Get Lamp now available
Get Lamp, a documentary about text adventures, is finally available to order after years in development. [Getlamp.com] Computerworld's Ken Gagne interviewed creator Jason Scott....
Bisson's Fire on the Mountain: alternate history in which John Brown wins at Harper's Ferry
I thought of sf writer Terry Bisson's work as being delightfully absurdist, always moving but never solemn, but then I read Fire on the Mountain, his acclaimed 1988 short novel, reprinted in 2009 by PM Press in a handsome pocket edition with an introduction written by the revolutionary Mumia Abu Jamal from his cell on death row. Now I know that Bisson is perfectly capable of being as solemn as a funeral, and that when he takes on that mode, he is just as moving, and sweetly sad in a way that reveals the powerful mastery that's hidden behind his whimsy in stories like They're Made of Meat and Bears Discover Fire. Fire on the Mountain is an alternate American civil war history, in the classic mode: one battle goes differently, for the want of a battle the war is lost, and the nation becomes an altogether different place. But Bisson's approach is more than a bit of militaristic speculation: it is a revolutionary polemic clothed in an exciting and moving adventure story. In Bisson's world, Harriet Tubman joins John Brown at Harper's Ferry and the two of them kindle a nationwide abolitionist uprising that sparks a global series of socialist revolutions, in Canada, Haiti, Mexico, France, England, Ireland, and across the American continent among indigenous people. The story takes place in two timelines: the history of the revolution is told in the form of a memoir of a slave-boy who grew up to be a revolutionary leader, and in correspondence from a white Virginian doctor who turned his back on privilege and fought alongside the rebels in John Brown's army. Then there's a "contemporary" story, set in 1959, when socialist Africa is just about to land its first astronauts on Mars. Yasmin is the great-great granddaughter of the ex-slave whose memoir recounts the history of the revolution, and she is the widow of an African astronaut who died in space on an earlier, failed Mars mission. She is delivering her ancestor's papers to a revolutionary museum, travelling cross-country with her teenaged daughter, Harriet, the bother of them absorbed with bitter emotion at all the space travel in the news. Weaving between these three stories, Bisson paints a picture of a world where progress is based on peace, not war, cooperation, not competition. And he tells the gripping tale of the war that was fought and the blood that was shed to get to that world, and of the ambivalence that the fighting and the not-fighting engender among all concerned. It's a slender novel, a mere 150 pages, but it does the science fiction trick of making you step back from your own world and see it more clearly, and it does so while wrenching your heart and setting your pulse pounding. All in all, one of the best alternate histories I've read -- and a side of Bisson (a southerner who fought in the John Brown Anti-KKK League) I'm glad to have discovered. Fire on the Mountain Terry Bisson/Rudy Rucker illustrated picture book Terry Bisson's "Catch 'Em in the Act" -- Vonnegut-esque absurdist ... Terry Bisson's "They're Made Out of Meat" video...
It ain't evidence if there's no trial
Richmond police recently refused to arrest a group of men who beat up a naked drunk in public. "We don't need it," one said to a woman who filmed the incident. [The Awl]...
Watercolor painting depicting cell division
Artist Michele Banks uses watercolor to depict natural, scientific, and medical phenomena. This one above shows cell divisions (note that it's not meant to be completely accurate); another one I like is a bright blue canvas with a single line showing someone's heart rate. Her work is available for sale in the Makers Market/Boing Boing Bazaar! [via Try Handmade via Submitterator]...
Chewbacca fights Nazis while riding mutant squirrel
Created by DeviantArt user Gamefan84, who says all that needs to be said: "Craziest request ever: Chewie riding a giant cute squirrel chasing down Nazis. He needs long flowing fur and a giant roar." You might stop by his DeviantArt page and tell him how great this is. (via BB Submitterator / The High Definite)...
FBI nabs "Iserdo" the 23-yr-old Slovenian "Botnet" bandit
"To use an analogy here, as opposed to arresting the guy who broke into your home, we've arrested the guy that gave him the crowbar, the map and the best houses in the neighborhood. And that is a huge break in the investigation of cyber crimes."—International authorities have nabbed "Iserdo," the 23-year-old Slovenian hacker believed to have written the "Botnet" code that a network of criminals used to infect 12 million computers, compromising the security of major banks and corporations worldwide....
Cooking with homeopathy
Water as flavor enhancer? Yes, ma'am. At least, that is, with booze and coffee. NYT's The Curious Cook explains the science and the taste behind this trick. (Via Graham Farmelo)...
Daily Show does Wikileaks
Predictably, Jon Stewart's Daily Show take on the Wikileaks/Manning/Assange/Lamo/AfghanMegaDump telenovela is spot-on, revelatory, and required internet viewing (though folks outside the USA are SOL, as it's region-blocked)....
Where Did the Money to Rebuild Iraq Go?
From the Good Blog: Where Did the Money to Rebuild Iraq Go? From the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, July 27, 2010 (PDF): Weaknesses in DoD's financial and management controls left it unable to properly account for $8.7 billion of the $9.1 billion in DFI funds it received for reconstruction activities in Iraq. This situation occurred because most DoD organizations receiving DFI funds did not establish the required Department of the Treasury accounts and no DoD organization was designated as the executive agent for managing the use of DFI funds. The breakdown in controls left the funds vulnerable to inappropriate uses and undetected loss....
Tom the Dancing Bug: Rad Louis - Friday Night
Blank Nintendo carts banned in UK
Just days after the U.S. Copyright Office explicitly authorized DRM-cracking by consumers, a British court has effectively abolished the import and sale of blank Nintendo DS cartridges. The mere possibility of piracy is sufficient to ban them, even if the media has legitimate uses such as storing freely-available third-party software. "The mere fact that the device can be used for a non-infringing purpose is not a defence," read the ruling by Justice Floyd. [BBC]...
Shopping in Harajuku, Tokyo
(In July, I went on a family vacation to Japan. Here are my posts about the trip: The Ghibli Museum | Watermelons in the shape of cubes, hearts, and pyramids | What happened to the Burgie Beer UFO of Melrose Avenue?) Having been to Tokyo three times previous to our recent vacation, I was excited to take my daughters to Harajuku, a popular teen shopping area in the city. To get there, we took a short ride on the JR Line to Harajuku Station, which has a neat Tudor-esque building built in 1925. (Harajuku Station photo by Shiny Things. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.) We took the Takeshita Exit from the station, which lead us to Takeshita Dori, a narrow pedestrian street filled with teen fashion boutiques and creperies. Many more photos after the jump....
YouTube to increase upload limit from 10 to 15 minutes
Sources at YouTube tell us that online video giant will soon increase the maximum duration of uploaded video clips from 10 minutes to 15 minutes. The move may not mean much to some, but if you're a YouTube uploader, the increase would mean significantly less chopped-up installments of longer form works, and subtly redefine the medium, given that YouTube is the largest video hosting service online. YouTube Partners (online video companies like us and other content owners who have agreements with the company involving shared ad revenue) are already able to upload videos longer than 10 minutes, but it's a fairly big deal for the rest of the ecosystem— and amateur folk make up a huge portion of that ecosystem. Just think about it: the move would bring 50% more "haul videos," from shopaholic teen girls; 50% more crazytime rants from random dudes; 50% more hamster montages; and 50% more double (whoah that's almost a triple) rainbows. Why now? I don't know. Why not? But I'd put my money partially on the company's recent win in the Viacom case, and a sense that they've now figured out more effectively how to help the big content owners (labels, movie studios, TV networks) identify infringing uploads, which might tend to fall largely in that longer-form category. We're hearing something about a "15 minutes of fame" contest to celebrate the expanded video duration, in which winning uploads will be featured on the YouTube homepage in a future spotlight....
In space, everybody can smell your armpits
Fun trailer for Mary Roach's new book, Packing for Mars, which comes out on August 2. It tells the story of life in outer space. In this video, early '60s-era NASA conducts some delightful experiments in "minimal personal hygiene", to find out how humans might respond, socially, to a reality without earthly bathrooms. Via Submitterator...
Yiying Lu's "Lifting a Dreamer" wall graphics set in Boing Boing Bazaar
A couple of days ago my 7-year-old daughter and I decorated her bedroom wall with designer Yiying Lu's "Lifting a Dreamer" (Elephant) wall graphics set. (Yiying is the illustrator of Twitter's famous Fail Whale. Here's an interview with her.) The three-foot elephant set is $59.95, and the four-foot set is $79.95. They are available in the Makers Market / Boing Boing Bazaar. Yiying Lu premium wall graphics are self-adhesive and will stick to almost any surface (walls, windows, even ceilings), and can be removed and re-hung 100 times without leaving a mark or damaging your walls. These are NOT vinyl stickers or decals, which have a tendency to curl, peel, bubble, and crack, and are difficult to re-position without losing adhesion or damaging surfaces. About Yiying Lu: “Yiying” is 2 characters in Chinese. “Yi” means Happy; “Ying” means Creative. Born in Shanghai, Yiying moved to Sydney when she was a teen. Yiying has been educated in UK and Australia. She has studied at Central St Martins College of Art & Design in London and University of New South Wales in Sydney. She graduated from the University of Technology, Sydney with 1st-Class honors in Bachelor of Design Visual Communication 2007. Yiying is the illustrator of the social networking site Twitter.com’s Fail Whale icon, which has been featured in CNN, New York Times Magazine, BBC, NPR & Wired Magazine. Yiying has also done design and creative work for Anna Sui New York, Maybelline, GettyImages, Glam Media, JWT, the Surfrider Foundation, the University of Technology Sydney, McCann World Group, and LTL PRINTS. Yiying Lu's "Lifting a Dreamer" (Elephant) wall graphics set...
Khuan+Ktron maps of international cities
Over at the Submitterator, Cheftournel turns us on to Belgian design firm Khuan + Ktron's lovely illustrations of entire countries, created for Weekend Knack Magazine. They have a bit of a Mary Blair vibe, but also are rather fresh too. KHUAN + KTRON for Weekend Knack Magazine...
Funny t-shirt: "this was supposed to be the future"
This t-shirt design by John Slabyk over at Threadless should be part of any credentialed Futurist's wardrobe: they lied to us this was supposed to be the future where is my jetpack, where is my robotic companion, where is my dinner in pill form, where is my hydrogen fueled automobile, where is my nuclear-powered levitating home, where is my cure for this disease "Damn Scientist" t-shirt (Thanks, Emily Goligoski!)...
Frappes are wonderfoul
Mark Richards says: "I spotted an instructive sign at a Greek festival."...
Report: Google, CIA investing in "Future of Web Monitoring"
Noah Shachtman reports at Wired Danger Room blog that the investment arms of the CIA and Google are together backing a firm that monitors the web in real time, and claims to use that information to predict the future. The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents -- both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine "goes beyond search" by "looking at the 'invisible links' between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events." The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online "momentum" for any given event. Exclusive: Google, CIA Invest in 'Future' of Web Monitoring (Wired Danger Room blog) Video above, a trailer of sorts for "Recorded Future."...