John Hodgman in BBtv's SPAMasterpiece Theater, Vol II: "Wuthering Wire Transfers." (4)
share
digg
by
Xeni Jardin (995)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
2 days, 3 hours
ago
permalink
Today on Boing Boing tv, we continue our SPAMasterpiece Theater series, featuring author, PC, and minor television personality John Hodgman, whose new book, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE launches next week. Hodgman himself describes this series as the dramatization of "true tale[s] of romance, adventure, infamy, and low-cost prescription drugs, all culled from the reams of actual, unsolicited emails, received here by us and people like you -- what we call SPAM." Today's installment: Barrister ...
Punks need socks in Indiana (4)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
2 days, 18 hours
ago
permalink
D. T. Friedman of the nonprofit OxenFree in Indiana writes: I’m the Resource Coordinator for a non-profit organization that works with homeless and indigent teenagers, as well as teens who are in bad home situations. OxenFree is a really fantastic program that engages at-risk teens through punk rock music, and provides support in a drug-free and alcohol-free environment. The reason I’m invading blogs today? My job with OxenFree is to receive requests from the phenomenal ...
Dream Captcha for spam-free sleep (7)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
2 days, 20 hours
ago
permalink
Jeff, an artist, created the Dream Captcha to mashup the traditional dream-catcher and anti-spam gunk -- as a result, his dreams are free of spam: Dream Captcha is a play on the idea of a traditional Ojibwa dreamcatcher and the technology of CAPTCHA (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart). So the idea of the dreamcatcher is something I’ve been exposed to since I was a young kid. In elementary school ...
-
yooper1019 said:
Did the Casino's IT guy come up with this? J/K!
Gaiman's Graveyard Book video tour finishes, book hits #1 on NYTimes YA bestseller list (1)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
2 days, 20 hours
ago
permalink
Last week, I wrote about Neil Gaiman's video book-tour for his new young adult novel, The Graveyard Book. Gaiman read a different chapter at each day's tour-stop, and videos of the readings were posted, in sequence, to a website, so that you could follow along and hear Gaiman (a virtuoso reader) perform the full text of this wonderful book. Seems like it worked. The Graveyard Book is now number one on the New York Times's ...
Manga guide to databases (18)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
3 days, 11 hours
ago
permalink
I have no idea if The Manga Guide to Databases will be any good (the publisher sez, "In The Manga Guide to Databases, Tico the fairy teaches the Princess how to simplify her data management. We follow along as they design a relational database, understand the entity-relationship model, perform basic database operations, and delve into more advanced topics. Once the Princess is familiar with transactions and basic SQL statements, she can keep her data timely ...
Pneumatic clock from 1940 (6)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
3 days, 16 hours
ago
permalink
Watchismo's got the news on Puja's 1940 Thermo-Pneumatic Clock -- a time-keeping apparatus like no other: "At the lower left, shielded by a translucent housing, is a carbon rod resistance that heats the colored alcohol in the glass vessel just above it. This causes some of the alcohol to vaporize, the pressure pushing the liquid up the connecting pipe to the vessel at top right. As the latter gets heavier the wheel bearing the four ...
Nerd library to end all nerd libraries (28)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
3 days, 21 hours
ago
permalink
Stephen Levy toured the personal library of Priceline founder Jay Walker and discovered nerdvana: a wunderkammer piled to the rafters with the most pricelessly awesome nerd artifacts of all time -- an original Sputnik, the Thing hand from the Addams Family, a globe of the moon signed by every astronaut who's walked on it, an original of Robert Hooke's Micrographia, an Enigma machine, etc. You know, I've often turned my nose up at the absurd ...
BBtv: Roots Reggae Legends Toots and the Maytals (music) (3)
share
digg
by
Xeni Jardin (995)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
5 days, 2 hours
ago
permalink
Today on Boing Boing tv: Toots and the Maytals are true reggae legends (more: Wikipedia, MySpace). Founder Toots Hibbert is credited with coining the word "reggae" in the band's 1968 single, "Do the Raggay." They've had more number one hit songs in Jamaica than any recording artist ever, and received a Grammy for Best Reggae Album of the Year in 2005. He was a contemporary of Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff, and was featured in ...
Making acorn flour (3)
share
digg
by
Mark Frauenfelder (1699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 1 day
ago
permalink
My pals Eric and Julia of Ramshackle Solid made acorn flour this year, and in their blog they showed how they did it. Once the flour is dried out it may be a little coarse. You can put it in a cleaned out coffee grinder to get a finer texture. A good food processor also works and I am pretty sure they make attachable gadgets for mixers that really mill the flour if you get ...
Photos from the Scopes "Monkey" trial -- public domain images from the Smithsonian (8)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 1 day
ago
permalink
The Smithsonian has flickred 39 high resolution, public-domain images from the Scopes "Monkey" trial, the first major US trial over the teaching of evolution. Dig that natty straw boater! During 1925, Watson Davis (1896-1967), Science Service managing editor, took numerous photographs while covering the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial as a reporter. In what was dubbed "The Trial of the Century," Scopes was tried and convicted for violating a state law prohibiting ...
-
tomwsmf said:
Its great that they cleared things up back then:)-
How I dehydrated my vegetables (5)
share
digg
by
Mark Frauenfelder (1699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 1 day
ago
permalink
Summer's over and the output of my vegetable garden has ceased, save for a few late season tomatoes. It wasn't a great season for me, mainly because I don't know what I'm doing. My squash yield was only so-so, and the few watermelons and cantaloupes that appeared never made it past the ping pong ball stage. But I learned plenty of tips from new and old friends (and kind Boing Boing readers, too!), so maybe ...
-
ReducedHackers said:
im thinking for my own garden that this will be a great tool for saving the abundance of apples I have.
Library celebrates Banned Books Week with window-display featuring volunteers reading banned works (51)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 2 days
ago
permalink
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 ...
-
Ian said:
Pretty awesome idea and execution.
MC Frontalot's Final Boss: nerdcore par excellence (11)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 2 days
ago
permalink
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 ...
-
iAdramelk said:
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.
-
Lee said:
I must order this...
Kelly Link's short story collection Magic for Beginners as a free CC download -- magnificent, weird, award-winning speculative fiction for free (8)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 2 days
ago
permalink
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 ...
Bizarre walking strategies of artifically evolved organisms (22)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
current (98)
1 week, 2 days
ago
permalink
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)...
Hungry Scientist: nerdy cookbook for kitchen hackers (15)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 3 days
ago
permalink
Ivan writes to tell us about Patrick Buckley and Lilly Binns's new book,The Hungry Scientist Handbook: Electric Birthday Cakes, Edible Origami, and Other DIY Projects for Techies, Tinkerers, and Foodies :"It's for gadget-loving gastronomes. For people who really love to play with their food, who make their kitchen into a lab and a workshop. Your brother, your mother, your kid neighbor. Hell, it's for anyone. Cryogenic martinis, modular pecan pie, glowing lollipops, pomegranate wine, edible ...
Neil Gaiman's "Graveyard Book," chapter-a-day reading video from the tour (12)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 3 days
ago
permalink
Neil Gaiman's on tour with his fantastic new book, The Graveyard Book. I'm about halfway through it and enjoying it immensely -- it's the spookiest, coolest, most dream-like and smart young adult horror novel I've read. As he tours, Neil is reading the book aloud, a different chapter at every stop, and his publishers are putting the readings online every day, chapter after chapter. Neil's a fantastic reader, probably the best living author-reader I've heard ...
-
mrkvm said:
Looking forward to seeing Neil read in Boulder next week.
-
SusanVillasLewis said:
The Chris Riddell cover is so much better than this one. http://www.squidoo.com/chris-riddell
Smart coasters detect hot or cold beverages, created by Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories (3)
share
digg
by
Mark Frauenfelder (1699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 3 days
ago
permalink
Our friends at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories contributed several projects to the wonderful The Hungry Scientist Handbook: Electric Birthday Cakes, Edible Origami, and Other DIY Projects for Techies, Tinkerers, and Foodies. Here's their Smart Coaster project. Smart Coasters are cast-plastic coasters for your drink that light up red when you put a hot drink on top and light up blue with a cold drink. The design is fully analog-- no microcontrollers and no programming-- and ...
John Hodgman in BBtv's SPAMasterpiece Theater. (11)
share
digg
by
Xeni Jardin (995)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 3 days
ago
permalink
BBtv is launching a series of episodes featuring author, PC, and minor television personality John Hodgman, as the world waits breathlessly for the launch of his new book, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE . We have read it, dear viewer, and it is splendid. Today, the debut installment of Boing Boing tv's SPAMASTERPIECE THEATER, which Hodgman himself describes as the dramatization of "true tale[s] of romance, adventure, infamy, and low-cost prescription drugs, all culled from ...
Roman siege engine for sale (4)
share
digg
by
Cory Doctorow (2699)
on
Boing Boing (6570)
1 week, 4 days
ago
permalink
Ever wanted to own a full-scale Roman siege engine? Now you can! The ballista was successfully built and managed to fire a very heavy stone ball some 127 yards. (Remember, these things used to successfully lay siege to entire cities.) The ballista, dissembled, has been in our Scotland timber yard since then, so we have decided to make some room (quite a bit of room, actually) and sell it on eBay. The ballista has aged ...
-
Catherine said:
Why does this make me think of Justin?
