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Science fiction in Africa Buy one divorce, get your next one half off Learn about climate, energy, and "the new normal" this weekend Military contractor claims it can read fingerprints from 6m Jim Gurney's 45-minute painting of a car dealership Sandusky trades Penn State for state pen Wall Street, like the mafia, but more ambitious Kim Stanley Robinson talks about his latest novel, 2312 Fun mobile app: Trivi.al Learn the sign language of physics, male genitalia Counterpoint: algorithms are not free speech The science of brain freeze What it's like to take belladonna Preview of incredible science fiction and pulp art auction Comedy and tragedy in a WWII anti-freeze ad Science fiction in Africa
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 23, 2012 12:14 pm Here's a 23-minute BBC World Service documentary about science fiction in Africa, hosted by Zoo City author Lauren Beukes, who speaks to various luminaries, writers and commentators, including District 9 creator Neill Blomkamp. Beukes hears from film-makers Neill Blomkamp (South Africa - director of the international hit District 9), Wanuri Kahiu (Kenya), blogger Jonathan Dotse ...
Read in browser Buy one divorce, get your next one half off
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 23, 2012 12:09 pm An attorney called Sean Simmons is apparently offering "buy one, get your next one half off" divorces, with the strapline "End the Misery Today." The image is unsourced, so it may be a fake, though there is at least one attorney called Sean Simmons in the USA who does divorce work. That's a good value. ...
Read in browser Learn about climate, energy, and "the new normal" this weekend
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 23, 2012 11:10 am I'm at the Aspen Environmental Forums, an annual conference focused on many different aspects of climate science, energy policy, conservation, and other environmental issues. You can follow along on Twitter with the tag #aef2012, and I'll be tweeting regularly from the panels I watch. For instance, if you check out the tag now, you can ...
Read in browser Military contractor claims it can read fingerprints from 6m
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 22, 2012 10:44 pm IDair, a military contractor, claims that it can image and resolve fingerprints from six meters away. The article goes into a lot of credulous, breathless rhapsody about this, but fails to note that if your fingerprints can be read from 20 feet away, then any crook who wants to be able to impersonate you will ...
Read in browser Jim Gurney's 45-minute painting of a car dealership
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 22, 2012 10:30 pm A lot of people play with their cellphones or read while waiting for something. Jim Gurney, the creator of Dinotopia, paints small watercolors. (See my previous post about Jim's painting of a mud puddle.) I brought my car to the dealership for a service checkup. The service guy told me it would take about 45 ...
Read in browser Sandusky trades Penn State for state pen
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 22, 2012 10:18 pm Guilty on 45 of 48 counts. Before the verdict, Sandusky's own laywer said he'd be shocked if he was acquitted. [MSNBC, BBC] Previously.
Read in browser Wall Street, like the mafia, but more ambitious
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 22, 2012 09:00 pm In Rolling Stone, Matt Taibbi is his usual incandescent self in reporting on the United States of America v. Carollo, Goldberg and Grimm, a bid-rigging trial against brokers at GE Capital, which implicated virtually every bank on Wall Street (and many overseas banks) in a multibillion-dollar municipal bond bid-rigging fraud, a fraud that skimmed a ...
Read in browser Kim Stanley Robinson talks about his latest novel, 2312
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 22, 2012 07:11 pm The latest episode of the always-excellent Agony Column podcast features an interview with one of science fiction's greatest living writers, Kim Stanley Robinson, discussing his latest novel 2312, a mammoth, epic story of a future built upon realistic and attainable space exploration -- a kind of meditation on life within lightspeed, which is nevertheless extremely ...
Read in browser Fun mobile app: Trivi.al
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 22, 2012 06:49 pm I've been having fun playing a new iOS game called Trivi.al. It reminds me of the wonderful University of Colorado Trivia Bowl I loved so much when I was in high school in Boulder. Trivi.al is a turn-based iOS game that's all about the challenge to beat your opponent by increasing your own IQ to ...
Read in browser Learn the sign language of physics, male genitalia
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 22, 2012 05:30 pm A couple of years ago, Scientific American's Ferris Jabr wrote a really fascinating story about the sign language of science. Along the way, he touched on an issue I'd never thought of before. Turns out, a lot of technical, scientific terms haven't made their way into official sign language vocabulary. At the same time, these ...
Read in browser Counterpoint: algorithms are not free speech
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 22, 2012 05:04 pm In the New York Times, Tim Wu advances a fairly nuanced article about the risks of letting technology companies claim First Amendment protection for the product of their algorithms, something I discussed in a recent column. Tim worries that if an algorithm's product -- such as a page of search results -- are considered protected ...
Read in browser The science of brain freeze
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Jun 22, 2012 05:01 pm It is 83 degrees in Aspen, Colorado—just hot enough that I started dreaming of ice cream as soon as I stepped off the plane. Now, if I do find some ice cream and give myself a brain freeze while woolfing it down, I will have a better understanding of what that nasty cold-food headache is ...
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By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 22, 2012 04:10 pm Entry #20 in the Mondo 2000 History Project is R.U. Sirius' entertaining essays about his horrible belladonna experience in 1968. It was early in the summer of 1968. Myself and my friends had heard stories about people taking this drug, Asthamador, that you could buy in the drug store that contained belladonna. Someone described spending ...
Read in browser Preview of incredible science fiction and pulp art auction
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 22, 2012 03:34 pm On Tuesday June 26, 2012, Heritage Auctions is hosting a reception and preview of its upcoming illustration art auction featuring The Jerry Weist Collection of science fiction and fantasy art, pin-up, pulp and paperback art, and classic golden age/mainstream illustration art. Above: Gil Elvgren's "Skirting the Issue" (1956). Below: Wally Wood's "Mars is Heaven!" complete ...
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By Cory Doctorow on Jun 22, 2012 02:47 pm Incredibly, this is not an old ad encouraging you to nag your doc for a barbiturates prescription, but rather, a WWII-era Dupont anti-freeze ad. Zerone and Zerex
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