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Here's the latest episode of Derrick Bostrom's "Your Favorite Little Podcast," featuring a terrific playlist of unusual, forgotten, underrated, and ignored music. Derrick's podcast, along with The Casbah ("an eclectic rock & roll and rhythm radio show featuring surf-instrumentals, garage, blues and more"), and Little Steve's Underground Garage on Sirius Radio, take care of about 95% of my music listening needs. From Derrick's show notes: I also love it when the wrong people visit this site by mistake, venting their disorientation and discomfort in the comments. I especially love it when they use terms like âelevator musicâ as if this was incisive criticism. After all, some folks still obsess over âauthenticity,â preferring âimmediacyâ and âspontaneityâ above all other concerns. Somehow,...
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I haven't read Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse by Victor Gischler, but this description, sent to me by the publisher, makes it sound good. If you've read it, please post your review in the comments. Mortimer Tate was an insurance salesman on the verge of a nasty divorce when he holed up in a mountain cave in Tennessee and rode out the end of the world. Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse begins nine years later, when he emerges into a bizarre landscape filled with hollow reminders of an America that no longer exists. Since âThe Fall,â highways are lined with abandoned automobiles, for which there is no fuel. Houses stand empty and what little civilization remains revolves around a string...
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Plan59's 1950s space-art gallery has some real gems! Space Art (via Neatorama)...
 
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Now that the McCain campaign has declared war on Dungeons and Dragons, Dennis has struck back with this tee. It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. Pro-Obama Dungeons and Dragons Crowd (Thanks, Dennis!) See also: McCain staffer slams Dungeons and Dragons players...
 
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Veronica from ItchyStitchy has the pattern needed to make this child-sized Katamari Damacy Prince of All Cosmos hat thing. Someone get my smelling salts, I just went into a cute coma! The kid will be wearing it to GenCon (natch). FO and Pattern: Katamari Damacy Prince of All Cosmos Baby Hat! (via Craft)...
 
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Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "EFF's Coders' Rights project had a big win for free speech when a judge ruled that the gag order against MIT student security researchers should be lifted. Right on!" Today, a federal judge lifted an unconstitutional gag order that had prevented three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) students from disclosing academic research regarding vulnerabilities in Boston's transit fare payment system. The court found that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Agency (MBTA) had no likelihood of success on the merits of its claim under the federal computer intrusion law and denied the transit agency's request for a five-month injunction. In papers filed yesterday, the MBTA acknowledged for the first time that their Charlie Ticket system...
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An update on the pro-Tibet tech-art protests happening in Beijing: Students for a Free Tibet (SFT) tells Boing Boing that a group of five pro-Tibet activists displayed an LED Throwie Banner near the Olympics site in Beijing. The protesters, all of whom are US nationals, were promptly detained by Chinese authorities. From SFT, via email to BB: This was inspired by GRL's "Throwies" project, and the building and implementation of this was done by a complete separate group of Tibet activitists. They combined a traditional protest banner with over five hundred throwie lights and batteries sewn and taped onto the banner. Details on the SFT website, Photos on Flickr, and here is a short video. "Still no more news on...
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A Londoner was stopped by a London Transport Police officer under S.44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, and had the presence of mind to whip out his video camera and record the officers tearing through his stuff. They officers admitted that they had no suspicion of him, no reason to search him and told him he'd be arrested if he refused. They riffle through his books (looking for terrorist words?) and go through his things. Welcome to Britain, now spread 'em. Stopped under S.44 of the Terrorism Act 2000...
 
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Jimmy sez, "Michael Goldfarb of the John McCain campaign oddly disses gamers in his post yesterday on the John McCain blog." It may be typical of the pro-Obama Dungeons & Dragons crowd to disparage a fellow countryman's memory of war from the comfort of mom's basement, but most Americans have the humility and gratitude to respect and learn from the memories of men who suffered on behalf of others. Smears the Left Can Fight For (Thanks, Jimmy!)...
 
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The Georgia Bigfoot, who missed his own press conference last week, has been confirmed as a (gasp) hoax. The two Georgia men, one of them a cop, who claimed to have found the dead animal allegedly pulled one over on Tom Biscardi, a self-described Bigfoot researcher who has a reputation as a hoaxer himself. From Fox News: SearchingforBigfoot.com owner Tom Biscardi paid an "undisclosed sum" to Matthew Whitton and Rick Dyer, the two Georgia men who say they found the body, for their frozen corpse and the privilege of trotting them out in front of TV cameras. At the same time, Biscardi sent self-described "Sasquatch detective" Steve Kulls back to Georgia to check out the body. Kulls, it's safe to...
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Astronaut and space hero Dr. Buzz Aldrin speaks with Xeni about his belief that America -- and that means you! -- must return to the moon, and soon. His nonprofit, Sharespace.org, seeks to provide "affordable space travel opportunities for all." Buzz believes that commercial space vacations should not be available only to the wealthy elite. Editor's note: the comment trolls really are taking over around here. One of them invades this very BBtv episode. Teresa, why doesn't disemvowelling work in video? We'll have to get our hamster-engineers right on that. (cameo by BBtv Production Assistant Rob Bergsma) Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and instructions on subscribing to the BBtv video podcast....
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Taiyo Matsumoto's 600+ page manga masterpiece Tekkonkinkreet: Black & White is utterly unlike any comic I've ever read, a thrilling fusion of French and Japanese comic-book styles that scintillates with originality, daring, adventure and metaphysics. Black and White are the Cat Brothers, a pair of ultraviolent lost boys who rule Treasure Town, a surreal Japanese pleasure-ville where hoods and cops and gangsters battle for dominance. Black is violent, cunning and brilliant; White is naive, foolish, and sweet. They are ten years old, and they complete each other. But Treasure Town is in flux: new powers are come to the city, and as it sickens, so do Black and White, who are, in some metaphysical way, its soul and avatar. The...
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Students for a Free Tibet tells Boing Boing they learned of Graffitti Research Lab founder James Powderly's detention by Chinese authorities in Beijing via a Twitter direct message that read "held since 3am." I just spoke to the SFT representative who has been Powderly's closest contact, and this person says Powderly has now been held for more than 19 hours with no further word. So far there's no acknowledgment from officials in Beijing that Powderly is being held. Here's SFT's announcement about the L.A.S.E.R. Stencil art protest project Powderly was planning -- he was also writing an "instructable" about it yesterday: Internationally known artist, technologist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab, James Powderly, was detained in Beijing early this...
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In this great little Instructable, Morfmir shows you how to make a "Viking spoon," using only handmade, historically accurate viking hand-tools. You need: Axe: any small hand axe will do fine. It just needs to be sharp. A good hand axe weighs around 500-600g hammer: you need a heavy hammer. If it is to small it will not have enough force to split the wood. wedge: A heavy iron wedge made for splitting firewood will work fine. Alternatively use a old axe and hammer it through the log. Don't use you good axe for that. You ruin the axe that way. Knife: a small sharp knife will do. Spoon knife: You need a spoonknife, in my book there are no...
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Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, the day started as it always does: deus ex machina. Then Kafka hit the Apple Store. Rob looked at Frotz for the iPhone and a wrist-wearable 1920s GPS unit. He also discovered a wonderful MAME cabinet that looks like an old console pulled out of a Buck Rogers episode. Swoon. Brownlee found a Terminator skull DVD player and a new Casio that perfectly captures the rust-aesthetic of Star Wars. RFID allows an elderly Japanese wife to have an unsettling discussion with her dead husband. The early BBS cowboys were re-examined through the antiquarian literature of GIF News. Dell has some great plans and pants to match for tackling the iTunes juggernaut. And we discovered some...
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An American human-rights worker was detained by the DHS at JFK when she returned from her holiday in Syria. She found herself in a Kafka-esque nightmare room crammed like a cattle-car with Americans and foreigners seething as they were abused, ignored, insulted (and sometimes deported) by the US government's representatives. So much for public diplomacy. No one who had been detained knew precisely why they were there. A few people were led into private rooms; others were questioned out in the open at desks a few feet from the crowd and then allowed to pass through customs. Some were sent to another section of the holding area with large computer screens and cameras, and then brought back. The uninformed consensus...
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Wal*Mart's class-specific lists of "Back to School" supplies that local teachers want kids to show up with on day one are pure fabrications -- and they include items that are prohibited on school-grounds: When we noticed the local Wal-Mart had shopping lists not only specific to school and grade level, but to teacher, we were thrilled. We started tossing items in the cart to spend, spend, spend. Werenât we a little surprised to learn afterwards that Wal-Mart invented those lists. Not only were we a bit surprised to learn they did not, in fact, base the lists on anything remotely suggested by the school. Wal-Mart, in fact, put items on the list that are BANNED from being brought to school.
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Flickr user jek in the box made this handsome phone sculpture out of raffle tickets and Scotch tape -- lovely! raffle ticket phone (via Craft)...
 
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farside photoshop married to the sea minimalist stick figure theatre scary bear pope alien cat and girl diesel sweeties kookie previously on web zen: more comic zen Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)...
 
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Daniel says: The idea is just to de-contextualize serious or crappy video comments, collecting them like in an isolated art gallery. We also made a typographic presentation video. Decontextualized video comments become modern pieces of poetry...
 
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Rick Adams shot a video of a man clinging to the hood of a car driven by an intoxicated maniac, and writes about what happened to him as a result of filming the incident. [T]he frenzy around it was unsettling to me; as soon as it was published (including some really stupid factual errors) the story was around the world and it made me wonder: how accurate are the stories I know nothing about but read all the time? If something as small as this could have errors in it (some of which I won't go into as they really should be kept in the courtroom, as far as I'm concerned) because of a feeding frenzy does that bode well...
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Papa Jack Weil, owner of Rockmont Ranch Wear in Denver, Co, died last Wednesday. He continued to show up for work every day, even when he was 107 years old. We lost the oldest CEO in Colorado, and probably in the U.S., this week. Rockmount Ranch Wear founder Jack A. Weil died Wednesday at the age of 107. Grandson Steve Weil, Rockmount's 49-year-old president, recently told Rocky contributor Bill Gallo that "Papa Jack" had reduced his work schedule in recent times from 12-hour days to five mornings a week. "But he was still active. He loved being the greeter. He talked to 50 people a day." "My grandfather was to Western shirts what Levi's was to blue jeans," Steve Weil...
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(UPDATE: The YouTube video was pulled, but Live Leak has the same video, embedded above) Can you spot where Robert's Rules or Order are broken during this argument between two university debate coaches? (Salty language and underwear mooning in video). In the quarterfinal of 2008 CEDA (Cross Examination Debate Association) Nationals, the RFD erupts into a heated exchange of words between Pittsburgh coach Shanara Reid and Fort Hays coach William Shanahan. Debate coaches lose cool, 1 pulls down his pants (via Arbroath)...
 
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The Times Online reports on the Dexter cattle breed, âthe worldâs most efficient, cutest and tastiest cows." For between £200 and £2,000, people can buy a cow that stands no taller than a large German shepherd dog, gives 16 pints of milk a day that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass âmownâ and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the freezer. The Dexter, a mountain breed from Ireland, is perfect for cattle-keeping on a small scale, but other breeds are being artificially created to compete with it, including the Mini-Hereford and the Lowline Angus, which has been developed by the Australian government to stand no more than 39in high but produce 70% of the...
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(Photos of Carter Hotel here.) Forbes Traveler has an article called "Travel Scams to Avoid" (I'm waiting for the follow-up article, "Travel Scams to Embrace"). Here are a couple of interesting tidbits from the piece. First, the "wad of money" trick: âI was back in Moscow a few years ago and saw with nostalgia they were still trying to pull the âwad of moneyâ trick in Red Square,â says veteran travel scribe Robert Reid, author of the Lonely Planet guides to the Trans-Siberian Railway, Central America and Myanmar. âSome goon rushes by you and drops a wad of dollarsâcould be more than a thousandâand another goon steps in and picks it up, offering to share it with you. If you...
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Lisa Gold, an extraodinary researcher with deep ties to science fiction (she conducted research for Neal Stephenson's Baroque Trilogy and is married to the wonderful comedic sf/f writer Matt Ruff, author of the newly paperback-published Bad Monkeys) has launched a public blog where she's keeping track of her research notes. I have a love-hate relationship with book research, so it's amazing to see someone really good at it at work. âThe next best thing to knowing something is knowing where to find it.â â Samuel Johnson I thought this famous Samuel Johnson quote would be an appropriate way to begin my blog. The problem is that Johnson never actually said this, despite the fact that youâll find this attributed to...
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Marilyn sez, "Olympic logo police workers are tasked with vigilantly going around all facilities and putting masking tape over the logos for any product where the company is not an official sponsor. 7 To ensure that only the companies that pay millions of dollars to be official Olympic sponsors enjoy the benefits of exposure in Olympic venues, organizers have covered the trademarks of nonsponsors with thousands of little swatches of tape. In media centers, dormitories and arena bathrooms, pieces of tape cover logos of fire extinguishers, light switches, thermostats, bedroom night tables, soap dispensers and urinals. The Taiden Industrial translation headsets in a large conference room have had their logos covered, as have the American Standard faucets in the bathrooms...
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Boing Boing tv's UK-based music correspondent Russell Porter interviews singer-songwriter Candie Payne. The "atmospheric" chanteuse hails from Liverpool, and her brand of indie-pop draws fans the world over. Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with discussion, downloadable vide, and podcast subscription instructions....
 
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Howard Zinn's A People's History of American Empire is a fantastic comic-book adaptation of Zinn's classic A People's History of the United States (the best and most important critical history of the life of everyday people in America from 1492 onward), a new edition illustrated by Mike Konopacki and aided by historian Paul Buhle. American Empire focuses on the history of American foreign policy, starting with the policy of conquering America itself, with brutal massacres like Wounded Knee. Zinn is an uncompromising critic of the imperial history of America, the unilateral deeds of its leaders, the atrocities committed by its military and its contractors through Asia, Africa, Europe, and around the world. But the book is also part memoir, describing...
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Earlier this summer, I heard from Anne Lagacé Dowson, a 20-year veteran of CBC Radio who had quit her post to run for the New Democratic Party in a by-election in the Quebec riding of Westmount-Ville-Marie. I've known Anne all my life (literally -- she was my babysitter when I was an infant) and so I was glad to hear that she was doing this amazing thing, but I was even more delighted when she said that her campaign and her party were both passionate about the digital freedoms issues that I campaign on and she asked if I'd be willing to offer her my endorsement. I've just spent half an hour on the phone with Dowson and I'm happy...
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