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Sponsor shout-out: ShanaLogic University of Georgia wants student newspaper to stop catching people doing bad things Major American firms pay more in CEO compensation than they do in fed tax Cryptozoological embroidery patterns by Ape Lad: $5 Negativland art show in Los Angeles RIAA budget shrinks nearly 50% over two years Childplay: SF novel about life with virtual children, free this weekend in Kindle edition Trailer for Compliance, a movie that explores obedience to authority NYC conference for sofware artists seeks Kickstarting More about how the Sahara creates the Amazon Man in rural China loses arms in industrial accident, makes his own prostheses Batman Earth One: rebooting the bat Cow Week: Angry cows vs. angry mothers Amazon recruits 5000 UK cornershops to act as delivery depots LBJ liked to piss on his bodyguards Why do NASA engineers like peanuts? Retired NASA flight director blogs about the aftermath of Columbia disaster Kalashnikov sales to America boom Mars Curiosity/LFMAO parody video: "We're NASA and We Know It" K-LOL: new "internet local news" web show features "Cute Animals & Exploited Hipster Girls" (video) Raising money to build a Tesla museum Cat Dance (video) Cool ceramic jewelry for scientists, skeptics, and fossil lovers Set theory, Christians, and parody No more spells, hexes, or prayers on eBay The Mind Thing, by Fredric Brown: excellent pulp-era science fiction Demonic flat tires Pocket Dungeons: a 3D printable dungeon crawl game "Have a Nice Trip" an anti-drug song by Merv Griffin (1968) Errol Morris film about sports-themed funerals Sponsor shout-out: ShanaLogic
By David Pescovitz on Aug 17, 2012 12:53 pm Thanks to our sponsor ShanaLogic, sellers of handmade and independently designed jewelry, apparel, gifts, and other fine products. Right now, the shop is featuring a surreal series of animal "Corporate Portrait Prints" by artist Ryan Berkley. They're $12 and ready for standard framing. Shana says, "Free domestic shipping for orders over $50!" ShanaLogic
Read in browser University of Georgia wants student newspaper to stop catching people doing bad things
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 17, 2012 12:45 pm Top editors and much of the staff at the University of Georgia's student newspaper have resigned en-masse following managerial changes, and proposed content guidelines, that undermined editorial independence. Student newspapers like this one are independent entities: Students run them from top to bottom and faculty/consultants operate as advisers, not editors. Students have the final word. ...
Read in browser Major American firms pay more in CEO compensation than they do in fed tax
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 12:40 pm 26 major American companies paid more to their CEOs than they paid in taxes in 2011, including Citigroup, Abbott Labs, and AT&T. This from a study published by the Institute for Policy Studies entitled Executive Excess 2012: The CEO Hands in Uncle Sam's Pocket. They note that this figure has climbed since last year. Reuters's ...
Read in browser Cryptozoological embroidery patterns by Ape Lad: $5
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 17, 2012 12:37 pm A bigfoot embroidery pattern from our friends at Sublime Stitching? By Ape Lad no less? I imagine Pescovitz is on his way to the craft store to buy a hoop, needles and floss. Other creatures in the pattern include the Loch Ness monster, a jackalope, a centaur, the Sphynx, a gryphon, and a satyr. Cryptozoological ...
Read in browser Negativland art show in Los Angeles
By David Pescovitz on Aug 17, 2012 12:35 pm Seminal culture jammers and master appropriationists Negativland have an art show hanging September 7 - 30 at Los Angeles's La Luz de Jesus Gallery. "Our Favorite Things" is a retrospective of their visual collage output and opens with a rare musical performance on September 7. Hi-Fructose interviewed Negativland: If you could design and set up ...
Read in browser RIAA budget shrinks nearly 50% over two years
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 12:35 pm TorrentFreak has had a look at the RIAA's IRS filing for the year ending March 31, 2011, and has discovered that the organization has faced major contraction. Over two years, the organization's budget has been cut nearly in half. Staff numbers have been cut from 117 to 72; two senior execs with a combined salary ...
Read in browser Childplay: SF novel about life with virtual children, free this weekend in Kindle edition
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 17, 2012 12:17 pm Matthew Mather says: As the world moves online, why not virtual children too? Childplay is the second novella in my #1 best-selling Atopia Chronicles collection. It explores what life would be like raising a family with virtual children, and is offered free this Friday to Sunday (Aug 17-19). The full six book series is also ...
Read in browser Trailer for Compliance, a movie that explores obedience to authority
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 17, 2012 11:45 am Compliance is a psychological thriller based on a true event in which a sociopath pretending to be a cop called a fast food joint and convinced the manager to do horrific things to a young employee. It sounds like the Milgram Experiment in the real world. From the New York Times: “Compliance” came into focus ...
Read in browser NYC conference for sofware artists seeks Kickstarting
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 11:43 am Isabel sez, We've created a conference that brings together some of the most cutting edge artists and curators working in new media and software art today...now we just need people to buy the conference tickets and attend. We're using Kickstarter for that, and the conference is October 16th at a major museum in New York ...
Read in browser More about how the Sahara creates the Amazon
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 17, 2012 11:37 am On Monday, I posted about an incredibly fascinating study linking the minerals that fertilize the Amazon rainforest to a specific corner of the Sahara desert in the country of Chad. That lake of sand—once an actual lake the size of California—is what keeps the Amazon green and verdant. The interesting thing is that the study ...
Read in browser Man in rural China loses arms in industrial accident, makes his own prostheses
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 10:09 am Sun Jifa, from Jilin province, China, made his own homebrew prosthetic arms after losing his own in a "fishing related explosion." The hospital that treated him after the accident recommended a set of expensive factory-made limbs that were out of his price-range, so the 51-year-old made his own. He says that the steel is heavy ...
Read in browser Batman Earth One: rebooting the bat
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 09:00 am Batman: Earth One is a reboot of the Batman story written by Geoff Johns and illustrated by Gary Frank. It's a timely book, coinciding with the conclusion of the trilogy of Christopher Nolan Batman films, and it offers a very good entry to the series for people who haven't followed it closely until now. We've ...
Read in browser Cow Week: Angry cows vs. angry mothers
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 17, 2012 08:22 am Editorial note — Cow Week is a tongue-in-cheek look at risk analysis and why we fear the things we fear. It is inspired by the Discovery Channel's Shark Week, the popularity of which is largely driven by the public's fascination with and fear of sharks. Turns out, cows kill more people every year than sharks ...
Read in browser Amazon recruits 5000 UK cornershops to act as delivery depots
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 03:52 am Amazon UK has recruited 5,000 cornershops to act as pickup depots for people who order goods online. The Amazon shipments will be delivered to convenient shops with late opening hours for customer pickup, and will also accept returned merchandise. This last will make Amazon much more convenient for people who are clothes-shopping and get the ...
Read in browser LBJ liked to piss on his bodyguards
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 17, 2012 01:11 am LBJ was not only the president, he was also a prodigious urinator, who pleased himself by pissing on his Secret Service detail while shielded from public view, according to Mental Floss's Jenny Drapkin: Johnson lived to dominate, and he used crass behavior to bend people to his will. At 6-ft., 3-in. tall and 210 lbs., ...
Read in browser Why do NASA engineers like peanuts?
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 17, 2012 12:51 am As Curiosity was landing safely on Mars, many of you noted that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory engineers orchestrating the whole thing were eating an awful lot of peanuts. In fact, each workstation boasted a little commemorative jar of peanuts. Seriously, what is up with all those peanuts? Discovery News has an answer. And it's surprisingly ...
Read in browser Retired NASA flight director blogs about the aftermath of Columbia disaster
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 17, 2012 12:25 am On February 1, 2003, the space shuttle Columbia broke up in the sky over Texas, bits and pieces falling onto at least two states. All seven astronauts on board died. As we close in on the 10-year anniversary of the disaster, you can expect lots of media outlets and experts to start offering their take ...
Read in browser Kalashnikov sales to America boom
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 16, 2012 11:25 pm Izhevsk, the town in Russia where the Kalashnikov rifle is made, is booming. The town is exporting Kalashnikovs by the boatload to the USA, where gun collectors are snapping them up. It's likely the case that more Americans will by killed by other Americans wielding Kalashnikov than were ever killed by Russians with the Soviet-era ...
Read in browser Mars Curiosity/LFMAO parody video: "We're NASA and We Know It"
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 16, 2012 09:40 pm [Video Link]. This parody music video debuted this week on a new YouTube channel called Satire, and mashes up LMFAO's hit "Sexy and I Know It" with the NASA Curiosity mission and abundant JPL-love. "It comes complete with shout-outs to Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson," reports the Washington Post, which dug into the story ...
Read in browser K-LOL: new "internet local news" web show features "Cute Animals & Exploited Hipster Girls" (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 16, 2012 09:25 pm I K-LOL'd. This new web show, featuring the delightful Jordan Morris of Max Fun fame, is to the internet what Portlandia is to Portland. [Video Link]
Read in browser Raising money to build a Tesla museum
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 16, 2012 09:19 pm The Oatmeal's Matthew Inman -- who raised a small fortune for charity from readers who were offended by a groundless legal threat penned by Charles Carreon at the behest of the website Funnyjunk -- has kicked off a new fundraiser. This time, he's asking his fans to donate money towards buying the site of Nicola ...
Read in browser Cat Dance (video)
By Xeni Jardin on Aug 16, 2012 09:17 pm In the 1970s, someone thought this was a good idea. [Video Link] (Thanks, Tara McGinley)
Read in browser Cool ceramic jewelry for scientists, skeptics, and fossil lovers
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 16, 2012 09:04 pm A friend pointed me today toward the awesome work of Surly Amy (aka Amy Davis Roth), who makes really neat ceramic jewelry with science/skeptic themes. Some of her pieces are really simple and not super artsy—a pendant that says "This is what an atheist looks like", for instance. That's fine, but it's not the stuff ...
Read in browser Set theory, Christians, and parody
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Aug 16, 2012 08:41 pm Last week, I wrote a piece for BoingBoing about fundamentalist Christian objections to the mathematical idea of set theory. Those objections are, apparently, real—sourced to math textbooks produced by publisher A Beka. And, if you understand the cultural mindset, it even makes a weird sort of sense. But it's also ripe for parody. Read the ...
Read in browser No more spells, hexes, or prayers on eBay
By David Pescovitz on Aug 16, 2012 07:30 pm eBay is banning the sale of spells, hexes, healings, blessings, prayers, and other similar supernaturalia. From CNN: Beginning in September, the site is banning the sale of "advice, spells, curses, hexing, conjuring, magic, prayers, blessing services, magic potions, [and] healing sessions," according to a policy update. The company is also eliminating its category listings for ...
Read in browser The Mind Thing, by Fredric Brown: excellent pulp-era science fiction
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 16, 2012 05:54 pm When I was in junior high school, I joined the Science Fiction Book Club. One of the books I got from the club was an anthology that included several stories by Fredric Brown (who was primarily a mystery writer but occasionally delved into science fiction). Some of Brown's stories in the anthology were a mere ...
Read in browser Demonic flat tires
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 16, 2012 05:53 pm Ever wonder where flat tires come from? Demons. It's demons. The Puncture Fiend-- Foiled! (Atlas Tyres, 1900s)
Read in browser Pocket Dungeons: a 3D printable dungeon crawl game
By Cory Doctorow on Aug 16, 2012 04:31 pm If you've got access to a 3D printer, you can download and print a "Pocket Dungeons" set, created by Thingiverse user dutchmogul, who calls it "a modular, competitive dungeon-crawl for two to six players." With modular, tile-based board design and randomized events, no two games will be alike. Dynamic, tactical game play allows for quick ...
Read in browser "Have a Nice Trip" an anti-drug song by Merv Griffin (1968)
By Mark Frauenfelder on Aug 16, 2012 04:12 pm [Video Link] Excellent use of 1960s pop culture images in this video accompaniment to Merv Griffin's masterpiece, "Have a Nice Trip." (Via Laughing Squid)
Read in browser Errol Morris film about sports-themed funerals
By David Pescovitz on Aug 16, 2012 03:59 pm Errol Morris made this short film about unique funerals of hardcore sports fans. (via Next Draft)
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