Thursday, February 23, 2012

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

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Boing Boing

WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...

Goats webcomic book IV: the Kickstarter edition
Amazon.com's many bots feud over book-prices
My smiley face business card party game
The 1990s in forty-eight pictures
Astrologers who claimed copyright on timezones apologize, drop lawsuit -- EFF declares victory!
Spot the difference: jewelry edition
Make: Talk 006 - William Gurstelle, Backyard Ballistics
Superminimalist movie posters
Retro City Rampage
Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo
Futuristic Toronto ARG raising money on IndieGoGo
Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out" (MP3 download)
Ballad of the Virginia mandatory transvaginal ultrasound
Return of Mat Ricardo's east London variety night
Expert showmanship in the streetside preparation of a banana pastry
Microsoft, Google and Netflix want to add DRM-hooks to W3C HTML5 standard
Matter: kickstartered project to sustain serious, long-form online journalism
Pakistani newspaper ad seeks bids for a Great Firewall of Pakistan
Ambiguously ironic superfluous grocer's apo'strophe
Web Kids' manifesto
Zombie Princess Leia and Stormtrooper cosplayers
Losar: Tibetan New Year, and "mandatory celebrations"
Boing Boing science editor Maggie live-tweets a cross-country train adventure
This Is My Home
How Facebook decides which images to allow
Creepy cartoons of the day
Pronunciation Guide: extremely funny videos on how to pronounce things
Know What: a new kind of hyper-curated city guide for iphones (android coming soon)
Ooky ceiling lamp
Every opening of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony

 

Goats webcomic book IV: the Kickstarter edition

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:55 pm

Jon Rosenberg, creator of the entirely demented Goats webcomic sez, "Just wanted to let you know that it looks like I'm going to be able to do a fourth Goats book, and I'm doing it without a publisher -- this one is going to be wholly funded by the readers themselves. The Goats Book IV ...
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Amazon.com's many bots feud over book-prices

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:00 pm

Carlos Bueno, author of a kids' book about understanding computers called Lauren Ipsum, describes what happens when the cadre of competing bots that infest Amazon's sales-database began to viciously fight with one another over pricing for his book. It's a damned weird story. Before I talk about my own troubles, let me tell you about ...
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My smiley face business card party game

By Dean Putney on Feb 23, 2012 11:49 am

Last year I had 250 business cards printed up with :) printed on them and nothing else. Since then I've been finding handy uses for them: writing notes, flirting with girls on the bus, propping up the occasional table, whatever. A nearly-blank business card is a surprisingly useful thing to have around. The best thing ...
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The 1990s in forty-eight pictures

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 11:29 am

Buzzfeed's vision of the 1990s seems close to that of many Americans. From the other side of the pond, I offer a single addendum.
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Astrologers who claimed copyright on timezones apologize, drop lawsuit -- EFF declares victory!

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 11:00 am

A heartening development in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's ongoing effort to secure the Internet's timezone database, which was threatened when an astrology software company called Astrolabe claimed a copyright in the arrangement of the world's timezones. After EFF sought sanctions against the company's lawyers, the company dropped the suit, apologized, and signed a "covenant not ...
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Spot the difference: jewelry edition

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:52 am

On the left, a jewelry design by TattyDevine. On the right, one sold by Claire's. I suspect that it's a fairly generic motif, but that really is very close to an exact rip, isn't it? Except that it's pink, of course. Claire's Accessories rip-off Tatty Devine designs [Handbag.com via]
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Make: Talk 006 - William Gurstelle, Backyard Ballistics

By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 23, 2012 10:30 am

Here's the 6th episode of MAKE's podcast, Make: Talk! In each episode, I'll interview one of the makers featured in the magazine. Our maker this week is William Gurstelle. He's a contributing editor to MAKE and his books include Backyard Ballistics, Adventures from the Technology Underground, and Absinthe and Flamethrowers. In addition, Bill writes frequently ...
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Superminimalist movie posters

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:27 am

You may be fond of creating minimalist movie posters, which cleverly boil down a whole production to a single distinctive, cinematic motif. I'm afraid Slacktory's Jed Stoneham has you all conclusively beaten.
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Retro City Rampage

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:17 am

Brian Provinciano's Retro City Rampage is a 2D sandbox kill-em-up similar to the pre-3D GTA outings—but with more 1980s. Available for pre-order, it'll be released on PC in both DRM-free form and on Steam, and on PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Xbox LIVE Arcade, and WiiWare. The distinctive soundtrack may already be bought separately for anyone ...
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Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:15 am

Our thanks go to Watchismo for sponsoring Boing Boing Blast, our once-daily delivery of headlines by email. Watchismo has just added three of the coolest independent watch brands to 'The VAULT', a curated collection of extraordinary time machines. Devon Watches' Tread 1 exposes a mesmerizing, interwoven system of patented conveyor belts, which include critical elements ...
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Futuristic Toronto ARG raising money on IndieGoGo

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 10:10 am

Trevor sez, ZED.TO is a transmedia adventure that invites audiences to join the ranks of a biotech corporation called ByoLogyc. They're innovative and design-minded, they're the Apple of an emerging technological market, and they're working on a product that will change the lives of all involved... The project pulls from the domains of tangible futures, ...
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Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out" (MP3 download)

By Amy Seidenwurm on Feb 23, 2012 10:00 am

Sound it Out # 18: Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out"" (ft Mike Noyce)I haven't done any market research on this song, but I'm pretty sure that the playing of it will make someone want to have sex with you. OK -- that person needs to already be attracted to you and be considering it... but ...
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Ballad of the Virginia mandatory transvaginal ultrasound

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 09:06 am

Jonathan Mann has devoted today's song-a-day entry to the notorious Virginia transvaginal ultrasound. He notes, "As I was writing this song, the Virginia house passed a bill which still mandates ultrasounds within 24 hours of an abortion, but thankfully, they left out the transvaginal part. I still think the songs stands, though." More Jonathan Mann ...
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Return of Mat Ricardo's east London variety night

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 04:44 am

Indie juggler, conjurer and impresario Mat Ricardo sez, Earlier this month we launched the first in this season of Mat Ricardo's London Varieties - the combined comedy variety and interview show that comes live from the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club in London. We had a ball. You should have been there! But it's ok, ...
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Expert showmanship in the streetside preparation of a banana pastry

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:51 am

This Asian street-food vendor is a great showman, juggler, and all round bad-ass banana pastry maker. Expert Cooking - AMAZING !!! (Thanks, wetdog2!)
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Microsoft, Google and Netflix want to add DRM-hooks to W3C HTML5 standard

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:32 am

A proposed anti-copying extension for the WC3's standard for HTML5 has been submitted by representatives of Google, Microsoft and Netflix. The authors take pains to note that this isn't "DRM" -- because it doesn't attempt to hide keys and other secrets from the user -- but in a mailing list post, they later admitted that ...
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Matter: kickstartered project to sustain serious, long-form online journalism

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:05 am

Matter is a new startup hoping to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter to support thoughtful, long-form journalism on the Internet. Founded by Bobbie Johnson (my former editor at The Guardian) and respected journalist Jim Giles, it seeks to produce a stable business model for serious, reflective online writing. MATTER will focus on doing one thing, and ...
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Pakistani newspaper ad seeks bids for a Great Firewall of Pakistan

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 02:01 am

The ad, clipped from one of the national Pakistani newspapers today (it apparently ran in all of them), seeks bids for a national censoring firewall: "Each box should be able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URLs (concurrent unidirectional filtering capacity) with processing delay of not more than 1 milliseconds." (Thanks, ...
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Ambiguously ironic superfluous grocer's apo'strophe

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:55 am

Alice spotted this coffee cart from the (above average) London coffee chain Apostrophe, which includes a superfluous apostrophe. It's either ironic or too clever by far. Oh the irony.
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Web Kids' manifesto

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:00 am

Piotr Czerski's manifesto, "We, the Web Kids," originally appeared in a Polish daily newspaper, and has been translated to English and pastebinned. I'm suspicious of generational politics in general, but this is a hell of a piece of writing, even in translation. Writing this, I am aware that I am abusing the pronoun 'we', as ...
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Zombie Princess Leia and Stormtrooper cosplayers

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 11:00 pm

Vill4no snapped this great shot of zombie Star Wars cosplayers at Megacon 2012, where there was much awesomeness on display, judging from the rest of the set. Best Star Wars Cosplay ever
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Losar: Tibetan New Year, and "mandatory celebrations"

By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 10:23 pm

Inside Tibet and elsewhere, ethnic Tibetans are today observing Losar, or Tibetan New Year. Above: Tibetan women pray around Labrang Monastery in Xiahe county, Gansu Province. Three Tibetan Buddhist monks set have themselves on fire since Friday, in the latest reported self-immolations denouncing Chinese policies in Tibet and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama. ...
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Boing Boing science editor Maggie live-tweets a cross-country train adventure

By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:59 pm

Our Maggie Koerth-Baker is on a train adventure across the USA. She's tweeting the ride. Everything about this is awesome. Here's a storify collection of most of her tweets. (thanks, Chris!).
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This Is My Home

By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:52 pm

A short film about the happy side of hoarding by Kelsey Holtaway and Mark Cersosimo of Departure Arrival Films: On an unseasonably warm November night in Manhattan on our way to get ice cream, we stumbled upon what appeared to be a vintage shop, brightly lit display window and all. As we began to walk ...
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How Facebook decides which images to allow

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 09:51 pm

Wondering why your Facebook breastfeeding image was blocked, but not the image of a deep wound your friend posted? Wonder no more. A leaked document reveals the weird, arcane, and extremely detailed guidelines used to determine which images are Facebook-safe. Facebook bans images of breastfeeding if nipples are exposed – but allows "graphic images" of ...
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Creepy cartoons of the day

By Rob Beschizza on Feb 22, 2012 09:32 pm

Modern cereal box art features beloved characters rendered in a certain overdone pseudo-3D style. The technique: slickly-gradated shadows with intense highlights. When done well, the result offers the vividness and "pop" of computer graphics, without losing the hand-drawn warmth of a traditional 'toon. Done badly, and it causes goosebumps. Take the Fred Flintstone on this ...
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Pronunciation Guide: extremely funny videos on how to pronounce things

By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:05 pm

[Video Link], via Sean Bonner. I LOL'd, then cried, then hit play again and LOL'd some more. CONTAINS HELVETICA.
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Know What: a new kind of hyper-curated city guide for iphones (android coming soon)

By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 22, 2012 09:03 pm

Know What is a new travel guide for LA and San Francisco (with New York, Chicago, Portland coming soon). It's available on the iPhone, and you can buy additional guides from different people. I contributed a guide for 25 spots around LA, called "Unicorns, Carnivorous Plants & Other Angelenos I've Known and Loved." You can ...
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Ooky ceiling lamp

By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 09:00 pm

Daniel Ritthanondh's "Barnacle Ceiling Lamp" is a tribute to the decor in the game Half Life, an altogether ooky bit of ceiling sculpture. Not yet available for sale, but Ritthanondh advises that a limited run will be forthcoming. Barnacle Ceiling Lamp! (via Neatorama)
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Every opening of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony

By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 08:45 pm

[Video Link]. YouTube viewer comment: "I liked the part where they played the opening chords of the symphony." (thanks, Joe Sabia!)
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