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Laser-cut, laser-etched flat-pack metal model kits TrapWire: Wikileaks reveals ex-CIA agents running a face-recognition profiling company that surveils NYC subways, London stock exchange, Vegas casinos and more A Long, Drawn Out Trip: The "lost" animated short that introduced Pink Floyd to Gerald Scarfe BB reader: "Spot where Pink Floyd's 'Wish you Were Here' album cover was shot? I actually *am* here." Marilyn Manson reportedly goes through airports with obscenities written on his face to stop paps WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty is back: a treaty to end the public domain, fair use and Creative Commons Cactus cellular tower in Arizona Beck's new album is sheet-music only Sexy video game from the Apple //e era Enthralling Books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Narratively: digital magazine about New York's stories Help fund Lizz Winstead's PSA for reproductive rights Jot Touch Bluetooth pressure sensitive stylus for iPad Carved nickel looks like alien grey Wi-Fi controlled power outlet makes home automation easy Cake or snake? Black Moth Super Rainbow - "Windshield Smasher" (MP3) Survivalists are the prosumer reviewers of pouches and bags Why do Olympic records keep getting broken? How does the brain think? Real history from a pretend pirate Reggie Watts making fun of "big idea" presentations NSFPOTS: the pornophone of yesteryear Diaper-box AT-AT France's batshit HADOPI copyright law on life-support; three strikes is dying Hodgman's COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, the box set Robotic worm Adam Yauch's will: No ads with my art Clear-bottomed swimming pool atop skyscraper High velocity trading rendered visceral Laser-cut, laser-etched flat-pack metal model kits
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2012 12:59 pm On our recent summer family holiday, I stopped in at The California Academy of Sciences, a beautiful science museum and research facility in San Francisco. In the gift shop, I grabbed a MetalWorks laser-cut trolley-car kit. MetalWorks are 11cm square sheets of tin, laser-cut and laser-etched to come apart into pieces ready to assemble into ...
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By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2012 12:27 pm Douglas sez: Newly released WikiLeaks publications from the Stratfor leak reveal much about Trapwire, a multi-country surveillance network run by a private US company, Abraxas, led by ex-CIA operatives. The network operates in NYC subways, the London Stock Exchange, Las Vegas casinos, and more. It uses real-time video facial profiling and is linked to red-flag ...
Read in browser A Long, Drawn Out Trip: The "lost" animated short that introduced Pink Floyd to Gerald Scarfe
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 11, 2012 12:20 pm [Video Link: "A Long, Drawn Out Trip"] Last night I watched (and greatly enjoyed) the Pink Floyd "The Story of Wish You Were Here" documentary Richard Metzger turned me on to last week (buy it here, and my earlier post about that documentary is here). I ended up going down one of those internet-rabbit holes ...
Read in browser BB reader: "Spot where Pink Floyd's 'Wish you Were Here' album cover was shot? I actually *am* here."
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 11, 2012 11:31 am In the comment thread for my post about "The Making of Wish You Were Here" documentary, something worth a post all on its own. Boing Boing reader Donald Peterson writes... Coincidentally enough, that cover photograph was taken directly outside my office here at Warner Bros, mere yards from where I'm currently sitting. The slightly diagonal ...
Read in browser Marilyn Manson reportedly goes through airports with obscenities written on his face to stop paps
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2012 09:22 am Redditor j_patrick_12 says he ran into Marilyn Manson in an airport security line, and that Manson was apologizing profusely for the word FUCK written in eyeliner on his face, explaining that it was there to stop paparazzi from taking saleable pictures, and not because Manson wanted to be mean to people in the airport. I ...
Read in browser WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty is back: a treaty to end the public domain, fair use and Creative Commons
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2012 05:19 am The UN's World Intellectual Property Organization's Broadcasting Treaty is back. This is the treaty that EFF and its colleagues killed five years ago, but Big Content won't let it die. Under the treaty, broadcasters would have rights over the material they transmitted, separate from copyright, meaning that if you recorded something from TV, the Internet, ...
Read in browser Cactus cellular tower in Arizona
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 11, 2012 03:08 am A Redditor called Jaycrew posted this photo from the erection of a cellular tower disguised as a cactus in Arizona. How to hide a cell phone tower in Arizona (i.imgur.com) (via Super Punch)
Read in browser Beck's new album is sheet-music only
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 11:25 pm A collaboration with McSweeney's, "Song Reader," is the new Beck album. It comes as an illustrated folio of sheet-music: In the wake of Modern Guilt and The Information, Beck's latest album comes in an almost-forgotten form—twenty songs existing only as individual pieces of sheet music, never before released or recorded. Complete with full-color, heyday-of-home-play-inspired art ...
Read in browser Sexy video game from the Apple //e era
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 08:41 pm I'm a little unclear on how "Interlude," the early-1980s pornographic video game advertised here, did its thing. Was it just dirty stories? Were there computer-generated pornographic animations? Jaggedy low-rez scans? Vintage ad after dark
Read in browser Enthralling Books: Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
By David Gill on Aug 10, 2012 08:22 pm This is one in a series of essays about enthralling books. I asked my friends and colleagues to recommend a book that took over their life. I told them the book didn't have to be a literary masterpiece. The only thing that mattered was that the book captivated them and carried them into the world ...
Read in browser Narratively: digital magazine about New York's stories
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 10, 2012 08:13 pm I am rooting for the folks behind Narratively, a digital publication about "New York's untold stories." Narratively slows down the news cycle. Each week, we’ll explore a different theme about New York and publish a series of connected stories -- just one a day -- told in the most appropriate medium for each piece. We ...
Read in browser Help fund Lizz Winstead's PSA for reproductive rights
By Amy Seidenwurm on Aug 10, 2012 08:07 pm Lizz Winstead is raising money to make a PSA about reproductive rights. She's a writer, comedian, asskicker and one of the creators of The Daily show. I believe her that she will get this thing made and then get it seen. Lizz says: By helping me create this campaign we will be reminding America just ...
Read in browser Jot Touch Bluetooth pressure sensitive stylus for iPad
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 10, 2012 08:03 pm My friend I-Wei Huang (who designed the characters for the Skylanders game) reviews the new Jot Touch Bluetooth pressure sensitive stylus for iPad. He also shows how he modified the tip. Jot Touch Review and Mod
Read in browser Carved nickel looks like alien grey
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 10, 2012 07:35 pm "Hobo nickels" are made from US Buffalo nickels. They are made by carving a new face from the Native American face. During the depression, artists would carve these nickels and sell them for a profit (hence the name "hobo nickel.") Neatorama offered up this example of a more recent hobo nickel, which resembles a science ...
Read in browser Wi-Fi controlled power outlet makes home automation easy
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 10, 2012 07:13 pm Steven Sande of The Unoffical Apple Weblog reviewed the Belkin WeMo Home Automation Switch and says it works well with If This Then That (IFTTT.com). If you've never used IFTTT before, give it a try. There are currently 50 "channels" on IFTTT, with everything from Twitter and Facebook to ESPN and weather. You create "recipes" ...
Read in browser Cake or snake?
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 10, 2012 07:00 pm Gareth Branwyn of MAKE says: "Francesca Pitcher from North Star Cakes in the UK created this amazingly realistic Burmese python cake for her daughter’s birthday. She posted it on her Facebook page and it’s gone viral from there. Duff Goldman from Ace of Cakes even tweeted about it." Snake Cake! Run for Your Lives!
Read in browser Black Moth Super Rainbow - "Windshield Smasher" (MP3)
By Amy Seidenwurm on Aug 10, 2012 06:50 pm Sound it Out # 32: Black Moth Super Rainbow - "Windshield Smasher" There's a guy in Pittsburgh who calls himself Tobacco. He's been making music as Black Moth Super Rainbow since 2003. His sound has transitioned from disjointed psychedelia to more guitar-heavy dance music, though all of it has a trippy element to it. It ...
Read in browser Survivalists are the prosumer reviewers of pouches and bags
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 06:00 pm Core77's hipstomp looks at the arcane world of survivalist bag reviewers. These brave souls (who both fear the end of the world and prepare for it) are experts at cramming a metric asston of stuff into webbed ripstop nylon enclosures, and represent a kind of connoisseur Ur-audience for anything meant to hold a lot of ...
Read in browser Why do Olympic records keep getting broken?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 10, 2012 05:58 pm Over at Discovery News, Emily Sohn asks the question I've been wondering for the last two weeks. Why are Olympians today better at their sports than Olympians of the past? Why do speed records keep getting broken? Why can gymnasts do more elaborate routines? I mean, I have plenty of reasonable, speculative answers for those ...
Read in browser How does the brain think?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 10, 2012 05:47 pm I was on Minnesota Public Radio's morning show The Daily Circuit today—along with Ivan Semeniuk, chief of correspondents for the journal Nature—talking about the Curiosity rover, human evolution, and dealing with the big unknowns in science. You can listen to that segment online. But right at the end of my bit, as I was packing ...
Read in browser Real history from a pretend pirate
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 10, 2012 05:17 pm Meet Richard Nolan: quartermaster of the Whydah, captain of the Anne, former coworker of Blackbeard—in general, pirate. He is also—at least through Labor Day—my friend Butch Roy. Butch is an actor, a founder of the Twin Cities Improv Festival, and the executive director of Huge Theater here in Minneapolis. This summer, he took on a ...
Read in browser Reggie Watts making fun of "big idea" presentations
By David Pescovitz on Aug 10, 2012 03:19 pm I got a kick out of Reggie Watts at PopTech 2011 taking the piss out of the cliches so frequently heard at conferences dedicated to big ideas, innovation, deep thinking, the future(s), the long view, sea changes, transformations, disruptions, etc. (Thanks, Jake Dunagan!)
Read in browser NSFPOTS: the pornophone of yesteryear
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 03:00 pm This undated ad for the Erotica, a pornographic land-line telephone, was supposed to make its owner feel like Hef every time he (or she) clamped a badly rendered, unwieldy sculpture of a naked woman to his (or her) head. I think it probably underperformed relative to the promises made in the ad, and yet it ...
Read in browser Diaper-box AT-AT
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 02:57 pm Here's Off-Beat Mama's photos show how you can build your own AT-AT out of empty diaper boxes. What a fantastically shitty idea! I have a dozen nappies boxes sitting around, and recently decided (whether out of a fit of stay-at-home-mum induced anxiety or just total creativity) to make an AT-AT out of them. My son ...
Read in browser France's batshit HADOPI copyright law on life-support; three strikes is dying
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 02:53 pm Hadopi was the jewel in the Sarkozy regime's crown of shitty copyright policy: a rule that said if you lived in the same house as someone who'd been accused of copyright infringement, you would lose your Internet access. Heavily lobbied for by the entertainment industry and hailed as a success thanks to dodgy, misleading studies, ...
Read in browser Hodgman's COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE, the box set
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 02:28 pm Benjamin writes, "Five hours ago, John Hodgman released a picture to Instagram showing his three works (The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, That Is All) in a collected boxset edition titled COMPLETE WORLD KNOWLEDGE."
Read in browser Robotic worm
By David Pescovitz on Aug 10, 2012 02:18 pm In another example of biomimicry applied to robotics, researchers from MIT, Harvard, and Seoul National University created this Meshworm. The robot, made almost entirely of soft materials, is remarkably resilient: Even when stepped upon or bludgeoned with a hammer, the robot is able to inch away, unscathed… The robot is named "Meshworm" for the flexible, ...
Read in browser Adam Yauch's will: No ads with my art
By David Pescovitz on Aug 10, 2012 01:44 pm Don't expect to ever hear the Beastie Boys in any Budweiser commercial, or any other ad for that matter. From Adam Yauch's will, the relevant sentence, some of which he hand-wrote in: "Notwithstanding anything to the contrary, in no event may my image or name or any music or any artistic property created by me ...
Read in browser Clear-bottomed swimming pool atop skyscraper
By David Pescovitz on Aug 10, 2012 01:33 pm This cantilevered clear-bottomed swimming pool is on the 24th floor of the Holiday Inn Shanghai Pudong Kangqiao. (via CNN)
Read in browser High velocity trading rendered visceral
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 10, 2012 01:29 pm The latest installment of Tim Harford's BBC/Open University podcast (RSS) More of Less has a fantastic and chilling look at the world of high-frequency automated stock trading, where warring algorithms execute millions of trades in an eyeblink. The story's jumping-off point is Knight Capital, whose faulty algorithm hemorrhaged $10,000,000 per minute, ultimately costing the company ...
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