Riot-smashed comic-shop window in Birmingham makes for inadvertent summation of England's Current Situation UK riots: Having learned nothing from Arab Spring, Cameron pursues a social media crackdown MySpace home page goes down; internet fails to care Artist Ai Weiwei speaks on conditions of imprisonment: "mental torture" South Korea to abandon "real name" internet policy Amsterdam's American Book Center retailing WITH A LITTLE HELP Letters to a friend: Convicted terrorist's former friends asked, "what would you say to him now?" Porn, Privacy, and BitTorrent: the case of a legally blind man accused of illegally downloading adult flicks My panel with Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Al Gore at Mexico City's Campus Party Pre-made manhattans for Burning Man Every pool needs a backhoe New Zealand Parliament may lose Internet access due to insane new copyright law Revised London Olympics logo, now with rioter! Circuit board sandals 1960s Western Electric videophone ad Vintage 8-bit Nyan Cat NES game Levi's withdraws "riot" ad Enzotar: a funny 1-stringed musical instrument Marvel to comics retailers: we'll give you limited edition singles if you destroy our competitors' products Twitter clone Heello: a parallel universe for Twitter fakesters There's more than one way to skin a patent troll Sheila & B. Devotion's "Spacer" (1979) Portal 2 Wheatley puppet Star Wars coins as legal tender The Midnight Archive: new Web series about the weird Comparison of good and bad reporting on leukemia gene therapy Shanghai Disneyland's magnificent castle Sunset of a Blog Moon to screw up chances of Americans watching Perseid meteors iPad cases made from Bernie Madoff's pants 
Watchismo Vintage & Modern Horology - So many cool watches, so few limbs to put them on
Riot-smashed comic-shop window in Birmingham makes for inadvertent summation of England's Current Situation
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 12, 2011 09:23 am Joe from Forbidden Planet sez, "A couple of our comics stores in Manchester and Birmingham got damaged during the awful riots this week (what sort of numpty attacks their local comics store?!) - luckily they didn't get into the stores, …
Continue reading → Read in browser UK riots: Having learned nothing from Arab Spring, Cameron pursues a social media crackdown
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 07:33 am "Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organized via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media …
Continue reading → Read in browser MySpace home page goes down; internet fails to care
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 07:30 am CNET reports that visitors to the once-dominant, now-pathetic social networking site Myspace.com were tonight greeted by a mostly blank page with the browser title bar reading "All is wrong :(" where "MySpace" would typically appear. In the upper left of …
Continue reading → Read in browser Artist Ai Weiwei speaks on conditions of imprisonment: "mental torture"
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 07:15 am The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei tells Keith Bradsher of the New York Times that he was confined to "a tiny room throughout his nearly three-month detention last spring and watched 24 hours a day by shifts of two uniformed military …
Continue reading → Read in browser South Korea to abandon "real name" internet policy
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 07:09 am South Korea's plan to abandon its "real-name system" for Internet users was reaffirmed after the country's worst online security breach in history. In July, personal data for about 35 million users of the popular South Korean social sites Nate and …
Continue reading → Read in browser Amsterdam's American Book Center retailing WITH A LITTLE HELP
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 12, 2011 06:57 am Amsterdam's excellent American Book Center is now carrying my DIY science fiction short story collection, With a Little Help, in its inventory; they've got a print-on-demand machine that'll print and bind a copy in any of the four covers (they'll …
Continue reading → Read in browser Letters to a friend: Convicted terrorist's former friends asked, "what would you say to him now?"
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 06:44 am Bassam Tariq of the "30 Mosques" project tells Boing Boing, "I gave a Livescribe Smartpen to the friends of someone who was convicted as a terrorist, and asked them what they would say to him now if they could." Here …
Continue reading → Read in browser Porn, Privacy, and BitTorrent: the case of a legally blind man accused of illegally downloading adult flicks
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 12, 2011 06:32 am The Seattle Weekly explores the case of one of many "John Does" who have been sued on the behalf of porn producers because their I.P. addresses appear to out them as having downloaded and shared copyrighted smut on BitTorrent. This …
Continue reading → Read in browser My panel with Tim Berners-Lee, Vint Cerf and Al Gore at Mexico City's Campus Party
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 12, 2011 05:37 am Back in July, I went to Mexico City to moderate a panel at the Campus Party conference, a massive LAN party/campout/hackathon/tech policy event. It was a long, long way to go, but it was worth it: my panelists were Tim …
Continue reading → Read in browser Pre-made manhattans for Burning Man
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 11, 2011 10:50 pm Brady Forrest says: "Some friends of mine and I bagged premade 80 manhattans. Each is in its own vacuum sealed bag with a dried cherry. Those are going to be mighty good in the desert. I got the idea from this …
Continue reading → Read in browser Every pool needs a backhoe
By Rob Beschizza on Aug 11, 2011 10:25 pm Pooltime fun in Hungary! The water's lovely: don't miss the big pour 40 seconds in. [pongormiki via Tour With]
Read in browser New Zealand Parliament may lose Internet access due to insane new copyright law
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 08:15 pm Juha sez, "The New Zealand Green Party says the country's Parliament could face fines and even have its Internet access disconnected, after it passed the draconian copyright law that comes into effect on August 11. Speaker of the House refused …
Continue reading → Read in browser Revised London Olympics logo, now with rioter!
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 08:14 pm A bit of unsourced net.wit: the new London Olympics 2012 logo. Update: Here's the original, from PureEvil.
Read in browser Circuit board sandals
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 08:14 pm Etsy seller Steven Rodrig, AKA pcbcreations, sells beautiful, spiky sculptures made from circuit-boards, including these strappy sandals. Data Sandals (via Neatorama)
Read in browser 1960s Western Electric videophone ad
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 08:13 pm Paleofuture's recovered this great Western Digital videophone ad from one of the early rounds of failed video telephony. The ad itself comes from an intriguing-sounding book called The Golden Age of Advertising: The 60s. Be sure to check the whole …
Continue reading → Read in browser Vintage 8-bit Nyan Cat NES game
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 11, 2011 07:46 pm A wonderful piece of geek art from Joseph Barker. I thought it would be fun to take the 8-bit looking Nyan Cat and design and paint a retro Nintendo game box using the character. I decided to model the box after …
Continue reading → Read in browser Levi's withdraws "riot" ad
By Rob Beschizza on Aug 11, 2011 07:36 pm Levi's newest ad, launched on Tuesday, shows kids at a demonstration, facing up to a line of riot police, among sundry images of youthful intellectual and creative flowering. "Your life is your life, don't let it be clubbed into dank …
Continue reading → Read in browser Enzotar: a funny 1-stringed musical instrument
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 11, 2011 07:35 pm [Video Link] My friend Sam Murphy send me me a music video she worked on. It's called "Sweet Honeybees" by Enzo Garcia. He plays several instruments in the video: guitar, banjo, accordion, and this unusual 1-stringed instrument that I have …
Continue reading → Read in browser Marvel to comics retailers: we'll give you limited edition singles if you destroy our competitors' products
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 07:27 pm Marvel Comics has offered comics retailers access to a limited-edition variant cover run of "Fear Itself #6," but only if the comic-shops destroy their No. 1 issue of DC Comics' Flashpoint and send 50 covers to Marvel: Make no mistake, …
Continue reading → Read in browser Twitter clone Heello: a parallel universe for Twitter fakesters
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 11, 2011 06:57 pm Heello looks like a minimalist copycat of early Twitter, and was created by Twitpic founder Noah Everett. At the time of this blog post, some of the more entertaining fake accounts have already been taken down, but earlier today, "Heello …
Continue reading → Read in browser There's more than one way to skin a patent troll
By Rob Beschizza on Aug 11, 2011 06:42 pm Nilay Patel argues that we've become distracted by easy outrage at the patent system and are missing more promising opportunities for reform. The real problem is not how patents are awarded or what they cover, but patent trolls' ability to …
Continue reading → Read in browser Sheila & B. Devotion's "Spacer" (1979)
By David Pescovitz on Aug 11, 2011 06:39 pm Sheila & B. Devotion was a Euro-disco sensation in France from 1977-1980. Seen here is their 1979 space disco hit "Spacer." Can you dig it? I knew that you could. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)
Read in browser Portal 2 Wheatley puppet
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 11, 2011 06:36 pm [Video Link] Rachel Hobson says: "This Portal 2 Wheatley puppet from Furin Cosplay is nothing short of phenomenal. Check out the extensive in-progress documentation on her blog to get an even deeper appreciation for the amount of work that went …
Continue reading → Read in browser Star Wars coins as legal tender
By David Pescovitz on Aug 11, 2011 06:25 pm The South Pacific island of Niue is issuing legal tender emblazoned with Star Wars characters. Queen Elizabeth II, Niue's head of state, will be on the front of 40 new coins but Luke, Leia, and the gang will appear in …
Continue reading → Read in browser The Midnight Archive: new Web series about the weird
By David Pescovitz on Aug 11, 2011 06:10 pm Former BB guestblogger Mitch Horowitz, author of the excellent Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation, says: There's a terrific short teaser on YouTube for a new indie documentary series "The Midnight Archive," which features experts …
Continue reading → Read in browser Comparison of good and bad reporting on leukemia gene therapy
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 11, 2011 05:31 pm Gary Schwitzer, whose Health News Review should be your first stop for evaluating health and medicine journalism, has a quick line up of the good and the ugly in the coverage of the recent leukemia gene therapy study. Notice I …
Continue reading → Read in browser Shanghai Disneyland's magnificent castle
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2011 05:24 pm An early peek at the castle they're building in Shanghai Disneyland -- looks like quite a beautiful piece of work, the first Disney castle to top 200 feet. When work is complete, the castle will become the largest Disney castle …
Continue reading → Read in browser Sunset of a Blog
By Glenn Fleishman on Aug 11, 2011 05:05 pm Photo: Rajeev Nair / Ill. Rob Beschizza. Should we pity a once-popular blog when its time in the sun has come and gone? Not so much. I'm watching the sunset of a moderately high-traffic site I've run for a decade, …
Continue reading → Read in browser Moon to screw up chances of Americans watching Perseid meteors
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 11, 2011 04:56 pm Bad news for U.S.-based astronomy buffs. You probably won't get a good look at the Perseid meteor shower happening Friday night. The Moon (you know, the Moon) will be getting all up in your business. Some particularly bright meteors might …
Continue reading → Read in browser iPad cases made from Bernie Madoff's pants
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 11, 2011 04:42 pm Frederick James, who makes attractive iPad covers out of "luxury rescued and vintage fabrics," purchased some of Bernie Madoff's trousers at auction. The cases he made from them cost between $250 and $350 each. In the Fall of 2010, Frederick …
Continue reading → Read in browser 
No comments:
Post a Comment