cornell's Clinton Rossiter Professor of American Institutions Suzanne Mettler features this remarkable chart showing that about half of American social program beneficiaries believe that they "have not used a government social program." It's the "Keep your government hands off my Medicare" phenomena writ large: a society of people who subsist on mutual aid and redistributive policies who've been conned (and conned themselves) into thinking that they are rugged individualists and that everyone else is a parasite. Reconstituting the Submerged State: The Challenges of Social Policy Reform in the Obama Era (PDF) (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 10:48 AM PDT I liked this nice video essay by science comedian Brian Malow, who reminisces about the life-long relationships that even those of use who've never gone to space have managed to form with the space shuttle. Bonus: You also get to watch him (successfully) propose to his girlfriend at the Discovery retirement launch back in February. It's touching, sweet, and (I think) speaks to the emotional resonance today's final flight has with a lot of average Americans. |
| Apple's MobileMe email secretly blocks some outgoing messages based on content Posted: 08 Jul 2011 02:44 PM PDT Writing on the Cult of Mac, John Brownlee reports that Apple applies silent, unpublished content-filters to outgoing MobileMe Email messages, sometimes deleting the messages you send without notifying you This doesn't appear to be in Apple's published terms of using the service, and while an Apple spokesperson has confirmed that this goes on, she disclaims that it is political in nature. The comments on Brownlee's post are a study in cognitive dissonance from Apple fans, with responses ranging from, "I don't send politically charged messages so it doesn't matter," to "It didn't happen when I tried it, so it's not true," to "All spam filters work this way" (they don't), and so on. According to Ken Rosenblum, who originally noticed the problem, Apple's filtering of outgoing MobileMe messages counts as censorship.Apple May Be Invisibly Filtering Your Outgoing MobileMe Email [Updated With Apple's Response] (via Super Punch) |
| If Pee-Wee Herman's TV show were rebooted today Posted: 07 Jul 2011 10:14 PM PDT AndyTDesigns created this credit sequence for a notional reboot of Pee-Wee Herman's TV show, which was a glorious bit of chaos cut off in its prime. His idea for a reboot is really fun: Tv show intro for a show I'd like to see. I think it would be great to see a Pee Wee show based more on Pee Wee's Big Adventure, and more episodic in nature, with P.W. solving mysteries, finding missing things, and having adventures, but along the way his playhouse friends help him as well. Credits/ Danny Elfman for the song "Andy Chase" and Paul Reubens/ Pee Wee for characters. I am in no way profiting from this , it was made simply with affection for the characters and a way to keep me busy in between animation gigs .Pee Wee's New Adventures (Thanks, Andrew128Tou!) |
| The pixel 'n' vector art camera collection Posted: 08 Jul 2011 08:38 AM PDT  Billy Brown made this amazing set of low-fi illustrations of cameras. "The camera illustrations are under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License. This means you can do absolutely anything with them but you gotta give me (Billy Brown) credit somewhere. I used Adobe Illustrator to make the graphics, Isotope for the layout of the images above and web-fonts Gnoulane and Otari throughout this website. Yay for free things." |
| Dog DNA nails irresponsible owners Posted: 08 Jul 2011 08:31 AM PDT  An apartment complex manager began sending dogshit to a DNA testing lab to identify the chef and, by deduction, its owners. It's a simple mechanism: whatever the cost is, make the fine higher. From Reuters' Zach Howard: Dog-friendly Twin Ponds, located near the border with Massachusetts, is BioPet's largest client using PooPrints to solve the mystery of who left the offending mound. Using doggie DNA to solve the smelly who did it is becoming increasingly popular in apartment complexes nationwide from Jupiter, Florida to Rockville Center, New York, where violators are fine up to $1,000 per steaming pile.The service used is called PooPrints. You may open a franchise. |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2011 10:11 PM PDT  Fossil museum's "Russian Trilobites Image Gallery" is full of absolutely wonderful, bizarre specimens. I gave my wife a trilobite on our first date, and I've always had a soft spot for the little weirdos. |
| Space Shuttle Atlantis STS-135 crew, loading up for liftoff (photo) Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:58 AM PDT  The crew of the 135th and final Space Shuttle Mission, Atlantis, getting ready to load up and suit up for launch at Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Pictured from left to right are NASA astronauts Rex Walheim and Sandy Magnus, both mission specialists; Doug Hurley, pilot; and Chris Ferguson, commander.
Shot by Mark Usciak for WWMMB Radio based in Melbourne, Florida. I'm here with Miles O'Brien, astronaut Leroy Chiao, and the Space Flight Now webcast crew (watch here!), and all systems look go for an 11:26am launch at the time of this blog post. The clouds are clearing, the sun is out, and we are all optimistic that we will witness the final space shuttle leave earth within the hour. Godspeed, Atlantis!
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| The mysterious protractors of Pittsburgh Posted: 08 Jul 2011 08:00 AM PDT  Photo: Mark Bossanovaif you're interested in the protractors, do yourself a favor: Go look for them. In the process, you'll discover that we live in a special city, full of back alleys and secret passageways, theatrical vistas and hidden nooks, and anonymous people making beautiful things for everyone to enjoy -- treasures that can only be enjoyed on foot (or on bike).There's plenty more discussion threads on the 'net, for sleuths and curious locals to enjoy: Vannevar Bush wonders at the culprit; there's a lengthy discussion with photos at Bike Pittsburgh; and this Livejournal thread appears to be one of the earliest public WTFs. Here's a CBS story. |
| Posted: 07 Jul 2011 10:28 PM PDT A coalition of US entertainment and telcoms giant have announced a unified, nightmarish copyright enforcement regime that involves sending a series of threatening letters to people whose network connections are allegedly used to infringe copyright. These letters will include non-negotiable demands to close off your WiFi router (essentially, the entertainment cartel is writing a private law making it illegal to share your network connection here). They will also require you to reply to some letters or lose your network connection (meaning that people who miss a letter could lose their access). They direct users to a one-sided, ideologically charged copyright re-education site. Users who believe they are falsely accused must pay a fee to have their case adjudicated. And though this coalition claims that this plan won't lead to disconnection of Internet users who fail to abide by the giant companies' demands, their press materials include an extremely speculative, nontraditional interpretation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that implies that they believe ISPs must disconnect users who are accused of infringement. Next, what opportunities does a user have to respond? The materials state that users can, for $35, request an "independent review" on several grounds before a "mitigation measure" is put in place. (It's unclear whether users have a vehicle to flag errors in response to earlier alerts in hopes of averting later ones.) The grounds for review include a basis to believe that the user was not engaging in infringement, that the account was incorrectly identified, or that "the alleged activity was the result of the unauthorized use of the Subscriber's account of which the Subscriber was unaware and that the Subscriber could not have reasonably prevented." (My emphasis.) Notably, the review process specifically states that failure to secure a wireless router will only be accepted once as a defense, a provision with serious consequences for small businesses such as cafes that provide wireless access to customers and individuals with open wifi. Also notable is the fact that users who wish to raise some defenses including fair use must be willing to have their personal information sent to the content owner who provided the underlying report of infringement.The Content Industry and ISPs Announce a "Common Framework for Copyright Alerts": What Does it Mean for Users? |
| TSA agent stole $50,000 of fliers' stuff Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:30 AM PDT The Broward County Sheriff's office arrested TSA agent Nelson Santiago and charged him with stealing some $50,000 worth of consumer electronics. He was caught stuffing an iPad down his pants by a Continental Airlines employee, and the subsequent investigation revealed the rest of his haul. Something to think about: if bent TSA agents can take stuff out without being detected, perhaps they can put stuff in. [New Times] |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:23 AM PDT |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:19 AM PDT In September, Sony is to retire the MiniDisc Walkman, something I thought was retired a good decade ago. [Nikkei] |
| Rapper claims planking is racist Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:15 AM PDT Gawker's Adrian Chen covers the new 'controversy' over planking, the cartoon-mimicking "lying-down game" out of Britain and Australia: rapper Xzibit insists that it is mocking slaves who were transported from Africa to America in superficially similar fashion. Adds Chen: "If smearing planking as racist is what finally makes it stop, we're not going to complain." |
| Cellular connection map of the U.S. Posted: 08 Jul 2011 07:06 AM PDT An MIT map of AT&T cellphone calls [via Gizmodo] reveals something about the interconnectedness of U.S. regions. This constant flux of people commuting, migrating, and travelling across the country establishes connections which are dominated by large cities. The social connections woven across the United States can be used to define communities, where the glue that holds a community together is a stronger relationship with other members of the same community compared to members of other communities.The team created a similar map some times ago for the U.K.:  |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 06:56 AM PDT |
| Canada's Net Neutrality failure: ISPs are dirty, but regulators refuse to investigate Posted: 08 Jul 2011 06:54 AM PDT Michael Geist sez, "An investigation into the enforcement of Canada's net neutrality rules reveals that virtually all major Canadian ISPs have been the target of complaints, but there have been few, if any, consequences arising from the complaints process. I obtained internal CRTC documents on all net neutrality complaints and found that Rogers was the top target, primarily for throttling access to World of Warcraft. Other notable cases include Bell throttling access to hotfile.com and Barrett Xplore, a satellite Internet provider, rendering VoIP unusable. Despite the revelations, there have no fines, no audits, and the CRTC has even refused to investigate some cases that appear to raise obvious net neutrality concerns." |
| Posted: 08 Jul 2011 06:49 AM PDT If I had the time, I could probably spend the bulk of the next two days just trawling around the blog Wonders and Marvels. Curated by Vanderbilt professor Holly Tucker, the site features excerpts and tidbits from a wide variety of historical scholars. This morning, I read about the discovery of Pompeii's human remains, midwifery in colonial America, and the myth of Joseph Kennedy, bootlegger. |
| Why makers should learn Chinese Posted: 07 Jul 2011 10:19 PM PDT Phil Torrone's written a call-to-arms for geeks and makers to learn to speak and read Chinese. I'm not sure I'm confident in his premise that the Chinese economic revolution will continue to produce strong returns and thus increase Chinese economic and technical dominance to the point where this is a must-have for anyone who cares about technology, but you don't have to accept this to believe that knowing Chinese is an enormous asset to anyone trying to make sense of the world (and especially the world of manufacturing and technology) today. Phil's written up a bunch of tips for approaching Chinese language instruction, which is an admittedly daunting prospect for a lot of westerners, with its trifecta of unfamiliar tones, non-Roman script, and absence of Latinate/Germanic cognates. Why Every Maker Should Learn Chinese |
| European E. coli: Why more outbreaks could happen Posted: 08 Jul 2011 06:31 AM PDT  Quick, I need a German word to describe "A situation that is fascinating from a detached perspective and simultaneously disturbing from a more personal perspective." Anybody? Here's the inspiration: You'll remember that Europe has experienced a major outbreak of Escherichia coli O104:H4, a difficult-to-treat strain of E. coli that has killed 44 people and sickened more than 3,500. Tracking the source of an outbreak like that isn't easy, and you can see that in the way the finger of blame has shifted around from Spanish cucumbers, to tainted German sprouts, back to the cucumbers, then settling back on the sprouts. Except, here's where things get fascinating (and disturbing). Sprouts do seem to be the culprit, but not in the way you'd expect—i.e., one farm growing E. coli ridden sprouts. All the confusion surrounding the source of this outbreak seems to stem from the fact that the outbreak can be traced to seeds grown in many different places. My favorite Scary Disease Girl, Maryn McKenna, explains:
If you read McKenna's story, you'll find that those fenugreek seeds have, by now, been sold and re-sold—their shipping lots numbered and re-numbered—in countries all over Europe. Recalling them all is pretty much impossible. And, assuming the seeds really are the culprit, that means another outbreak could pop up anywhere. In fact, McKenna says the only thing anybody can really do about the seeds is wait for them to expire, which is when they'll probably be taken off of store shelves—which won't happen for another three years. Fenugreek seeds, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from fotoosvanrobin's photostream |
Fan-fiction writers aren't guys who live in their parents' basements. They aren't even all guys. If anything, anecdotal evidence suggests that most fan fiction is written by women. (They're also not all writers. They draw and paint and make videos and stage musicals. Darren Criss, currently a regular on Glee, made his mark in the fan production A Very Potter Musical, which is findable, and quite watchable, on YouTube.) It's also an intensely social, communal activity. Like punk rock, fan fiction is inherently inclusive, and people spend as much time hanging out talking to one another about it as they do reading and writing it. "I've been in fandom since early 2005, when I was getting ready to turn 12," says Kelli Joyce. "For me, starting so young, fanfic became my English teacher, my sex-ed class, my favorite hobby and the source of some of my dearest friends. It also provided me with a crash course in social justice and how to respect and celebrate diversity, both of characters and fic writers." 
In 1911 Vincenzo Peruggia worked at Paris' famed Louvre museum, where he stole a little painting you might have heard of--the Mona Lisa. Peruggia hid overnight in the museum only to emerge in the morning when the museum was closed. Much like the suspected Picasso thief, Peruggia simply walked up to the painting, took it off the wall, stuffed it under his clothes, and exited the building. 
Fast forward almost a decade, and I'm living in NYC and talking, reading, or emailing with someone in China. If you make anything, eventually you'll find that there isn't a supply chain that beats what China has; while a lot of people will claim goods are made in China only because of lower costs, that's not 100% true. The supply chain of components to assembly are almost impossible to find elsewhere. If you look at once-booming industrial cities in the USA, you'll see a lot of the work, from parts to assembly, happened in big chunks of locations -- this is efficient and allows manufacturing to flourish... | 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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