JG Ballard archive opens at the British Library
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 04, 2011 09:43 am Jack sez, "A year in the gathering, JG Ballard's archive - or the closest that is likely to exist - opens at the British Library and contains, amongst other treats, multiple versions of manuscripts for Crash, letters, notes and an …
Continue reading → Read in browser Japanese company makes creepy dolls that look like their owners
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 04, 2011 01:54 am Boing Boing guestblogger alum Danny Choo documents a new doll-making place in Akihabara called Clone Factory. They scan your head and make a doll that looks like you. What do you think? Japanese company makes creepy dolls that look like …
Continue reading → Read in browser Song based on the woman who scratched an itch until she reached her brain
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 04, 2011 12:59 am If you haven't read this 2008 New Yorker article about a woman who had a chronic itch on her head and over time through her skull in till she reached her brain, here it is. And when you're finished, give …
Continue reading → Read in browser Gov't asks FAA safety inspectors for a big no-interest loan
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 04, 2011 12:47 am Credit.com's Christopher Maag has a good piece about the effect of the budget debacle on FAA safety inspectors. About 40 inspectors are responsible for checking everything safety-related at the nation's busiest airports. They inspect everything from cracks in the runway …
Continue reading → Read in browser Moptops from around the world!
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 04, 2011 12:39 am I just came across this great post from my pal Iowahawk, featuring 19 videos of 1960s British Invasion-style bands from Finland, Poland, East Germany, Istanbul, Greece, Yugoslavia, Italy, France, Mexico, Chile, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Hong Kong, Malasia, Japan, and India. …
Continue reading → Read in browser Old photos of streetcars deposited in the ocean near Los Angeles (and the fish that love them)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 04, 2011 12:13 am Enjoy this 1964 "Fish Bulletin" from The California Department of Fish and Game about a diving expedition to study "6 streetcars used to establish a reef off Redondo Beach." Artificial Habitat in the Marine Environment (Thanks, Dan!)
Read in browser Cute etsy bunnies!
By Rob Beschizza on Aug 03, 2011 11:00 pm Dean spotted Vickangaroo's cute bunnies on Etsy! Couldn't you just reach out and pet it?
Read in browser Tor Johnson returns
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 03, 2011 08:29 pm Drew Friedman painted a swell portrait of the celebrated pro-wrestler/actor Tor Johnson for the back cover of the upcoming Fantagraphics reprint of Any Similarity to Persons Living or Dead is Purely Coincidental, written by Drew's brother Josh. Tor Johnson Returns
Read in browser Severed child's hand iPhone accessory
By Rob Beschizza on Aug 03, 2011 07:58 pm Dokkiri Hand Case for iPhone 4 [Strapya World via Dangerous Minds]
Read in browser 4G with data-caps: pay for a month, hit your limit in under an hour
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 06:39 pm Public Knowledge's Michael Weinberg, who wrote an outstanding paper on the law and 3D printing, has a new paper, this one on 4G networks with data-caps, and how weird it is to advertise that your network is a) very fast …
Continue reading → Read in browser Mugshot sites and mugshot removal sites: unholy blackmail symbiosis
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 06:34 pm Wired's David Kravets has a long look at the sleazy world of online mugshot blackmail. Rob Wiggen, a convicted fraudster, founded Florida.arrests.org when he got out of prison. It scrapes Florida's law enforcement websites and builds a Google-indexable database of …
Continue reading → Read in browser Lost early Hitchcock film found
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 06:19 pm Researchers have found a "lost" Alfred Hitchcock film from 1923 in a New Zealand film vault. Titled "The White Shadow," it features Betty Compson playing twins --- one angelic and the other devilish. Unfortunately, only the first three of the …
Continue reading → Read in browser Texas drought reveals wreckage from space shuttle Columbia
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 03, 2011 05:41 pm There's a major, ongoing drought in Texas, Oklahoma, and southern Kansas. As of July 26th, Amarillo had clocked in a record-breaking 30 days of 100+-degree temperatures. Wichita Falls, Texas, is on a (so far) 50-day streak with no precipitation. (If …
Continue reading → Read in browser Rad Dads: essays on fatherhood
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 05:34 pm Jeremy sez, "Rad Dad: Dispatches from the Frontiers of Fatherhood features bestselling writers, punk-rock stars, artists, political thinkers, and regular guys tackling all the topics conventional fathering guides won't touch: the brutalities, beauties, and politics of the birth experience; the …
Continue reading → Read in browser Dunkin Donuts prostitute sting
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 05:26 pm A 29-year-old woman working at a Dunkin' Donuts in Rockaway Township, New Jersey has been busted for prostitution from behind the counter. According to the AP, the police investigation was codenamed "Extra Sugar." The investigation required that an officer spend …
Continue reading → Read in browser Law prof: it would be legal to mint 2x $1 trillion platinum coins & use them to pay the US debt
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 05:22 pm Jack Balkin, a Yale Law prof, has a weird idea for solving the debt crisis. He says the law sets no limit on the amount of currency the US Mint can float, provided it produces the currency in the form …
Continue reading → Read in browser Transparent versions of classic products
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 05:04 pm Last month, Cory posted about a magnificent Plexiglass 1939 Pontiac up for auction. The gavel dropped at $308,000! Over at Collectors Weekly, BB pal Ben Marks posts a few of his other favorite transparent versions of familiar products. The Western …
Continue reading → Read in browser How to search for alien life without SETI
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 03, 2011 04:53 pm Look Ma, no SETI. 10 other ways to search for intelligent life in the Universe. (Via Sarah Zielinski)
Read in browser Augmented Reality Korean Unification Project
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 04:52 pm Mark Skwarek's "Augmented Reality Korean Unification Project" uses augmented reality to remove "weapons, checkpoints, fortifications, barriers, walls, and all reminders of the ongoing conflict from the Korean landscape." I think saying that it "erases the scars left by years of …
Continue reading → Read in browser Hunting the wild radial tire
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 03, 2011 04:30 pm One traditional way to kill a lot of bison: Run them off the edge of a cliff. Now, anthropologists are studying the landing patterns of buffalo at a Montana kill site by recreating the hunt ... with the help of …
Continue reading → Read in browser HOWTO beat high pram-repair costs by 3D printing replacement parts
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 04:16 pm Instructables user Dscott4 has an expensive Bugaboo pram, and it broke. The official Bugaboo service center wanted $250 to replace the part, but Dscott4 fixed it himself by 3D printing the missing part and installing it. Pram connoisseurs out there …
Continue reading → Read in browser A comic about the real scientific process
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 03, 2011 04:16 pm Made by scientist Paul Vallett for his Electron Cafe blog, this funny cartoon is essentially about the differences between how science happens in the movies, and how science happens in real life. On the one hand, I like it a …
Continue reading → Read in browser Collecting "PostNatural" life
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 03:51 pm The Center for PostNatural History was created "to acquire, interpret and provide access to a collection of living, preserved and documented organisms of postnatural origin." Center for PostNatural History (via IFTF Future of Science, thanks Ariel Waldman!)
Read in browser Browser/IQ correlation hoax: IQ considered unintelligent
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 03:33 pm A bunch of sites are reporting that the "study" that claimed to correlate IQ with browser choice was a hoax. The funny thing is, the hoaxy part everyone's up in arms about is that the correlation was faked. But surely's …
Continue reading → Read in browser Clever and fun Calvin and Hobbes street art
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 03:12 pm What a great appreciation for Calvin and Hobbes: a little street art of the pair sliding down a public stair-railing. calvin & hobbes (it's summer holidays....) (via Neatorama)
Read in browser Local activists and Boing Boing readers save Troy Public Library
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 02:54 pm Steamed Punk sez, "The Troy Michigan Public Library has been saved, thanks in no small part to some very generous Boing Boing readers. Our beloved library has struggled to find a reliable funding source in these difficult times. Yesterday residents …
Continue reading → Read in browser Mariachis serenade beluga whale
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 03, 2011 02:08 pm There. Just enough happiness to get you out the door to work this morning. Video Link Big thanks to Mr. Nathan Chervek!
Read in browser Slow Clap for Congress: Sarcastic YouTube meme
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 02:01 pm Micah sez, "Like a lot of people on Sunday afternoon, Baltimore-based software developer Chris Ashworth was frustrated with the way Congress had handled the important but often routine business of raising the nation's borrowing limit. 'When the debt deal goes …
Continue reading → Read in browser Halim El-Dabh, electronic music pioneer
By David Pescovitz on Aug 03, 2011 02:00 pm This post presented by: While Pierre Schaeffer is often thought of as the father of the electronic music form known as musique concrète the gentleman above, Halim El-Dabh, actually got there several years before, 1944 to be exact. Born in …
Continue reading → Read in browser Virtual pets starve after bungled resolution to Second Life's "unauthorized food" war
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 03, 2011 01:04 pm Wagner James Au sez, "Meeroos, an extremely popular species of virtual, breedable animal in Second Life, are now starving, because griefers have been selling their owners unauthorized food, and Linden Lab accidentally shut them down *and* their legitimate food supplier. …
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