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Mind Blowing Movies: Middle Men (2009), by Paul Krassner Friday Freak-Out: Gabor Szabo's jazz raga "Walking On Nails" (1967) "Death and the Maiden" art show Canon offers cheap pancake lens for modern DSLRs Terrifying typewriter Work Your Way Around the World This is real life. Not Tron. Scientists risk their lives to sample volcanic lava The secret lives of citrus fruit Canada's warrantless surveillance bill is back, and bigger than ever, with surveillance powers for US gov't, too The Librarian and the Hot Rod Shop The end of cheap STD control? Tumblog of greatness: Celebrity Googly Eyes Model crowdsources name-and-shame for lecherous airline seatmate Walmart breaks bad: active meth lab found inside Missouri store Ray Bradbury's original concept script for Epcot's Spaceship Earth Terry Gilliam's Brazil letter to Universal (1985): "I feel every cut, especially the ones that sever the balls." Mind Blowing Movies: Blade Runner (1982), by Gareth Branwyn Do it for the young black males: legalize marijuana, writes Touré in TIME Excerpt from new Hard Case Crime thriller: False Negative, by Joseph Koenig Monkey eating raptors and the only bird with a bill longer than the rest of its body Space nerd family fun in LA this weekend: NASA JPL open house Neil Gaiman remembers Ray Bradbury Suicide rate among US troops hits all-time high Designer Takeshi Miyakawa out of prison, after art project misinterpreted as terrorism New study connects CT scans with elevated cancer risk in children Aurora Light Painters on America's Got Talent (video) "Everybody poops. Even your favorite athlete." Texel, Netherlands: An island where science and culture meet Shellfail hoaxers send hoax legal threat. I fall for it. Mind Blowing Movies: Middle Men (2009), by Paul Krassner
By Paul Krassner on Jun 08, 2012 01:00 pm This week, Boing Boing is presenting a series of essays about movies that have had a profound effect on our invited essayists. See all the essays in the Mind Blowing Movies series here. -- Mark Middle Men (2009), by Paul Krassner [Video Link] Speaking of his recent movie about the early years of the Internet ...
Read in browser Friday Freak-Out: Gabor Szabo's jazz raga "Walking On Nails" (1967)
By David Pescovitz on Jun 08, 2012 12:54 pm Friday Freak-Out: From 1967, Hungarian musician Gabor Szabo's psychedelic guitar/sitar experimental jazz number "Walking On Nails." (Video unrelated to original song.) It's on Szabo's Impulse! album Jazz Raga -- an influential melding of eastern influences, Latin rhythm, pop-rock, and trippy groove -- that was lovingly reissued in 2010 by Light In The Attic. It also ...
Read in browser "Death and the Maiden" art show
By David Pescovitz on Jun 08, 2012 12:38 pm Opening tonight at Seattle's Roq La Rue gallery, a group show around the classic art motif of "Death and the Maiden." The show runs until August 4 and features BB faces like Travis Louie, Glenn Barr, Jessica Joslin, Femke Hiemstra, and many more. All of the work is viewable online. Above, Kazuki Takamatsu's "Solitary" (tarpaulin, ...
Read in browser Canon offers cheap pancake lens for modern DSLRs
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 08, 2012 12:14 pm Finally! Smaller and cheaper ($199) than the Voigtlander Ultron 40mm f2, but also f2.8. [EF 40mm f/2.8 STM Pancake Lens at B&H]
Read in browser Terrifying typewriter
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 08, 2012 11:43 am This 1945 Royal Typewriter ad provides a glimpse into the horror of messing about with mechanical typewriters. Life, May 28, 1945
Read in browser Work Your Way Around the World
By Cool Tools on Jun 08, 2012 11:24 am It's many a graduate's dream -- pay your way as you travel around the world. I lived the dream myself when I was younger, so I know it is possible. Since then I've been tracking this subject faithfully, and have read through scores of books and websites offering how-to advice on the dream. They won't ...
Read in browser This is real life. Not Tron.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 08, 2012 08:54 am This amazing photo was taken by astronaut Don Pettit on board the International Space Stations—of which you can see a chunk at the top of the frame. It's part of a whole series of absolutely stunning photos that you need to go check out as soon as you have a free 20 minutes to spend ...
Read in browser Scientists risk their lives to sample volcanic lava
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 08, 2012 08:45 am There are few things quite as tense as watching one volcanologist mutter, "Oh my god. He's crazy. He's crazy," while watching another volcanologist scramble around the edge of a caldera. It only gets more tense when you realize that the volcano in question is Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo—which has some of ...
Read in browser The secret lives of citrus fruit
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 08, 2012 08:40 am Okay, I had no idea that lemons and grapefruit are actually hybrid mixes of other fruits. How did I get to age 31 and miss this? Better yet, both citruses were born accidentally, of illicit love affairs not arranged by human hands. Lemons are the love child of citron and orange. Grapefruit the natural daughter ...
Read in browser Canada's warrantless surveillance bill is back, and bigger than ever, with surveillance powers for US gov't, too
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 08, 2012 08:40 am Bill C30, the sweeping Canadian warrantless Internet surveillance bill, is back from the dead. Public Safety Minister Vic Toews (who declared that opposition to his bill was tantamount to support for pedophiles) has been working behind the scenes to resurrect his legislation, joining forces with the US government in the name of "perimeter security." This ...
Read in browser The Librarian and the Hot Rod Shop
By LibraryLab on Jun 08, 2012 08:39 am What do you get when you cross a librarian with a hot-rod shop? Sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it isn't. A provincial Libraries and Literacy grant and a directive to 'create a mobile initiative to promote adult literacy' was the beginning of Fraser Valley Regional Library's (BC, Canada) Library Live and On ...
Read in browser The end of cheap STD control?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 08, 2012 08:00 am More than 700,000 people in the United States probably get gonorrhea each year. I say "probably" because the Centers for Disease Control doesn't know for sure. It's an estimate, because a lot of those cases go untested, unreported, and untreated. The good news is that, since the 1940s, getting people to get themselves tested has ...
Read in browser Tumblog of greatness: Celebrity Googly Eyes
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 08, 2012 01:20 am I like it: celebritygoogly.com. Above, Wil Wheaton. Say the editors of this fine site, "To submit a picture, just post it on your tumblr and tag it 'celebritygoogly'." (via badastronomer)
Read in browser Model crowdsources name-and-shame for lecherous airline seatmate
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 08, 2012 12:52 am Our Avram takes to Making Light to tell the remarkable story of a model who found herself sitting next to a lecherous married man on an airplane, and who crowdsourced a name-and-shame campaign for him on Twitter that uncovered his identity. Avram makes the point that this is more science fictional than most science fiction: ...
Read in browser Walmart breaks bad: active meth lab found inside Missouri store
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 10:28 pm Apparently, corporate profits just aren't enough for some global megabusinesses these days: a Walmart store in South St. Louis County, Missouri was emptied by police when an "active methamphetamine production laboratory" was discovered inside. Now, it's entirely possible that the "lab" consisted of an empty plastic bottle and some chemicals, but still, you guys: some ...
Read in browser Ray Bradbury's original concept script for Epcot's Spaceship Earth
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2012 09:12 pm An anonymous reader sent me Ray Bradbury's 1977 concept script for Spaceship Earth at Epcot Center. It's a beautiful read, and led me to vivid recollections of the original script from Epcot's opening in the early 1980s. MAN AND HIS SPACESHIP EARTH (PDF) (Thanks, Anonymous Reader!) (Image: Spaceship Earth Mural 2, a Creative Commons Attribution ...
Read in browser Terry Gilliam's Brazil letter to Universal (1985): "I feel every cut, especially the ones that sever the balls."
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 07, 2012 08:05 pm One of my favorite websites is Shaun Usher's Letters of Note, which runs interesting letters written by notable people. Today, Shaun posted a 1985 letter from Terry Gilliam to the head of Universal, Sid Sheinberg. Shaun says, "In August of 1985, many months after its successful release outside of North America, Terry Gilliam's iconic movie, ...
Read in browser Mind Blowing Movies: Blade Runner (1982), by Gareth Branwyn
By Gareth Branwyn on Jun 07, 2012 08:00 pm This week, Boing Boing is presenting a series of essays about movies that have had a profound effect on our invited essayists. See all the essays in the Mind Blowing Movies series here. -- Mark Like Tears in the Rain, by Gareth Branwyn [Video Link] In 1982, my wife and I had just moved from ...
Read in browser Do it for the young black males: legalize marijuana, writes Touré in TIME
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 07:11 pm Author, journalist, and MSNBC commentator Touré writes in TIME this issue about New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's desire to decriminalize marijuana from a racial standpoint. "Black men are targeted and stopped and frisked for the crime of being black in poor black neighborhoods," Touré writes, "and those found with small bags of marijuana are sucked ...
Read in browser Excerpt from new Hard Case Crime thriller: False Negative, by Joseph Koenig
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 07, 2012 07:01 pm Here's an excerpt from False Negative, the first new novel in 20 years by acclaimed crime writer Joseph Koenig. A quarter past eleven, and he was having breakfast over the Monday paper when the phone rang. He didn't know anyone up so early. Nightside reporters didn't start work till five. No one called unless a ...
Read in browser Monkey eating raptors and the only bird with a bill longer than the rest of its body
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 07, 2012 06:12 pm Above: John McCormack shows off a specimen of the sword-billed hummingbird, the only bird known to have a bill longer than the rest of its body Seth Teicher of Atlas Obscura wrote about his visit to Occidental College's Moore Laboratory's Bird Specimen Collection on Obscura Day 2012 in May. He took a lot of photos ...
Read in browser Space nerd family fun in LA this weekend: NASA JPL open house
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 06:11 pm Saturday and Sunday, June 9 and 10, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA opens its doors to the public for an annual Open House. The event, themed "Great Journeys," will feature a life-size model of Curiosity, the rover currently bound for Mars aboard NASA/JPL's Mars Science Laboratory spacecraft; ...
Read in browser Neil Gaiman remembers Ray Bradbury
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2012 06:03 pm Neil Gaiman's remembrance of Ray Bradbury is very sweet and paints a picture of one of the field's great mensches: Last week, at dinner, a friend told me that when he was a boy of 11 or 12 he met Ray Bradbury. When Bradbury found out that he wanted to be a writer, he invited ...
Read in browser Suicide rate among US troops hits all-time high
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 05:55 pm One US soldier killed themselves each day this year, on average: the fastest pace of suicides among active-duty troops in the nation's decade of war. AP reports: "The 154 suicides in the first 155 days of the year far outdistance the U.S. forces killed in action in Afghanistan - about 50 percent more - according ...
Read in browser Designer Takeshi Miyakawa out of prison, after art project misinterpreted as terrorism
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 05:38 pm The NYT has an update on the case of designer Takeshi Miyakawa. The 50-year-old Japanese artist, who lives in New York City, was arrested last month while he draped plastic "I ♥ NY" bags stuffed with LEDs and batteries from trees in Manhattan and Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The act frightened some observers who thought "his art ...
Read in browser New study connects CT scans with elevated cancer risk in children
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 05:31 pm A study released this week in the medical journal Lancet provides the strongest evidence yet that CT scans in children are linked to elevated risk of developing cancer. As with all things involving radiation, and with all things involving cancer, it's complicated—and doesn't mean that CT scans aren't in some cases necessary. Here's a WSJ ...
Read in browser Aurora Light Painters on America's Got Talent (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Jun 07, 2012 05:08 pm [Video Link] The Aurora Light Painters. I think what these guys do is cool: live, performative light painting. It starts getting really interesting around 1:50. Rusty at Laughing Squid has more. (via @sfslim)
Read in browser "Everybody poops. Even your favorite athlete."
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 07, 2012 04:52 pm I am really not sure what to say in regards to this 2010 ESPN story about the science and psychology of elite athletes shitting themselves all over the place. Two thoughts though: 1. This story is totally fascinating and you will not regret reading it, even through the disgust. It is its own unicorn chaser. ...
Read in browser Texel, Netherlands: An island where science and culture meet
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 07, 2012 03:57 pm The Frisian Islands are barrier islands off the coast of the Netherlands. Between these islands and the mainland, there is an area called the Wadden Sea. This sea is only wet in some places, at some times. Instead of being a proper body of water, it's speckled with shallow pools, wetlands, mud flats that flood ...
Read in browser Shellfail hoaxers send hoax legal threat. I fall for it.
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2012 03:55 pm Update: [5 minutes later] OK, wait a second. It's a hoax. Wainwright and Shore, the "PR Agency" that sent out this email, has only had a domain for a month. They've got virtually no Google footprint (just an Eventbrite listing for the hoax Shell event). The people who answer the phones are super-evasive. Derp. I've ...
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