The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Scraper Bikes at Maker Faire
- Google and Viacom blend high-profile copyright suits with extreme profanity, as nature intended
- Autotuned wolves
- The Strange New World of the Internet
- Chrisrann: Spartan, art deco jewelry from JPG mag's creative director
- Gadget-thieving Mexican narco-pirates ambush boaters on Texas lake
- Google offers encrypted search
- Guy Warley's Remotes
- Geek alphabet
- AT&T to increase cellphone early termination fees to $325
- Sony president: Apple's the company to beat
- Pakistan gov. flips out over "Draw Mohammed Day," blocks YouTube, Facebook, Twitter
- TedX SOMA vidstream today (with Pesco speaking)
- Xeni on "This Week in Law" podcast with Denise Howell
- Rexbox & the BBC's Becoming Merlin
- Commissioned Shepard Fairey mural painted over in Kentucky
- Zero-energy buildings: We have the technology
- Play Pacman on the Google home page today
- Sex shop to give away pope condoms in the Netherlands
- The Boneshaker: magic, latter-day Bradburian novel for young adults
- Inflating a modern airship
- The Lessons of Mount St. Helens
- Bat fellatio paper in sex harassment dustup
- Rockabilly mandala record bowl in Boing Boing Bazaar
- Street pianos head to NYC
- Dusting for dog-crap in a fancy condo
- Taste Test: Passion fruit
- Secrets of a suitcase-packing ninja
- Hey Toronto: attend the free Hand Eye indie games event, May 27th
- Scientology raid uncovers dossiers on local "enemies": sexual habits, health info, political opinions
| Posted: 21 May 2010 10:52 PM PDT 
If you're going to Maker Faire this weekend, be sure to check out Tyrone Stephenson, who goes by his street name Baybe Champ, and the Scraper Bikes phenomenon he started in Oakland. Nina Alter, a Boing Boing reader and fellow DIY culture enthusiast, is sponsoring his presence there and says, "He's an amazing kid doing some great work." Make has a great post about it. Our motto is "Blue, yellow, orange wit bling, Scraper Bikes is on the scene."These kids are so cool. If you haven't heard of any of this before, start by watching the video that started it all back in 2007.   |
| Google and Viacom blend high-profile copyright suits with extreme profanity, as nature intended Posted: 21 May 2010 08:35 PM PDT You know what I'm interested in? Copyright lawsuits. And profanity. Lucky for me, Google and Viacom have provided both today, in the form of a series of emails released through the discovery process in Viacom's billion-dollar lawsuit against YouTube. In these emails, the two companies take turns cussin' and spittin' and swearin' about each other. Hilarity ensues. Ars Technica rounds up some of the highlights. # Viacom complains that YouTube employees "sneered at rights holders as 'copyright bastards' and 'a-holes.'"F--- those motherf---ers": YouTube/Viacom suit gets nasty
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| Posted: 21 May 2010 08:33 PM PDT   |
| The Strange New World of the Internet Posted: 21 May 2010 08:28 PM PDT  At TEDxSoMa, Intel's Pankaj Kedia just showed this "vintage" Time magazine cover. It seems so dated but it's only from 1994. On the other hand, the Internet is still pretty strange. "Battle for the Soul of the Internet"  |
| Chrisrann: Spartan, art deco jewelry from JPG mag's creative director Posted: 21 May 2010 03:37 PM PDT  Rannie Balias, creative director at JPG magazine, recently launched a unique and beautiful line of jewelry called Chrisrann (a combination of her name and her sister's name).The pieces mix braided leather deadstock from the late 80s and early 90s (which Rannie was lucky enough to stumble upon) with strategically placed gold fill chains and links. The aesthetic is Sparta meets art deco. and the colors are perfect against summer suntanned skin (but wear your sunscreen!). I have the breast plate, shown here—it's even more amazing once you put it on. The line was partly inspired by Natasha Khan, the feathered, headbanded, war-painted lead singer of Bat for Lashes. She wore the Chrisrann spartan bangle onstage when performing at San Francisco's Great American Music Hall last June. "I about died," Rannie said. You can buy Rannie's pieces at   |
| Gadget-thieving Mexican narco-pirates ambush boaters on Texas lake Posted: 21 May 2010 03:07 PM PDT  Armed with machine guns, members of the Zeta drug cartel from Mexico are attacking boats and robbing sailors of their loot—and gadgets—on a lake that straddles the Texas/Mexico border. So reports a San Antonio, TX television news station, anyway: If you go too far across the lake and past the international boundary bouy, you are in Mexican territory and subject to attacks by pirates toting assault weapons.Pirates terrorize boaters on Texas lake along Mexican border (via Bruce Sterling) Video after the jump. |
| Google offers encrypted search Posted: 21 May 2010 02:05 PM PDT Google has just announced that it will provide encrypted searching. That means that your ISP (and people on your network) won't be able to see what you're searching for, though Google still will, and the government can still subpoena your search history from them. EFF analysis Google launches encrypted search   |
| Posted: 21 May 2010 02:30 PM PDT  Guy Warley's 'Remotes', available as an iPhone/iPad desktop from the ever-essential Poolga, and a basically dead-on representation of what next to my bed looks like. |
| Posted: 21 May 2010 01:55 PM PDT  The Geek Alphabet: a delightful picture book for nerds, made from CC-licensed images: A is for Away Team, where you should never wear red (mild mannered photographer) The Geek Alphabet (Thanks, Charles!) (Image: Best. Cake. Evar., a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from donsolo's photostream)
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| AT&T to increase cellphone early termination fees to $325 Posted: 21 May 2010 01:26 PM PDT If you get a smartphone from AT&T after June 1, canceling your contract early will cost you up to $325. This is almost double the current $175 maximum. It's easy to complain, but more sensible to remind you that when you buy a cellphone from a carrier, you're agreeing to a loan-like financial arrangement that will last for 2 years -- and that you'll be treated, from the day you sign, like a debtor rather than a customer.   |
| Sony president: Apple's the company to beat Posted: 21 May 2010 12:44 PM PDT Remember "Don't be evil?" It lives! At Google's I/O keynote, Sony supremo Howard Stringer boasted that the latest Xperia cellphone was 'dominating' in Japan. New partner, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, offered this rather pious response: "Google doesn't dominate." Responded Stringer: "When you beat Apple, you're dominating." Sony becoming Google's hardware factory says much about the company's decline. But Stringer's cheery refusal to echo Google's happy-clappy self-image surely makes it taste better. You can almost see the fixed smile on Schmidt's face--if not those of Sony's shareholders. [Gizmodo]   |
| Pakistan gov. flips out over "Draw Mohammed Day," blocks YouTube, Facebook, Twitter Posted: 21 May 2010 12:42 PM PDT  According to friends in Karachi, and some news reports now emerging in the West, the government of Pakistan overreacted just a wee bit to the (in my opinion, kind of stupid and offensive) "Draw Mohammed Day" this week. By various reports, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and other popular internet services have been blocked since May 20th. Not the first time, and surely won't be the last, but this is a particularly wide series of internet-blockages. Judging from tweets I'm reading, and reports like this, the vibe among a relatively wide swath of Pakistani digerati seems to be: all the ambient anti-Muslim sentiment is annoying, but the state censorship is really bad news.  |
| TedX SOMA vidstream today (with Pesco speaking) Posted: 21 May 2010 03:08 PM PDT   Today is TedxSoMa, an independently organized TED event in San Francisco. The 10 minute talks run from 1pm to around 5pm PT, with presentations by Nicole Lazzaro, Pankaj Kedia, Pamela Hawley, Jeff Lawson, Christopher Willits, Jeffrey Betcher, Dev Patnaik, Nathan Shedroff, my Institute for the Future colleague Jason Tester, and... me. I'll be talking about "The World as a Wunderkammer: Curiosity, Citizen Science, and the Maker Culture," based on an essay I wrote for the Edge.org book "What Are You Optimistic About?: Today's Leading Thinkers on Why Things Are Good and Getting Better." Watch the talks live after the jump! (Image top: a wax model of Napolean's death mask, circa 1913, from my own cabinet of curiosity.)   |
| Xeni on "This Week in Law" podcast with Denise Howell Posted: 21 May 2010 11:10 AM PDT  I was a guest on the most recent edition of Denise Howell's "This Week in Law" video and audio podcast. We discussed "Google e-books, fictional mashups, Elena Kagan, forced follow bug and fragile egos, Star Trek Universe liability and more." My fellow panelists: Kevin Thompson and Marty Schwimmer.TWiL 60: Open Source Toyotas (Running time: 2:12:59). |
| Rexbox & the BBC's Becoming Merlin Posted: 20 May 2010 10:25 PM PDT  Local favorite artist Rex Crowle ('visual playfulness' designer on Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet & Wonderland's almost-too-compulsive iPad game Godfinger) has just put up this fantastic set of sketches and art for Becoming Merlin, the interactive children's book he created for the BBC with the help of Preloaded, the studio behind compelling AND educational games for Channel 4 like Trafalgar Origins. All links provided are deserving of your further careful and attentive exploration.   |
| Commissioned Shepard Fairey mural painted over in Kentucky Posted: 21 May 2010 11:45 AM PDT Boing Boing reader Yvette Ogresovich says, (photo: The Enquirer/Amie Dworecki)   |
| Zero-energy buildings: We have the technology Posted: 21 May 2010 10:27 AM PDT  Earlier this week, I talked to Kent Peterson, past president of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers. This was a lot more exciting that it may sound. ASHRAE standards on energy efficiency end up written into our building codes, which means the organization plays a big role in influencing the shape of energy policy in this country. I talked to Peterson to find out whether zero net energy buildings—buildings that produce as much (or more) energy as they use—were really a practical goal. His answer might surprise you.
In fact, Peterson said that currently available energy efficiency technologies alone (not even looking at generating power from wind or solar sources) could reduce the amount of energy used by the total U.S. building stock by 50%. The catch: Hitting that 50% energy reduction goal—let alone getting to zero-energy buildings—means more than buying a better boiler. The environmental systems in buildings—the lighting, heating, cooling, etc—are already pretty efficient, Peterson says. When your heating system is 80% efficient, you can't get a 50% reduction in overall energy use by focusing on squeezing out the last few drops there. Instead, Peterson says we have to put more thought into reducing "plug load"—a fancy way of talking about all the gadgets and appliances we plug into sockets. Think of all the stuff you leave plugged in all day. Like the microwave. It's nice having that clock function, and it really doesn't take much energy to run. But over the course of a year, all the electricity you used to run that microwave clock ends up being enough to power 30 hours of microwave cooking time, Peterson says. All the little "phantom" draws add up, and they bite us hard. Automation is the muzzle. I've gotten pretty good about remembering to shut lights off in rooms nobody's using, but expecting me (and millions of Americans like me) to thoughtfully and correctly power down every electronic device they aren't using even half the time is about as unrealistic as expecting Anna Karenina to become the movie blockbuster of the summer. Instead, we can rely on "set it and forget it" systems that turn off unused devices while we're at work or asleep based on timers or occupancy sensors. Peterson already has something like this in his house.
Image courtesy Flickr user Rennett Stowe, via CC   |
| Play Pacman on the Google home page today Posted: 21 May 2010 10:32 AM PDT In case you haven't seen it already... Google has turned its home page banner into a playable Pacman board for the game's 30th anniversary. Just insert a coin! |
| Sex shop to give away pope condoms in the Netherlands Posted: 21 May 2010 10:50 AM PDT A sex shop in the Netherlands is giving away 2,000 free condoms this weekend, each with a wrapper carrying an image of the pope.   |
| The Boneshaker: magic, latter-day Bradburian novel for young adults Posted: 21 May 2010 10:19 AM PDT  Kate Milford's debut YA novel The Boneshaker (not to be confused with Cherie Priest's excellent, award-nominated novel of the same name) is a fine, darkly magical story set in turn-of-the-20th-century Missouri, in a small and haunted town called Arcane. It's the story of thirteen year old Natalie Minks, the daughter of a gifted mechanic, and what happens when a mysterious carnival comes to town. Doctor Jake Limberleg's Nostrum Fair and Technological Magic Show isn't right. There's something spooky about how the snake-oil peddlar can make the automata in Natalie's Pa's shop work, and the pitchmen who perform phrenology and amber therapy are sinister in the extreme (and then there's the acrobatic jester in motley who scampers over the carny on the guy-wires, wearing a darkly hilarious clay mask from which malevolent eyes peer). Boneshaker is filled the the rich Bradbury stuff, that haunting and deliciously spooky stuff that lives in the shadows and ride through the land on creaking wagons with dusty brocade curtains. The mystery of the carny quickly turns grim and urgent, as Natalie realizes that the whole town is in danger, including her ailing mother, and discovers that only she can save the town. But first, she has to solve the riddle of the carny, of the abandoned nearby ghost-town at the crossroads, of the ancient Civil War vet who beat the devil with his guitar there before she was born, of the mysterious town benefactor who seems to know everything but only talks in circles. Oh, and she has to learn to ride the bizarre boneshaker bike she talked her father into rescuing off a scrapheap and rebuilding with her. Filled with heart-racing suspense and delicious mystery, Boneshaker is a book a kid (or a grownup) could fall in love with, the kind of thing that might fill a summer's worth of bedtime stories, or a stolen afternoon reading in the park. |
| Posted: 21 May 2010 09:37 AM PDT Don't get too excited, it's not ready for tourist crossings of the Atlantic. Instead, the Bullet 580 will be carrying NASA research payloads. At least at first. Made with a Kevlar balloon filled with helium, the world's biggest airship is maneuverable and can be controlled by a pilot, as well as by remote control. There doesn't seem to be any physical reason why it couldn't carry passengers. All the action in this 2-minute video took 6 hours in real life. Sped up, it looks like a gaggle of humans caring for some monster grub.   |
| The Lessons of Mount St. Helens Posted: 21 May 2010 09:21 AM PDT  I went through a phase in grade school where I was totally obsessed with Mount St. Helens. I read everything I could my grubby, little paws on. I wrote an extra-credit report on the subject. And, as a result, I now get the same kind of emotional memory twinge from the mention of stubborn, ill-fated innkeeper Harry R. Truman and the North Fork Toutle River that I also get from, say, "Doin' the Pigeon". I meant to post something about the anniversary of Mount St. Helens' 1980 eruption on, you know, the anniversary (which was back on May 18). Today, though, I ran across a nifty slideshow from Scientific American about 11 things science learned from that eruption. For example—and news-peg value—some of Mount St. Helens after-eruptions caused the first recorded case of an aircraft engine being taken out by volcanic ash. Unlike our current situation with Eyjafjallajokull, nobody cleared the airspace over Mount St. Helens. Nobody thought you needed to. The main eruption happened on a clear day, so pilots simply avoided the ash plume. But, later in the week, when the weather turned cloudy, they couldn't. Pilots were able to get the damaged plane's engines restarted, and nobody died, but the incident ultimately led to the kind of flight restrictions that stranded our Lisa Katayama in Europe last month. Image courtesy Flickr user skedonk, via CC   |
| Bat fellatio paper in sex harassment dustup Posted: 21 May 2010 08:52 AM PDT Remember that paper from PLOS One on the act of fellatio in fruit bats? Sure, you do. New Scientist offers the following mind-jog, just in case.
Now, we all got a good chuckle out of that research, but it's stopped being a laughing matter at University College Cork in Ireland, where the bat fellatio paper is at the center of a controversial sexual harassment case. Short story: A male academic showed the paper to a female colleague. He apparently thought he was sharing the information in a jokey manner, but she understood it in a way that was a lot more skeevy and insulting. Which, frankly, given the subject matter, isn't terribly surprising. Nor is the fact that the University opted to uphold the complaint, while also ruling that the male professor hadn't meant to cause offense. (There also seems to be a lot of back-story that goes into why the female professor made a complaint to Human Resources, though the details of that back-story are disputed and murky enough that the University opted not to rule that as sexual harassment.) As part of the final ruling, the male professor was censured, and given a two-year period of intensive monitoring and counseling. He says that has prevented him from getting tenure. This is a complicated story that, from my perspective, doesn't have a clear villain. It's a story about how human beings interpret each other's ambiguous actions through the lens of culture and context. What's frustrating to me, though, is how this is being interpreted elsewhere—which is, to say, as a story about a horrible whiner who couldn't handle a discussion about peer-reviewed research and decided to ruin a man's life. There's even a petition going around to remove the censure on the grounds that it will stifle all academic discussion between colleagues. I don't think anyone deserved to lose tenure over this situation, but I'm equally skeptical of the idea that, because something is peer-reviewed research it could not possibly be presented, as part of a one-on-one conversation, in a way that could logically be interpreted as offensive or sexually harassing. We're talking about bat blowjobs, for pete's sake. They're funny. But I can see how they might not be so funny, or scientifically enlightening, under certain situations. I'm also pretty skeptical of this ruling as a blow against free speech. Saying that, "in this situation, a guy talked about bat blowjobs in such a way that it was reasonable his female colleague felt uncomfortable" is not the same thing as saying, "Do not talk about bat blowjobs." Asking people to think about how their conversation might be interpreted by others is not the same as telling them to shut up. I'd support changing the outcomes for the male professor. But I can't support the way this case is being presented, in order to get to that change.   |
| Rockabilly mandala record bowl in Boing Boing Bazaar Posted: 17 May 2010 02:13 PM PDT 
"Rockabilly" is an original mandala painting in sharp white, bright red, and glossy black on a recycled 12" vinyl record.This handpainted "Rockabilly mandala record bowl" is $62 the Makers Market / Boing Boing Bazaar.   |
| Posted: 21 May 2010 08:08 AM PDT  NYC will follow London and Sydney's lead and install a bunch of street pianos in public places where anyone can sit down and bang out some showtunes, Chopin, or Chopsticks. This...is a pretty wonderful idea. New Yorkers are a talented bunch! Think of all the impromptu cabaret sessions that could come out of this! The project - actually called Play Me, I'm Yours - and its pianos are coming around from June 21st - July 5th. All the locations are here, Manhattan has 27 locations, but the pianos will be making their way around all five boroughs (from the Bronx Zoo to Flushing Meadows), so you'll likely cross paths with one at some point.The Street Pianos are Coming: New York's Latest Public Art Experiment (Image: A better class of busker? (mono), a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mrs_logic's photostream)   |
| Dusting for dog-crap in a fancy condo Posted: 21 May 2010 08:04 AM PDT The condo association at Scarlett Place, a posh Baltimore building, have proposed to DNA-test all the dogs on the premises, and use DNA from errant dog-turds to identify feckless owners and fine them $500 per dog-pie. DNA Could Solve Doggie-Doo Caper (via Freakonomics Blog) (Image: A New Way to Complain About Dog Poop, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from aoifecitywomanchile's photostream)
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| Posted: 21 May 2010 10:58 AM PDT  Passion fruit has quickly made its way up to the top of my favorite-fruits-to-eat-raw list. Inside the semi-hard yellow shell is a swarm of gooey seeds reminiscent of tadpole eggs; the best way to eat it is to cut it in half and spoon out the insides. When ripe, it's incredibly sweet and tropical and refreshing. I wish somebody would hand me a giant jar of it so I could devour it like apple sauce.
Passion fruit has tons of Vitamin C, potassium, and fiber, and is consumed in many different countries for its health benefits. Some believe it lowers blood pressure; others use it as a mild sedative. There's a purple varietal, too, which is usually smaller than its yellow cousin. I'm not sure how different they taste — has anyone tried both and compared the two?
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| Secrets of a suitcase-packing ninja Posted: 21 May 2010 07:44 AM PDT  Heather Poole, an LA-based flight attendant, is also a total ninja when it comes to packing suitcases. This 12-step NYT slideshow illustrating her advanced packing techniques for getting 10 days' clothes into a carry-on just changed my life (top tip: roll, don't fold: take up less space, wrinkles less). (Image: David Ahntholz for The New York Times)   |
| Hey Toronto: attend the free Hand Eye indie games event, May 27th Posted: 20 May 2010 10:06 PM PDT  As you read this, I'll currently be en route to Toronto -- home to developers Capy, Superbrothers, Metanet, Queasy Games, RSBLSB, Jim Munroe & many more -- to do some scientific tests on its municipal water supply in hopes of identifying the magic that's been added that's turning out some of indie gaming's finest. While I'm there, the city will be holding one of its semi-regular meetings of the creative community collective known as the Hand Eye Society, and I'll be there playing host to some still-secret activities, and very possibly some even secret-er special guest stars. The Society meeting will be at Unit Bar, located at 1198 Queen West, starting at 7:30pm on Thursday, May 27th. Come out and play! Hope to see you there! The Third Social of 2010: Thursday, May 27th. [Hand Eye Society]  |
| Posted: 21 May 2010 07:24 AM PDT A raid yesterday on the Scientology office in Turin, Italy uncovered dossiers containing the personal information of local "enemies" of the church, including magistrates, cops, journalists and families of former members. La Stampa said magistrates were now examining these documents which were "chock full" of sensitive information dealing with sexual habits, health and political inclinations.Turin police raid Scientology chapter (via Running Scared)
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Using all the dog swabs, BioPet would create a doggie database of sorts for the complex. It would compare all those samples to the mysterious doggie-doo. When BioPet identifies the guilty pooch, the owner would pay a $500 fine. | You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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