|
05/19/2012 11:51 AM
|
|
When Thomas Edison forced the cats to box
|
These delightful boxing felines were equipped with miniature boxing gloves and set to brawling by none other than legendary douchebag Thomas Edison, as a means of promoting his newfangled moving picture device in 1894. Thomas Edison - 1894 Boxing cats (Thanks, Isaak!)
 
|
|
05/19/2012 10:36 AM
|
|
4th grader's automatic cat feeder
|
Here's Ella Smith at Maker Faire with her Zevrino, an Arduino-powered automatic cat feeder.
|
|
05/19/2012 10:30 AM
|
|
Maker Faire live video
|
I'm here at Maker Faire in San Mateo. If you aren't one of the 100,000 people here to celebrate The Greatest Show (and tell) on Earth, you can still experience it through our Maker Faire Live site, with five different video feeds. Gareth Branwyn and I will be interviewing makers on the Fishbowl Camera feed. [...]
|
|
05/19/2012 05:59 AM
|
|
Swedish telcoms giant Teliasonera complicit in mass surveillance in the world's worst dictatorships
|
The Swedish news show Uppdrag Granskning has posted an hour-long investigative journalism piece establishing the link between the giant Swedish telcoms company Teliasonera and oppressive regimes around the world. Teliasonera sold and supported network equipment that was used to spy on dissidents, journalists, political reformers, union leaders, and the general public in Belarus, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, [...]
|
|
05/19/2012 02:05 AM
|
|
EFF/Open Rights Group Speakeasy night in London, June 14
|
The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Rights Group will co-host a speakeasy event -- a kind of pub night -- in east London on June 14. I'll be there, with several ORG employees, supporters and volunteers, and so will Cindy Cohn, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's legal director and veteran of many of the Internet's [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 10:14 PM
|
|
Hidden pint-glass QR code is only visible when filled with Guinness
|
A clever bit of advertising gimmickry from Guinness: these pint glasses bear QR codes than can't be read when the glass is empty, nor when it is filled with amber-colored beers. But when filled with black, murky Guinness, the revealed QR code can finally be scanned: "it tweets about your pint, updates your facebook status, [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 09:15 PM
|
|
TSA frisks actual (but likely harmless) mass murdering serial bomber
|
Henry Kissinger's wheelchair considered harmful: "Kissinger was taken to the search area, was required to stand, and was given the 'full Monty.'"
|
|
05/18/2012 07:41 PM
|
|
Miles Davis turned to Nancy Reagan and said...
|
In 1987, he was invited to a White House dinner by Ronald Reagan. Few of the guests appeared to know who he was. During dinner, Nancy Reagan turned to him and asked what he'd done with his life to merit an invitation. Straight-faced, Davis replied: "Well, I've changed the course of music five or six [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 06:39 PM
|
|
Alien Pez
|
Unsourced net.awesomeness: an Alien Pez dispenser. I'd buy that for (several) dollars. alien pez (via Wil Wheaton)
|
|
05/18/2012 06:30 PM
|
|
Shag's swinging Palm Springs art gallery (and Shag swag giveaway!)
|
Last weekend I went to Shag the Store in Palm Springs, California. A variety of art pieces by Shag were for sale, along with paintings up for a charity auction by artists who painted live at Coachella. Handbags, art books, home décor, and other items were also being sold. It was fun to walk around [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 06:00 PM
|
|
Elmo and Ricky Gervais blooper reel
|
Here's a blooper reel of Ricky Gervais and Sesame Street's Elmo cracking wise and crossing the line. Gervais + Elmo = Hilarity on 'Sesame Street' (via Metafilter)
|
|
05/18/2012 05:00 PM
|
|
Visualizing GOP presidential candidate approval ratings as 3D printed buttplugs
|
Matthew Epler's Grand Old Party project takes the approval-rating curves of GOP presidential hopefuls and turns them into 3D solids, then turns those into buttplugs. Grand Old Party demonstrates that as a people united, our opinion has real volume. When we approve of a candidate, they swell with power. When we deem them unworthy, they [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 04:00 PM
|
|
7-year-old's threatening note regarding home PC security policies
|
Redditor Surprisemailbox posted this image of a note left by a seven year old for her parents, regarding security policies at home: "If you put a pasword on that I will make your life a nitmare." The day Poesy leaves me a comparable note, I will have validation that all my parenting was not in [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 03:39 PM
|
|
Gilbert Gottfried reads erotic best-seller "Fifty Shades of Grey"
|
Were I anatomically capable of having a boner, Gilbert Gottfried's reading of the best-selling erotic novel Fifty Shades of Grey would kill it dead. Forever. (collegehumor.com)
|
|
05/18/2012 03:38 PM
|
|
Behavioral economics at Starbucks: should paper cup users be penalized?
|
Starbucks generates 4 billion paper cups a year, or 12 cups for every man, woman and child in America. The coffee giant knocks ten cents off beverage price for customers who bring in their own mugs, but Mark Gunther writes: "If Starbucks really wanted to save trees, it wouldn’t offer discounts to people who bring [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 03:18 PM
|
|
Complexity's opposite, defined
|
Jamais Cascio meditates on complexity, culminating with: "In other words, the opposite of 'complex' is not 'simple,' the opposite of 'complex' is 'isolated.'" See also Kathryn Myronuk's "All complex ecosystems have parasites." (via Warren Ellis)
|
|
05/18/2012 02:50 PM
|
|
Annular solar eclipse this weekend: where to see it in the skies, and online
|
The joint JAXA/NASA Hinode mission captured this image of the January 6, 2011 solar eclipse. On May 20-21 (this coming Sunday night through this coming Monday morning), sky-watchers in Asia and much of the U.S. will be able to view a “ring of fire” eclipse or a partial eclipse of the Sun, depending on their [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 02:28 PM
|
|
Facebook vs. Twitter, and user privacy: slow and steady wins the race?
|
The NYT's Nick Bilton compares Facebook and Twitter to the tortoise and the hare. "Facebook exploded because it slurped up endless amounts of data about its users," writes Bilton. "This race is not judged by speed, but a stopwatch with a much longer lifespan, one that is tied to trust."
|
|
05/18/2012 02:24 PM
|
|
Libya: Inside Gadhafi's secret surveillance network
|
An excellent long read in the new Wired magazine: Jamming Tripoli: Inside Moammar Gadhafi's Secret Surveillance Network. Matthieu Aikins examines how activists suffered "greatly at the hands of Gadhafi’s spy service, whose own capabilities had been heightened by 21st-century technology." By now, it’s well known that the Arab Spring showed the promise of the Internet [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 02:16 PM
|
|
Do not freak out about the white babies
|
Shutterstock In a new Ill Doctrine video, Jay Smooth advises white Americans on "this baby thing"—the recent news that white births are now a minority in the US. Black, Hispanic, Asian and mixed-race births made up 50.4% of new arrivals in the year ending in July 2011. Watch the video at Animal New York, and [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 01:43 PM
|
|
Report from America's jailbreaking hearings
|
Wired's David Kravets reports from the Copyright Office's triennial hearings on exceptions to the DMCA's rules against breaking DRM. Every three years, public interest groups supplicate themselves before the Copyright Office and beg for our right to jailbreak our devices and look inside our own property. Every three years, entertainment lawyers show up and demand [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 01:25 PM
|
|
Roasted gold-leaved foetus collection was for black magic
|
Earlier today, a mysterious report from Thailand simply noted that a man was arrested for "possession of a foetus." The Telegraph has more: Six human foetuses which had been roasted and covered in gold leaf as part of a black magic ritual have been seized from a British citizen in Bangkok, Thai police said today. [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 12:56 PM
|
|
Popular social networking service begins offering stock for public trading
|
Facebook Inc. CEO Mark Zuckerberg is seen on a screen televised from their headquarters in Menlo Park moments after their IPO launch in New York. (REUTERS) Shares of Facebook (FB) opened at $42.05 on today, up about 11 percent from the IPO price of $38. At this valuation, the company is worth around $115 billion. [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 12:37 PM
|
|
Touring indie band picks up hitchhiker who looks like John Waters. It was John Waters.
|
Indie band Here We Go Magic is driving across America on tour. Earlier this week, they spotted legendary director John Waters hitchhiking by the side of the road with a hat that said "Scum of the Earth." DCist has the story, and a followup interview with the band. So what happened once the car pulls [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 12:00 PM
|
|
HOWTO make cupcakewurst
|
What happens when you stuff sausage casings with cupcake-batter? That's what Stef from the Cupcake Project set out to discover. Short answer: sheer, heart-stopping deliciousness. Stef's produced a detailed HOWTO for making your own cupcakewurst. Suggested serving: "Serve warm on Long John doughnuts with raspberry sauce." It took a lot of experimentation to conquer Cupcakewurst. [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 11:43 AM
|
|
A Dallas Scooby-Doo enthusiast keeps sending white powder to churches & schools
|
Nick Rallo of the Dallas Observer alerted me to this report, written by Eric Nicholson, about someone who has sent nearly 400 packets of white powder to organizations in Texas. The FBI is offering a reward for her (or his) capture. The FBI finds last week's scare even less funny because agents believe the same [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 11:18 AM
|
|
Typewriter skull
|
Jeremy Mayer, the titan of typewriter-part sculptures, has sacrificed some more old beasts for a good cause, producing this wonderful 9"x12"x15" skull. Skull I (Thanks, Jeremy)
|
|
05/18/2012 10:54 AM
|
|
Kevin Mack and Snow Mack art show in LA
|
Gweek podcast guest Kevin Mack and Snow Mack have an art opening this Saturday at the Barbara Mendes Gallery in Los Angeles. I love their work. Snow was in the 25th Anniversary show of La Luz de Jesus in 2011. Her painting, "Cheesy Rider" is included in the book La Luz de Jesus 25, The [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 10:47 AM
|
|
SpaceX readies for launch this Saturday, May 19, 2012
|
If all goes according to plan, tomorrow, Saturday, May 19th, SpaceX will become the first commercial space flight company in history to head for the International Space Station. You can watch online, live, at SpaceX.com starting at 1:15 AM Pacific / 4:15 AM Eastern / 08:15 UTC. You can also follow SpaceX founder and CEO [...]
|
|
05/18/2012 10:45 AM
|
|
Lego marijuana art show
|
The infamous art collective / brand, LA-GO has a show at Known Gallery in LA opening on May 26. It's called Legolize it, and features marijuana plants made from plastic hobby construction bricks.
|