Offered in scarlet ink on a jet black T-shirt, "It Followed Me Home" is the latest in our Artists Series of T-shirts, an original illustration designed exclusively for Boing Boing. It's $14.95 for men's sizes and $16.95 for women's sizes.
Posted by Boing Boing — Comment
By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:25 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
My latest book, Made by Hand, now in paperback. Follow me on Twitter.
[Video Link] "Camden council in north London have recently installed this talking camera that issues threats to residents at Walker House."
By David Pescovitz at 2:52 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
I had missed this sad news, but Dick Tufeld, the man who gave Robby the Robot his voice on Lost In Space, died last month. He was 85. Along with his famous catchphrase "Danger, Will Robinson!" and the intro to Lost In Space, Tufield's voice was also heard at the beginning of "Voyage To The Bottom of the Sea."
By Cory Doctorow at 2:18 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
This restored 1957 home movie of a Disneyland visit, from the Disney History Institute, is an absolute treat. I love the rare footage of the Frontierland pack-mules and the Jungle Cruise as it was before the jungle really grew in; I'm likewise captivated by the sight of the (by modern standards) harshly metallic and dangerous-looking conveyances for small children. From The Disney Blog:
The Disney History Institute scores big again with a vintage color film from 1957 Disneyland. DHI uses the same transfer process that Ken Burns does to get his amazing footage and the result is something with the truest and brightest colors I’ve ever seen from Disneyland’s early days.
By Cory Doctorow at 2:12 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:46 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
My latest book, Made by Hand, now in paperback. Follow me on Twitter.
Gweek is a weekly podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps, and other neat stuff.
My hosts on episode 38 are Dean Putney, Boing Boing's coding and development wizard, Boing Boing alum Joel Johnson of Animal New York, and Dannel Jurado, a software engineer from Peru who's working at Etsy and, by Dean's description, "is deeply ingrained in 8 bit music, geek culture, craft and software."
Below is a list of the things we talked about in Gweek episode 38. (Sure, you could just click on the links below to learn about them without listening to the podcast, but then you will miss out on the mind-blowing insights we shared in the episode.)
If you enjoy Gweek, please rate it in the iTunes Store -- thanks!
Johann Sebastian Joust in Yerba Buena Gardens "basically like high-tech tag. Each person has a Playstation Move controller, and the object of the game is to jostle other people's controllers so that you're the last man standing."
Playing Dungeons and Dragons via Skype.
A new Jim Woodring T-Shirt in the Boing Boing Shop!
After doing all sorts of cool stuff for Gawker Media, Joel is going to Animal New York.
Joel reviews the book, Arguably: Essays by Christopher Hitchens.
Dean digs LibriVox, a site where volunteers record public domain books into audiobooks.
Joel recommends Conan Doyle's The White Company (free on Gutenberg), "about archers from England who go to France to wage war and plunder ... it comes off like Jack Vance."
Mark reviews the graphic novel Pigs: Hello Cruel World.
Joel saw two movies this week: A Dangerous Method (and Carl Jung, Sigmund Freud and Sabina Spielrein, "the beautiful but disturbed young woman who comes between them") and The Rum Diary (based on Hunter S. Thompson's autobiographical novel).
Mark told Joel to read Gonzo: the Life of Hunter S. Thompson, which consists of anecdotes culled from interviews with 120 of Thompson's acquaintances, beginning with his childhood in Kentucky and ending with his death in 2005 in Woody Creek, Colorado.
Roots, by Danimal Cannon. Cannon wrote: "Every song on this album was composed using a Nintendo Gameboy DMG-01 running the homebrew software LSDJ. If you download the album I've also included the .sav files so feel free to learn my tricks, remix, or whatever!" Dannel also runs a cool music blog.
Joel gives his first impression Hero Academy, a free, turn-based RPG strategy game for iOS. He also excited about news of an X-Com revival.
Dannel recommends an iOS game called Puzzlejuice, which is a bit like Tetris with the added challenge of having to spell words using tiles with letters on them.
Dean loves his Fujitsu ScanSnap sheet-fed document scanner
By Cory Doctorow at 1:29 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
MikeyP sez, "Filmmaker friends of mine have a lovely melancholy stop-motion film (about a tiny entymologist with a lightbulb for a head) they're hoping to get into the Australian short film festival Tropfest via the audience vote.If you have a second, and feel so inclined, pray click the link, scroll to the right to find 'Re-Collection',* and if you like the film, please vote for it. Even if you choose not to vote for my friends, Tropfest is worth checking out if you like short films. I think all of the finalists' films are viewable from the Tropfest YouTube channel. It's a good festival. * Or you can use the search box. Yes, Tropfest's system is a bit convoluted, and yes, it probably favours the first films in the list. But that's how it is."
TROPFEST's Channel - YouTube (Thanks, MikeyP!)
By David Pescovitz at 12:42 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Here is OK Go's excellent video for "Needing/Getting." And yes, it was done "in partnership" with the maker of that particular car. According to the video description, the car "was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the instruments, and the band recorded this version of Needing/Getting, singing as they played the instrument array with the car… There are no ringers or stand-ins; Damian took stunt driving lessons. Each piano had the lowest octaves tuned to the same note so that they'd play the right note no matter where they were struck."
By Cory Doctorow at 12:00 pm Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
My friend and oft-times workshop mate Tom Marcinko, a very talented writer and critiquer, has just put seven of his previously published sf stories into the Kindle store for what he calls "the amazingly low price of absolutely nothing." He's getting back to work on new fiction after a long hiatus, and this is his way of marking the occasion. How can you resist a free sf collection with a story in it called "The Nixon Wrangler's Tale"?
An ardent missionary beams to another galaxy--but finds his convictions and personality altered in transmission.
A bounty hunter pursues a replicant from out of history. This is not called termination. It is called “impeachment.”
Aliens invade a globally depressed Earth with a sinister weapon: A new line of curiously addictive consumer products.
Superheroes must control their powers. Or a shadowy government agency will do it for them.
Plus the Second Coming, with a special guest appearance by the Patron Saint of Television.
Welcome to seven adventures in space, time, and from under the floorboards.
These stories were previously published in Realms of Fantasy, Interzone, Rosebud, Science Fiction Age, and other respected venues.
Tom is the person who introduced me to Mystery Science Theater 3000, and is a very happy mutant indeed.
By LibraryLab at 11:27 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
This is the first post from the fine folks of the American Library Association, which recently launched a member interest group called Library Boing Boing. They will be posting now and again as LibraryLab.
On April 23, 2012, tens of thousands of people in the U.S., U.K., Ireland, and Germany will go out into their communities to spread the joy and love of reading by giving away free books. All you have to do to participate is register by midnight EST tonight.
The goal is to have 50,000 people give a book to a stranger or to people you might know but believe aren’t frequent readers. Go to a coffee shop, a hospital, a park, a church, a community center, an after-work party, a local school, or even just give them away on your daily train ride. WBN will give you 20 specially-produced, not-for-resale World Book Night editions to randomly give away. There are 30 titles to choose from for all types of readers. Basically, if you love any of the books included in the program, you can get free copies to share with others. Read the rest
By Cory Doctorow at 11:00 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Timo's video "Robot readable world" is made up of stitched-together found footage from computer vision systems, "exploring the aesthetics of the robot eye." It was inspired by Matt Jones's essay The Robot-Readable World, and it reminds me Laura Mulvey's idea of the Male Gaze.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 10:56 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
A recent mathematics study showed that you have to have at least 17 clues on a Sudoku grid in order for the puzzle to be solvable. You could make the game easier, by adding more clues. But if there are fewer than 17 clues, then the game becomes impossible to solve. In this video, mathematician James Grime explains how the researchers figured this out.
Via Grrlscientist and The Guardian
PREVIOUSLY:
By David Pescovitz at 10:26 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Andreas Gursky "Union Rave" (1995)
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, Arthur C. Clarke wrote ""Behind every man now alive stand 30 ghosts, for that is the ratio by which the dead outnumber the living." That's no longer true. These days, there are apparently 15 dead for every living person. Still, the living clearly do not outnumber the dead. Not even close, according to new research from the Population Reference Bureau. according to new research from the Population Reference Bureau. The TL;DR is that "There are currently seven billion people alive today and the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived," according to a BBC News article. Of course, the vast majority of history is based on educated guesses. The first homo sapiens weren't too interested in acquiring census data. It wasn't until the 18th century or so that the best ongoing data was collected about such things. "Do the dead outnumber the living?" (BBC News)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 10:26 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
The "flow state" is how neuroscience researchers describe that zone you can get into when you're doing something that you've become highly skilled at. It's a zen-like place in your brain — that state where you lose track of time doing something that you enjoy doing for its own sake, and where the job of doing the task seems to become something you don't even have to think about. You just do it, and you do it right.
The catch, of course, is that usually it takes a lot of heavy work to get to the point where the flow can take over. This is where Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours of practice comes into play. But, over the years, scientists have learned that there are some ways around that 10,000-hour rule. Some people just seem to pick up on the flow easier than others, for instance.
If your brain isn't just naturally inclined toward the flow, though, there is the option of zapping it into line. This is called transcranial direct current stimulation—basically running a very small electric current through specific parts of the brain. In some studies, and for some tasks, it's been shown to induce a feeling very much like a flow state, and possibly make it easier for people to get to a high level of skill faster. Last spring, Pesco wrote about some of the research that's being conducted on this intriguing but still-not-proven technique. Recently, New Scientist reporter Sally Adee tried it out, and saw a significant short-term improvement in her ability to spot and hit targets in a video shooter game.
The mild electrical shock is meant to depolarise the neuronal membranes in the region, making the cells more excitable and responsive to inputs. Like many other neuroscientists working with tDCS, Weisend thinks this accelerates formation of new neural pathways during the time that someone practises a skill. The method he is using on me boosted the speed with which wannabe snipers could detect a threat by a factor of 2.3
It's not yet clear why some forms of tDCS should bring about the flow state. After all, if tDCS were solely about writing new memories, it would be hard to explain the improvement that manifests itself as soon as the current begins to flow.
One possibility is that the electrodes somehow reduce activity in the prefrontal cortex - the area used in critical thought, which Csikszentmihalyi had found to be muted during flow. Roy Hamilton, a neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, thinks this may happen as a side effect of some forms of tDCS. "tDCS might have much more broad effects than we think it does," he says. He points out that some neurons can mute the signals of other brain cells in their network, so it is possible that stimulating one area of the brain might reduce activity in another.
The first thing I thought of when I read this: The way drinking one (but not more than two) beers can change the way I approach a billiards game. It doesn't improve my skills, per se—I don't suddenly become graceful with a pool cue. But when it's a game that I have some skill at already, like table hockey, one beer is often just enough to allow me to stop over-thinking and just play the game ... making it feel like I'm better at it then than I am stone-cold sober. I'd be really interested to know if/how these experiences are related.
By Cory Doctorow at 10:00 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
How to Be a Retronaut's gallery of images from the 1970 edition of the "Encylopedia of Home Improvement" are like shots from a never-aired episode of The Brady Bunch where the family took over management of The Madonna Inn and did a little light redecorating.
By David Pescovitz at 9:53 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Last month, I posted about the gorgeous droning ambient music of From The Mouth of the Sun. People really seemed to dig it! Carter Gunn created this video for their track "Sitting In A Roofless Room" from video footage courtesy of the fantastic Prelinger Archive. The song is on From The Mouth of The Sun's new album, Woven Tide, which you can listen to right here. And you can purchase it directly from Experimedia.
By David Pescovitz at 9:42 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
An Icelandic man captured video of what some suggest is the Lagarfljótsormur, a lake monster residing in the lake Lagarfljót in the eastern part of the country. Others suggest it's a fishing net. I prefer the former. Stories of the Lagarfljótsormur date back to 1345. From Iceland Review Online:
According to legend, it was at first a tiny worm which was placed on a ring of gold to make the gold grow.
When the owner of the ring returned she noticed to her great terror that the worm had grown immensely but not the gold. She tossed the ring and worm into Lagarfljót where the worm continued to grow.
Video here: "Er þetta Lagarfljótsormurinn?"(RUR.is)
English language news here: "Iceland 'Lake Monster' Captured on Film?" (Iceland Review Online)
By Cory Doctorow at 9:27 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
The Jolly Green Giant was always the most ambiguous and slightly threatening of the tinned food mascots. Tilt your head and squint and this is a cruel titan who's toying with the mortals at his dinner table before turning them loose for the Wild Hunt. Plus: Mexicorn!
By David Pescovitz at 9:24 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
This is a Sol LeWitt yarmulke created by the Beth Shalom Rodfe Zedek temple in Chester, Connecticut. LeWitt, a member of the congregation, helped design the temple. "Sol LeWitt Kippah" (Thanks, Jill Miller!)
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:55 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
I've been doing periodic appearances on Sex is Fun, a sex-positive podcast aimed at providing fun, informative sex ed. for grown-ups. Last time I was on the show, we talked about some funny animal sex studies and what they can and can't teach you about human sexual behavior. This time around, we talked about a couple of recent studies focusing on sociology and sex.
In particular, we focused on a study from last fall that surveyed students at the University of Kansas to find out how men's and women's internalized sexism affect their relationships with each other. If you've ever watched one of those shows about so-called "pick up artists" and wondered, "Who the hell are the women falling for this crap!?", then this is the show to listen to.
Check out the podcast at the Sex is Fun site!
Image: IMG_9459, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jon_knox's photostream.
By Rob Beschizza at 8:27 am Monday, Feb 6
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Follow me on Twitter.
This is the U.S. Air Force's pitch to the entertainment industry, a smorgasbord of mil-porn to delight anyone who loved shows such as Airwolf and The A-Team. The objective is to help productions, from teen-magnet Hollywood epics to seniors' detective show "Monk", get the details right—and, of course, to put the taxpayers' latest hardware on show.
Hitherto available only in teaser form online, the full-size version was yielded by a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Government Attic.
"The industry's gateway to an extraordinary arsenal of aircraft, equipment, credible personnel and locations," intones Fake Morgan Freeman. "Their mission: protect and project the Air Force and entertainment media, including film, tv, video games, comic books and more."
The Air Force's Entertainment Liaison Office offers uniformed extras, on-set technical advice, research trips and even script feedback. Michael Bay totally has his own personalized tankard under the bar at this place.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 8:15 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
I do the Twitter, the Google+, and (to a much lesser extent) the Facebook.
Books
• Before the Lights Go Out: Conquering the Energy Crisis Before It Conquers Us
Upcoming Appearances
• February 20 at British Columbia Sustainable Energy Association — Vancouver. 7:00 pm
• February 29 at University of Minnesota: Frontiers in the Environment seminar
• March 1 at Huge Theater, Minneapolis: The Theater of Public Policy
• March 12 at University of Illinois — Urbana-Champaign
• March 27 at Penn State Institutes on Energy and the Environment
• March 29-31 at York College of Pennsylvania: Writer in residence
• April 2 at MIT: The New GeekSpeak: Science Journalists' New Toolbox, with Eli Kintisch and John Bohannon — Maseeh Hall, 4:00 pm
• April 9-13 at University of Colorado, Boulder: 64th Annual Conference on World Affairs
• April 10 at Colorado State University, Fort Collins — 4:00 pm
• June 22-25 in Aspen, Colorado: Aspen Environment Forum
This bit of graffiti, spotted by entomologist and photographer Alex Wild, seems like the perfect way to start off a Monday morning. Thanks, anonymous tagger! I feel better already!
By Rob Beschizza at 8:12 am Monday, Feb 6
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Follow me on Twitter.
Razani Base, Waziristan,Aug. 1938, from which British and Indian forces suppressed a local insurrection.
Photo: Brian Harrington Spier, under CC
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found that drones targeted funeral mourners and rescuers responding to prior strikes. One government official, granted the veil of anonymity by The New York Times, would not deny that it had done so. Instead, he or she suggested that to "malign the efforts" was to "help Al Qaeda succeed."
Glenn Greenwald notes that the New York Times broke its own policies on source anonymity to run the quote.
The Bureau’s journalists and researchers spent months engaged in the painstaking and difficult task of gathering documentation on the effects of the top secret U.S. drone program in Waziristan — producing extraordinary findings — only to find themselves and their sources, many of whom are local villagers whose children have been killed, depicted as Al Qaeda’s witting or unwitting allies the very next day in The New York Times, by some senior government official too frightened to put his name on his accusations and aided (as always) by a newspaper that has repeatedly vowed to stop these practices.
It looks like the price of continued access to "senior counterterrorism officials" is that you must, now and again, launder their dirty political opinions.
By Cory Doctorow at 8:00 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Today in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool, "Planktonauts," by Robert Steven Connett, who notes, "This is a direction that I feel very comfortable with. Very enjoyable to create. I’m happy with the results. I hope to do many more similar paintings in the months to come."
We've blogged once or twice about the Jamesburg Earth Station, a disused satellite communications station in a remote Californian valley. Alexis Madrigal went there, and found a trailer park, a buddhist retreat, and "one of the old, weird ties between Earth and space." [The Atlantic]
— Rob
By Rob Beschizza at 6:19 am Monday, Feb 6
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Follow me on Twitter.
A rundown of one week in British music history, courtesy of "Top of the Pops", via Charlie Brooker.
By Cory Doctorow at 6:12 am Monday, Feb 6
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Ty Templeton has a strangely appealing and plausible look at the likely fallout from the DC comics' decision to produce a line of Watchmen prequels. Click through below for the punchline.
By Cory Doctorow at 9:17 pm Sunday, Feb 5
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Ange-line Tetrault made a series of "hidden animal" teacups with little ceramic beasties inside that are slowly revealed as you sip through your (opaque) beverage of choice.
By Rob Beschizza at 7:09 pm Sunday, Feb 5
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Follow me on Twitter.
By Cory Doctorow at 7:36 am Sunday, Feb 5
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
A group of Anons are about to dump a torrent 2.6GB of email containing "detailed records, transcripts, testimony, trial evidence, and legal defense donation records" about the Haditha massacre, in which 24 unarmed Iraqi men, women and children were killed by the USMC.
The announcement states that Anonymous stole 2.6 gigabytes of e-mail belonging to Puckett Faraj, a law firm that represents Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, who is accused of leading the group of Marines in Haditha. The Web site of Puckett Faraj is not currently loading, and Gawker is reporting that the site was hacked.
A spokeswoman for Puckett Faraj confirmed that the Web site was down but said that she could not confirm or deny whether the site had been hacked.
Anonymous says it will leak giant cache of Iraq war e-mails
(Image: Guy Fawkes Anonymous face stencil, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from elias_daniel's photostream)
By Cory Doctorow at 7:28 am Sunday, Feb 5
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
One of the first "physibles" available for download on The Pirate Bay's 3D object download site was a 3D model of TPB's pirate-ship logo. Canadian Charles Randall ordered one up from Shapeways, and it's arrived.
“I was entertained by telling shapeways.com that I owned the copyright on the design though, something they force you to accept in order to have the model printed. But I guess, in a way, we all do,” Randall told TorrentFreak. “I debated just putting it up for sale on the site, but despite the Pirate Bay sensibilities, I didn’t want to entangle myself in any weird controversy for trying to sell it.”
Unlike regular downloads on BitTorrent, 3D objects come with a hefty price tag. Using the cheapest materials available, 3D pirates have to invest roughly $100 to get their new toy made.
“The raw price was about $80 for the material, $6.50 for the shipping, and then I had to pay $15 in Canadian duties,” Randall said
By Cory Doctorow at 9:00 pm Saturday, Feb 4
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Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Tor.com's Irene Gallo gathers together an absolutely fantastic gallery of science fiction artwork that quotes famous works of fine art. I'm all over John Mattos's Mos Eisley reimagined as Picasso's Three Musicians.
By Cory Doctorow at 7:50 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
An 83-year-old woman with a badly infected lower jaw had the entire thing replaced with a 3D printed titanium/bioceramic replica. The surgery was performed by doctors from the University of Hasselt (Belgium) in collaboration with Dutch surgeons.
The 3D printer prints titanium powder layer by layer, while a computer controlled laser ensures that the correct particles are fused together. Using 3D printing technology, less materials are needed and the production time is much shorter than traditional manufacturing. The mandible was finally given a bioceramic coating compatible with the patient's tissue by BioCeramics in Leiden. The artificial jaw weighs 107 grams, it is only 30 grams heavier than a natural jaw, but the patient can easily get used to it.
The operation was performed in June last year in the hospital in Sittard-Geleen. One day later the lady could start talking and swallowing.
83 year-old woman got 3D printed mandible (Thanks, Don!)
By Cory Doctorow at 6:45 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Chris sez, "My name is Chris Peterson. I run web communications for MIT Admissions and have been a loyal BB reader for years. For the last several years we have been sending our admitted students their acceptance letters in cardboard tubes. First because we sent a poster, but now it's its own thing. 2012 is the anniversary of an old MIT balloon hack, so we put a letter in all of the Early Action admit tubes telling them we wanted them to hack the tubes somehow, and set up http://hackthetubes.mitadmissions.org to collect responses. Lots of them are great, but this one, from Erin King (MIT '16) in Georgia, is the best."
16 year old girl from Georgia launches her MIT acceptance letter into near space (Thanks, Chris!)
By Cory Doctorow at 5:24 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
I don't know an awful lot about fingernail painting, but this seems like a pretty straightforward painting task, and the effect is pretty awesome.
Converse Nails (via Super Punch)
By Cory Doctorow at 4:19 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Joly sez, "Rebecca Mackinnon discusses her new book 'Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom' (Basic Books) with Mark Whitaker, managing editor for CNN Worldwide, at The New America Foundation NYC on Feb 1 2012."
I've got a copy of this book at the top of my read-for-review pile. I can't wait. Rebecca's views on international relations and the Internet -- especially the role the Internet plays in both the struggle for freedom and the suppression of freedom in China -- are the most thoughtful, best informed in the field. Here's the site for the book.
Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle For Internet Freedom (Thanks, Joly!)
By Cory Doctorow at 12:17 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Gmoke sez, "This statistical model uses 'zipcode-level energy consumption data to estimate the average annual energy use for every tax lot—at practically building level—through all five boroughs of the city.' Included are estimateans for space heating, space cooling, water heating, and base electric applications such as lighting. 'This map will enable NYC building owners to see whether their own building consumes more or less than what an average building with similar function and size would,' said Professor Modi. 'This is the first time anyone has provided an estimate like this for New York City and the first time anyone has offered information to the public in the form of an interactive map.'"
“This is a critical issue,” said Modi. “While discussions frequently focus on electricity use, homes in New York City, whether a townhouse or a large apartment building, use far more energy in form of heat rather than electricity. Nearly all of this heat is obtained from heating oil or natural gas. In addition, current electricity distribution infrastructure in many urban areas relies on large amounts of electricity brought in from outside the city, making it difficult to support increased future use without requiring significant investment of resources and funds. We are looking at ways we can address both these issues—reducing our heating bills and increasing local electricity generation capacity.”
Model Created to Map Energy Use in NYC Buildings (Thanks, Gmoke!)
By Cory Doctorow at 12:05 pm Saturday, Feb 4
• Comments •
Upcoming appearances
* Feb 9, 2012, DeKalb, IL: Day of Doctorow, NIU
* Feb 10-12, 2012, Chicago, IL: Capricon 32
* Feb 13, 2012, Arlington, TX: UT Arlington College of Engineering Distinguished Speaker Series
* Feb 16, 2012, Victoria, BC: 13th Annual Privacy and Security Conference
Recent books:
* Context (essays)
* With a Little Help (short stories)
* For the Win (YA novel)
* Makers (adult novel)
Dan Sayers ("I am not a type designer") decided to explore "generative" type-design by seeing what happened when he "averaged out" a large number of fonts. Once he got his teeth into the problem, he realized that "averaging out" is a complicated idea when it comes to shapes, and came up with a pretty elegant way of handling the problem, which, in turn, yielded a rather lovely face: Avería, "the average font."
Avería – The Average Font (via Waxy)Then it occurred to me: since my aim was to average a large number of fonts, perhaps it would be best to use a very simple process, and hope the results averaged out well over a large number of fonts. So, how about splitting each letter perimeter into lots of (say, 500) equally-spaced points, and just average between the corresponding positions of each, on each letter? It would be necessary to match up the points so they were about the same location in each letter, and then the process would be fairly simple
Having found a simple process to use, I was ready to start. And after about a month of part-time slaving away (sheer fun! Better than any computer game) – in the process of which I learned lots about bezier curves and font metrics – I had a result. I call it Avería – which is a Spanish word related to the root of the word ‘average’. It actually means mechanical breakdown or damage. This seemed curiously fitting, and I was assured by a Spanish friend-of-a-friend that “Avería is an incredibly beautiful word regardless of its meaning”. So that's nice.
