WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...
Accordion-patterned accordion file from GAMAGO Mike D for Net Neutrality Technology interaction and ethics: how to live a good life and make a better world New app from Adafruit: Circuit Playground Code Hero: A Game That Teaches You To Make Games Premiere of sf movie that solicited steampunk props from Boing Boing readers Army Of God, a webcomic about the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo Architecture mashups: "Fiction" Rudy Rucker interview: "All these years, and I'm still looking for the big aha." Transparency Grenade: a grenade-shaped surveillance device for smoke-filled rooms Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done What's the social cost of making it harder to get Sudafed? "Normal" people aren't the only ones who matter online Bulgaria and Netherlands back away from ACTA Here is a video of a hissing cockroach giving birth Girl gives directions to her house Orwell would be proud of Canada's Tories Help Spider and Jeanne Robinson's daughter fight cancer Involuntary transparency for Canada's spying-bill MP Prospecting for wind Solo on a tiny drum kit Documentary about inventor of giant 3D printer that can print a house TOM THE DANCING BUG: God-Man, in "The Seeds of Discontent!" New Boing Boing T-shirt: Skullcap Then & Now #12: Apple crate art What it's like to be uninsured Britain's threatening and clueless domain takedown message Polygon Heroes: low poly-count 3D superhero posters Bonsai fairylands of Takanori Aiba The song about the song of the Jurassic cricket Accordion-patterned accordion file from GAMAGO
By David Pescovitz on Feb 16, 2012 03:29 am Just this morning, I was thinking that I needed an accordion file to slip into my laptop bag. The GAMAGO gods heard my prayers and responded this afternoon with a handsome Accordion File that certainly beats manila. It is $10. GAMAGO's Accordion File
Read in browser Mike D for Net Neutrality
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 16, 2012 02:29 am The Beastie Boys' Michael "Mike D" Diamond is part of an AT&T investor group seeking to put a net neutrality question on the shareholder ballot: "The shareholder resolution would recommend each company 'publicly commit to operate its wireless broadband network consistent with network neutrality principles,' the letter said. The companies should not discriminate based on ...
Read in browser Technology interaction and ethics: how to live a good life and make a better world
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 16, 2012 01:09 am Bret Victor was once a "Human Interface Inventor" for Apple, and was apparently key to the iOS/tablet efforts at the company. In this hour-long presentation to CUSEC (Canadian University Software Engineering Conference), he delivers a stirring manifesto for interaction design and relates it to having a principled stand on technology and ethics. It's an extraordinary ...
Read in browser New app from Adafruit: Circuit Playground
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 16, 2012 12:49 am [Video Link] Adafruit's Circuit Playground looks like a major update to Collin Cunningham's earlier circuit design assistant app. Circuit Playground simplifies electronics reference & calculation so you can have more fun hacking, making, & building your projects! This app is designed for both iPhone and iPad. Decipher resistor & capacitor codes with ease Calculate power, ...
Read in browser Code Hero: A Game That Teaches You To Make Games
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 16, 2012 12:24 am "Code Hero is a game that teaches you how to make games so you can learn to code while you play with a Code Gun that shoots Javascript in Unity 3D." I was very impressed with the demo of Code Hero that Alex Peake showed me at Maker Faire last May. It's on Kickstarter now. ...
Read in browser Premiere of sf movie that solicited steampunk props from Boing Boing readers
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 16, 2012 12:03 am Ant sez, "Cory kindly posted about Dimensions, a 1920s/30s sci-fi drama filmed in Cambridge, England, when we were in pre-production. At the time we were trying to round up steampunk props for our main character's workshop. We are incredibly excited to announce our U.S. premiere! Dimensions screens on Saturday 18th February as the Closing Film ...
Read in browser Army Of God, a webcomic about the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 10:40 pm Today Cartoon Movement launches the first monthly installment of Army Of God, an ambitious 100 page work of comics journalism by David Axe and Tim Hamilton focusing on the Lord's Resistance Army in the Congo, the people they've terrorized, and the people fighting back. Read the first chapter on Cartoon Movement. Chapter two will published ...
Read in browser Architecture mashups: "Fiction"
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 10:00 pm Belgian photographer Filip Dujardin shoots buildings around his town of Ghent and then mashes them up into impossible (and beautiful) structures he calls "Fictions." Dujardin's website is a bit cumbersome (all Flash, all the time), but Freshome has a flat gallery of the photos. Filip Dujardin Photography (via Cribcandy)
Read in browser Rudy Rucker interview: "All these years, and I'm still looking for the big aha."
By Brendan Byrne on Feb 15, 2012 09:28 pm "When I see an old movie, like from the '40s or '50s or '60s, the people look so calm. They don't have smart phones, they're not looking at computer screens, they're taking their time. They'll sit in a chair and just stare off into space. I think some day we'll find our way back to ...
Read in browser Transparency Grenade: a grenade-shaped surveillance device for smoke-filled rooms
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 09:00 pm Julian Oliver's "Transparency Grenade" is a surveillance device shaped like a Soviet F1 Hand Grenade, stuffed with network sniffers and other technology. It is intended to be hidden in smoke-filled rooms where secretive and corrupt meetings are taking place, so that all the material therein can be widely viewed. Most importantly however it is the ...
Read in browser Neal Stephenson on getting big stuff done
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 08:36 pm [Video Link] Neal Stephenson talks about "our society's inability to execute on big stuff, to get big stuff done. In the first two thirds of the 20th century we went from not believing that heavier-than-air-flight was possible to walking on the moon." Solve for X is a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moonshot thinking ...
Read in browser What's the social cost of making it harder to get Sudafed?
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 08:26 pm Writing in The Atlantic, Megan McArdle analyzes the societal cost of requiring a doctor's visit to get a prescription for Sudafed, in order to make it harder to acquire materials used in fabricating meth. She makes a compelling case that, as bad as meth labs are, and as much as they cost society, cracking down ...
Read in browser "Normal" people aren't the only ones who matter online
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 15, 2012 08:23 pm "Large group of smiling business people. Teamwork." by Kurhan. Courtesy of Shutterstock If you want to understand why Silicon Valley startups keep tripping into privacy-related PR disasters, you could not do better than reading this attack on online privacy from Silicon Alley Insider editor Matt Rosoff. Each time [a data breach] happens, bloggers and privacy ...
Read in browser Bulgaria and Netherlands back away from ACTA
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 06:16 pm More dominoes are falling in the global fight to kill ACTA -- Bulgaria and the Netherlands have joined Germany and many other EU nations in refusing to move further on the secretive copyright treaty that was negotiated without transparency, oversight, or civil society participation. "I will table a proposal to the Council of Ministers to ...
Read in browser Here is a video of a hissing cockroach giving birth
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Feb 15, 2012 06:11 pm So. That happened. Interesting tidbit for those of you too horrified to watch: Hissing cockroaches apparently give birth upside down with their lady parts up in the air. Another thing I learned: Animals giving birth is apparently a fairly popular YouTube genre. Check out the sidebar for cats, snakes, and more cockroaches. Video Link A ...
Read in browser Girl gives directions to her house
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 05:45 pm [Video Link] This is pretty much what all spoken directions sound like to me, and why I depend on my GPS. (Via Cynical-C)
Read in browser Orwell would be proud of Canada's Tories
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 05:15 pm Yesterday, the Canadian Conservative government introduced a "minor" change to its sweeping domestic spying bill. Instead of being called the "Lawful Access Act" it is now called the "Protecting Children From Internet Predators Act." (Thanks, Robbo!)
Read in browser Help Spider and Jeanne Robinson's daughter fight cancer
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 05:07 pm Terri Luanna DaSilva is the daughter of science fiction writers Spider and Jeanne Robinson. Readers will remember that Jeanne died of cancer in 2010. Now the family has been visited by cancer again: Terri has Stage IV metastatic breast cancer -- and a two-year-old daughter. She's fighting it, and Spider is asking his fans and ...
Read in browser Involuntary transparency for Canada's spying-bill MP
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 04:31 pm Vic Toews is the controversial Canadian Minister of Public Safety whose spying bill will require ISPs to log and retain an enormous amount of your online activity, and then make that available to police without a warrant. Yesterday, Toews drew criticism when he said that opponents of his bill "stand with child pornographers." Today an ...
Read in browser Prospecting for wind
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Feb 15, 2012 04:16 pm Before the Lights Go Out is Maggie's new book about how our current energy systems work, and how we'll have to change them in the future. It comes out April 10th and is available for pre-order now. (E-book pre-orders coming soon!) Over the next couple of months, Maggie will be posting some energy-related stories based ...
Read in browser Solo on a tiny drum kit
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 04:03 pm [Video Link] (Via Biotv)
Read in browser Documentary about inventor of giant 3D printer that can print a house
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 04:02 pm The Man Who Prints Houses is a documentary about Enrico Dini, an Italian roboticist who switched tracks to design and build enormous 3D printers capable of outputting houses: Having built his printer – the world's largest – from scratch, there's no shortage of work offers for this highly-skilled and imaginative engineer. Throughout the course of ...
Read in browser TOM THE DANCING BUG: God-Man, in "The Seeds of Discontent!"
By Ruben Bolling on Feb 15, 2012 03:51 pm God-Man Commandeth that you visit the TOM THE DANCING BUG WEBSITE, and that you do Follow RUBEN BOLLING on TWITTER.
Read in browser New Boing Boing T-shirt: Skullcap
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 03:33 pm Hot on the heels of Adam "Ape Lad" Koford's Unizilla T-shirt comes this piece of formal attire: Skullcap. Designed by Sarina Frauenfelder, the design represents the relationship between the universality of myth and life as performance. With influences as diverse as Rousseau and Roy Lichtenstein, new variations are synthesized from both mundane and transcendent meanings. ...
Read in browser Then & Now #12: Apple crate art
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 15, 2012 03:19 pm I snapped a photo of the art on the box on the left before tossing it in the recycling bin. What a hideous illustration! Then & Now #11: Inn-Hospitable Then and Now #10.5: Tear Mender Then & Now #10: Canned Mermaid Then and Now #9: Antifreeze Then and Now #8: S. Britt's Art Studio Then ...
Read in browser What it's like to be uninsured
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Feb 15, 2012 03:13 pm When I was in second grade, I got health insurance for the first time. I remember my parents—with looks on their faces somewhere between proud and relieved—telling me that it was now totally okay to fall out of a tree and break my arm. Frankly, that didn't sound like much fun, so I never took ...
Read in browser Britain's threatening and clueless domain takedown message
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 15, 2012 03:05 pm Britain's Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA) seizes domains in similar fashion to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But whereas American authorities' placeholders are all businesslike neoclassicism, Britain's look like something a phisher would email to scare you into giving up your PayPal password. The daftest part? Showing you your browser environment data, then threatening the ...
Read in browser Polygon Heroes: low poly-count 3D superhero posters
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 02:56 pm James, a photo retoucher in New Zealand, makes these "de-touched" "polygon hero" posters, 3D representations of familiar comics icons, downrezzed to abstract jaggie forms. Polygon Heroes (Thanks, danielpresling!)
Read in browser Bonsai fairylands of Takanori Aiba
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 15, 2012 02:36 pm Takanori Aiba's bonsai and epoxy fancies are beautiful, gnarly fairylands, full of whimsy and perfectly weird. (Image: "Bonsai-B" and "Hôtel de Michelin" by TAKANORI AIBA, copyright TOKYO GOOD IDEA Development Institute Co, Ltd, used with permission)
Read in browser The song about the song of the Jurassic cricket
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Feb 15, 2012 02:25 pm Last week, we learned that scientists had reconstructed the song of a Jurassic-era cricket. This week, song-a-day impresario Jonathan Mann has written a ballad to that lonely insect and its ancient quest for love. Video Link (with lyrics!)
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