The Latest from Boing Boing

---

• Unmakers: Wikified Makers in hypertext form
• Ossuary Dice: 3D-printed polyhedral dice worked with skulls
• Czech Pirate Party launches movie download linksite with motto, “Linking is not a crime”
• Cityscape gouged into a meadow
• The Firefly: amazing new banjo uke
• Meet the Makers from MAKE Volume 27: Hobby Roboticist Gordon McComb
• Casey Anthony rubber mask
• Take the North American Trivia Geography Kick-Off Quiz
• Jordan Crane’s thermoreactive, color-changing kids’ book: Keep Our Secrets
• Wrongulator: a gag calculator that gives the wrong outcome
• US ISP/copyright deal: a one-sided private law for corporations, without public interest
• ShareMeNot: Firefox plugins takes the tracking out of social media buttons
• How getting beaten by cops helped Paul Krassner learn mindfulness
• San Diego Comic-Con roundup, part 2
• Copyright extortionist ripped off his competitor’s threatening material
• Truth stranger than Onion: “USSR wins space race”
• Man with camera in park who fled angry parent sought by police (turns out he was taking pix of his grandson)
• Kettled Youth: history of police kettling and protest
• How “Try a Little Tenderness” went from forgettable love-song to soulful classic
• Raw data on global temperatures now available
• Karl Schroeder: Science fiction versus structured study of the future, sf as aspiration
• Humpback whale “says thanks” after being freed from nets
• Worf album covers
• Heat waves and stimulant use
• Smartphone wars: In US, iPhone is top device, while Android is top OS
• Algae beach party
• Pistol hidden in a Zippo case
• Earth’s Trojan asteroid
• Download 1st chapter of book about the spacesuit’s history
• The secret code of the alchemists

Unmakers: Wikified Makers in hypertext form Posted: 29 Jul 2011 04:47 AM PDT Adam created UnMakers using the Creative-Commons-licensed text of my novel Makers. It opens with the final scene, and invites you to navigate the text that led up to it hypertextually, following character-based indexes to the text. He’d like it if you’d annotate and further link the text, which is in a wiki.

Ossuary Dice: 3D-printed polyhedral dice worked with skulls Posted: 29 Jul 2011 04:43 AM PDT More funky 3D-printed RPG dice from Shapeways — this time it’s Aegidian’s “Ossuary Dice” worked with a decorative skull motif. Good companion set for your Thorn Dice. Ossuary Dice Set

Czech Pirate Party launches movie download linksite with motto, “Linking is not a crime” Posted: 29 Jul 2011 04:38 AM PDT The Czech Pirate Party is incensed that a Czech high school student has been sued for &eur;5M for running a website with links to allegedly infringing downloads. The Party has expressed its outrage by launching Tipnafilm.cz, a site full of movie download links whose motto is “linking is not a crime.” "By bullying young people, the Czech Anti-Piracy Union, with the help of the state, is attempting in vain to salvage the old business model which has ceased to function in the age of the Internet," say the Czech Pirate Party… "Yes, we unequivocally declare open war on the Anti-Piracy Union. Bullying ordinary people from their side must stop. The Czech Anti-Piracy Union claimed a huge success when it caught the 'greatest pirate in the country'. But that is absurd, in fact he was just a small fish. For this student we have built and launched a similar site. The difference is that there are ten times more links on our site," Ferjencik told TorrentFreak this morning. We denounce that the police should be run by the propaganda of the Anti-Piracy Union and that it should harass anybody who puts a video on his/her web page or Facebook page," said chairman of the Czech Pirates Ivan Bartoš. "We challenge the Anti-Piracy Union to stop bullying the under-aged and to aim its preposterous claims at the Pirate Party." Pirate Party Launches Movie Download Sites As "Declaration of War"

Cityscape gouged into a meadow Posted: 29 Jul 2011 04:32 AM PDT EVOL, a German artist, excavated a miniature cityscape gouged into an idyllic meadow near Hamburg. Viewers thunder down the mini-scale street-trenches of his X-shaped city block, towering over the rooftops. Usually I prefer to work on site by interfering with already existing structures. As I came there first, that’s what I found: endless meadow, trees and blue sky. Not exactly what I play with usually. So I decided to cut open the idyll, and pretend there is no endless meadow, but only rooftop-gardens of the disgust underneath … 8 exhausting days of hard work (at least for people who usually cut paper only). MS Dockville /Flaum (via This is Colossal)

The Firefly: amazing new banjo uke Posted: 28 Jul 2011 05:20 PM PDT For many years I have wanted to add a banjo ukulele to my collection of musical instruments. But I’ve put it off for two reasons. One, good banjo ukes (aka banjoleles) are quite expensive, and two, they are really heavy. One of the reasons I like ukuleles is that they are portable, or at least supposed to be portable. So when my friend Jim Beloff, co-proprietor of Flea Market Music, sent to me one of the new Firefly banjo ukuleles, I was overjoyed. The Firefly ($179) was designed by Jim’s brother-in-law Dale Webb, who is also the creator of the amazing Flea and the Fluke ukuleles, and it is an example of ingenious elegance. Jim told me Dale was at a music convention last year and saw a hand drum from Remo and a light bulb went off in his head. Dale took a few of the drums home and used them for the body of some banjo ukulele prototypes. The result is this lightweight, bright-sounding banjo ukulele that looks as good as it sounds. It is just beautiful. (See detail photos after the jump.) Jim also sent me a copy of a ukulele songbook that he and his wife Liz recently published called The Daily Ukulele, which has 365 songs in it raging from old-timey tunes to ’60s songs from bands like The Beatles and the Mamas and the Papas. I’ve been going through the songs and playing them on my Firefly. What a terrific book and what a terrific instrument!

Meet the Makers from MAKE Volume 27: Hobby Roboticist Gordon McComb Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:57 PM PDT Gordon McComb, who's been dubbed "the father of hobby robotics," has been building robots since the 1970s, and wrote the best-selling Robot Builders Bonanza . For MAKE Volume 27 Gordon wrote a how-to article called Teleclaw: Remote Robot Gripper, which is controlled with an ordinary TV remote. Tell us a bit about yourself — where you live, what you do for a living, what you are interested in? I come from San Diego, California, best known for its climate, but it's also a great place if you're a robot builder. That's thanks to the US Navy, and all the military surplus it generates. Cheap parts for projects are never far away. When I'm not building, I'm usually busy writing about something. It might be a book — I've done over 60 so far, and new things keeps coming out that I want to write about. I did a 13-year stint as a weekly newspaper columnist, all about computers. I've written all kinds of articles for magazines like Popular Science, and I'm jazzed about doing builder projects, like the Teleclaw, for MAKE. Read the rest at Make: Online

Casey Anthony rubber mask Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:39 PM PDT This deeply odd Casey Anthony Latex Rubber Mask just sold on eBay for one million dollars. We’ll see if the winner of the auction actually pays up though. From eBay: Halloween is only a few months away. Forget Freddy, Jason, Meyers, here’s your chance to scare the *#&% out of everyone and win every costume contest with this amazing Tot Mom latex rubber mask, possibly the most frightening mask on the planet. And I can almost guarantee it’s the ‘only’ Casey mask on the planet. Sculpted to precision for a parody video by enigmatic pop artist / sculptor Torro, only 9 of these film props were made for production and I got my hands on a few after the video wrapped. One of the best Halloween masks I’ve ever seen. This one is in excellent condition and it is numbered 6 of 9. I kept one for myself because I know these will be priceless. A significant piece of crime history. No matter what your opinion of the trial is, this is still one heck of a conversation piece. I bet Nancy Grace would love one of these. Fits most heads sizes comfortably. Let’s never forget poor Caylee. “CASEY ANTHONY LATEX RUBBER MASK EXT. RARE” (eBay) “Latex Casey Anthony mask fetches almost $1 million on eBay” (CNN)

Take the North American Trivia Geography Kick-Off Quiz Posted: 28 Jul 2011 03:26 PM PDT Earlier this month I attended the Trivia Championships of North America (TCONA) in Las Vegas. The event was produced by my old high school friend Paul Bailey. I had a great time at the event, even though I was the worst contestant at the event. (Listen to me blather on about TCONA in Gweek episode 009.) I knew I was in trouble when I sat down for the kickoff quiz on Friday night. It was a written test, and the subject was "North American trivia geography." The 75 or so people who took the quiz were given 50 minutes to answer 100 questions. Each answer was a 2-letter abbreviation for a state, territory, or province in the United States, Mexico, or Canada (eg, CO, NY, YT, NS, TB, DG). We were supplied with a map that showed all the states, territories, and provinces along with their 2 letter abbreviations. My total score was 24 (out of 100). I was sitting at a table of past Jeopardy contestants so my lousy score was even more humiliating compared to the brainy folks surrounding me. The top scorer got 75. And our own happy mutant, Adam Villani, came in 2nd place with a score of 74. Way to go, Adam! Paul Bailey kindly gave me permission to post the quiz here on Boing Boing so that you can take the test (remember to set your timer for 50 minutes). The only problem is, I don’t have the correct answers (UPDATE: Paul posted them!). I’m hoping that the power of the smart mob (or Adam himself) will come up with an answer set. If you have patience, you can check TCONA’s site periodically to see if they have posted the answers. Good luck, and post your score in the comments. TCONA’s North American trivia geography Kick-off Quiz Presented By: Welcome the Zettabyte Era with Cisco    Today we use terms like gigabyte and terabyte when it comes to data. Five years from now, we will enter the era of the zettabyte. Connect with Cisco across the web through various social channels as we guide you through the future of the Internet. socialmedia.cisco.com Ads by Pheedo

Jordan Crane’s thermoreactive, color-changing kids’ book: Keep Our Secrets Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:36 PM PDT The incomparable Jordan Crane shows off his new kids’ book, Keep Our Secrets, which uses thermal inks that change color when your rub them with your fingers, revealing secrets. My goodness, that man is talented. Keep Our Secrets (via Super Punch)

Wrongulator: a gag calculator that gives the wrong outcome Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:31 PM PDT The Wrongulator is a gag calculator that gives incorrect answers to calculations. I’m fascinated by the idea — I wonder if they’ve just got a standard calculator controller in there, and then a secondary system that scrambles the results, or whether it’s a pseudorandom number generator, or what. You’d want it to produce plausible outcomes (5 x 5 = 30; not 5 x 5 = 324527) but who knows if the manufacturer paid attention to this. The Wrongulator is no ordinary calculator, its actually the world's worst calculator as it never gives the right answer, ever! If your calculator has been exchanged for this one then every single calculation you've entered in it has been wrong. It is perhaps the cruelest practical joke you could inflict on your office colleague and the chances are, without being told, they'll probably never guess….well not before it's too late anyway! Mwhahahaha! Wrongulator (via Red Ferret)

US ISP/copyright deal: a one-sided private law for corporations, without public interest Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:26 PM PDT Last month, the major American ISPs and entertainment industry lobbyists struck a deal to limit Internet access for alleged copyright infringers. This deal, negotiated in secret with the help of New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo did not include any public interest groups or comment from the public. As a result, it’s as one-sided and stilted as you’d imagine. Corynne McSherry from the Electronic Frontier Foundation analyzes the material that these cozy corporate negotiators left out, the stuff that public interest groups would have demanded. Here’s an abbreviated list: The burden should be on the content owners to establish infringement, not on the subscribers to disprove infringement. The Internet access providers will treat the content owners' notices of infringement as presumptively accurate–obligating subscribers to defend against the accusations, and in several places requiring subscribers to produce evidence "credibly demonstrating" their innocence. This burden-shift violates our traditional procedural due process norms and is based on the presumed reliability of infringement-detection systems that subscribers haven’t vetted and to which they cannot object. (The content owners' systems will be reviewed by "impartial technical experts," but the experts' work will be confidential). Without subscribers being able to satisfy themselves that the notification systems are so reliable that they warrant a burden-shift, content owners should have to prove the merits of their complaints before internet access providers take any punitive action against subscribers. Subscribers should be able to assert the full range of defenses to copyright infringement. A subscriber who protests an infringement notice may assert only six pre-defined defenses, even though there are many other possible defenses available in a copyright litigation. And even the six enumerated defenses are incomplete. For example, the "public domain" defense applies only if the work was created before 1923–even though works created after 1923 can enter the public domain in a variety of ways. Content owners should be accountable if they submit incorrect infringement notices. A subscriber who successfully challenges an infringement notice gets a refund of the $35 review fee, but the MOU doesn't spell out any adverse consequences for the content owner that make the mistake – or even making repeated mistakes. Content owners should be on the hook if they overclaim copyright infringement. Subscribers should have adequate time to prepare a defense. The MOU gives subscribers only 10 business days to challenge a notice or their challenge rights are waived (a subscriber might get an extra 10 business days “for substantial good cause”). This period isn't enough time for most subscribers to research and write a proper defense. Subscribers should get adequate time to defend themselves. There should be adequate assurances that the reviewers are neutral. The MOU requires that reviewers must be lawyers and specifies that the CCI will train the reviews in "prevailing legal principles" of copyright law – an odd standard given the complexity of, and jurisdictional differences in, copyright law. We're especially interested in the identity of these lawyers, and why they are willing to review cases for less than $35 each (assuming the CCI keeps some of the $35 review fee for itself). Perhaps there will be a ready supply of lawyer-reviewers who are truly independent. Given the low financial incentives, another possibility is that the reviewers will be lawyers tied—financially or ideologically—to the content owner community. To ensure that the reviewers remain truly neutral, reviewer resumes should be made public, and checks-and-balances should be built into the reviewer selection process to ensure that the deck isn't stacked against subscribers from day 1. This is American corporate private law, a topsy-turvy world where the burden of proof is on the accused, where companies get to tear inconvenient laws out of the statute book, and where the judges are trained by the plaintiffs and instructed in which parts of the law to pay attention to. The "Graduated Response" Deal: What if Users Had Been At the Table? (via Command Line)

ShareMeNot: Firefox plugins takes the tracking out of social media buttons Posted: 28 Jul 2011 01:11 PM PDT Students in the University of Washington Computer Science project have created “ShareMeNot,” a Firefox Add-On that defangs social media buttons like the Facebook “Like” button (and others) so that they don’t transmit any information about your browsing habits to these services until (and unless) you click on them. That means that merely visiting a page with a Like or a Tweet or a +1 button (like this one) doesn’t generate a data-trail for the companies that operate those services, but you still get the benefit of the buttons, that is, if you click them, they still work. Smart. ShareMeNot is a Firefox add-on designed to prevent third-party buttons (such as the Facebook "Like" button or the Twitter "tweet" button) embedded by sites across the Internet from tracking you until you actually click on them. Unlike traditional solutions, ShareMeNot does this without completely removing the buttons from the web experience. ShareMeNot (via Schneier)

How getting beaten by cops helped Paul Krassner learn mindfulness Posted: 28 Jul 2011 12:29 PM PDT Our friend Paul Krassner is the founder of The Realist, which was a huge influence on my decision to launch bOING bOING in 1988. Paul is turning 80 next year and he wrote an essay for Counterpunch called "My Lesson in Mindfulness," about how a brutal beating he received from a billy club wielding police officer in 1979 eventually led to his life of mindfulness. In 1979, my life changed while I was covering the trial of Dan White for the San Francisco Bay Guardian. Former police officer White had confessed to killing the progressive Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, who was becoming the gay equivalent of Martin Luther King. … it came to pass that a double political assassination was transmuted into simple voluntary manslaughter. White would be sentenced to serve only seven years behind bars. No wonder there was a post-verdict riot in front of City Hall. A dozen police cars had been set on fire, which in turn set off their alarms, underscoring the angry shouts from a mob of five thousand understandably outraged gays. The police were running amuck in an orgy of indiscriminate sadism, swinging their clubs wildly and screaming profanity-laden homophobic epithets.I was struck with a nightstick on the outside of my right knee and I fell to the ground. Another cop came charging at me and made a threatening gesture with his billy club. When I tried to protect my head, he jabbed me viciously on the exposed right side of my chest. Oh, God, the pain!  It felt like an electric cattle prod was stuck between my ribs. I had a fractured rib and a punctured lung. The injuries affected my posture, and I began to develop an increasingly unbalanced body — twisted and in constant pain. When I saw Paul a few years ago in Los Angeles, he walked up to a stage to give a talk and his leg gave out, causing him to fall on the floor. He sprang right up and jumped on the stage. My Lesson in Mindfulness

San Diego Comic-Con roundup, part 2 Posted: 28 Jul 2011 11:49 AM PDT The second post-show wrap-up report from Oric Scott De Las Casas. Here’s the first. Artist’s Alley is the place at Comic-Con where one can find both the rising indie stars and the legends of the comic book world. Over the years, this area has become a source of controversy as Hollywood, toy manufacturers and the major publishers have pushed the once epicenter of Comic-Con to the fringes of the convention center. An attempt was made this year to draw more attention to Artist’s Alley by installing two overhead displays, which cycled loops of artwork from participating artists. I found the exercise to be marginally effective, but was happy to see an effort was being made to preserve what is, in my opinion, the heart of SDCC. While there, I had an opportunity to visit with the uber talented artist and creator Chris Moreno (above), whose work includes Dracula vs. King Arthur, Disney's Toy Story for BOOM! Studios and Sidekick from Image Comics. He gave me a peek at his upcoming creator-owned project, the wonderfully twisted Zombie Dickheads. My personal favorite is his collaboration with Eisner Award winning writer D.J. Kirkbride, Do You Believe In Ninjas?, a collection of kick-ass ninja poetry. Technorati Tags: Art & Design, Books

Copyright extortionist ripped off his competitor’s threatening material Posted: 28 Jul 2011 11:18 AM PDT John Steele, a notorious US lawyer who sent out thousands of extortionate copyright threats to alleged Bittorrent infringers, has been found to be in breach of copyright himself. Steele’s website contains a FAQ for his victims, allegedly explaining US copyright law and why it means they should pay him (or else). This stilted text is a direct lift from one of Steele’s competitors, The Copyright Enforcement Group, another leading copyright troll. CEG have vowed to pursue Steele for his infringement, and I can only hope that the two of them keep each other occupied for a good, long time. A notorious anti-piracy lawyer who claims to have spent as much as $250,000 to develop a BitTorrent tracking tool, doesn't even bother to write his own settlement letters. In theory one could argue that he's profiting from infringing the work of others, something that's not taken lightly by the courts nowadays. A quick search further reveals that Steele and his partner are not the only one who ripped off the FAQ from the Copyright Enforcement Group. Another group, operating under the name Copyright Action Network has done the same, again without permission from the copyright holders. Anti-Piracy Lawyers Rip Off Work From Competitor

Truth stranger than Onion: “USSR wins space race” Posted: 28 Jul 2011 11:06 AM PDT My friend Isabel Lara at the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum shared a funny Onion article with me today: “USSR Wins Space Race As U.S. Shuts Down Shuttle Program.” But as she pointed out, the truth is just as weird. Back in February, I visited Moscow with space journalist Miles O’Brien for the golden anniversary of cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human to reach space. The Kremlin gala we witnessed included Russian president Dmitri Medvedev saying lines that sounded like they were right out of this Onion piece: “At long last, our great Soviet republic has conquered the West and achieved technological and ideological superiority over America,” Kremlin representative Sergei Voronin said Wednesday, announcing the achievement to an audience of joyous beet farmers and steel factory laborers assembled in Red Square. “We have established our unrivaled dominion over the stars and planets and stand now at the dawn of a new era, an era in which the tenets of communism shall echo loudly across the Earth’s entire expanse.” We didn’t see any beet farmers (well, no, wait, there was that b-roll playing behind the space breakdancers during the cosmonaut telecast), but yeah. It was pretty much like that. Much political hay being made over the US terminating the shuttle program, with an unclear future for NASA. The image above, by the way, is one I shot during the real deal—not from the Onion piece. Russia: Cosmonaut's Day and Yuri Gagarin gala at the Kremlin (video) Cosmonaut's Day in Moscow: Notes from Yuri Gagarin gala inside the Kremlin Xeni on The Madeleine Brand show: Russia's "Gaga-esque Gagarin Glitzothon") Yuri's Night: spacemen branded me with Yuri Gagarin's head! Auction item: heat-deformed bolt from Yuri Gagarin's Vostok spacecraft In Yuri Gagarin's carry-on bag Video footage of Yuri Gagarin's historic spaceflight

Man with camera in park who fled angry parent sought by police (turns out he was taking pix of his grandson) Posted: 28 Jul 2011 10:00 AM PDT A woman in Pocatello, Idaho spotted an “older white man” taking pictures of “children” at a park, so she ran up to him and screamed at him until he left, and then called the police, who duly issued an alert asking the public for information about this mysterious stranger. The local press picked it up. Then the man called the police himself. He was in the park with his grandson, and he was taking pictures of his grandson. He didn’t run away from the woman, he left because she was freaking him out with her wild, unfounded accusations that he must be up to no good because he was a) an adult, b) in a park, c) with a camera. For some reason, the police found this to be suspicious, too — despite the fact that statistically the most likely abuser in a child’s life is a relative or close acquaintance, not a stranger. Who needs evidence-based policing when you’ve got unfounded terror, though? Pocatello Police are warning people of a suspicious man spotted taking pictures of children at Ammon Park. Police say parents spotted the man photographing their kids, and when they confronted him the man ran off. He is described as an older white man with white hair and a beard. He was wearing a western-style button-down shirt and blue jeans and was driving a tan/brown van. If anyone has information about this man, police would like them to call police dispatch at 234-6100. … Lt. Paul Manning said the man in question called in the Pocatello Police Department himself, saying he was at the park taking pictures of his grandson. The man also said that he did not run away, but simply walked away from a woman who had gotten very close to him and was yelling at him. Manning said police are no longer worried about the man and he is not suspicious. Man Photographing Grandson In Park Deemed Suspicious By Police And Media (via Free Range Kids)

Kettled Youth: history of police kettling and protest Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:31 AM PDT Dan sez, “From the editor of ‘Fight Back! A reader on the winter of (UK) protest‘, a new piece of long-form journalism called ‘Kettled Youth‘, about youth protests, activism, and the perverse UK police tactic of kettling (probably the most comprehensive exploration of kettling so far – looking at its history, packed with first-hand reportage, but also its symbolic impact in radicalising an entire generation of young people). This ebook is published (today) by Random House, who have commissioned a whole series of long-form journalistic essays on the UK and Arab Spring uprisings, under the banner The Summer of Unrest (also featured Mehdi Hasan, Peter Beaumont, and Tom Chatfield). Here’s an interview I did this morning about Kettled Youth for Dazed Digital.” DD: Are protests like the ones in March ‘useful’, can they have a long standing impact? Dan Hancox: They're vital – vanguards are great for smashing through the lines of the kettle, but this has to turn into a mass anti-cuts movement, especially one with people who are older than 25 in it (I'm 30, cough cough). The impact and importance of 26 March for me was summed up perfectly in the front page of The Daily Mirror, lest we forget, the only tabloid in the country that dares to stick up for its mostly working-class readers, rather than turn them against one another. It depicted the incredible numbers of ordinary people who were angry enough to come out and protest against the government's plans of austerity, cuts and privatisation – again, before the cuts have even hit. The headline ran Your Big Society has spoken, Mr Cameron. In contrast to a Tory government destroying the welfare state without a mandate, that is what democracy looks like. DD: What are the main issues to march against now? Dan Hancox: The same they were before – the perfect storm of a generation fucked over before they've even left school, an arrogant, brittle Tory government using a financial crisis caused by the rich to further benefit the rich while punishing the poor and the vulnerable, and the total public degradation of an entire elite – from the richest bankers still drawing multi-million pound bonuses, to the corrupt upper ranks of the police, to the Murdoch press, to the vast majority of Westminster. If 2011 was an Agatha Christie novel it would be called The Neoliberal Ecology Crack'd From Side To Side. Kettled Youth (Thanks, Dan!)

How “Try a Little Tenderness” went from forgettable love-song to soulful classic Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:12 AM PDT On The Awl, an engrossing musical history of “Try a Little Tenderness,” which started life in 1932 as a schmaltzy, vacuous love-song recorded by Ray Noble and his Orchestra. Gradually, over the decades, new singers reinterpreted it, gradually giving it soul in dribs and drabs, leading up to the classic Otis Redding recording (and the regrettable Jay-Z reinterpretation). As nice a story as it’d make, Otis Redding didn’t transform “Try A Little Tenderness” from campy relic to anthem in a single stroke. The process was more gradual, maybe more compromised. Bing Crosby took a go at “Tenderness” in 1933, and in the process injected some humanity into it. No less paternalistic, his interpretation stressed the duties of manhood, the weakness of women, and how love was about being strong by pretending to be vulnerable. Maybe that’s a little too much psychodrama to pull from a performance that, for all Crosby’s sly phrasing and attempts at straight talk, is still relatively light fare. But it was enough for “Tenderness” to catch on as a minor standard, an especially useful one to have in the songbook for black entertainers looking to cross over in the ’50s and early ’60s and perform at "classy joints.” Selling records to white kids was one thing; eons before anyone thought to let youth guide the industry, appealing to white adults was the real meal ticket. How ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ Got Its Soul (And Lost It)

Raw data on global temperatures now available Posted: 28 Jul 2011 09:08 AM PDT Raw climate data and global temperature records from the UK’s Met Office (yes, the data that prompted hackers to break into the emails of climate scientists) is now publicly available for download. (Via New Scientist and Margie Kinney)

Karl Schroeder: Science fiction versus structured study of the future, sf as aspiration Posted: 28 Jul 2011 08:19 AM PDT Karl Schroeder, a fantastic science fiction author (see this review for a taste of his work) has spent the past two years in a Master’s programme in Foresight at the Ontario College of Art and Design. In this guest essay on Charlie Stross’s blog, he describes the way that structured study of the future interacts with science fiction. Karl is always the furthest-out guy I know — he was the person I first heard the word “fractal” and “SGML” from, long before they’d entered the popular consciousness. If you’re afraid of being a poor predictor of the near future, you’ll avoid writing about it. But what if you were never out to predict in the first place? What if you don’t care if a story you set in 2012 gets immediately overtaken by events? What if you set the action there not to predict some event or outcome, but to encourage some action on the part of your readers? In other words I have a new ambition for my own SF: not as prediction, and not cautionary, either–but aspirational. The fact is that if I’ve learned one thing in two years of studying how we think about the future, it’s that the one thing that’s sorely lacking in the public imagination is positive ideas about where we should be going. We seem to do everything about our future except try to design it. It’s a funny thing: nobody ever questions your credentials if you predict doom and destruction. But provide a rosy picture of the future, and people demand that you justify yourself. Increasingly, though, I believe that while warning people of dire possibilities is responsible, providing them with something to aspire to is even more important. The foresight programme has given me a lot of tools to do that in a justifiable way, so I might as well use them. Beyond Prediction

Humpback whale “says thanks” after being freed from nets Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:57 AM PDT [Video Link]. In this video, The Great Whale Conservancy (GWC) co-founder Michael Fishbach describes his encounter with a young humpback whale entangled in local fishing nets off the coast of Baja California, Mexico. Spoiler: the whale is freed, and she survives. After she is freed, she breaches again and again in a way that suggests she is thrilled to be free and alive (yes, there could be more dull explanations for her behavior, but she sure looks like one overjoyed whale to me). Even in the rare cases where humans are able to intervene to try and free whales trapped in fishing nets, this kind of happy ending is rare. I know people here in Southern California who have been involved in emergency rescue efforts, and the sad truth is: even with the best of efforts, they often fail. Knowing that makes this video all the more sweet. If you would like to donate to The Great Whale Conservancy‘s efforts, or get involved to help save more whales like this, you can contact Mr. Fishbach at fishdeya@gmail.com, or contribute here. (via Reddit, thanks Susannah Breslin)

Worf album covers Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:49 AM PDT A blast from the distant meme past: Worf, the Cover Bands. An internet time capsule from 2005. It was a contest to photoshop the best Worf cover band. The best. Not the Worfst. (via Shane Nickerson)

Heat waves and stimulant use Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:47 AM PDT A word of caution to people who consume illegal stimulants and those who regularly take legal ones to treat the symptoms mental health issues, like ADHD or depression. Research is showing that, during heat waves, there is an increased risk of death among stimulant users. It’s a small increase—Time magazine reported that “for every week that the temperature exceeds 75 degrees Fahrenheit, New York City will experience two extra cocaine-related deaths.” And it seems to affect people taking particularly high doses. But, depending on the dosages you normally take, it could be a risk worth taking into account. Heat and high doses combine in dangerous ways for a couple of reasons: First, stimulants themselves raise body temperature, which is not what you want during a heat wave. They also interfere with the body’s ability to regulate temperature to cool itself down. The high body temperatures that result are one way that stimulant overdose kills—so extra heat makes matters worse. Secondly, chemical reactions that injure or kill brain cells can occur when high doses of these drugs are taken. These may be more toxic when the temperature is higher. High doses of stimulants cause excess release of dopamine and glutamate— if these levels get high enough, the resulting chemical reactions can be deadly to cells. That process may increase overdose risk as well as contributing to long-term harm in those who survive. Via All Things Human

Smartphone wars: In US, iPhone is top device, while Android is top OS Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:39 AM PDT Nielsen reports on market share for smartphones in the US, with an interesting split between domination for OS and domination by actual device. Google Android is currently the top operating system, at 39 percent, with Apple's iOS at 28 percent, and the RIM Blackberry at 20 percent. “However, because Apple is the only company manufacturing smartphones with the iOS operating system, it is clearly the top smartphone manufacturer in the United States.” iPhone has 28% of the market. All of this is based on June, 2011 data.

Algae beach party Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:28 AM PDT Beachgoers in Qingdao, Shandong province, China, were met with a fuzzy, green blanket of ocean last week, as the water there exploded with algae. You’ve heard before about dead zones. These are patches of coastal ocean where river runoff full of fertilizer chemicals have produced massive algae blooms. As the algae die, their decomposition reduces the oxygen level of the water to the point that many fish and other aquatic life can no longer live there. This is what a dead zone looks like, just before the death. It’s worth noting, when I pulled this photo out of the Reuters files, I could see similar shots, taken on the same beach, in 2010, 2009, and 2008. This isn’t a fluke. It’s an endemic problem. Image: REUTERS/China Daily China Daily Information Corp – CDIC

Pistol hidden in a Zippo case Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:12 AM PDT This tiny pistol hidden in a Zippo lighter case sold at auction in 2006 for $6,810.00 to an unknown bidder. It fired 6MM cartridges tooled to fit in a standard Ronson flint case. *Rare “Zippo” Lighter Gun Together with Ronson Flint Dispenser with Ammunition (via Neatorama)

Earth’s Trojan asteroid Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:09 AM PDT The green circle in the lower right of this image marks the position of Earth’s own trojan asteroid, discovered by researcher’s involved with NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer project. What’s a trojan asteroid? Glad you asked. The good news: It’s not going to kill us all. Trojans are asteroids that share an orbit with a planet near stable points in front of or behind the planet. Because they constantly lead or follow in the same orbit as the planet, they never can collide with it. In our solar system, Trojans also share orbits with Neptune, Mars and Jupiter. Two of Saturn’s moons share orbits with Trojans. Scientists had predicted Earth should have Trojans, but they have been difficult to find because they are relatively small and appear near the sun from Earth’s point of view. The team’s hunt resulted in two Trojan candidates. One called 2010 TK7 was confirmed as an Earth Trojan after follow-up observations with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. The asteroid is roughly 1,000 feet (300 meters) in diameter. It has an unusual orbit that traces a complex motion near a stable point in the plane of Earth’s orbit, although the asteroid also moves above and below the plane. The object is about 50 million miles (80 million kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid’s orbit is well-defined and for at least the next 100 years, it will not come closer to Earth than 15 million miles (24 million kilometers).

Download 1st chapter of book about the spacesuit’s history Posted: 28 Jul 2011 07:02 AM PDT Yesterday, I posted about the seamstresses whose skill in sewing space suits kept astronauts alive on the Moon. Nicholas de Monchaux, the author who wrote the book on the design history of the spacesuit, sent me a link where you can download the first chapter of his book for free.

The secret code of the alchemists Posted: 28 Jul 2011 06:59 AM PDT Science historian Larry Principe studies the European alchemists, proto-chemists who tried to turn base metals into gold by combining mythology, religion, and the beginnings of true science. In this video, he explains why alchemists’ notebooks—their records of experiments—are so difficult to understand, and how an alchemist might have gone about turning a science experiment into fanciful, analogy-filled secret code. Video Link

You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610