25 most recent entries:
Announcement: Rule 34 Showdown IRC Event on #boingboing @ 4PM EDT Tonight (Oct 03 2008 15:17 GMT)
It's been quite a while since we held our last IRC event, but with the solstice drawing the summer days to a wane, it's time once again to dust off the #boingboing IRC channel and spend a few hours in a rousing community game of an old favorite, Rule 34 Showdown. Rule 34, as all men know, is the cosmic rule that demands that porn can be found on the Internet to fit any concept. The rules are simple: numerous times over the course of one hour, I will shout out a random Rule 34 Challenge. "RULE 34:
Birth of the presidential "sound bite" (Oct 03 2008 15:12 GMT)
The 1908 presidential campaign was the first time that the candidates, William Jennings Bryan and William Howard Taft, recorded their voices for voters to hear. The recordings on early phonographs were used to rally support, or simply demonstrate the technology, at political gatherings, concert halls, and even shops selling the Edison phonographs. Science News has a fascinating history of the "first sound bites," including audio samples. From Science News: ?
Liar's Poker: a timely moment to revisit 20-year-old memoir of the rise and fall of a financial bubble (Oct 03 2008 15:10 GMT)
I've just read (finally!) Michael Lewis's Liar's Poker: Rising Through the Wreckage on Wall Street, the classic 1989 memoir of life at Salomon Brothers investment bank in the run-up to the Wall Street crash of 1987. Lewis was hired to trade mortgage bonds (yes, the mortgage bonds that precipitated the crash of 2008) fresh from the London School of Economics, dispatched to Salomon's legendary training program in NYC, then shipped back to London. Lewis was a gifted salesman who made millions for the firm, but he was also deeply skeptical of the whole enterprise.
Mackerel economics in prison (Oct 03 2008 14:59 GMT)
Today's Wall Street Journal has a fascinating article about "macks," tins of mackerel that are commonly used for bartering in prison. Macks took over around 2004 when smoking bans in federal prison knocked out the previous currency: packs of cigarettes. From the WSJ: Unlike...
Library celebrates Banned Books Week with window-display featuring volunteers reading banned works (Oct 03 2008 14:20 GMT)
Adrienne sez, "We've created a 'live' Banned Book Display at our library [Twin Hickory Public Library, Glen Allen, VA]. We have volunteer readers who sit in the display and read (silently) banned and challenged books. So far it's gotten a lot of attention ? we hear a lot of 'Mom, what are those people doing in there?' The best part has been hearing parents explain to their kids what the display is all about which is exactly what we wanted to happen!
Comfort Dollars (Oct 03 2008 13:20 GMT)
Here's a great example of what we could easily call a "local currency" - that doesn't involve any of the bloody, anti-corporate revolution that detractors of this idea seem to think will attend any such effort. A great, tiny organic cafe in my town, Comfort, decided to expand to a second, larger location last year. The owner, John Halko, has been renovating the new space for a year, and - thanks to the credit crisis - has been unable to raise the cash required to finish and finally open. With currency unavailable from traditional, centralized money-lending banks, Halko has turned instead to his community - to us - for support. Granted, this is a small town.
Restaurant features "wireless service bell button" to summon waiters at your command (Oct 03 2008 05:51 GMT)
Yesterday, David and I enjoyed fine lunch at a Chinese restaurant in Urbana, Illinois. The experience was made even more pleasant because of this "wireless service bell button" at our table. Note its four buttons: Waiter, Drink, Money (bill), and Chopsticks (food). Each button produced a different tone, which emanated from a speaker in the kitchen.
MC Frontalot's Final Boss: nerdcore par excellence (Oct 03 2008 02:44 GMT)
MC Frontalot's new nerdcore album, Final Boss, is a perfect, catchy collection of raps and sketches about video-games, Japanese manga fandom, voting machines, and other important subjects. Of especial note is a completely, convulsively hilarious sketch with Wil Wheaton about Wil and Frontalot's respective career-choices. The CD's out in a month or so, but if you pre-order it now, you get immediate delivery of the CD in MP3 form, with a lyrics sheet and hi-rez versions of the art. Now these are lyrics: I?
Kelly Link's short story collection Magic for Beginners as a free CC download -- magnificent, weird, award-winning speculative fiction for free (Oct 03 2008 02:18 GMT)
Gavin sez, Kelly Link just released her second book, Magic for Beginners, online for a year under the Creative Commons license. 2 of the 9 stories aren't included due to contractual agreements but this is huge news because two giant companies, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (who published it in paperback) and HarperPerennial (who published the UK edition) have agreed to take a chance and be a part of the CC movement. Kelly's first collection, Stranger Things Happen, has been downloaded 60,000+ times since it was put online (and it still sells a couple of thousand copies a year) and the derivative works include audio versions, short movies, plays, and even a cello version of one of the stories...! Kelly Link's stories are some of the smartest, weirdest, freshest material being written in any literary field. The title story is just about the perfect explication of why fandom is so totally satisfying.
HOWTO Put a hidden radio-prompter on Sarah Palin during the debate (Oct 03 2008 01:23 GMT)
DailyKos's Ipsos has a great technical post on the logistics of sneaking an earpiece onto Sarah Palin at the debate, from the physics of spectrum use and antenna design to earpiece-hiding techniques and more: 3. Where do you put the person doing the cueing? This one has me stumped, because you have two problems with mutually-exclusive solutions. Ideally, you'd like the person whispering in Sarah's ear to be somewhere far away from the debate site.
Court refuses to expose sat-receiver owners to Echostar's vengeful rage (Oct 03 2008 00:56 GMT)
Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez sez, "Just wrote up a piece on a pretty fascinating case, in which EFF filed an amicus brief, brought by Echostar under the DMCA against a maker of satellite receivers. Since DMCA makes liability turn on whether a device has a 'significant commercial purpose' that doesn't involve IP violation, Echostar had wanted to get the names of hundreds of thousands of people who'd bought receiver boxes. Also raises the troubling question of whether making an open/hackable device exposes you to liability if enough people misuse that device." Privacy interests are typically afforded deference only to the extent that they implicate some tangible harm. The same standard generally obtains in privacy tort law, Lohmann told Ars, but here the court was prepared to afford the privacy claim added weight, because it was being invoked "as a shield, not a sword"?
Bizarre walking strategies of artifically evolved organisms (Oct 03 2008 00:53 GMT)
Here's a mesmerizing ten-minute video from the Darwin@Home project (which harnesses idle computers to simulate evolution) that shows the different, bizarre randomly evolved walking-strategies that have emerged from the simulations. Darwin at Home in Ten Minutes (via Kottke)...
EVE Online's economist speaks -- economics as an experimental science (Oct 03 2008 00:49 GMT)
This week's BusinessWeek Innovation of the Week podcast talks with Eyjolfur Guomundsson, the house economist for EVE Online, a massively multiplayer space game based on establishing and disrupting interplanetary trade. What's fascinating here is getting the perspective of an economist whose job is to design an economy that's "fun" -- or at least engrossing. It's not often that you get to hear economics described as an experimental science. An Economist on the Virtual Economy...
Online auction "game" exploits cognitive blindspots to make you overspend (Oct 03 2008 00:46 GMT)
Here's a fascinating analysis of the mechanics of Swoop, an online auction game (they call it "entertainment shopping") (!) that's designed to be a Skinner box for separating you from your money while confounding your judgement: First I will lay out for you how the site works. It is a ?auction?
Hustler producing Sarah Palin adult film spoof: "NAILIN' PAYLIN" (Oct 03 2008 00:45 GMT)
Larry Flynt's at it again: According to HUSTLER, ?Nailin? Paylin? is a ?
Free Software and Open Source Symposium in Toronto, Oct 24/25 (Oct 03 2008 00:41 GMT)
Once again, it's time for Toronto's excellent Free Software and Open Source Symposium, where students are admitted for a mere $30 and others for $75: October 23-24th, 2008 - Seneca@York Campus, Toronto Open source, open content, and open formats are changing the way we work, play, and learn. From software to the web to television and the media, the open source movement is spreading. Come see and hear the future in person: some of the most important thinkers in open technologies will be here at Seneca@York on Thursday October 23 & Friday October 24.
Canadian election Copyright Pledge gains steam (Oct 03 2008 00:36 GMT)
More and more of Canada's electoral candidates are signing onto the Copyright Pledge, just one week after its release. The initial reaction to the pledge has been very strong. I am pleased to advise that the Green Party (as a party) has agreed to the pledge. In addition, the following NDP MPs have added their names as supporters: * Charlie Angus, New Democrat MP, Timmins-James Bay, ON * Olivia Chow, New Democrat MP, Trinity-Spadina, ON * Libby Davies, New Democrat MP, Vancouver East, BC * Michael Byers, New Democrat Candidate, Vancouver Centre, BC * Anne Lagacé Dowson, New Democrat Candidate, Westmount, QC * Phil Brown, New Democrat Candidate, Nepean-Carleton, ON * John Chan, New Democrat Candidate, Calgary Centre-North, AB * Tyler Kinch, New Democrat Candidate, Calgary Centre, AB ...
Harry Belafonte's political ballad about the DNC -- footage from the lost Smothers Brothers season (Oct 03 2008 00:26 GMT)
Lumnifer sez, "This clip of Harry Belafonte singing an extended political song, 'Don't Stop The Carnival,' with a green screen backdrop of footage from the disastrous 1968 Democratic National Convention, was originally meant to air as part of the season 3 premiere of the 1968 Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour. Many people would be surprised to know that both Belafonte and the Smothers Brothers were very political - in fact, the Smothers Brothers series was cancelled that season for being too overtly political, even going so far as to insult the president and criticize the war! *gasp*" Doesn't surprise me in the least -- I think being political is what the Smothers Brothers are famous for, no? In any event, Belafonte and the Smothers are both gigantic personal favorites, and this (based, it seems on "Global Carnival?") is a great song.
LP Cover Lover: Music to Sell Valves By (Oct 02 2008 23:51 GMT)
Another winner from the fantabulous LP Cover Lover photoblog. Here, a woman is presented as a valve of some kind, and adorned with buttons emblazoned with double entendres, such as "I LIKE ACID!" I only wish LP Cover Lover also had links to the music from the albums they feature. And if yesterday's pick from LP Cover Lover didn't satisfy your quota for big-haired Christian women vocalist trios, this ought to hold you. Music to Sell Valves By...
The world's greatest greasy hair pomade (Oct 02 2008 23:45 GMT)
My dear old friend Dan Kimball (we played in a band together in Colorado and London) has one of the best hairstyles I've had the pleasure to know. Over the years Dan has refined his pompadour to the point that it is now a flawless exemplar of rockabilly style. When Dan talks about hair grease, you should pay attention. Recently, he stunned the readers of his blog by announcing he'd switched pomades. After 12 years, I have made the switch from Fiber Grease to LayRite Super Hold.
Why C-Span is the best place to watch the debates (Oct 02 2008 22:56 GMT)
From Orange Crate Art: The best choice for watching a presidential or vice-presidential debate is C-SPAN. Why? C-SPAN's continuous split-screen lets you see both participants at all times, allowing for all sorts of observations about body language and facial expression. Why C-Span is the best place to watch the debates...
Today at Boing Boing Gadgets (Oct 02 2008 22:49 GMT)
Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, there was news of a long-life netbook battery for MSI's Wind, a debunking of yesterday's Mac Pro benzene claims, and yet another fake MacBook Pro rendering. Big fish of the day is Nokia's latest cellphone, which loses its "Tube" rumor-name to become the Xpress Music 5880. Fujitsu thinks that multitouch laptop displays will prove unintuitive. John found revolting gadget replicas made of meat, Joel gobbled up the random snack pieces of "Gamer Grub," and Rob spotted an amusingly dangerous light switch. There was a chair modeled on sound waves, an alarm clock you have to pay to shut up, and a Zune for Gears of War fans.
American Memory (Oct 02 2008 21:50 GMT)
American Memory is a new and compelling DVD coming from extended Skinny Puppy posse members William Morrison and Justin Bennett later this year. It took me a while to figure out exactly what was going on (and exactly who was responsible), but that didn't detract from this hypnotic and ultimately forceful piece. The voice in the clip on the DVD's trailer is that of former slave Alice Gaston, interviewed in her eighties for the Library of Congress in 1941. The actress is lip-synching to her dialogue. Videomaker William Morrison explains that the whole project works this way, using audio from the American Memory Archive along with new and processed footage.
China surveilling Skype, UPDATE: Skype admits breach, apologizes (Oct 02 2008 19:07 GMT)
An update on the item blogged here earlier today on Boing Boing: Skype, the online text messaging and voice service, said Thursday it was "extremely concerned" by monitoring of Internet chat by its Chinese partner reported by Canadian researchers. Skype said it learned just Wednesday that a previously disclosed text filter operated by TOM-Skype, a joint venture between Chinese mobile firm TOM Online and Skype, had been altered. "Last night, we learned that this practice was changed without our knowledge or consent and we are extremely concerned," Skype, which is owned by US online auction house eBay, said. "We deeply apologise for the breach of privacy relating to chat messages on TOM's servers in China and we are urgently addressing this situation with TOM," the company said.
BBtv WORLD: Elephant-blogging in Benin with Xeni (Africa) (Oct 02 2008 16:48 GMT)
Today's Boing Boing tv is an installment of our ongoing BBtv WORLD series, in which we bring you first-person glimpses of life around the globe. Today: an ambient exploration of the creatures rustling around in a West African wildlife preserve at dawn. I traveled to Benin not long ago, and I shot this video on a small handheld digital camcorder. This episode of our daily show is a little experiment in trying to convey what this place feels like, first-person, without too many words.
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