WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...
Canada to stop issuing pennies, businesses told to round off to nearest 5 cents, or "work it out for themselves" New York City Dept of Education's "banned" words list Classics of Internet Art Suzanne Ciani: music of Atari, Next, pinball, and Star Wars Disco Perfect illustration in a 1941 shaving cream ad 3 days until the release of "The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist"! (…plus your chance to win an autographed copy today) Drunkard's serenade: "Bohemian Rhapsody" from the back of a police car CC-licensed boardgame about demonstrators and cops seeks Kickstarter funds Gendered toy-ad remixer Maggie in Boston next week Underground press history event in San Francisco this Saturday Bruce Schneier hands former TSA boss his ass Motorized kazoo-equipped Hall and Oates cover 1942 Donald Duck cartoon funded by the US Treasury exhorts you file your tax-return Gorgeous photos of jets flying too close to the beach Stary eyeball hair Matt Stone on the corruption in the MPAA's ratings board 3D printed shoes Best Buy to close 50 stores Annihilator: a multifunction demolition tool Bulgarian married, with Bulgarian children, in Bulgarian US Fed judge: it might be unconstitutional to go fishing through your hard-drive at the border just because you support Bradley Manning Insulated eyeball lunch-bag Historic Apollo 11 rocket engines found on ocean floor by Jeff Bezos and team Sentry gun controller Webcam Tears Invisible Robota: the robots who ate our jobs Open source "tricorders": handheld sensor packages for everyone Apple CEO Tim Cook visits Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China 4 days until the release of "The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist"! (…plus your chance to win an autographed copy today) Canada to stop issuing pennies, businesses told to round off to nearest 5 cents, or "work it out for themselves"
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 01:00 pm The Canadian Tory government has announced that it's discontinuing the minting of new pennies, as the coins are expensive and considered a "nuisance" by businesses and their customers. As Steven Chase writes in the Globe and Mail: "It costs taxpayers a penny-and-a-half every time we make one," Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told the Commons, adding ...
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By David Pescovitz on Mar 30, 2012 12:57 pm You've likely heard that the New York City Department of Education wants to avoid the user of certain words or phrases on standardized tests if "the topic is controversial among the adult population and might not be acceptable in a state-mandated testing situation; the topic has been overused in standardized tests or textbooks and is ...
Read in browser Classics of Internet Art
By David Pescovitz on Mar 30, 2012 12:42 pm Over at MyLifeScoop, a site created by one of our sponsors, Intel, I wrote about Ken Goldberg's Telegarden (1995), Eric Paulos's Limelight (2004), and other classic Internet artworks. Cyberspace is no longer a place we go to through our desktop or laptop screens, but an overlay on top of our physical reality. In fact, the ...
Read in browser Suzanne Ciani: music of Atari, Next, pinball, and Star Wars Disco
By David Pescovitz on Mar 30, 2012 12:34 pm If you've ever heard Meco's classic space disco version of the Star Wars theme, or played the Xenon pinball machine, or saw the original Atari TV commercials, then you've heard the pioneering electronic music of Suzanne Ciani. From her earliest days studying with Don Buchla at UC Berkeley and Max Mathews at Stanford to her ...
Read in browser Perfect illustration in a 1941 shaving cream ad
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 12:00 pm The illustration in this 1943 Listerine shaving ad is totally perfect, and really makes the case that the MAD Magazine parodies of old time ads were basically faithful recreations. I love that they gave the guy a double chin. Listerine Shaving Cream
Read in browser 3 days until the release of "The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist"! (…plus your chance to win an autographed copy today)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 30, 2012 11:20 am …and our countdown continues with more Clowes oddities that couldn’t be included in the book. Design dept: Daniel Clowes: “The only valuable class I took in art school was from a guy who taught display lettering which was literally like sign painting. Everybody else was like, ‘Aww man, I can’t believe I have to take ...
Read in browser Drunkard's serenade: "Bohemian Rhapsody" from the back of a police car
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 11:00 am Here is a man who has apparently been arrested for intoxication in an unknown jurisdiction, disputing the charge from the back of a police cruiser by belting out a genuinely soulful rendition of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody." Skip to 3:40 for "Scaramouche! Scaramouche!" Arrested Drunk Guy Sings Bohemian Rhapsody (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Read in browser CC-licensed boardgame about demonstrators and cops seeks Kickstarter funds
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 10:23 am Justin Nichol sez, "Black Flag Games is currently running a Kickstarter to produce a radical boardgame project called 'A Las Barricadas'. It is a boardgame about conflict between state police and anti-authoritarian demonstrators. It is a two-player game with each player representing one of these social forces. The theatre of the conflict is street demonstration. ...
Read in browser Gendered toy-ad remixer
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 08:57 am Zarkonnen sez, "The Gender Remixer lets you set the video of one toy ad to the audio of another aimed at the opposite gender, with hilarious/disturbing results." It's true. The heavily gendered world of toy ads are as formalized as a legal proceeding. Hearing the audio for one and seeing the video for another is ...
Read in browser Maggie in Boston next week
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Mar 30, 2012 08:52 am I've got two speaking gigs in Boston coming up. Both are free and open to the public, but you'll need to RSVP. On April 2nd at 7:00 pm, I'll be speaking to the Boston Skeptics in the Pub about energy. RSVP for Boston Skeptics. On April 4th at 4:00 pm, I'll be at MIT, talking ...
Read in browser Underground press history event in San Francisco this Saturday
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 30, 2012 12:28 am Rina writes, "Join SF in SF and PM Press for an evening with ON THE GROUND: An Illustrated Anecdotal History of the Sixties Underground Press in the U.S. with Trina Robbins, Billy X. Jennings, Judy Gumbo Albert and Terry Bisson. Join contributors to the original underground press movement in discussion, reading, and what's bound to ...
Read in browser Bruce Schneier hands former TSA boss his ass
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 10:10 pm As the Economist's debate between Bruce Schneier and former TSA boss Kip Hawley draws to a close, it's clear that Schneier has crushed Hawley. All of Hawley's best arguments sum up to "Someone somewhere did something bad, and if he'd tried it on us, we would have caught him." His closing clincher? They heard a ...
Read in browser Motorized kazoo-equipped Hall and Oates cover
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 09:28 pm Nicki Bluhm and The Gramblers cover Hall and Oates's "I Can't Go For That" while crammed into a van, with Bluhm driving, singing, and playing a kazoo, and seeming to do a rather good job at all three. Talent! Hall and Oates - I Can't Go For That - Cover by Nicki Bluhm and The ...
Read in browser 1942 Donald Duck cartoon funded by the US Treasury exhorts you file your tax-return
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 08:50 pm Here's a great 19412 Donald Duck toon funded by the Treasury, explaining to war-torn America why they need to all file their taxes to defeat tyranny. Help Donald Duck File His 1941 Federal Tax Return
Read in browser Gorgeous photos of jets flying too close to the beach
By Amy Seidenwurm on Mar 29, 2012 08:26 pm Princess Juliana International Airport (SXM) on St. Maarten has an extremely short runway (7152 feet) that forces jets to get mighty close to people at Maho Beach. Photographer Josef Hoflehner has taken some amazing shots of this phenomenon.
Read in browser Stary eyeball hair
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 08:26 pm An unsourced photo on Biglilkim's Tumblr shows a woman whose back-flip has been turned into an awesome, starey eyeball. Anyone know more about the picture? (via Neatorama) Update: In the comments, Copacetic says, "Yes. The stylist's name is Seaborn (known as Celebrity Seaborn) and the woman in the photo is known as Pastor Dot or ...
Read in browser Matt Stone on the corruption in the MPAA's ratings board
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 07:20 pm In this 2000 clip from a presentation at the Paley Center, South Park co-creator Matt Stone discusses his experience with the MPAA's ratings board, and explains how, as an independent, he found himself playing a kind of high-priced censorship guessing game with the board, who wouldn't tell him which scenes to change in order to ...
Read in browser 3D printed shoes
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 06:14 pm The Smithsonian's Design Decoded blog reports on the latest developments in 3D printed footwear, including the fashion designers and students who are experimenting with printing out shoes using cheap materials that only last for "one lap down a runway." As Andrew writes on the Makerbot blog, "the artist worked with what was available to push ...
Read in browser Best Buy to close 50 stores
By Rob Beschizza on Mar 29, 2012 06:05 pm Photo: jiazi. Shoop: Rob. Consumer electronics retailer Best Buy is to close 50 stores and cut 400 jobs, mostly at its corporate HQ. Thomas Lee of the Star Tribune: In the past, as Best Buy's stores lost market share, [CEO Brian] Dunn emphasized the retailer's profit margins and driving sales through its multi-channel operations, including ...
Read in browser Annihilator: a multifunction demolition tool
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 05:06 pm I've been satisfied with the Stanley FuBar demolition tool that Mark reviewed in 2008 (available in safety yellow!), but I am sorely tempted by the Annihilator Wrecking Bar, which sports all the same features as the FuBar, along with a bottle-opener, a board-straightener, a "multi-purpose nail-puller," a demolition axe, and a chisel. Plus, it's called ...
Read in browser Bulgarian married, with Bulgarian children, in Bulgarian
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 03:52 pm Even though I don't speak Bulgarian, I can tell that the Bulgarian version of Married With Children is awfully faithful to the dreadful American original. It really seems like the cast spent a long time studying the mannerisms and schtick of the US actors. And though I wouldn't swear to it, I'm pretty sure that's ...
Read in browser US Fed judge: it might be unconstitutional to go fishing through your hard-drive at the border just because you support Bradley Manning
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 03:23 pm A rare moment of sanity from the US courts relating to Bradley Manning: David Maurice House, an MIT researcher and high profile supporter of Manning has been given the go-ahead to sue the US government for punitively searching his stuff when he came back to the USA after a holiday in Mexico. "Although the agents ...
Read in browser Insulated eyeball lunch-bag
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 02:49 pm In the Boing Boing Store, our eyeball lunchbag, insulated to keep your eyeball sandwiches fridge-cool until you're ready to eat 'em. Eyeball Lunch Bag
Read in browser Historic Apollo 11 rocket engines found on ocean floor by Jeff Bezos and team
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2012 02:47 pm Amazon founder and space entrepreneur Jeff Bezos announces on his blog that the Apollo 11 rocket engines which propelled Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin to the moon in 1969—making them the first humans on the moon—have been found on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean by Bezos' research team. Next step? Finding a way to ...
Read in browser Sentry gun controller
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 29, 2012 02:45 pm Thanks to Bob's open-source Sentry Gun controller, now anyone can build a gun that "autonomously tracks, aims, and shoots at targets using a webcam." (Via Dangerous Prototypes)
Read in browser Webcam Tears
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2012 02:40 pm Via Gawker's Adrian Chen, a Tumblog of Greatness: Webcam Tears. Works best if you play all of them at the same time.
Read in browser Invisible Robota: the robots who ate our jobs
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 02:30 pm Joe Posner sez, "A month ago Marketplace told me they're doing a weeklong special called "Robots Ate My Job" this week and asked if I could make videos to go with it. Where to start? "Even though we don't see them with anthropomorphic features and two arms and legs walking down the streets, there are ...
Read in browser Open source "tricorders": handheld sensor packages for everyone
By Cory Doctorow on Mar 29, 2012 02:23 pm For the past five years, Peter Jansen, a Canadian scientist whose PhD is in neural computation and cognitive modelling, has been developing a series of open source hardware "tricorders" -- handheld sensor packages running GNU/Linux that can be used by everyday people to make and record observations about the world around them. There are several ...
Read in browser Apple CEO Tim Cook visits Foxconn factory in Zhengzhou, China
By Xeni Jardin on Mar 29, 2012 02:17 pm Apple Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook speaks to employees during a visit to the iPhone production line at the newly built Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park, in Henan province, China. Photo taken March 28, 2012 (REUTERS). Reports and analysis on the significance of the visit: Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Bloomberg, Wired News, IBT, Christian Science ...
Read in browser 4 days until the release of "The Art of Daniel Clowes: Modern Cartoonist"! (…plus your chance to win an autographed copy today)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Mar 29, 2012 02:09 pm …and our countdown continues with more oddities that they couldn’t include in the book. The Chicago Years… Here are some things from Clowes’s time in Chicago during the mid-1980s and early '90s. This is an unpublished color version of the first page from the first Lloyd Llewelleyn story. Clowes sent the comic to Fantagraphics and, ...
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