The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Hacking suspects arrested by FBI
- Winner mask
- Piers Morgan denies involvement in phone hacking
- Shuttle leaves space station for last time
- Politics at its most exalted
- Read the Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and win a Jake von Slatt Somnotrope
- Bigfoot and Wildboy
- Blasting craters in an asteroid. For science!
- SF Bay Area's Pacific Pinball Museum
- Flowers. Candygram.
- Follow heat wave across the US in NOAA animation
- Balancing safety with a child's need for risk-taking
- Soda bottles become electricity-less "light bulbs" for the poor
- FBI raids homes of 3 Anonymous suspects
- Delightfully creepy portraits of ventriloquist dummies
- Sticker: DRILL HERE TO DESTROY HARD DRIVE
- Microscope photography of food
- How to get naked, Victorian style
- NYT: Internet activist accused of data theft
- Protester "hacks" Rupert Murdoch with pie against lies
- TOM THE DANCING BUG: Harry Potter and the Deathly Deficit!
- What is the deal with girls wearing glasses without lenses in Japan?
- Google+ app for iPhone released (Update: it kind of sucks.)
- CNC + Sharpie = fine-art Spirograph
- The day Google's Marissa Mayer "broke the internet"
- Software designer behind "84 chloroform searches" in Casey Anthony trial says data was wrong
- Minecraft 3D printer
- Chihuahua foils robbery
- UK copyright reform needs your parody/copyright tales of woe!
- 3D printing salon in Shoreditch, Aug 10
| Hacking suspects arrested by FBI Posted: 19 Jul 2011 10:59 PM PDT It's the Night of the Long Modem Initialization Strings! The FBI arrested more than a dozen suspects in various Anonymous-related hacking events today. But one report suggests they're plucking some rather low-hanging fruit, such as tween-age LOIC users. |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 10:19 PM PDT [Video Link] It's easy to be a winner. (Via Cynical-C) |
| Piers Morgan denies involvement in phone hacking Posted: 19 Jul 2011 10:36 PM PDT Piers Morgan, the former News of the World editor who replaced Larry King at CNN, denies that he was ever involved in the kind of phone hacking shenanigans that brought the newspaper down. For an MP to use parliamentary privilege and state that I write in my books that I used phone hacking for stories is a complete outrage, because anyone who reads my books knows that I state no such thing.Indeed not! In the book, he merely described how the "hack" works, as a warning for his readers. But there was a time he was more openly proud of his newspapers' invasive reporting tactics: embedded below is the 1990s incarnation of Morgan on satirical British chat show Have I Got News For You, threatening to place one of the show's regulars under surveillance: "You'll be within long lens." (Jump to 4:47) From Wikipedia: Later on, (a second) panelist Clive Anderson (also) confronted Morgan commenting "the last time I was rude to you, you sent photographers to my doorstep the next day", to which Piers Morgan retorted "You won't see them this time."Such a charming fellow. |
| Shuttle leaves space station for last time Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:49 PM PDT  Space shuttle Atlantis, pictured from the International Space Station as it departs the platform for the last time, July 19, 2011. Photo: NASA |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:46 PM PDT Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., said the following about a Republican colleague. Incredulously, the gentleman from Florida, who represents thousands of Medicare beneficiaries, as do I, is supportive of a plan that would increase costs for Medicare beneficiaries ... unbelievable from a member from South FloridaThe Associated Press reports the emailed response from tea party freshman Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. You are the most vile, unprofessional, and despicable member of the US House of Representatives. If you have something to say to me, stop being a coward and say it to my face, otherwise, shut the heck up. Focus on your own congressional district. You have proven repeatedly that you are not a Lady, therefore, shall not be afforded due respect from me!His subject line: "Unprofessional and Inappropriate Sophomoric Behavior from Wasserman-Schultz." Before rising to public office, West was famous as a military commander who had an Iraqi police officer beaten and mock executed during an interrogation [NYT]. Despite admitting that he knew that "the method I used was not right," he escaped with a $5,000 fine and was permitted to retire without facing the ignominy of a court-martial and discharge. Here is an earlier email of his (quoted in the same New York Times story linked above) describing Florida, or, perhaps, something else entirely: In an e-mail message, Colonel West described a recent motorcycle trip through affluent Palm Beach County, with its smells of ''fresh air, green grass, ocean salt air and suntan oils,'' and then back through a depressed, poor strip where the air reeked of ''garbage, smoke and alcohol.'' His choice of chief of staff is on record saying illegal immigrants who commit any crime should be executed, and that when "ballots don't work, bullets will." |
| Read the Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities and win a Jake von Slatt Somnotrope Posted: 19 Jul 2011 04:07 PM PDT  Steampunk maker Jake von Slatt built a "Mooney & Finch Somnotrope" as part of the promotion for The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities (the followup to The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases, a collection of fictitious and whimsical illnesses); writer Charlie Jane Anders wrote a "microfiction" (see below) to accompany it. You can win the von Slatt original by buying a copy of the book. Contributors include Holly Black, Greg Broadmore, Ted Chiang, John Coulthart, Rikki Ducornet, Amal El-Mohtar, Minister Faust, Jeffrey Ford, Lev Grossman, N.K. Jemisin, Caitlin R. Kiernan, China Mieville, Mike Mignola, Michael Moorcock, Alan Moore, Garth Nix, Naomi Novik, James A. Owen, Helen Oyeyemi, J.K. Potter, Cherie Priest, Ekaterina Sedia, Jan Svankmajer, Rachel Swirsky, Carrie Vaughn, Jake von Slatt, Tad Williams, Charles Yu, and many more. Mooney & Finch Somnotrope - These sleep simulators have become rare artifacts--even though they were mass produced in the Mooney & Finch Sheffield facility, each one of them emerged as a unique object due to the pressures of the oneiric centrifuge. However, they were only sold for three months, prior to the first reports of somnambulance addiction and peripatetic insomnia. The idea of experiencing four or five hours of sleep within a mere few minutes held almost unlimited allure for the world's busiest captains of industry and harried matrons. But few were prepared for the intoxication of the Somnotrope's soothing buzz, the sheer pleasure of watching its central piston raise and lower, gently at first and then with increasing vigor, until your mind flooded with dream fragments and impression of having sailed to the nether kingdom and back, all in a few minutes. It only took a few unfortunate deaths for the whole line to be recalled. (Charlie Jane Anders)Lambshead Cabinet: Win Jake von Slatt's Mooney & Finch Somnotrope! (Thanks, Jeff!) |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 10:44 PM PDT The intro to Bigfoot and Wildboy (1976-1979), spun-off from the Krofft Supershow. 'Nuff said. |
| Blasting craters in an asteroid. For science! Posted: 19 Jul 2011 02:49 PM PDT I'm not sure I can do a better job summing up this story than Jeremy Hsu did in his tweet about it: "Let's blow stuff up on an asteroid to make craters for science. Seriously." |
| SF Bay Area's Pacific Pinball Museum Posted: 19 Jul 2011 02:41 PM PDT  The Bay Area's Alameda Island is home to the Pacific Pinball Museum, a decade-old non-profit "dedicated to teaching science, art and history through pinball, and to preserve and promote one of America's great pastimes." The Bay Citizen spoke with founder Michael Schiess. From the Bay Citizen: Disappointed by other museums' pinball offerings, Mr. Schiess started snapping up the machines in 2001, buying 36 all at once. He installed 14 of them in a room that he rented for $400 in Alameda and put out a donation jar. In 2004, Lucky Ju Ju, as the arcade was then called, expanded to become the Pacific Pinball Museum, a nonprofit, and instituted a $15 admission. It now features 90 machines; most are free to play, but a few are for display only."Local Intelligence: Pacific Pinball Museum, Alameda"
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| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 02:34 PM PDT "Next thing I know I hear a splash, and see a white shark breach out of the water from [the] side of the boat hovering, literally, over the crew member who was chumming [throwing food bait] on the port side." — Dorien Schröder, team leader at Oceans Research. A great white shark jumped out of the water, flying-fish style, and landed on her research vessel. The crew kept the shark alive and eventually managed to return it safely to the water. |
| Follow heat wave across the US in NOAA animation Posted: 19 Jul 2011 02:29 PM PDT  Minnesota is currently in the midst of (another) heat wave, with heat indexes pushing above 100 for several days in a row. This is, to say the least, not normal for us. On MPR this afternoon, meteorologist Paul Huttner said this is actually the worst heat wave Minnesota has experienced since people started keeping records*. Or, to quote my friend Jim, "I finally understand what that Nelly song was all about." Wondering what's going to happen in the Midwest over the next couple of days? The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration has put together an animation showing how the current heat wave spread, and where it's going next. Turns out, we can all blame Texas for this.** *I have now installed my window unit air conditioners. You win, weather. I give up. **That's a joke. |
| Balancing safety with a child's need for risk-taking Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:56 PM PDT A new study suggests that playgrounds that focus too much on protecting kids' safety, can inadvertently stunt their emotional and psychological development. It certainly hits some buttons for this nostalgic merry-go-round enthusiast. Of course, as the article at The New York Times points out, there's a line that must be walked between too safe and not safe enough. For example: Jungle gyms are one thing, going back to having concrete pads under the jungle gyms is entirely another. |
| Soda bottles become electricity-less "light bulbs" for the poor Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:48 PM PDT In many of the world's poor neighborhoods, homes are built out of whatever materials people can get their hands on, often without windows or electricity. That means the buildings are awfully dark during the day, reducing quality of life, safety, and productivity. But the situation can be improved with only a used soda bottle, some water, and some bleach. Check out this clever solution, developed by MIT and distributed by the Liter of Light project. Via Grist |
| FBI raids homes of 3 Anonymous suspects Posted: 19 Jul 2011 02:16 PM PDT Kim Zetter at Wired News reports that FBI agents raided three New York homes this morning where suspects believed to be "Anonymous" members live. At least one laptop was seized. Related, Bruce Schneier notes: I just hope we don't get a media flurry about how they were some sort of cyber super criminals. Near as I can tell, they were just garden variety hackers who were lucky and caught a media wave. |
| Delightfully creepy portraits of ventriloquist dummies Posted: 19 Jul 2011 01:38 PM PDT  I will offer this without comment. See the rest of the dummies, who are not in police custody, at the Public School blog. Thanks to the wondrous Leslie Marlow! |
| Sticker: DRILL HERE TO DESTROY HARD DRIVE Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:48 AM PDT  If you're the sort of person who worries about having jackboot thugs breaking down your door and taking your laptop, you might consider this "Media Artist Contingency Plan," which helpfully marks off the spot you should aim your high-speed drill if you need to nuke your hard-drive in a hurry. Of course, full-disk encryption is a little less messy and more reliable (though perhaps also a little less stylish and dramatic). |
| Microscope photography of food Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:40 PM PDT  Caren Alpert takes gorgeous microscope photographs of food. Above, cake sprinkles at 85x magnification. Caren Alpert Fine Art (via Ariel Waldman) |
| How to get naked, Victorian style Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:45 AM PDT Novelist Deeanne Gist presented at the annual Romance Writers of America conference on the intricacies of Victorian underwear, and the futility of ripping bodices (there's more shirts underneath 'em): It took an hour for Ms. Gist to squeeze into a dozen layers that a lady would have worn in the 1860s--stockings, garters, bloomers, chemise, corset, crinoline or hoop skirt, petticoats, a shirtwaist or blouse, skirt, vest and bolero jacket. By the end, workshop attendees were skeptical that seductions ever occurred, with so many sartorial barriers.How to Undress a Victorian Lady in Your Next Historical Romance (via MeFi) |
| NYT: Internet activist accused of data theft Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:02 PM PDT Internet activist Aaron Swartz, formerly of Reddit and Wired Digital, was indicted Tuesday on charges of data theft. The district attorney in Boston claims that he "stole" millions of JSTOR documents while at M.I.T., crimes that could put him in jail for 35 years. Here's Nick Bilton in the New York Times: In a press release, Ms. Ortiz's office said that Mr. Swartz broke into a restricted area of M.I.T. and entered a computer wiring closet. Mr. Swartz apparently then accessed the M.I.T. computer network and stole millions of documents from JSTOR.In a press release, Demand Progress, the political action group founded by Swartz, denies the prosecutor's claims outright: "As best as we can tell, he is being charged with allegedly downloading too many scholarly journal articles from the Web" and compares it to "checking too many books out of the library." JSTOR is an online archive of print journals, containing millions of articles. The prosecutor's language here is unequivocal: that he "broke in" to a "restricted area" to gain access to a "wiring closet" that would enable a mass data theft. The criminal complaint [via Jason Levine and Anil Dash] suggests most of the theft, however, was accomplished using scraper software to download en-masse stuff over the web, from a website he already had access to. "Swartz used the Acer laptop to systematically access and rapidly download an extraordinary volume of articles from JSTOR. He used a software program to automate the downloading process so that a human being would not need to keep typing in the archive requests." The trip to the wiring closet happened after JSTOR finally blocked that technique: On January 4, 2011, Aaron Swartz was observed entering the restricted basement network wiring closet to replace an external hard drive attached to his computer. On January 6, 2011, Swartz returned to the wiring closet to remove his computer equipment. This time he attempted to evade identification at the entrance to the restricted area. As Swartz entered the wiring closet, he held his bicycle helmet like a mask to shield his face, looking through ventilation holes in the helmet. Swartz then removed his computer equipment from the closet, put it in his backpack, and left, again masking his face with the bicycle helmet before peering through a crack in the double doors and cautiously stepping out.Needs a theme tune by Henry Mancini. Note: the NYT originally reported that Swartz was a co-founder of Reddit, referenced here in an earlier headline. I've updated this post to reflect its update: Swartz joined Reddit early but not as a founder. |
| Protester "hacks" Rupert Murdoch with pie against lies Posted: 19 Jul 2011 12:57 PM PDT
As the Rupert Murdoch parliamentary hearing was finishing up today, a protester whacked the media titan in the face with a foam or cream pie. The pie-tosser's nom de foam: Jonnie Marbles. He tweeted what he was going to do immediately before the attack. Right after he did it, Mrs. Rupert Murdoch, Wendi Deng, leaped up and slapped him while cameras and security swarmed. "You are a greedy billionaire," the pie-man is reported to have said. "Oh, outrageous!" an MP said. A ten minute pause commenced. Immediately before the pie hacking incident, Murdoch again and again denied any knowledge of bribery, blackmail or phone hacking at his newspapers. James Kirkup from the Telegraph was there:
What you might not have seen is the full instinctive and furious reaction of Mr Murdoch's wife, Wendi. Having sat through the evidence unsmiling, she moved faster than anyone else. First, she swung a slap at her husband's attacker. She followed up by picking up the plate and trying to strike him with it. And then she moved back to her husband. Sitting on the table before him, she started to clear the foam from his face, sometimes embracing him, holding his bald head in her arms. More video follows. Boing Boing commenter cocomaan is right: "This guy will be arrested, and nothing will happen to Murdoch." James Wolcott at Vanity Fair: "Thanks for nothing, Foamface."
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| TOM THE DANCING BUG: Harry Potter and the Deathly Deficit! Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:17 AM PDT
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| What is the deal with girls wearing glasses without lenses in Japan? Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:29 AM PDT  [image: tokyofashion.com] David of neojaponisme on a booming nerd fashion trend in Japan: Over the last six months, there has been a precipitous increase in the number of young Japanese women wearing giant, thick-rimmed glasses with no lenses. These are somewhere between your garden-variety, Woody Allen ironic hipster glasses and toy spectacles worn by kindergartners in school plays.Well, I approve. Note that the Harajuku girl above is also sporting a set of steampunkish goggles, for maximum cute-age. More on the trend's origins, which may have roots in Taiwan or Korea, on neojaponisme.com. The post includes links to lots more photos of "no frames girls" like this one. (Thanks, Matt Alt!) |
| Google+ app for iPhone released (Update: it kind of sucks.) Posted: 19 Jul 2011 09:33 AM PDT Newly-minted Google+ crackheads who are also iPhone users, rejoice! There is now an app for that. Android users, of course, already had a mobile platform. Update: the app crashes and kind of sucks (just like the Google search app for iPhone, which I find totally unusable). Hopefully they'll update it and it will suck less soon. |
| CNC + Sharpie = fine-art Spirograph Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:46 AM PDT  Matt W. More and aarn teamed up to create these "numerically controlled" posters made by fitting a Sharpie to a 3D CNC machine that then executed spirograpesque patterns. They come signed and numbered, with the Sharpie used to generate them. Numerically Controlled : Poster Series. (via This is Colossal) |
| The day Google's Marissa Mayer "broke the internet" Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:32 AM PDT "It was 8:27 a.m. on a Saturday in 2009. I was in Minneapolis visiting my brother. I woke up late and was racing around my hotel room trying to get ready. There was a knock on the door. I was sure it was my mom, telling me I was late. But it was my friend Jini. 'Yes, you're late to breakfast,' she said calmly. 'But also: Google is down. I think you might want to deal with that first."—Google's Marissa Mayer on the "slash heard 'round the world," in Newsweek. |
| Software designer behind "84 chloroform searches" in Casey Anthony trial says data was wrong Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:20 AM PDT  Turns out there was only one, not 84, searches for "chloroform" on Casey Anthony's computer. The New York Times reports that John Bradley, the man who designed the forensic application used to determine this, figured out there was an error and disclosed this to prosecutors and police right away—but the "84 searches for 'chloroform" line remained a key element of the prosecution, anyway. These new findings were never presented to the jury, and the court record was not corrected. Before you dismiss this as a tedious detail in an over-exploited celebrity trial, remember: this is the U.S. legal system at work, and you or I could be the suspect just as easily, for any number of more mundane crimes. The finding of 84 visits was used repeatedly during the trial to suggest that Ms. Anthony had planned to murder her 2-year-old daughter, Caylee, who was found dead in 2008. Ms. Anthony, who could have faced the death penalty, was acquitted of the killing on July 5.The details of how the cops and prosecutors failed to validate data, and of how Bradley tried to press them to do exactly that, are interesting. They're here in the New York Times piece by Lizette Alvarez. |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:18 AM PDT LaserUnicorn built a 3D printer in Minecraft, and produced this video documentary. The map files are also available. This is pretty clever! 12x12x11 15 color 3D printer I made (youtube.com) (Thanks m4tth3w!) |
| Posted: 19 Jul 2011 08:11 AM PDT |
| UK copyright reform needs your parody/copyright tales of woe! Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:55 AM PDT Peter from the UK Open Rights Group sez, Do you know about parodies that have been stifled because of fear of litigation? Respond in the comments and help change UK copyright law! |
| 3D printing salon in Shoreditch, Aug 10 Posted: 19 Jul 2011 07:36 AM PDT Ben sez, "London-based salon event Future Human continues this month with Micro Manufacturing on August 10, where you can 'discover how 3D printing is starting a new Industrial Revolution'. The cream of the UK's maker community, including Brendan Dawes, Assa Ashuach and Soner Ozenc, will be on a panel debate looking at how 3D printing technology can potentially reinvigorate the manufacturing sector in the UK, and allow ordinary people to make extraordinary things. There are also going to be live demos, primer presentations, and a big-screen live Twitter feed for semi-anonymous digital heckling. Tickets are £10, and it all takes place from 7-9.30pm at The Book Club, Shoreditch, London." |
The Hargreaves Review of IP and Growth, published in May, called for the UK Government to put more 'exceptions' to copyright into law. These would allow people to do more socially or economically useful things with copyrighted material without needing permission. One of those exceptions is for 'parody', which would allow people to satirise copyrighted works. These exceptions are all incredibly important in helping modernise copyright law for the digital age. | 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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