08.21.2012]blodic.us

Boing Boing|blodic.us

Associated Press quietly nukes its dumber-than-dumb DRM-for-newssystem

Do you remember the Associated Press's 2009 announcement that they had discovered a magic-beans technology that would let them stop people from quoting the news unless they paid for license fees (for quotes as short as 12 words, yet!)?

Since the launch...

To do this weekend: Maker Faire BayArea

Maker Faire Bay Area is this weekend, in San Mateo, California! Pesco, Mark and I will all be there, and I'm sure many of you reading Boing Boing will be, too. Mark has been posting some great behind-the-scenes snapshots on his Instagram.

World's tiniest monkey eats anoodle

About this video, which shows a Pygmy Marmoset noshing on a macaroni, Meredith Yayanos says: "The tinier the primate, the deeper the Uncanny Valley.

Black Code: how spies, cops and crims are making cyberspace unfit for humanhabitation

I reviewed Ronald Diebert's new book Black Code in this weekend's edition of the Globe and Mail.

Is this the best song from this year's Eurovision SongContest?

The battle of the bands, featuring acts from Ireland to Israel, is underway as we speak. Our Europe Correspondent Leigh Alexander will be filing a report, but not until she's had a bit of a lie down afterward.

Brain hacking: using neurofeedback to master conflicting wills in yourmind

I've written before about Moran Cerf -- celebrated neuroscientist, former military hacker, and good-guy bank robber -- who also happens to be a great storyteller.

Yuck! NYC fourth grader sneaks camera into school, makes documentary about gross cafeteriafood

Zachary is a fourth grader at a large New York City public elementary school. Each day he reads the Department of Education lunch menu online to see what is being served. The menu describes delicious and nutritious cuisine that reads as if it came from the finest restaurants.

India's OMICS Publishing Group threatens scholarly critic with $1 billion lawsuit, jailtime

OMICS Publishing Group, an Indian scholarly publisher has threatened to sue one of its critics, Metadata librarian Jeffrey Beall, for $1 billion, and has threatened him with prison time over posts he made to his prominent Scholarly Open Access site.

Video of a maker's everyday daycarry

At Maker Faire Bay Area 2013 longtime Make pal Kent Barnes kindly opened his everyday carry case and showed me what"s inside. It"s a highly personalized collection of tools, including a flashlight, X-Acto knife, drivers, laser pointer, and lock pick tools. See the video at Makezine.

HOWTO kill a tiger(1902)

The Public Domain Review has a nice gallery of plates from Lieutenant Colonel Frank Sheffield's 1902 book "How I killed the tiger; being an account of my encounter with a royal Bengal tiger, with an appendix containing some general information about India," which is pretty much exactly what i