How To Explain StarCraft To FarmVille People [Screengrab]
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Thursday, August 19, 2010
How To Explain StarCraft To FarmVille People [Screengrab]
How To Explain StarCraft To FarmVille People [Screengrab]
Conan O'Brien Releases Two Albums with Jack White
Conan O'Brien Releases Two Albums with Jack White
Conan O'Brien will return to television November 8 on TBS, but before we can see the masturbating bear again, the comedian is attempting another career: rock star. Two releases by O'Brien will hit stores next week, both recorded over the summer at Jack White's Third Man complex in Nashville.
The first release, Live at Third Man, was taped in front of a small audience of 300 fans on June 10, during O'Brien's "Legally Prohibited From Being Funny on Television Tour," and features a duet with White on a cover of Eddie Cochran's "20 Flight Rock." (Check out SPIN's review of the tour here.)
The second, And They Call Me Mad?, is a 7-inch single with O'Brien's improvised, spoken word retelling of the Frankenstein legend (which sounds nothing other than totally awesome) on Side A, and an interview with Conan conducted by Jack White on Side B.
Both can be ordered now via Third Man Records website, and the And They Call Me Mad? single will be available via iTunes early next week.
For record collectors (and good Samaritans), 150 copies of a limited-edition, tri-color 45 of the single will be sold for $100 a piece at Third Man's Nashville shop on August 24, with proceeds benefitting ReTune Nashville, an organization raising money to replace instruments damaged in the city's massive flood earlier this year.
What do you think about Conan's music and spoken word? Tell us in the comment section below!
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No charges for webcam snoopers
No charges for webcam snoopers
"A Pennsylvania school that was caught secretly snapping photos of students via laptop Webcams will not face criminal charges in the case." [CNET, Submitted by sickkid1972]
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The greatest fan-made Star Wars project EVER is finished
The greatest fan-made Star Wars project EVER is finished
The announcement of those Star Wars Blu-rays was awesome, but here's something even MORE awesome. That crowd-sourced project we told you about last year in which fans were asked to re-create the complete Star Wars story in 15-second bits—is DONE! (And believe us, you'll want to go watch it NOW!)
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Wednesday, August 18, 2010
The very hungry (and carnivorous) caterpillar
The very hungry (and carnivorous) caterpillar
At first, you might think the weirdest thing about this little caterpillar is its body—long and skinny, with a patch of legs at the front and a patch at the back, it does a lot of rearing up and strategically falling onto things. That last bit becomes important later.
See, this little Hawaiian caterpillar is a killer.
The Carnivorous Caterpillar is a product of island evolution, which is, itself, a pretty weird phenomenon. For instance, a study published in PLoS Biology in October of 2006 found that mammal populations on islands can change their physical appearance and structure at a rate as much as 3.1 times greater than that of mainland mammals.
Islands breed both unusual caterpillars and fast-evolving mammals thanks to a combination of isolated populations—through which mutations can more easily spread—fierce competition for limited resources, and the odd interactions that happen between species of plants and animals that are all experiencing the same sort of pressures. After all, the ecological niche—what you eat, where you live, who eats you—a species inhabited on the mainland might not exist the same way on an island. And it's likely to change relatively rapidly, along with resources and the spread of useful mutations. Over hundreds or thousands of years, an island species can come to look and act very differently from its mainland cousins.
This video is part of Life Is—A new website that brings together tons of clips from BBC nature documentaries and arranges them in a procrastination-friendly browsing menu. You can search for videos by climate, geography, even predominant color scheme—so a passing fancy for a carnivorous caterpillar could lead you to pig-nosed turtles, Chinese rice fields and whistling rats.
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Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.
Email Sucks. 5 Time Saving Tips.
My stats:
938 unread work emails.
1002 unread personal emails.
The madness has to stop. What was once a 30 minute annoyance is now my full-time job. Here are 5 time saving tips:
#5: Add a http://three.sentenc.es/ email signature and keep them short.
"Treat all email responses like SMS text messages, using a set number of letters per response. Since it's too hard to count letters, we count sentences instead.
three.sentenc.es is a personal policy that all email responses regardless of recipient or subject will be three sentences or less. It's that simple."
Example signature:
--------------------------------------------
Q: Why is this email three sentences or less?
A: http://three.sentenc.es
--------------------------------------------
#4: Type "Sent from iPhone" under your short responses. People don't expect long responses when you're on your phone. Don't forget to mispell a few words.
This all looks graet +1!!
Sent from iPhone.
#3: Create a 'VIP' filter. Add your boss, investors, and close friends. Flag them red and throw them in a separate folder. This is the first place I check every morning.
#2: (Gmail only) Keep the spam out. If you're giving your address to a potentially shady website, tack on +spam to the end, example: yourname+spam@gmail.com. You can then filter those emails into a spam folder you check periodically. (ProTip: the +spam is a variable that can be anything you want, eg. yourname+football@gmail.com etc., make as many as you like)
#1: (Apple Mail or similar program) Setup an email bankruptcy filter. This is a little bit of a dick move, but if you're getting hundreds of new emails a day, it just might work.
Step 1: Create a filter that auto-responds to all unopened emails > 14 days old w/the following message:
Your email (below) is now 14 days old and has not been opened. To minimize email buildup your email has now been placed in the archive. Should you still require a response simply respond back and you'll automatically be added to the priority queue. Thank you.
Step 2: Setup another filter that looks for the text "Your email (below)", this will catch the email responses back to you from those still requiring your response. Filter these into a special folder you check and respond to daily.
Good luck!
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NSFW tribute to Ray Bradbury
NSFW tribute to Ray Bradbury
Rachel Bloom from Upright Citizens Brigade has a not-safe-for-work ode to the greatest sci-fi writer in history. Makes me want to do an answer song about Philip K. Dick.
F* Me, Ray Bradbury
[also submitterated by teig]
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Wil Wheaton apologizes to a fan club member 21 years later
Wil Wheaton apologizes to a fan club member 21 years later
Back in 1988, 8-year-old Teresa Juniso sent off $12 to join Wil Wheaton's official fan club ... and waited ... and waited. Finally, 21 years later, the Star Trek: The Next Generation star fulfilled her order—and delivered a heartfelt apology as well.
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The nitty-gritty of whittling down your possessions
The nitty-gritty of whittling down your possessions
Boing Boing readers had a lot to say regarding yesterday's post about Kelly Sutton, the fellow who has gotten rid of almost everything he owns apart from his digital / Internet technology. I asked him to write about his lifestyle and here's what he wrote. It's fascinating.
About a year ago, I came to the conclusion that the most logical thing to be done was to rid myself of all (or most) of my possessions. After meticulously itemizing all of my stuff, I put almost all of it up for sale on a site I built in a weekend, Cult of Less. Yesterday, the BBC News ran an article about myself and a few other folks replacing their physical media with their digital analogs. There are many implications of selling everything, some great and some not so great. I was a bit hasty in my desire to expunge my personal inventory but it's something worth considering. The following are a few things I learned, and where the project is going from here.
Read the rest after the jump. (Photos by Aaron Sonnenberg)
Unintended Benefits
The greatest thing gained from Cult of Less has been an unprecedented
amount of physical freedom. This is obvious to those that have read
Tim Ferriss' 4-Hour Workweek. Ferriss takes owning nothing to an
extreme and comes across as brackish in his suggestions, but
there is an important point to take away from the book and accompanying blog. A willingness
to drop your stationary physical possessions and move is the greatest
freedom I have found in this project. Sure, you could get by without a bed,
furniture and a few other essentials, but you will be miserable. No one wants
to sleep on a floor if they can help it.
Instead, I've found that a lack of attachment to my possessions to be the biggest win. My bed isn't important enough to me to haul more than a few blocks, should I move. Chances are, the person moving into my apartment after me would like a bed. Leaving it for them will be a nice move-in present.
A minor yet pleasurable consequence has been interacting with people from around the world. It shot any hope of the project being hip and green, but I've shipped some of my belongings to places like Germany, New Zealand and the U.K.
Warranted Skepticism
As the everwise Internet collective was quick to point out yesterday, this lifestyle is not for everyone. In many settings, it can make your life more difficult. Owning less is easier in urban environments with efficient public transportation; in New York, it's mandated by the higher rent prices. Living in Los Angeles without a car is a difficult undertaking. Unfortunately, the uncluttered lifestyle is not for everyone.
The subtitle of the original BBC article read "Living out of a hard drive." I do this with more than my media; my chosen profession also gives me an unlimited amount of mobility. The software I write on the beach in Venice, California, operates the same as code written in blip.tv's SoHo office. It's a shame not all professions have such freedom.
Personally, I experience very few downsides with my current situation. There have been times where I've been unable to fix something right that second, but those happenings are rare. A quick trip to a hardware or grocery store usually solves the problem. Rather than preemptively stocking a toolbox without tools I might use, what I have in my apartment for minor repairs is lean but effective.
Owning nothing is not for everyone and brings on certain difficulties, but those difficulties are minor if you live in a city that makes reducing your footprint easier.
Learning What I Already Knew
Another unintended philosophical nugget of the project was to understand that many things are worth less monetarily than you think. Some of your possessions might even have a negative value. (Old computer monitors, for example, cost money to throw out in some regions of the U.S. They have a -$25 value.) Every item on Cult of Less was appraised and intentionally undervalued. It means more to me for an individual to enjoy something that I have neglected than for me to spend time peddling my wares for an extra few bucks. People seem surprised that I would be willing to give away things that clearly have value for so little.
Now every purchase I make comes with a second-guess: Do I really need this? Like really, really need this? In the past year, "impulse buy" has left my vocabulary. I found myself buying fewer things, but also nicer things. On the whole, it's led me to cherish my few purchases more. Every possession also requires a certain amount of upkeep, and I find myself with more time and less possessional guilt. Every thing owned begs to be used constantly; every second not utilized comes a shred of buyer's remorse. Everything I own I use at least once per month, save for my winter clothes.
Moving (Forward)
The Cult of Less project is not something that I can ever stop cold
turkey. Throughout the coming years, I will be adding new possessions
to my list occasionally. Embarking on the project has characteristically
changed how I view owning things. Sure, buying less is probably
environmentally friendlier. Sure, my friends think I'm (really) weird. Sure,
there might be things that could make my life a bit easier occasionally.
But now everything thing I own
serves a purpose and holds a certain beauty in its role. The idea
is utilitarian and far-fetched, but it's a small price to pay for being happy.
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Drop me off in Harlem
Drop me off in Harlem
Frank Jacobs' great Strange Maps blog turns up a real treasure this week: "A Night-Club Map of Harlem," drawn ca. 1932 by cartoonist Elmer Simms Campbell. The map hits all the high spots, metaphorically (The Cotton Club, Small's Paradise, The Savoy) and literally (131st and Lenox, where a figure helpfully identifies himself as "th' Reefer man"). The only major omission, a caption says, "is the location of the various speakeasies but since there about 500 of them you won't have much trouble." The thing bristles with helpful information (Tillie's "specializes in fried chicken -- and it's really good!") and bursts with life -- all over the map, figures furtively ask about the day's number, and at 142nd and Lenox, a white-tuxedoed Cab Calloway rises toward the heavens, wailing an ecstatic "Hi-De-Ho." If Harlem was half as jumping in 1932 as Campbell makes it seem, every legend about uptown in its heyday must be true.
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New monkey species found, nearly extinct thanks to us!
New monkey species found, nearly extinct thanks to us!
This incredible critter is Callicebus caquetensis, a species of titi monkey newly discovered in the Colombian Amazon. Humans have destroyed their natural habitat, leaving less than 250 in the wild. No wonder he looks freaked out in the photo. From New Scientist:
The monkey was found in a region called Caquetá, in the south of Colombia, which had been inaccessible for many years due to a violent insurgence."New monkey species already looks scared"About the size of a cat, the Caquetá titi has grey-brown hair and makes an extremely complex call. Unusually for a primate, it forms lifelong monogamous pairs.
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Syfy renews its hit series Eureka for a 5th season
Syfy renews its hit series Eureka for a 5th season
Looks like the sleepy town of Eureka—in actuality a secret community of geniuses—will continue to be open to tourists for another year, because Syfy just renewed the hit series Eureka for a fifth season.
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Image of the Day: The True Blood stars naked and covered in blood
Image of the Day: The True Blood stars naked and covered in blood
Presented without comment.
(via Rolling Stone)
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Wired Declares The Web Is Dead—Don’t Pull Out The Coffin Just Yet
Wired Declares The Web Is Dead—Don't Pull Out The Coffin Just Yet
The Web is dead, or at least in decline, declares Wired editor Chris Anderson in the magazine's September cover story. The article is anchored by the startling infographic above, which shows the proportion of different types of traffic on the Internet. The Web, HTML traffic visible though a browser, is only about a quarter (23%) of the overall traffic, down from about half a decade ago. It's been pushed down by peer-to-peer (23%), video (51%), and other types of apps which use the Internet for transport but are not browser-based. It's not clear what exactly Wired is counting as video, but presumably it is not all of the Flash video on YouTube which is very much part of the Web.
Setting aside whether Wired massaged the numbers to make its chart look pretty, Anderson's larger point is that increasingly we are consuming information via apps other than the browser. He writes:
Over the past few years, one of the most important shifts in the digital world has been the move from the wide-open Web to semiclosed platforms that use the Internet for transport but not the browser for display. It's driven primarily by the rise of the iPhone model of mobile computing, and it's a world Google can't crawl, one where HTML doesn't rule. And it's the world that consumers are increasingly choosing, not because they're rejecting the idea of the Web but because these dedicated platforms often just work better or fit better into their lives (the screen comes to them, they don't have to go to the screen).
That may be true for now, but don't count the browser out just yet. These shifts happen in waves. First the browser took over everything, then developers wanted more options and moved to apps (desktop and mobile), but the browser will eventually absorb those features, and so the leapfrogging continues. The ubiquity of the browser overcomes most of its technical deficiencies. Even in mobile, people will become overwhelmed by apps and the browser will make a comeback.
Update: Wired had the wrong timeline on its initial graphic. I've replaced with a corrected version above. The data comes from Cisco's Visual Networking Index, and as I suspected, YouTube videos are not included as part of the Web, they've confirmed with me, but rather are lumped into "video" with Skype video calls and Netflix streaming movies. I think that is misleading. Anything you can watch in a browser (like YouTube clips or Netflix movies) should be considered part of the Web, even if it is through a Flash player. The Skype video calls, however, I would count separately since those are watched and transmitted through a separate P2P desktop client. I am sure if you included all of the Web video as part of the Web traffic in the chart, the Web would not look like it is declining at all. That's right, the Web lives!
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Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Hal Turner convicted
Hal Turner convicted
Hal Turner, a blogger who posted the addresses of the federal judges he told his readers "deserve to be killed," was convicted of making threats after two mistrials.Turner claimed that he was working as a right-wing shock jock under FBI direction. [Wired / Threat Level]
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Bruce Greenwood: Capt. Pike is ESSENTIAL to Star Treks sequel
Bruce Greenwood: Capt. Pike is ESSENTIAL to Star Treks sequel
We'd sure like to hear some details about the sequel to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot, but those who know are being vague—like actor Bruce Greenwood, who portrayed Capt. Christopher Pike and teased us all when he opened up recently about how important he thinks the first Enterprise captain is to the franchise.
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Is the web really dead?
Is the web really dead?
Wired uses this graph to illustrate Chris Anderson and Michael Wolff's claim that the world wide web is "dead."
Their feature, The Web is Dead. Long Live the Internet, is live at Wired's own website. Without commenting on the article's argument, I nonetheless found this graph immediately suspect, because it doesn't account for the increase in internet traffic over the same period. The use of proportion of the total as the vertical axis instead of the actual total is a interesting editorial choice.You can probably guess that total use increases so rapidly that the web is not declining at all. Perhaps you have something like this in mind:
In fact, between 1995 and 2006, the total amount of web traffic went from about 10 terabytes a month to 1,000,000 terabytes (or 1 exabyte). According to Cisco, the same source Wired used for its projections, total internet traffic rose then from about 1 exabyte to 7 exabyte between 2005 and 2010.
So with actual total traffic as the vertical axis, the graph would look more like this.
Clearly on its last legs!
Assuming that this crudely renormalized graph is at all accurate, it doesn't even seem to be the case that the web's ongoing growth has slowed. It's rather been joined by even more explosive growth in file-sharing and video, which is often embedded in the web in any case.
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Comparing bento box materials (table)
Comparing bento box materials (table)
Confused about what material is most appropriate for bento boxes? Plastic is easy available, or maybe you want something greener - but is the extra cost worth it? Here's a handy comparison chart to help you make the right choices.
This table lists all the materials that are commonly used to make bento boxes, lunch boxes and other containers that are repurposed for carrying bentos. As you can see, there are pros and cons to each type. Take a look and see which criteria matter to you the most. Keep in mind that, whatever type of box you choose, the fact that it's reusable is a plus for the environment, not to mention your wallet.
Comparison table of materials used to make bento boxes and accessories
| Material | Pros | Cons | Examples and notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Aluminum | Very Lightweight, plastic-free (if no seal), lasts a long time. Usually dishwasher safe (check instructions). | Not microwave safe. Can dent easily, though that doesn't affect functionality. Uncoated aluminum boxes may get corroded by acidic foods. Questions about possibly harmful effects of aluminum. | SIGG Midi box |
| Bamboo | Lightweight, durable. Sustainable material. | Not microwave or dishwasher safe. Needs some handling with care. May stain. Well made bamboo boxes and baskets are expensive to very expensive. | Bamboo is most often used for basket-type boxes (used to carry onigiri rice balls), though solid bamboo boxes are available too (and very expensive). Dried and fresh bamboo leaves (called sasa no ha) are used as disposable food wrappers and dividers. More here. |
| Glass and ceramic | Not plastic (though usually a plastic lid is included), microwave-safe, dishwasher safe, fairly inexpensive | Heavy, breakable | Pyrex glass containers with plastic lids. |
| Melamine | A type of resin that is used for kitchenware. Colorful, attractive, feels solid. | Heavy. Can be expensive. Not microwave or oven safe. | Vivo Kids Bento Box |
| Paper (coated) | Not used for bento boxes, but used for bento cups and dividers. Lightweight, disposable, fairly waterproof. Comes in many cute designs. | Not microwave, oven or dishwasher safe. Not reusable (you may get 1-2 more uses out of a paper cup). Expensive when you consider the per-use cost. | Paper bento cup |
| Plastic and styrene - disposable | Very cheap to free, lightweight. | Disposable plastic and styrene boxes (such as takeout bento boxes) are okay for a single use, but it's not recommended to re-use them. They may leech or corrode. Clear plastics may contain BPA. See What are Japanese (and other) plastic bento boxes made of. | Don't reuse disposable bento boxes and takeout boxes unless you are really desperate. |
| Plastic - reusable | Practical, economical, lightweight. Prices range from cheap to expensive, depending on design, quality, etc. A huge range of designs and sizes to choose from. | Some people are concerned about the safety of certain plastics. May stain. Not all plastic bento boxes are microwave or dishwasher safe. | Reputatuble bento makers always include information on what plastics are used, and whether the box is microwave safe or not. See What are Japanese (and other) plastic bento boxes made of. |
| Silicone | Not used for bento boxes but frequently used for bento cups and dividers. Lightweight, durable. Microwave, dishwasher and oven safe. Comes in many colors and shapes. | If you are against using plastic, you may also object to silicone. Can get a bit sticky and oily after several uses in the oven or microwave (try washing in very hot soapy water). | Silicone cupcake/muffin tin liners |
| Stainless steel with seal | Durable, usually well made, usually dishwashwer safe (check instructions). Thick stainless steel boxes can be heated up on a hot plate (handle with care!) | Not microwave safe. Heavier than plastic. Retains fingerprints on the surface (use soft cloth to buff off). Not totally plastic/silicone free because of sealing elements. More expensive than most plastic boxes. | Zen 01 stainless steel bento box, tiffins boxes. Also see stainless steel bento boxes. |
| Stainless steel with no seal | Durable, plastic free, usually dishwasher safe (check instructions) | Not microwave safe. Rather heavy. Retains fingerprints on the surface (use soft cloth to buff off). May not be suitable for food that might leak because of the lack of sealing elements on/around lid. More expensive than most plastic boxes. | LunchBots, Planetbox, New Wave Enviro |
| Stainless steel and other metals used for bento accessories | Durable, plastic free, usually dishwasher safe (check instructions) | Cheap metal cutters may discolor or get bent over time. | Bento and cookie cutters used to cut out decorative shapes are usually made of stainless steel; some cheap ones may be made of tin. Nori cutters are often made of plastic with zinc cutting parts. |
| Thermal bento boxes | Usually consists of a stainless steel cylinder into which plastic containers fit. The plastic containers are usually microwave and dishwasher safe. Keeps some of the food warm to hot for several hours. | Expensive. Can be rather bulky and heavy. Not plastic free. Not all parts may be dishwasher safe. | To get the most out of a thermal lunch box, be sure to read the instructions carefully! Mr. Bento line from Zojirushi, similar range from Thermos, Aladdin box. |
| Wood, coated or lacquered | Beautiful traditional craftmanship. Less susceptible to staining than uncoated wood. May make rice taste better. A pleasure to handle. May become a treasured heirloom. | Not microwave or dishwasher safe. Needs some handling with care. May stain. Well made boxes are expensive to very expensive (a cheap wooden box is not worth buying). | Kyo bento box.Besides boxes, chopsticks can also be made of coated wood. |
| Wood, uncoated | Beautiful traditional craftmanship. Makes plain rice taste better since it absorbs any excess moisture. A pleasure to handle. May become a treasured heirloom. | Not microwave or dishwasher safe. Needs some handling with care. May stain. Well made boxes are very expensive (a cheap wooden box is not worth buying). | See Magewappa bento boxes. |
This is Tip no. 2 of Back To School Week. Stay tuned for more!
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Friday, August 13, 2010
Android GPS navigation: X-wing edition
Android GPS navigation: X-wing edition
Why settle for a Star Wars voice pack when you can completely replace your boring, "useful" navigation system will an authentic X-wing targeting computer? That's thinking of Flash-developer Christopher Caleb, at least, who put his skills to use to develop this note-perfect Adobe AIR-based app for Android. Of course, you won't get anything like maps or points-of-interest, but you will see your destination slowly approach in the "trench" as you get near it, and Caleb has of course thrown in plenty of R2-D2 sounds and Rebel Alliance pilot chatter for good measure. To top it off, you can also simply switch it to a clock mode when you're not on a trench run road trip. Head on past the break to check it out in action.
Terrific 180-square-foot shack houses family of four plus dog
Terrific 180-square-foot shack houses family of four plus dog
Tammy and her husband John built this fantastic 180-square-foot shack on Gambier Island, British Columbia. They spent about $7,000 in materials. Tammy wrote a great article about it at Apartment Therapy, which includes the mistakes they made. But as you can tell from the photos, it's bright and happy, and filled with just the right amount of furniture and other neat stuff.
Before I get started with this tour, I cannot emphasize this enough: My husband and I are not rich and we are not particularly handy. Heck, we're not even all that smart. This latter fact was probably the driver behind why two people with little money and even fewer skills would even attempt to build a cabin on an isolated island with no amenities. But armed with a hacked $25 shed plan and an incredibly generous friend with actual skills, we gave it a shot.Four People (and a Dog) Living in 180 Square Feet
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Irreverent Ramadan e-cards
Irreverent Ramadan e-cards
My friend Nishat Kurwa found these funny Ramadan e-cards.
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"The U.S. has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials"
"The U.S. has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials"
"The United States has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials. Will President Obama order the military to deploy those capabilities?"LOL, as if! Did you backtrace it? That Washington Post op-ed by former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen is best read in Mad Dad Voice. Yes, this is the same nutball columnist who effectively argued for arresting or assassinating Wikileaks frontman Julian Assange a couple weeks ago (Raffi Khatchadourian's response in the New Yorker is a must-read).
There is no "off" switch for the internet in America. But even that reactionary fantasy misses a critical point: the encrypted "insurance" file which was posted earlier this month by Wikileaks pre-emptively negates any draconian, linear response that the state might consider: unlock the file with a key (or keys) that could easily be tweeted, emailed, or otherwise shared by Assange and colleagues, and the next Big Dump would be laid bare for all to read.
As nutty as Thiessen is, his rant reminds me of something I've heard friends and folks I follow ask aloud lately: could "The Wikileaks Problem" be the excuse our government needs to rally support for new curbs on 'net freedom? Just as child porn was the internet menace no one could argue against in earlier decades, perhaps the national security panic sparked by Wikileaks will be the bogeyman, this time around. (via)
Update: Kevin Poulsen at Wired News on the "cyberwar against Wikileaks" crazytalk: good luck with that.
- Reporters Without Borders: Wikileaks set "a bad precedent".
- Wikileaks Afghan war data visualized with open source apps: "stop ...
- Wikileaks volunteer detained
- Iraq: Wikileaks video of US military killing journalists
- Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to keynote 2600's HOPE conference ...
- Wikileaks releases classified Afghanistan war logs: "largest ...
- Wikileaks megadump reveals US pays local Afghan media to run ...
- Wikileaks: Q&A with Jacob Appelbaum on "The Afghan War Diaries ...
- Xeni on Rachel Maddow Show: Wikileaks and "Afghan War Diaries ...
- Should Wikileaks join the press corps?
- Wikileaks source suspect Manning transferred from Kuwait to ...
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That limited-edition R2-D2 Droid 2? Heres what it looks like!
That limited-edition R2-D2 Droid 2? Heres what it looks like!
They said it, they did it—when Motorola officially unveiled the Droid 2 earlier this week, an R2-D2 version of the phone was promised, and here it is. The phone was on display at Star Wars Celebration V in Orlando.
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Tuesday, August 10, 2010
I recently stumbled on the 
Bill Ayers's To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, a humanist look at education
Bill Ayers's To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, a humanist look at education
Bill Ayers is perhaps best known as the former Weatherman activist who lived underground with Bernadine Dohrn after a series of bombings and other direct action in the 1970s. But since the 1980s, he has been an educator and professor of education, and has documented this in To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher, now in its third edition. I haven't read the original To Teach, but I was very pleased to read To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, a graphic adaptation of his memoir/textbook, co-created with illustrator Ryan Alexander-Tanner.
To Teach: The Journey, in Comics is an inspiring educational manifesto that describes, at high level, a method for teaching that is based on letting students lead their education -- or rather, embarking on an educational journey with students in which leadership is shared. It's a moving and humanist vision of education, one that flies in the face of contemporary educational practice with its emphasis on technique and standardized evaluation, without much regard for the delight, dignity and curiosity of students.
As I read To Teach: The Journey, in Comics, I found myself recalling my best teachers, and especially their sensitivity and bravery in knowing when to let me pursue my passion (Bev Pannikkar, my grade two teacher, noticed that I was hiding behind the cubbies in her classroom, engrossed in a copy of Alice in Wonderland, and decided to leave me alone for two days until I had read it, the first substantial novel I'd read on my own, and the book that turned me into a reader and then a writer), when to intervene and structure the activity, when to let me progress at my own pace and when to read me the riot act until I challenged myself. These four principles -- unstructured self-direction, skilled guidance, structured progress and direct challenging -- feel like the essence of good teaching, and knowing when to do what and how is its soul.
While To Teach: The Journey, in Comics is long on inspiring, brief stories and examples of successful educational collaboration, it's short on nitty-gritty details (I get the feeling that these are to be found in the prose To Teach: The Journey of a Teacher). That is, while reading in Comics, I often found myself thinking Yes, that's exactly how you'd do it, and then realizing that I had no idea how you'd apply the lesson I'd just read.
Which is not to say that in Comics isn't worth the read -- quite the contrary. If you want a quick shot of inspiration and a forceful argument that learning is best when it is social, engaged, and egalitarian, you will find it here. But to put all this into practice, you will probably need the longer text. Taken together, they make quite a pair.
To Teach: The Journey, in Comics
http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/uIcmbmB3_6s/bill-ayerss-to-teach.html
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Monday, August 9, 2010
Remembering Jerry Garcia 15 Years Later
Remembering Jerry Garcia 15 Years Later
Tonight, on the fifteenth anniversary of Jerry Garcia's death, Mickey Hart and Bob Weir will pay tribute to their bandmate at the San Francisco Giants' baseball game. (Weir is singing the National Anthem, Hart leading the crowd in a group kazoo performance.) Garcia's daughter Annabelle will also throw out the ...
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Best Supermarket Display Ever
Best Supermarket Display Ever
Now THAT'S a great way to sell soda! (via Reddit)
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Man walks entire length of Amazon
Man walks entire length of Amazon
British army captain Ed Stafford is the first person to walk the entire 4,200 mile length of the Amazon. He maintained a video blog as he went. [Walking the Amazon via Gawker]
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More on Indiana State Fair's doughnut burgers and fried everything
More on Indiana State Fair's doughnut burgers and fried everything
Yesterday, I posted my brother Mark Pescovitz's photos from the Indiana State Fair showing the availability of such delicacies as Hot Beef Sundaes, Doughnut Burgers, and Fried Butter. The Indianpolis Star also took note of the unique food offerings, which also included chocolate-covered bacon and an array of other healthy snacks, most of which are cooked up by one family of fair food entrepreneurs. From the Indy Star (photo by Mark Pescovitz):
"Doughnut burger judged 'awesome'" (Thanks, vonnegutlives!)Visitors through Aug. 22 can sample a hog's trough of oddball fair foods: deep-fried sushi, deep-fried dill pickles, deep-fried candy bars, chocolate-covered popcorn balls, root-beer marinated ribs and the garbage burger -- a pork patty covered with pulled pork on a bun, the Signature Food in the fair's "Year of Pigs." But it was the deep-fried butter and doughnut burgers that drew the customers and the "just curious" on Friday.
(Vendor Dennis Reas) said he might offer jelly with the burgers in Indianapolis, a common customer request he wasn't prepared to hear at earlier stops.
Customer Danny Shields, 22, Indianapolis, said the burger was well worth the price. He got one with bacon and egg, which can be added for an extra cost.
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Snapshot of the Sun, amid a solar storm
Snapshot of the Sun, amid a solar storm
A striking image of our sun released this week from NASA:
After a long solar minimum, the Sun is no longer so quiet. On August 1, this extreme ultraviolet snapshot of the Sun from the Solar Dynamics Observatory captured a complex burst of activity playing across the Sun's northern hemisphere. The false-color image shows the hot solar plasma at temperatures ranging from 1 to 2 million kelvins. Along with the erupting filaments and prominences, a small(!) solar flare spawned in the active region at the left was accompanied by a coronal mass ejection (CME), a billion-ton cloud of energetic particles headed for planet Earth.
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To do this week: look at the night sky, and enjoy the Perseid meteor shower
To do this week: look at the night sky, and enjoy the Perseid meteor shower
No matter where on Earth you're reading this blog post, you should be able to look up into the night sky this week and see some beautiful meteor action:
According to the best estimates, in 2010 the Earth is predicted to cut through the densest part of the Perseid stream sometime around 8:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Thursday. The best window of opportunity to see the shower will be the late-night hours of Wednesday on through the first light of dawn on the morning of Thursday, and then again during the late-night hours of Aug. 12 into the predawn hours of Aug. 13. The Moon, whose bright light almost totally wrecked last year's shower, will have zero impact this year; unlike last year when it was just a few days past full, this year it will be new on Monday, Aug. 9, meaning that there will be absolutely no interference from it at all.Yeah, seriously: thanks for not screwing up the party this year, Moon.
Excellent Perseid Meteor Shower Expected Aug. 11-13 (space.com)
Related: I did not know this, but the annual event is also known as "Tears of St. Lawrence," commemorating the "fiery tears" of a Christian martyr who was tortured by Romans and literally cooked to death on an iron stove in 258 A.D.:
The Judge had Lawrence burned alive on a gridiron. Why the Aug. 10 meteors should be named St. Lawrence's "tears," it is hard to say. For he was most brave in the midst of his torment. He is said to have exclaimed: "I am roasted enough on this side; turn me over and eat."That grotesque history snippet from this article from TIME.... published in 1926.
Photo: A CC Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic licensed composite image of the 2009 Perseid meteor shower, by aresauburn.
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Who spends the most time in online gaming? (Surprise: Your mom.)
Who spends the most time in online gaming? (Surprise: Your mom.)
From the New York Times, a stat sure to shock the misogynist trolls that swarm gaming sites: "Women [...] outpace men in photo sharing and shopping, and in what may come as a surprise, gaming, favoring casual puzzle, card and board games. Female gamers over 55 spend the most time online gaming of any demographic by far and are nearly as common as the most represented group, males 15 to 24." Granted, we may be talking Farmville, not Call of Duty, but still...
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Sunday, August 8, 2010
Why George Lucas convinced Carrie Fisher to take her bra off
Why George Lucas convinced Carrie Fisher to take her bra off
We talked to Carrie Fisher about Star Wars. Let's just let that sink in for a moment. WE TALKED TO PRINCESS LEIA ABOUT STAR WARS!
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Sorry, Kid: No License, No Lemonade
Sorry, Kid: No License, No Lemonade
Because a 7-year-old did not have the proper permit, Oregon health inspectors shut down her art-fair lemonade stand. Cue the outrage.
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Thursday, August 5, 2010
Totally NSFW nerd rage rap video disses pretty much everyone
Totally NSFW nerd rage rap video disses pretty much everyone
Got a problem with Iron Man, Battlestar Galactica, M. Night Shyamalan, World of Warcraft, the iPhone or ... well ... just about ANYTHING else in geek culture? Then you'll love Sidecar's completely NSFW rap that lets those who've disappointed them know what they REALLY think.
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Dr. Dre Working on Concept Album About "Planets"
Dr. Dre Working on Concept Album About "Planets"
Finally, after more than a decade at work, Dr. Dre has promised that his new album Detox will drop in 2010. What took him so long? Well, the rapper-producer has been splitting his time on another project: an instrumental hip-hop album … based on the solar system. Gangster.
In an interview with Vibe, the multi-platinum hip-hop artist said that he has been working on the album -- tentatively titled The Planets -- for "about two years now." He added that the tracks are inspired by the "personalities of each planet," and are his "interpretation of what each planet sounds like." The album will have to be released in "surround sound for Saturn to work." Wow. Wow.
It's a little… new age-y for the gangsta rap pioneer, right? Right. He thinks so, too. "I don't even know if I should be saying this, but fuck it," he said.
In the interview, Dre also dished on Detox. "I thought it would take at worst case a couple of years," he said (production work, including Eminem's recent No. 1 album Recovery, and "signing talent" distracted him). He's also a little peeved about the leak of "Under Pressure," his unfinished collabo with Jay-Z. "I wouldn't be as mad at a leak if the song was done … the most painful part about it is that I'm passionate about what I do, so people should hear it in the right form."
Dre appears to have learned his lesson, though: "We're in a new age, and that's a sign: Wake up, motherfucker. You have to be more careful with your shit. I know what's up now."
No, seriously, he does. Look up: planets!
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The Disappearing Spoon
The Disappearing Spoon
The title for Sam Kean's new book, The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements, comes from a prank that scientists sometimes play: they make a spoon out of gallium (which melts at 84 degrees Fahrenheit) and hand it to unsuspecting friends to stir their tea with. The title sets the tone for this witty, anecdote-filled book about the role elements have played in science, art, war, commerce, medicine, literature, and other fields. An element I'd never heard of before, ruthenium, was the key to riches for Kenneth Parker, who used it to make fountain pen tips in 1944. A more well-known element, silver, plays a role in the fate of Stan Jones (I posted about him in 2002), Montana's Libertarian candidate for Senator in 2002. Jones drank a homebrew concoction of colloidal silver to prevent bacterial infection (he was afraid that conventional antibiotics wouldn't be available in the new millennium) and it stained his skin blue for good (the condition is called argyria and I wrote about it in my book, The World's Worst, which you can buy for $0.01 on Amazon). Cadmium is both a hero and a villain: a hero for being a part of vibrant pigments (I love my cadmium red and cadmium yellow acrylic paints), and a villain for sickening a great many people in the 1940s who drank out of drinking glasses lined with cadmium.
The disappearing spoon is my favorite kind of science journalism: it reveals a hidden universe in the form of a thrilling tale.
Buy The Disappearing Spoon on Amazon
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Star Wars live action TV show shelved because it costs too much
Star Wars live action TV show shelved because it costs too much
If you've been holding your breath for that live-action Star Wars TV show we told you about, it's time you stopped—because the guy who should know better than anyone has said the series he's been working on for at least five years won't be happening anytime soon.
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Avengers teaser trailer from Comic-Con is finally online
Avengers teaser trailer from Comic-Con is finally online
The big Avengers moment at Comic-Con was when the entire cast assembled onstage—but what happened immediately before that was pretty cool, too. And now those who didn't make it to San Diego can finally see what all the excitement was about.
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NPD: Android is now top-selling OS in American smartphones
NPD: Android is now top-selling OS in American smartphones
Disclaimer: NPD's Ross Rubin is a contributor to Engadget.
Continue reading NPD: Android is now top-selling OS in American smartphones
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