Toronto Convention Centre charges attendees $150/day to use WiFi Harvesting power-cells from dead laptop batteries for home electronics projects Who makes "artist renderings" of the cosmos? Tracking down the stories behind a trove of 1920s report cards from a NYC girls' vocational school AT-AT Walker made of pancakes UK free and open source art exhibit Indiscriminate squid sperm distribution is not "bisexual" Troy Davis update: Supreme court denies stay; Davis executed at 11:08pm ET. Liam Neeson straps broken bottles to his knuckles, then boxes wolves Testicle-hating right-wing moms get steamy over "Schweddy Balls" Ben & Jerry's ice cream "Porpicide": Bottlenose-dolphin-on-porpoise violence HOWTO make a Buster Keaton hat Could extended space missions make astronauts go blind? Mexico: As corpses stack up in narco-violence, president launches surreal TV tourism campaign Mexico drops charges in Veracruz "Twitter Terorrism" case Wikileaks founder Julian Assange protests unauthorized publication of biography China: Awesome gentleman builds homemade flying contraption powered by eight motorcycle engines Amazon, worker safety, and fact-checking Why do we bother to try to make economic forecasts? James Byrd's killer arrives at Texas death house, final meal served TSA humiliates Black woman, demands to pat down her Afro Text of last-minute appeal for Troy Davis, scheduled to be executed this hour in Georgia. My favorite images from Monster Brains Anti-malware hardware has the potential to make it illegal and impossible to choose to run Linux Beautiful paintings of neurons 10 under-appreciated women in science Newzbin2 releases censorware-busting client When autistic adults aren't quirky geniuses Odds are good you won't be hit by a satellite this weekend Bisexual squid, lurking in the deep 
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Toronto Convention Centre charges attendees $150/day to use WiFi
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 12:54 pm Are you a busy professional attending an event at the Toronto International Centre? Be prepared to travel in time to an idyllic era when physically leaving the office made you unreachable by your colleagues and peers. Or, if you want …
Continue reading → Read in browser Harvesting power-cells from dead laptop batteries for home electronics projects
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 12:53 pm Geekdad has a bunch of tips for using the round power-cells from a dead laptop battery. These cells, called "18650s," look like AA batteries, but have very different characteristics. Your laptop battery will contain lots of these (I have a …
Continue reading → Read in browser Who makes "artist renderings" of the cosmos?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 22, 2011 12:42 pm It's hard to illustrate articles about exoplanet research. The pictures from deep-space telescopes just doesn't really look the way your readers want it to look. Instead of an image of a mysterious far-off planet that people can imagine themselves visiting, …
Continue reading → Read in browser Tracking down the stories behind a trove of 1920s report cards from a NYC girls' vocational school
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 09:48 am Writing in Slate, Paul Lukas tells a fascinating series of New York stories that he learned when he decided to track down the subjects of a packet of 1920s report cards from the Manhattan Trade School for Girls he'd rescued …
Continue reading → Read in browser AT-AT Walker made of pancakes
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 03:56 am Jim, the resident genius at Jim's Pancakes, has made an AT-AT Walker OUT OF PANCAKES! PANCAKES! Total time to create it was about 15 minutes, mostly because it took a while to get the legs "crispy" enough to hold up …
Continue reading → Read in browser UK free and open source art exhibit
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 03:16 am Rob Myers writes in about "Collaboration and freedom – the world of free and open source art": A collection of artworks, texts and resources about freedom and openness in the arts, in the age of the Internet. Freedom to collaborate …
Continue reading → Read in browser Indiscriminate squid sperm distribution is not "bisexual"
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 02:32 am PZ Myers explains why the discovery that the male of a species of squid reproduces by showering other squids with sperm regardless of their sex doesn't make the squid "bisexual." Not that there's anything wrong with that. This is a …
Continue reading → Read in browser Troy Davis update: Supreme court denies stay; Davis executed at 11:08pm ET.
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 02:24 am Update on a post from earlier this evening: The US Supreme Court has denied Troy Davis a stay of execution. The official statement, in its entirety [PDF], reads: The application for stay of execution of sentence of death presented to …
Continue reading → Read in browser Liam Neeson straps broken bottles to his knuckles, then boxes wolves
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 02:13 am VIDEO: In the trailer for "The Grey" embedded here, actor Liam Neeson, "with broken liqueur bottles strapped to his knuckles, enter[s] into Mortal Kombat with a CGI wolf. Driven on by the power of love." (via @westonfront)
Read in browser Testicle-hating right-wing moms get steamy over "Schweddy Balls" Ben & Jerry's ice cream
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 01:56 am [video link] "OneMillionMoms," an offshoot of the right-wing American Family Association, is calling for a boycott of Ben & Jerry's after the company's release of an irreverently-named new flavor: "Schweddy Balls," after a classic Saturday Night Live skit featuring Alec …
Continue reading → Read in browser "Porpicide": Bottlenose-dolphin-on-porpoise violence
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 01:19 am A dead female harbor porpoise that washed ashore in August at San Francisco's Fort Funston showed "evidence of a sadistic attack." Marine biologists believe this was a clear case of "porpicide," the deliberate killing of a harbor porpoise by a …
Continue reading → Read in browser HOWTO make a Buster Keaton hat
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 22, 2011 01:16 am Carl sez, "Buster Keaton wore his unique porkpie hats throughout his long career, but what most fans don't know is he was a maker, he made his hats out of 'normal' hats. Here's how he did it." I think this …
Continue reading → Read in browser Could extended space missions make astronauts go blind?
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 01:13 am [Image, REUTERS: Soyuz TMA-21 carrying International Space Station (ISS) crew members U.S. astronaut Ron Garan and Russian cosmonauts Andrey Borisenko and Alexander Samokutyaev, descends, 92 miles (148 km) southeast of the city of Zhezkazgan, September 16, 2011. The Russian Soyuz …
Continue reading → Read in browser Mexico: As corpses stack up in narco-violence, president launches surreal TV tourism campaign
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 01:07 am William Booth in the Washington Post covers a disastrous media juxtaposition that many of my internet-friends in Mexico have been talking about online today: The timing couldn't have been worse. As Mexican President Felipe Calderon was unveiling a new campaign …
Continue reading → Read in browser Mexico drops charges in Veracruz "Twitter Terorrism" case
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 12:58 am One day after three dozen bodies were found dumped on a busy Veracruz street, authorities in the same Mexican state released a man and a woman and dropped terrorism charges that they faced for tweeting rumors about nonexistent drug cartel …
Continue reading → Read in browser Wikileaks founder Julian Assange protests unauthorized publication of biography
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 12:51 am Well, hello, irony: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today condemned his British book publisher for releasing drafts of a much-anticipated memoir without his approval—but he won't be returning the £500,000 ($779,000) advance he received months ago: British publisher Canongate announced that …
Continue reading → Read in browser China: Awesome gentleman builds homemade flying contraption powered by eight motorcycle engines
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 12:44 am Local farmer Shu Mansheng starts the engines of his self-designed and homemade flying device before a test flight in front of his house in Dashu village on the outskirts of Wuhan, Hubei province September 21, 2011. The round steel flying …
Continue reading → Read in browser Amazon, worker safety, and fact-checking
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 22, 2011 12:35 am Over on Google+, my friend Patrick Tufts writes, "A few days ago, a newspaper in Pennsylvania reported that Amazon was forcing employees to work to the point of collapse in high heat, and that an emergency room doctor had to …
Continue reading → Read in browser Why do we bother to try to make economic forecasts?
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 21, 2011 11:58 pm Phil Gyford looks at the frequent revisions made by the IMF in its economic forecasts and wonders why anyone pays attention to something so demonstrably unpredictable: I have no doubt that it's extremely difficult to predict how something that's both …
Continue reading → Read in browser James Byrd's killer arrives at Texas death house, final meal served
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 21, 2011 11:17 pm The "other" man to be executed in America tonight, an unrepentant white supremacist who dragged a black man to death in one of the most horrific lynchings in history, "requested an extensive final meal that included two chicken fried steaks, …
Continue reading → Read in browser TSA humiliates Black woman, demands to pat down her Afro
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 21, 2011 11:03 pm A Dallas resident of African-American descent says she was humiliated at an airport in Atlanta, when TSA agents patted down her hair. Isis Brantley was headed down an escalator at Hartsfield-Jackson International airport in Atlanta, after she was screened a …
Continue reading → Read in browser Text of last-minute appeal for Troy Davis, scheduled to be executed this hour in Georgia.
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 21, 2011 10:39 pm UPDATE: Rumors flying over Twitter that a Stay of execution has been granted, as of 7:05pm ET. Cheering outside the prison where he is held. Am seeking confirmation. Conflicting reports, and there is no official word that a stay has …
Continue reading → Read in browser My favorite images from Monster Brains
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 21, 2011 10:15 pm I've spent an inordinate amount of time over at Monster Brains, a blog filled with thousands of scans of comic books, movie posters, science fiction paperbacks, model kit boxes, and other media starring monsters. Here are a few noteworthy ones. …
Continue reading → Read in browser Anti-malware hardware has the potential to make it illegal and impossible to choose to run Linux
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 21, 2011 09:52 pm It's been years since the idea of "trusted computing" was first mooted -- a hardware layer for PCs that can verify that your OS matches the version the vendor created. At the time, TC advocates proposed that this would be …
Continue reading → Read in browser Beautiful paintings of neurons
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 21, 2011 09:07 pm That's no dandelion. It's a painted close-up of a slice of human hippocampus. Jessica Palmer at the Bioephemera blog introduced me to the gorgeous artwork of neuroscience grad student and painter Greg Dunn. His images of different neurons are really …
Continue reading → Read in browser 10 under-appreciated women in science
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 21, 2011 08:46 pm Over at Smithsonian.com, Sarah Zielinski has a great piece about important female scientists whose names aren't as publicly well-known as they ought to be. She lists 10 smart, sciencey ladies. Here's my favorite: Barbara McClintock (1902 – 1992) While studying …
Continue reading → Read in browser Newzbin2 releases censorware-busting client
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 21, 2011 08:41 pm A UK court ordered ISP British Telecom to use censorware called Cleanfeed to block Newzbin2, a file-sharing site. Newzbin2 responded by releasing a cross-platform app for evading censorware. The app, Newzbin Client 1.0.0.127, uses a combination of encryption and other …
Continue reading → Read in browser When autistic adults aren't quirky geniuses
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 21, 2011 08:32 pm Cory posted earlier this week about Amy Harmon's excellent profile of an autistic 20-year-old, trying to find a place in the adult world. At her Culturing Science blog, Hannah Waters adds some nice perspective to the praise for Harmon's work, …
Continue reading → Read in browser Odds are good you won't be hit by a satellite this weekend
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 21, 2011 08:23 pm A retired climate research satellite will plummet to Earth on Friday. There is a 1-in-3,200 chance of it hitting a person. BUT! Don't worry too much about that, says Scientific American reporter John Matson. A 1-in-3200 chance of a piece …
Continue reading → Read in browser Bisexual squid, lurking in the deep
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 21, 2011 08:17 pm For obvious reasons, there's not a lot of observational data concerning the behavior of deep-sea-dwelling squid. But a new study has found indirect evidence that one species of squid—the 5-inch long Octopoteuthis deletron—mates both bisexually, and promiscuously. How do you …
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