Watchismo Vintage & Modern Horology - Our watches will improve your self esteem by 7% James Murdoch, "the first Mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise" Rick Perry on the three agencies of government he would shut down Fake British WWII passport for Hitler Duck does not like to be touched Switchblade bottle opener Quilts of nebulae and galaxies Why we get the future of tech wrong Library builds a hackerspace Mexico: moderator of online discussion forum about narcos reported as tortured, decapitated by narcos Possum eating strawberries (video) Sega Outrun re-created as Arduino-driven mechanical game Science Book Club: National Geographic's The Big Idea iPad 2 unlocking-by-cover vulnerability IndieGoGo campaign for Custom Made Theatre Company's sweet, low-budg stage adaptation of LITTLE BROTHER Scathing critique of "social" sites: "The Social Graph is Neither" SF in SF this Saturday: Kim Stanley Robinson and Ceclia Holland Bullet-shaped ice molds Indie Jewish music from the 1950s to the 1970s and pop-up record shop in San Francisco! New Fed warrantless GPS trackers discovered in the wild The Tetris Effect New Thomas Doyle dioramae: freaky floating houses and apocalyptic craters Op-ed by US hiker jailed in iran: solitary confinement is torture Music video set beneath the Antarctic sea ice TOM THE DANCING BUG: Look What Happens When You Over-Tax the Job-Creators Like Hollingsworth Hound! Radiohead, from the basement (DVD/Blu-Ray) Attorney General says FBI harmed anti-terror fight with "violent Muslim" training Great Moments in Pedantry: The odds of your existence Occupation in October: beautiful, long-form OWS radio documentary by Alex Chadwick Jaw-dropping northern lights Beautiful 3D printed Settlers of Catan tiles James Murdoch, "the first Mafia boss in history who didn't know he was running a criminal enterprise"
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 10, 2011 12:23 pm James Murdoch has been hauled back before Britain's Parliament to answer questions about what he knew and to what extent he is culpable in the News of the World/phone hacking scandal. In the BBC clip linked below, MP Tom Watson asks Murdoch if he knows what "omerta" means (Murdoch demurs). Then Murdoch embarks on a ...
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By Rob Beschizza on Nov 10, 2011 11:37 am Read in browser Fake British WWII passport for Hitler
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 10, 2011 05:02 am This fake German passport for Hitler was produced in 1941 by Britain's Special Operations Executive, the spy branch in charge of forging documents for moles, spies, partisans, and other covert operatives, as a proof of concept. In a moment of spirited hijinks, the SOE made Herr Schicklgruber into a Jew seeking a visa to enter ...
Read in browser Duck does not like to be touched
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 10, 2011 01:44 am Noted.
Read in browser Switchblade bottle opener
By David Pescovitz on Nov 10, 2011 01:32 am BB pals Greg Long and Chris Edmundson designed this clever SwitchPop Bottle Opener. This would be infinitely more useful to me than the common variety switchblade comb. Because I'm bald. Even still… very clever, Chris and Greg! Get one for $20 from GAMA-GO. Switch Pop Bottle Opener
Read in browser Quilts of nebulae and galaxies
By David Pescovitz on Nov 10, 2011 01:26 am Jimmy McBride makes magnificent intergalactic quilts, like M1 V2 (The Crab Nebula) seen above. They are >$12,000 and available on Etsy. More details about the process and products at his Intergalactic Transport blog. (via @arielwaldman)
Read in browser Why we get the future of tech wrong
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 11:28 pm John Naughton's Association for Learning Technology keynote, "The elusive technological future," is a no-holds-barred, kick-ass talk about the systems, blindspots and biases that keep us from understanding where tech has been and where it's going. John's the Professor of the Public Understanding of Technology at the Open University, and he's the author of the excellent ...
Read in browser Library builds a hackerspace
By Mark Frauenfelder on Nov 09, 2011 10:32 pm In March, MAKE's Phil Torrone argued that libraries should retool to become hackerspaces. The Fayetteville Free Library in Fayetteville, NY is doing just that. Here's the story from KQED's Mindshift: Earlier this year, MAKE Magazine's Phillip Torrone wrote a provocative article asking "Is it time to rebuild and retool libraries and make 'techshops'?" In other ...
Read in browser Mexico: moderator of online discussion forum about narcos reported as tortured, decapitated by narcos
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 10:15 pm The moderator of an online discussion forum about local cartel-related crime is reported to have been killed in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. Near the corpse, a "narco manta," or sign taking responsibility for the murder, was found and points to the ultraviolent cartel known as the Zetas. Wired News reports that the victim was a 35-year-old ...
Read in browser Possum eating strawberries (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 10:08 pm Opossumnomnomnomnom. [Video Link, thanks Antinous!]
Read in browser Sega Outrun re-created as Arduino-driven mechanical game
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 09:57 pm Gustavo recreated the classic Sega driving game "Outrun" as a handheld mechanical amusement, controlled by an Arduino. Made in over a month using spare time, he managed to capture all the features of this classic Sega arcade game in an Arduino-driven, servo-spinning tabletop console. The objective of the game is to drive a lap in ...
Read in browser Science Book Club: National Geographic's The Big Idea
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2011 09:52 pm I have a weird relationship with coffee-table books. In general, I kind of think of them as clutter—like a particularly heavy and ungainly pile of junk mail that you can't just throw away. They're books to flip through and never really read again. For the rest of eternity, they just sit there, getting in your ...
Read in browser iPad 2 unlocking-by-cover vulnerability
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 09:00 pm The iPad 2 has a weird vulnerability: its PIN-based security can be bypassed by hooking up a "smart cover"
Read in browser IndieGoGo campaign for Custom Made Theatre Company's sweet, low-budg stage adaptation of LITTLE BROTHER
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 08:04 pm San Francisco's Custom Made Theatre Company is mounting a sweet, low-budget production of Little Brother, and they're looking to raise the funds for a high-quality video projector, which the playwright, Josh Costello, says "would make a huge difference."
Read in browser Scathing critique of "social" sites: "The Social Graph is Neither"
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 08:00 pm Maciej Ceglowski's "The Social Graph is Neither" is a scathing, spot-on critique of the deceptive and seductive simplicity of "social graphs" which purport to represent human interaction and relations through mathematical modelling. As with many "semantic web" projects, social networks can only achieve any kind of usable scale and coherence by simplifying the relationships they ...
Read in browser SF in SF this Saturday: Kim Stanley Robinson and Ceclia Holland
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 07:19 pm The next installment of the always-awesome SF-in-SF reading series features two exceptional writers: Kim Stanley Robinson and Ceclia Holland (check out previous mentions of Robinson here). It's on Sat, Nov 12, doors open at 6PM, event starts at 7, and, as always, the authors will be interviewed by the estimable Terry Bisson. Free, suggested donation ...
Read in browser Bullet-shaped ice molds
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 05:50 pm GeekStuff4U's bullet ice-molds produce ten rounds at a time. I've had pretty mixed results from two-part ice-molds (and it's not clear from the illustrations how the two halves of this mold fit together and how you fill them), but the finished product shot is pretty sweet. The $47 price-tag is awfully steep, however. Bullet Ice ...
Read in browser Indie Jewish music from the 1950s to the 1970s and pop-up record shop in San Francisco!
By David Pescovitz on Nov 09, 2011 05:25 pm "Songs For The Jewish-American Jet Set: The Tikva Records Story 1950-1973" is a new compilation celebrating the indie Jewish record label that raged in the latter half of the last century. Tikva had an eclectic roster, cranking out everything from Israeli folk and klezmer to cantorial singing, Catskills comedy, political spoken word, and 60s rock ...
Read in browser New Fed warrantless GPS trackers discovered in the wild
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 04:56 pm As the fight over the warrantless placing of GPS trackers on suspects' cars continues, Americans continue to discover hidden GPS trackers. Wired's looked at these before, and today they've got the story of "Greg," a young man in San Jose, California, who found not one, but two warrantless trackers on his SUV. The 25-year-old resident ...
Read in browser The Tetris Effect
By Rob Beschizza on Nov 09, 2011 04:41 pm "The world's first commercial electronic video game, Computer Space, was released in 1971. The world's first electronic stock market, the National Association of Securities Dealers Automated Quotations (NASDAQ), opened in 1971. The world's first scholarly journal devoted to the study of autism and autism spectrum disorders in children, The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, ...
Read in browser New Thomas Doyle dioramae: freaky floating houses and apocalyptic craters
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 04:09 pm Thomas Doyle (previously) has a show at LeBasse Projects in Culver City; the gallery of miniature dioramae is mouth-wateringly apocalyptically magical. Preview: Thomas Doyle – "Surface to Air" @ LeBasse Projects
Read in browser Op-ed by US hiker jailed in iran: solitary confinement is torture
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 04:06 pm "You don't have to beat someone to inflict pain and suffering; the psychological torture of prolonged solitary confinement leaves no marks, but its effects are severe and long-lasting." From a New York Times op-ed by Sarah Shourd, one of the three American hikers jailed by Iran. Bradley Manning, the young man the US believes gave ...
Read in browser Music video set beneath the Antarctic sea ice
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2011 04:04 pm Dayton's Wall is an underwater geologic formation named for Paul Dayton, a marine ecologist who studies the lives and interactions between seafloor-dwelling organisms. Located in Antarctica, in an area of the Ross Sea between McMurdo Station and Cape Armitage, Dayton's Wall is a great place to spot creatures that live on the rocky Antarctic seafloor. ...
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: Look What Happens When You Over-Tax the Job-Creators Like Hollingsworth Hound!
By Ruben Bolling on Nov 09, 2011 04:00 pm If you visit the TOM THE DANCING BUG WEBSITE, you just might be participating in the type of patriotic and entertaining activity that CREATES JOBS FOR AMERICANS. If you follow RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER, you're probably just wasting time.
Read in browser Radiohead, from the basement (DVD/Blu-Ray)
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 03:55 pm The band Radiohead today announced that their video performance of The King Of Limbs will now be made available to buy on DVD and BluRay. In case you didn't see it, the programme is a live studio performance of The King of Limbs. There are also performances of The Daily Mail and Staircase, which haven't ...
Read in browser Attorney General says FBI harmed anti-terror fight with "violent Muslim" training
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 03:46 pm Spencer Ackerman at Wired: "The FBI wasn't just wrong in teaching its agents that average Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers, Attorney General Eric Holder told Congress Tuesday. That bigoted Bureau training undermined the government's efforts to stop the next terror attack."
Read in browser Great Moments in Pedantry: The odds of your existence
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2011 03:34 pm What are the odds that you, as an individual, exist? Pretty good, you'd guess, since you're sitting right here reading this. But, in an abstract sense, the chances that you exist are really rather slim. In fact, once you see the full infographic, put together by futurist and designer Sofya Yampolsky of Visual.ly, I'm sure ...
Read in browser Occupation in October: beautiful, long-form OWS radio documentary by Alex Chadwick
By Xeni Jardin on Nov 09, 2011 03:18 pm I've been wondering when the first great radio documentary about Occupy Wall Street would come out, and when I was driving around in LA yesterday doing errands, I tuned into it by accident on KCRW. Longtime public radio producer, reporter, documentarian and host Alex Chadwick, with whom I worked at the NPR program "Day to ...
Read in browser Jaw-dropping northern lights
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Nov 09, 2011 03:11 pm This amazing shot was taken in Norway by Ole Christian Salomonsen. It's one of the many photos featured in National Geographic's upcoming photo book, Visions of Earth. You can check out a video preview of some of the other photos on YouTube.
Read in browser Beautiful 3D printed Settlers of Catan tiles
By Cory Doctorow on Nov 09, 2011 03:03 pm Shapeways user Tedparsec has created a wide assortment of 3D printed, colorized Settlers of Catan tiles that you can have printed and shipped to you in a wide variety of materials. He's also got a good line on handcrafted, 3D printed RPG miniatures. tedparsec's designs (via Wonderland)
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