WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...
Turn any hard surface into a touch interface with a contact mic Missing portion of Obama Hope poster revealed Steve Lodefink's finished pinewood derby racer Rooster tailin' on the Moon What it's like for a mathematician 9 weeks of weather in 3 minutes Judy Blume interview Meet Iraq's youngest photographer. He is 8 years old. Can we get cat-sharing sites to harden themselves against Iran's secret police? After a diet, your body might be working against you Belarus bans browsing foreign websites Barry White's sperm quality: Why are deep-voiced men attractive? Hybrid sharks in the south Pacific Mineways: turn Minecraft creations into 3D prints Lost ring found on carrot Walmart shopper tries to use $1 million bill Discardia: not anti-stuff, just pro-awesome Sketching not permitted Preserving Tesla's Wardenclyffe facility Jesse Thorn launches Bullseye, plus a torrent for every episode of Sound of Young America Zombie-killing sling-hammer with skull-ejector Price of Starbucks coffee to rise in some US cities; taste of Starbucks coffee unchanged Prison inmates register with IRS as tax preparers, audit finds Ancient Greek punishments: the 8-bit Flashgame edition Did genetic adaptation help early African-Americans survive harsh conditions of slavery? Brain Rot: My First EC Comic Untitled flower scan, Katinka Matson Understanding Rupert Murdoch in five minutes HP Envy Spectre Hugo nominations ballot is open Turn any hard surface into a touch interface with a contact mic
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 04, 2012 05:46 am Bruno Zamborlin, a PhD candidate at IRCAM/Centre Pompidou and Goldsmiths, University of London, and Norbert Schnell, a Centre Pompidou researcher, created this astounding demo of using a contact microphone to turn any hard surface into a touch interface. The microphone detects the vibrations from your touches and figures out what kind of touch you're engaged ...
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By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 03, 2012 11:23 pm From Demand Progress President Obama just signed the National Defense Authorization Act into law despite startling provisions that will allow the military to indefinitely detain American citizens. It's a travesty, defying basic principles of justice and due process in perhaps the most extreme respect our nation has ever seen. Thankfully, several lawmakers are keeping up ...
Read in browser Steve Lodefink's finished pinewood derby racer
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 03, 2012 10:55 pm Last month, I posted some photos of Steve Lodefink's unfinished pinewood racer bodies. Today, he sent me photos of one of the finished racers. I love the sparkle paint job. Steve and I have started talking about holding an all ages pinewood derby race at Maker Faire. Why should Cub Scouts (or, more likely, their ...
Read in browser Rooster tailin' on the Moon
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 09:46 pm This charming video combines everything you like about the Apollo program with everything you like about "The Dukes of Hazzard." Thanks frycook! Video Link
Read in browser What it's like for a mathematician
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 09:33 pm It's hard to explain the experience of expertise. That's why one of the first things they teach you in journalism school is to avoid questions like, "What's it like to be a mathematician?" It's hard for your interview subject to know how to respond and you seldom get a useful answer. But not never. On ...
Read in browser 9 weeks of weather in 3 minutes
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 09:20 pm There are facts that just aren't apparent from our everyday perspective. Sometimes, in order to really get a scientific concept at the gut level, you have to seek out a different way to view the world. Do that, and you'll find yourself emotionally gobsmacked by well-known concepts you'd long ago accepted intellectually. For instance, watching ...
Read in browser Judy Blume interview
By David Pescovitz on Jan 03, 2012 09:19 pm Are you there Judy Blume? It's me, Smithsonian: Do you plan which important life issue you will deal with in a book? I always have some idea of the story I'm about to tell. I knew Davey's father would die suddenly and violently in Tiger Eyes. I knew Rachel Robinson's brother Charles would disrupt the ...
Read in browser Meet Iraq's youngest photographer. He is 8 years old.
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 09:05 pm Qamar Hashim, who is 8, takes pictures at al-Mutanabi street in Baghdad. Hashim tours famous streets to picture Baghdadis with his single camera. He is the youngest Iraqi photographer to win several local awards, according to the Iraqi Society Photographic (ISP). Photos above and below taken December 16, 2011. Photos via Reuters. Looks like he's ...
Read in browser Can we get cat-sharing sites to harden themselves against Iran's secret police?
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 09:00 pm In my latest Guardian column, "The internet is the best place for dissent to start," I look at Ethan Zuckerman's recent talk on the Internet and human rights, and the way that cute cats create the positive externality of a place for dissent to begin and flourish, and look at the problems this causes: Zuckerman's ...
Read in browser After a diet, your body might be working against you
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 08:54 pm The New York Times has a fascinating story about the current state of the science on weight loss, including the results of one recent (albeit small) study that suggests that the human body responds to weight loss by actively trying to regain weight—a finding that could help explain why it's so difficult to maintain significant ...
Read in browser Belarus bans browsing foreign websites
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 08:46 pm The government of Belarus has passed a law that makes it a misdemeanor for citizens to browse websites hosted outside of the country. The law goes into effect in the former Soviet republic on January 6.
Read in browser Barry White's sperm quality: Why are deep-voiced men attractive?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 08:41 pm Here's a fascinating study that shines a bright spotlight of nuance on some of those maybe-too-simplistic assumptions we make about evolution, physical characteristics, and reproductive fitness. If you've paid any attention to reporting on the science of what humans find attractive and why, you won't be surprised to learn that studies consistently show that deeper ...
Read in browser Hybrid sharks in the south Pacific
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jan 03, 2012 08:09 pm The Australian blacktip shark lives in tropical waters. The common blacktip shark prefers its water subtropical and temperate. Because of the difference in habitat, these two animals have become separate subspecies with distinct physical differences. However, there are some places where their habitats overlap. And here, along the eastern coast of Australia, there is interspecies ...
Read in browser Mineways: turn Minecraft creations into 3D prints
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 08:00 pm Mineways is a tool that converts your Minecraft creations into 3D files that can be sent to the 3D printing bureau Shapeways, who will print them out in color plastic and send them to you. The tool itself is free/open and there's C/C++ source for you to download. There are already over 1900 Minecraft tagged ...
Read in browser Lost ring found on carrot
By David Pescovitz on Jan 03, 2012 07:53 pm Lena Paahlsson, who lives on a farm near Mora, Sweden, says that she found her wedding ring, lost for 16 years, on a carrot in her garden. From the BBC News: "The carrot was sprouting in the middle of the ring. It is quite incredible," her husband Ola said to the newspaper. The couple believe ...
Read in browser Walmart shopper tries to use $1 million bill
By David Pescovitz on Jan 03, 2012 07:48 pm A gentleman from Lexington, North Carolina was arrested for trying to pay for his purchases at Walmart with a $1 million bill. (No report whether it's a Reagan bill as seen above, Statue of Liberty, Grover Cleveland, Santa Claus, or any of the other bogus $1 million bills in circulation that I posted about in ...
Read in browser Discardia: not anti-stuff, just pro-awesome
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 03, 2012 07:26 pm In 2002 Dinah Sanders started a personal holiday called Discardia. As she writes in her book, Discardia: More Life, Less Stuff, her quarterly festival celebrates "unconsumption, the slow movement, downshifting, and voluntary simplicity." In other words, it's about getting rid of stuff so you can enjoy a richer life. Sanders (who maintains a blog called ...
Read in browser Sketching not permitted
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 03, 2012 07:12 pm At a photography exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, Mark Wilson of Philanthropr and Gizmodo spotted this lovely sign: "Are things so bad we've banned sketching?" What next, No Derivative Thoughts?
Read in browser Preserving Tesla's Wardenclyffe facility
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 06:51 pm Spider Robinson writes in with an account of a visit to Wardenclyffe, Nikola Tesla's facility at Shoreham, NY, near the north shore of Long Island: "I stood, gobsmacked, within a couple of hundred meters of the base of the tower with which, some of us believe, Tesla accidentally caused the Tunguska Event. The same tower ...
Read in browser Jesse Thorn launches Bullseye, plus a torrent for every episode of Sound of Young America
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jan 03, 2012 06:38 pm In this week's Gweek podcast, our guest host was the Sound of Young America's Jesse Thorn. Jesse talked about his new radio show and podcast called Bullseye. Here's episode one of Bullseye. You can subscribe to it via iTunes. Jesse says: It has culture picks from The AV Club, an interview with cast members of ...
Read in browser Zombie-killing sling-hammer with skull-ejector
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 06:05 pm All-round slingshot badass Jörge Sprave demonstrates his latest lethalness: a zombie-killing sling-hammer with a skull-ejector to make it easy to knock away the shattered, punctured zombie-heads after you've dispatched the inconvenient undead. The Zombie Hammer, Now with Skull Ejector
Read in browser Price of Starbucks coffee to rise in some US cities; taste of Starbucks coffee unchanged
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 05:15 pm Starbucks is raising the price of their coffee beverages by an average of 1% in the Northeast and Sunbelt regions of the US. This will affect cities including New York, Boston, Washington, Atlanta, Dallas and Albuquerque. In NYC, a 12-oz drink will cost you a dime more. More: Reuters.
Read in browser Prison inmates register with IRS as tax preparers, audit finds
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 05:06 pm Hundreds of US prison inmates, including 43 who were serving life sentences, registered with the IRS as income tax preparers. "The IRS officials told auditors it would suspend tax preparer identification numbers already issued to prisoners and deny any future applications from inmates." USA Today via ABC News.
Read in browser Ancient Greek punishments: the 8-bit Flashgame edition
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 05:00 pm "Let's Play: Ancient Greek Punishment" is a series of 8-bit Flash games based on the punishments visited by the gods on various naughty ancient Greeks: Sisyphus, Tantalus, Prometheus, Danaids and Zeno. There's something particularly awfully wonderful about rapidly pressing the G and H keys to writhe in agony and dislodge the eagle that is devouring ...
Read in browser Did genetic adaptation help early African-Americans survive harsh conditions of slavery?
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 04:55 pm Did natural selection help African-Americans adapt to the harsh conditions of their new lives as slaves in the Americas? A team of researchers at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Shanghai report in the journal Genome Research that "certain disease-causing variant genes became more common in African-Americans after their ancestors reached American shores — perhaps ...
Read in browser Brain Rot: My First EC Comic
By Ed Piskor on Jan 03, 2012 04:40 pm 
Read in browser Untitled flower scan, Katinka Matson
By Xeni Jardin on Jan 03, 2012 04:23 pm An untitled work by Katinka Matson, via John Brockman and EDGE.org. The artist's site is here, and you can view a larger-size image here (fun to gaze at on an iPad, I think). Update: Boing Boing reader Jennifer Forman Orth, Ph.D., who is an Invasive Plant Ecologist, says, "That's actually a scan of the seedheads ...
Read in browser Understanding Rupert Murdoch in five minutes
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 04:15 pm Charlie Brooker presents an insightful, 5-minute mini documentary by Adam Curtis on Rupert Murdoch: how did the media baron come to be, what drives him, and where is he headed? Adam Curtis on Rupert Murdoch
Read in browser HP Envy Spectre
By Rob Beschizza on Jan 03, 2012 02:59 pm The Verge has a teaser video for HP's Envy Spectre, which appears to be an ultrabook-style laptop. The original Voodoo Envy was a good-looking alternative to the MacBook Air, with a distinctive style of its own; let's hope this new one isn't just another clone.
Read in browser Hugo nominations ballot is open
By Cory Doctorow on Jan 03, 2012 02:47 pm The Hugo Award nominations are open. Attendees of last year's World Science Fiction in Reno and next year's WorldCon in Chicago (as well as those who paid for "supporter" status) can nominate their favorite science fiction and fantasy stories, books, movies and other media for one of the most prestigious awards in the field. Just ...
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