WATCHISMO TIME MACHINES - Timing is everything...
Goats webcomic book IV: the Kickstarter edition Amazon.com's many bots feud over book-prices My smiley face business card party game The 1990s in forty-eight pictures Astrologers who claimed copyright on timezones apologize, drop lawsuit -- EFF declares victory! Spot the difference: jewelry edition Make: Talk 006 - William Gurstelle, Backyard Ballistics Superminimalist movie posters Retro City Rampage Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo Futuristic Toronto ARG raising money on IndieGoGo Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out" (MP3 download) Ballad of the Virginia mandatory transvaginal ultrasound Return of Mat Ricardo's east London variety night Expert showmanship in the streetside preparation of a banana pastry Microsoft, Google and Netflix want to add DRM-hooks to W3C HTML5 standard Matter: kickstartered project to sustain serious, long-form online journalism Pakistani newspaper ad seeks bids for a Great Firewall of Pakistan Ambiguously ironic superfluous grocer's apo'strophe Web Kids' manifesto Zombie Princess Leia and Stormtrooper cosplayers Losar: Tibetan New Year, and "mandatory celebrations" Boing Boing science editor Maggie live-tweets a cross-country train adventure This Is My Home How Facebook decides which images to allow Creepy cartoons of the day Pronunciation Guide: extremely funny videos on how to pronounce things Know What: a new kind of hyper-curated city guide for iphones (android coming soon) Ooky ceiling lamp Every opening of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony Goats webcomic book IV: the Kickstarter edition
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:55 pm Jon Rosenberg, creator of the entirely demented Goats webcomic sez, "Just wanted to let you know that it looks like I'm going to be able to do a fourth Goats book, and I'm doing it without a publisher -- this one is going to be wholly funded by the readers themselves. The Goats Book IV ...
Read in browser Amazon.com's many bots feud over book-prices
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:00 pm Carlos Bueno, author of a kids' book about understanding computers called Lauren Ipsum, describes what happens when the cadre of competing bots that infest Amazon's sales-database began to viciously fight with one another over pricing for his book. It's a damned weird story. Before I talk about my own troubles, let me tell you about ...
Read in browser My smiley face business card party game
By Dean Putney on Feb 23, 2012 11:49 am Last year I had 250 business cards printed up with :) printed on them and nothing else. Since then I've been finding handy uses for them: writing notes, flirting with girls on the bus, propping up the occasional table, whatever. A nearly-blank business card is a surprisingly useful thing to have around. The best thing ...
Read in browser The 1990s in forty-eight pictures
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 11:29 am Buzzfeed's vision of the 1990s seems close to that of many Americans. From the other side of the pond, I offer a single addendum.
Read in browser Astrologers who claimed copyright on timezones apologize, drop lawsuit -- EFF declares victory!
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 11:00 am A heartening development in the Electronic Frontier Foundation's ongoing effort to secure the Internet's timezone database, which was threatened when an astrology software company called Astrolabe claimed a copyright in the arrangement of the world's timezones. After EFF sought sanctions against the company's lawyers, the company dropped the suit, apologized, and signed a "covenant not ...
Read in browser Spot the difference: jewelry edition
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:52 am On the left, a jewelry design by TattyDevine. On the right, one sold by Claire's. I suspect that it's a fairly generic motif, but that really is very close to an exact rip, isn't it? Except that it's pink, of course. Claire's Accessories rip-off Tatty Devine designs [Handbag.com via]
Read in browser Make: Talk 006 - William Gurstelle, Backyard Ballistics
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 23, 2012 10:30 am Here's the 6th episode of MAKE's podcast, Make: Talk! In each episode, I'll interview one of the makers featured in the magazine. Our maker this week is William Gurstelle. He's a contributing editor to MAKE and his books include Backyard Ballistics, Adventures from the Technology Underground, and Absinthe and Flamethrowers. In addition, Bill writes frequently ...
Read in browser Superminimalist movie posters
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:27 am You may be fond of creating minimalist movie posters, which cleverly boil down a whole production to a single distinctive, cinematic motif. I'm afraid Slacktory's Jed Stoneham has you all conclusively beaten.
Read in browser Retro City Rampage
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:17 am Brian Provinciano's Retro City Rampage is a 2D sandbox kill-em-up similar to the pre-3D GTA outings—but with more 1980s. Available for pre-order, it'll be released on PC in both DRM-free form and on Steam, and on PlayStation 3, PS Vita, Xbox LIVE Arcade, and WiiWare. The distinctive soundtrack may already be bought separately for anyone ...
Read in browser Sponsor Shout-Out: Watchismo
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 23, 2012 10:15 am Our thanks go to Watchismo for sponsoring Boing Boing Blast, our once-daily delivery of headlines by email. Watchismo has just added three of the coolest independent watch brands to 'The VAULT', a curated collection of extraordinary time machines. Devon Watches' Tread 1 exposes a mesmerizing, interwoven system of patented conveyor belts, which include critical elements ...
Read in browser Futuristic Toronto ARG raising money on IndieGoGo
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 10:10 am Trevor sez, ZED.TO is a transmedia adventure that invites audiences to join the ranks of a biotech corporation called ByoLogyc. They're innovative and design-minded, they're the Apple of an emerging technological market, and they're working on a product that will change the lives of all involved... The project pulls from the domains of tangible futures, ...
Read in browser Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out" (MP3 download)
By Amy Seidenwurm on Feb 23, 2012 10:00 am Sound it Out # 18: Polica- "Lay Your Cards Out"" (ft Mike Noyce)I haven't done any market research on this song, but I'm pretty sure that the playing of it will make someone want to have sex with you. OK -- that person needs to already be attracted to you and be considering it... but ...
Read in browser Ballad of the Virginia mandatory transvaginal ultrasound
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 09:06 am Jonathan Mann has devoted today's song-a-day entry to the notorious Virginia transvaginal ultrasound. He notes, "As I was writing this song, the Virginia house passed a bill which still mandates ultrasounds within 24 hours of an abortion, but thankfully, they left out the transvaginal part. I still think the songs stands, though." More Jonathan Mann ...
Read in browser Return of Mat Ricardo's east London variety night
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 04:44 am Indie juggler, conjurer and impresario Mat Ricardo sez, Earlier this month we launched the first in this season of Mat Ricardo's London Varieties - the combined comedy variety and interview show that comes live from the Bethnal Green Working Mens Club in London. We had a ball. You should have been there! But it's ok, ...
Read in browser Expert showmanship in the streetside preparation of a banana pastry
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:51 am This Asian street-food vendor is a great showman, juggler, and all round bad-ass banana pastry maker. Expert Cooking - AMAZING !!! (Thanks, wetdog2!)
Read in browser Microsoft, Google and Netflix want to add DRM-hooks to W3C HTML5 standard
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:32 am A proposed anti-copying extension for the WC3's standard for HTML5 has been submitted by representatives of Google, Microsoft and Netflix. The authors take pains to note that this isn't "DRM" -- because it doesn't attempt to hide keys and other secrets from the user -- but in a mailing list post, they later admitted that ...
Read in browser Matter: kickstartered project to sustain serious, long-form online journalism
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 03:05 am Matter is a new startup hoping to raise $50,000 on Kickstarter to support thoughtful, long-form journalism on the Internet. Founded by Bobbie Johnson (my former editor at The Guardian) and respected journalist Jim Giles, it seeks to produce a stable business model for serious, reflective online writing. MATTER will focus on doing one thing, and ...
Read in browser Pakistani newspaper ad seeks bids for a Great Firewall of Pakistan
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 02:01 am The ad, clipped from one of the national Pakistani newspapers today (it apparently ran in all of them), seeks bids for a national censoring firewall: "Each box should be able to handle a block list of up to 50 million URLs (concurrent unidirectional filtering capacity) with processing delay of not more than 1 milliseconds." (Thanks, ...
Read in browser Ambiguously ironic superfluous grocer's apo'strophe
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:55 am Alice spotted this coffee cart from the (above average) London coffee chain Apostrophe, which includes a superfluous apostrophe. It's either ironic or too clever by far. Oh the irony.
Read in browser Web Kids' manifesto
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 23, 2012 12:00 am Piotr Czerski's manifesto, "We, the Web Kids," originally appeared in a Polish daily newspaper, and has been translated to English and pastebinned. I'm suspicious of generational politics in general, but this is a hell of a piece of writing, even in translation. Writing this, I am aware that I am abusing the pronoun 'we', as ...
Read in browser Zombie Princess Leia and Stormtrooper cosplayers
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 11:00 pm Vill4no snapped this great shot of zombie Star Wars cosplayers at Megacon 2012, where there was much awesomeness on display, judging from the rest of the set. Best Star Wars Cosplay ever
Read in browser Losar: Tibetan New Year, and "mandatory celebrations"
By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 10:23 pm Inside Tibet and elsewhere, ethnic Tibetans are today observing Losar, or Tibetan New Year. Above: Tibetan women pray around Labrang Monastery in Xiahe county, Gansu Province. Three Tibetan Buddhist monks set have themselves on fire since Friday, in the latest reported self-immolations denouncing Chinese policies in Tibet and demanding the return of the Dalai Lama. ...
Read in browser Boing Boing science editor Maggie live-tweets a cross-country train adventure
By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:59 pm Our Maggie Koerth-Baker is on a train adventure across the USA. She's tweeting the ride. Everything about this is awesome. Here's a storify collection of most of her tweets. (thanks, Chris!).
Read in browser This Is My Home
By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:52 pm A short film about the happy side of hoarding by Kelsey Holtaway and Mark Cersosimo of Departure Arrival Films: On an unseasonably warm November night in Manhattan on our way to get ice cream, we stumbled upon what appeared to be a vintage shop, brightly lit display window and all. As we began to walk ...
Read in browser How Facebook decides which images to allow
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 09:51 pm Wondering why your Facebook breastfeeding image was blocked, but not the image of a deep wound your friend posted? Wonder no more. A leaked document reveals the weird, arcane, and extremely detailed guidelines used to determine which images are Facebook-safe. Facebook bans images of breastfeeding if nipples are exposed – but allows "graphic images" of ...
Read in browser Creepy cartoons of the day
By Rob Beschizza on Feb 22, 2012 09:32 pm Modern cereal box art features beloved characters rendered in a certain overdone pseudo-3D style. The technique: slickly-gradated shadows with intense highlights. When done well, the result offers the vividness and "pop" of computer graphics, without losing the hand-drawn warmth of a traditional 'toon. Done badly, and it causes goosebumps. Take the Fred Flintstone on this ...
Read in browser Pronunciation Guide: extremely funny videos on how to pronounce things
By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 09:05 pm [Video Link], via Sean Bonner. I LOL'd, then cried, then hit play again and LOL'd some more. CONTAINS HELVETICA.
Read in browser Know What: a new kind of hyper-curated city guide for iphones (android coming soon)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Feb 22, 2012 09:03 pm Know What is a new travel guide for LA and San Francisco (with New York, Chicago, Portland coming soon). It's available on the iPhone, and you can buy additional guides from different people. I contributed a guide for 25 spots around LA, called "Unicorns, Carnivorous Plants & Other Angelenos I've Known and Loved." You can ...
Read in browser Ooky ceiling lamp
By Cory Doctorow on Feb 22, 2012 09:00 pm Daniel Ritthanondh's "Barnacle Ceiling Lamp" is a tribute to the decor in the game Half Life, an altogether ooky bit of ceiling sculpture. Not yet available for sale, but Ritthanondh advises that a limited run will be forthcoming. Barnacle Ceiling Lamp! (via Neatorama)
Read in browser Every opening of Beethoven's "Eroica" symphony
By Xeni Jardin on Feb 22, 2012 08:45 pm [Video Link]. YouTube viewer comment: "I liked the part where they played the opening chords of the symphony." (thanks, Joe Sabia!)
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