Pirate Cinema: realtime mashup of video being torrented Jonah Lehrer's comeback proposal Disgraced New Yorker writer sells book about his experience to Simon & Schuster UK spies have access to NSA Prism, which has "direct access" to world's largest Internet companies' servers Congrats to BB sysadmin Ken Snider on being put in charge of Wikimedia tech operations Leaked NSA slide-deck claims that NSA has "direct access" to servers at Google, Apple, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, and many others New NSA logo Schneier: what we need the whistleblowers to tell us about America's surveillance apparatus Quebec's new pizza-and-spaghetti-flavored slushy drink is "love in a cup," apparently TSA chickens out, won't allow items that don't threaten airplanes back on-board Inside Mystic Manor, Hong Kong Disneyland's Haunted Mansion CCTV footage shows crooks using some kind of universal keyless entry fob Ross Sisters sing Solid Potato Salad Spirit Airlines is sure you'll enjoy its new 6% alcohol wine-in-a-can Apps for Kids 37: Kingdom Rush Frontiers Telekinesis demonstrated New York Senate makes it a felony to annoy a police officer Scary Russian business-man insists he isn't scary: "you are in no possible danger of being murdered if you come to Moscow!" TORONTONIANS! KEEP WALMART OUT OF KENSINGTON MARKET! MEETING TONIGHT! Astro City to return! Doonesbury's transvaginal ultrasound/Republican state house strips Pirate Cinema: realtime mashup of video being torrented
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 12:00 pm Here's a cool installation: "The project is presented as a monitoring room, which shows Peer-to-Peer transfers happening in real time on networks using the BitTorrent protocol. The installation produces an arbitrary cut-up of the files currently being exchanged. This immediate and fragmentary rendering of digital activity, with information concerning its source and destination, thus depicts the topology of digital media consumption and uncontrolled content dissemination in a connected world." It's called "
The Pirate Cinema."
No relation. Read in browser Jonah Lehrer's comeback proposal
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 07, 2013 11:55 am Jonah Lehrer
got caught. Jonah Lehrer
got a new book deal anyway. Then, Jonah Lehrer
got caught again, according to
Slate's Daniel Engber: "He'll recycle and repeat, he'll puke his gritty guts out."
Read in browser Disgraced New Yorker writer sells book about his experience to Simon & Schuster
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 07, 2013 11:43 am Snippet from a book proposal by fraudulent journalist Jonah Lehrer: "I feel the shiver of a voice mail message. I listen to the message. I have been found out. I puke into a recycling bin. And then I start to cry.
Read in browser UK spies have access to NSA Prism, which has "direct access" to world's largest Internet companies' servers
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 10:16 am A report by Nick Hopkins in the Guardian accuses the UK spy agency GCHQ of making use of the American NSA's Prism program, which was revealed in leaked documents earlier today -- a slide presentation claiming that the NSA had direct access to the servers at Google, Microsoft, Apple, and many other Internet giants.
Read in browser Congrats to BB sysadmin Ken Snider on being put in charge of Wikimedia tech operations
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 09:00 am This is wonderful news all around: our brilliant sysadmin, Ken Snider, has been made head of tech operations for Wikimedia, and will be keeping Wikipedia humming henceforth! Congrats Ken, and congrats Wikimedia! You folks were made for each other:
A bit more about Ken: Ken was apparently genetically predisposed to become a sysadmin since he joined one of Canada's first large ISPs, Primus, straight out of school in 1997 and helped build their infrastructure til 2001.
Read in browser Leaked NSA slide-deck claims that NSA has "direct access" to servers at Google, Apple, Facebook, Skype, Yahoo, and many others
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 04:18 am The Guardian and
The Washington Post have both been leaked a 41-slide NSA presentation on a program called PRISM, which -- according to the slides -- gives the spy agency (part of the US military) "direct access" to the servers of the biggest Internet companies in America, including Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Skype.
Read in browser New NSA logo
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 12:49 am Here's a handy new NSA logo from the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Hugh D'Andrade for your trenchant pleasure.
Read in browser Schneier: what we need the whistleblowers to tell us about America's surveillance apparatus
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 07, 2013 12:00 am Bruce Schneier writes in
The Atlantic to comment on the
leaked court order showing that the NSA has been secretly engaged in bulk domestic surveillance, recording who everyone is talking to, when, for how long, and where they are when they do.
Read in browser Quebec's new pizza-and-spaghetti-flavored slushy drink is "love in a cup," apparently
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 11:15 pm Quebecois convenience store chain Couche-Tard has rolled out a new drink: the Pizzaghetti Sloche, a shave-ice drink that comes in both pizza and spaghetti flavors, which can be combined to customer specifications to make Pizzaghetti flavor. Couche-Tard's slogan for the drink is "love in a cup." Redditor plagues138
posted a photo of the actual Pizzaghetti Sloche machine in situ.
Read in browser TSA chickens out, won't allow items that don't threaten airplanes back on-board
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 09:09 pm The TSA has backed down from
its moment of sanity in which it decided to allow golf-clubs, small knives and other items that pose no threat to airplanes back in the sky. The TSA's move had been a welcome effort to clarify that it was attempting to prevent terrorists from crashing airplanes, not prevent bodily harm to passengers (in order to do the latter, it would have had to also ban socks full of quarters, large booze-bottles from the duty-free, and innumerable other objects capable of harming crew and passengers).
Read in browser Inside Mystic Manor, Hong Kong Disneyland's Haunted Mansion
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 07:36 pm Everything I hear about Mystic Manor, the new Haunted Mansion at Hong Kong Disneyland, makes me insane with desire to ride this thing. It's like something that sprang full-blown out of my fevered imagination and into a pile of landfill in the South China Sea.
Read in browser CCTV footage shows crooks using some kind of universal keyless entry fob
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 07:03 pm CCTV footage from Long Beach, CA shows crooks robbing cars after opening them with some kind of keyless entry fob that appears to defeat the cars' built-in cryptographic security. The fobs evidently don't work on all models, and may require operation from the passenger side.
Read in browser Ross Sisters sing Solid Potato Salad
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 06:00 pm Here again is a clip of the
amazing Ross Sisters performing a wonderful song about potato salad while performing the most amazing contortions and acrobatics -- like Cirque du Soliel crossed with Hee-Haw performed by the Andrews Sisters. It's from 1944's
Broadway Rhythm.
Read in browser Spirit Airlines is sure you'll enjoy its new 6% alcohol wine-in-a-can
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 04:58 pm Because "Your choices at 30,000 feet are pretty limited."
Read in browser Apps for Kids 37: Kingdom Rush Frontiers
By Mark Frauenfelder on Jun 06, 2013 04:44 pm Apps for Kids is Boing Boing's podcast about cool smartphone apps for kids and parents. My co-host is my 10-year-old daughter, Jane. In this episode of Apps for Kids, we talk about
Kingdom Rush Frontiers for the iPhone (and
iPad) If you're an app developer and would like to have Jane and me try one of your apps for possible review, email a redeem code to
appsforkids@boingboing.net.
Read in browser Telekinesis demonstrated
By Rob Beschizza on Jun 06, 2013 04:38 pm Video Link Read in browser New York Senate makes it a felony to annoy a police officer
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 04:00 pm The New York Senate has passed a bill making it illegal to "harass" a police officer by "any type of physical action" -- even action that does not otherwise constitute interference, obstruction or assault. Given that "obstruction" and "interference" are famously broad, it's hard to imagine what conduct the police and the NY Senate believe they need to control by statute, though there's a clue in the statutory language, which makes it a felony to "harass, annoy, or threaten a police officer while on duty." In other words, if you cause any physical contact with a police officer, even unintentionally, even if the contact does not rise to the level of assault or obstruction or interference, you can be convicted of a felony and imprisoned if the officer can show that your conduct "annoyed" him.
Read in browser Scary Russian business-man insists he isn't scary: "you are in no possible danger of being murdered if you come to Moscow!"
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 02:55 pm Brian Krebs reports on the Russian arrest of Pavel Vrublevsky, owner of the ChronoPay service (about whom Krebs has written an upcoming book) for witness intimidation. Vrublevsky is on trial for hiring hackers to attack a ChronoPay competitor called Assist, and he admitted that he phoned a witness in the trial and offered that person money; the witness said "he felt pressured and threatened by the offer." Where this gets good is where Krebs recounts his own conversation with Vrublevsky, when the Russian businessman offered Krebs money as well:
"My proposition to you is to come to Moscow, and if you don't have money….I realize journalists are not such wealthy people in America, we're happy to pay for it," Vrublevsky said in a phone conversation on May 8, 2010.
Read in browser TORONTONIANS! KEEP WALMART OUT OF KENSINGTON MARKET! MEETING TONIGHT!
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 02:44 pm Dave Groff sez, "TONIGHT city planners will be holding a community consultation on the re-zoning applications, this will be one of the few opportunities at which the public can give input to the planners on a project that could profoundly change our neighbourhoods." Date: **TONIGHT** Thursday, June 6, 2013 Time: 7:00pm - 9:00 pm Place: College St United Church, Sanctuary / Auditorium, 454 College Street, northwest corner, College and Bathurst Kensington is the best neighbourhood in Toronto and practically the last one untouched by rampant condo-ization and chain-storification.
Read in browser Astro City to return!
By Jason Weisberger on Jun 06, 2013 02:38 pm Alex Ross, the artist who collaborated with Kurt Busiek and Brent Anderson on
Astro City gave CBR an interview about the refreshed series. Astro City has long been one of my favorite comic collections. The art work is beautiful and the stories of every day life in a city of Super Heroes has always fascinated me.
Read in browser Doonesbury's transvaginal ultrasound/Republican state house strips
By Cory Doctorow on Jun 06, 2013 01:49 pm I missed this back in March 2012, but it bears re-visiting. Here's a series of Doonesbury strips that
some newspapers refused to run in spring 2012. The strips criticize Republican state legislatures' plans to require transvaginal probes for women contemplating abortion, with special emphasis on Texas governor Rick Perry.
Read in browser Meet SparkTruck, an “educational build-mobile” for the twenty-first century.
Dreamed up by a group of Stanford d.school students and funded through Kickstarter, SparkTruck is a mobile maker space currently traveling across the United States. At schools and summer camps and libraries around the country, the SparkTruck team offers workshops to help kids “find their inner maker” as they design and build projects like stamps, stop-motion animation clips, and “vibrobots.”
[video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmRKXqDwieY&feature=plcp]
This might seem all shiny and new. And it is—but only in part. What’s so striking (and exciting) about SparkTruck is the way it combines old and new. It does so in the tools it gets kids using, which range from pipe cleaners to laser cutters. It does so in its educational approach, which combines cutting-edge (get it?) STEM and design pedagogy with the fundamentals of an old-school shop class. And it does so in its method, which combines the iconic, century-old technology of the bookmobile with the hot new form of the maker space.
In doing so, SparkTruck joins a growing number of libraries which are combining time-tested principles (like equal access to information) with new technologies (like 3-D printers), putting in maker spaces and media production labs alongside bookshelves and meeting rooms. As I’ve argued over on bookmobility.org, these combinations make sense because reading and making actually have a lot in common. They’re both creative processes that take existing materials and combine them in new ways. Getting people engaged in those kinds of processes—through imaginative thinking, contemplation, hands-on problem-solving, and collaborative learning—is what both maker spaces and libraries are all about.
Taking that commitment on the road with scissors and hammers and 3-D printers and a great big bookmobile-like truck, SparkTruck serves as a laboratory for new approaches, as well as a reminder that trying new things doesn’t have to (and probably shouldn’t!) necessarily mean tossing old ones out.
After all, what would those vibrobots be without classically crafty pipe cleaners and tongue depressors? And what would a library be without the creative, participatory, straight-up awesome experience of reading?
SparkTruck schedule [sparktruck.org]
How to arrange a visit from SparkTruck [sparktruck.org]
SparkTruck YouTube channel [youtube.com]
Signature: --Derek Attig, bookmobility.org
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