The World Wide Web Consortium spent more than 20 years making standards that remove barriers to developers who want to make Web technology; now, for the first time, they're creating a standard that makes it a crime to make Web technology without permission from the entertainment industry.
Bernie Worrell -- a "lynchpin" of Parliament Funkadelic whose collaborations with Talking Heads made the sound of Stop Making Sense -- is ill and can't afford his medical bills.
With a couple of days left, Feminist Frequency is about to hit their funding goal for Ordinary Women, a lavishly animated series about women who dared defy their times--and who history hasn't given their dues. Below is the complete set of preview videos for Ida Wells, Ching Shih, Emma Goldman, Murasaki Shikibu and Ada Lovelace; go help push them over the line at Seed & Spark.
Ida B. Wells (by Sammus)
Ada Lovelace (by Teddy Dief)
Ching Shih (by Jonathan Mann)
Emma Goldman (by The Doubleclicks)
Murasaki Shikibu (by Clara Bizne$$)
The creators of the series are Anita Sarkeesian (of Tropes vs. Women in Video Games fame), Laura Hudson (recently of Boing Boing and Offworld) and Elizabeth Aultman (producer of Yosemite)
I bought a Thermo-Spot fry pan last year and it has held up really well. The non-stick coating doesn't contain PFOA, either. Right now Amazon is selling a set of two (8-inch and 10.25-inch) for $19.
Two gentlemen sneaked into the backroom of the Monarch bar in San Francisco, CA and helped themselves to a bartender's wallet containing $500 and a bottle of liquor. A security camera captured the action.
This occurred Sunday night April 4th at WERD/Sunset After-Party. Somehow these guys gained entry into our employee area. You can watch them steal a wallet from a bag, which belonged to one of our bartender's and contained $500 cash (all her tip money from the week) + a bottle of liquor. These guys are truly disgusting and we're looking for any information to identify them. Please post and share. Thank you for your help! (function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version;=v2.3"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));
THIEVES CAUGHT ON FILM AT MONARCH! This occurred Sunday night April 4th at WERD/Sunset After-Party. Somehow these guys...
Posted by Monarch on Monday, April 4, 2016
Ricky Ma of Hong Kong built a robot inspired by actor Scarlett Johansson. It cost him $50,000. He hopes to sell it and use the proceeds to build a more sophisticated version.
Each scene in Vincent Urban's video of the wide variety of wonderful things in Japan lasts just a couple of seconds. I can't wait to return. This film is a collection of audiovisual moments and memories of a 3-week railway journey through Japan in 2015. We were whizzing through the country with the Shinkansen visiting Tokyo, Osaka, Hiroshima and Kyoto as well as lots of wonderful little places along the way, meeting the most friendly people and experiencing a culture that somehow balances its rich tradition with a very futuristic present.
See sample pages from this book at Wink.
Are you done with adult coloring books but not yet ready for adult fingerpainting? Have you considered... an adult stickerbook? I don’t understand how Paint by Sticker got made — it’s such an odd idea — but it turns out that it’s unexpectedly diverting to put these pictures together. The book has 12 unpainted “paintings” on thick perforated paper, each with two dedicated sheets of stickers. The paintings are outlines of some standard subjects: a fruit bowl still-life, a cottage in the woods. Through some creative talent I can’t wrap my head around, the images have been broken down into outlined facets by color, each numbered and waiting for you to apply the corresponding sticker.
I tried Paint by Sticker out on a few guinea pigs. Test subject #1 is a nine-year-old visual artist, and she wandered away before doing very much of her project. Test subject #2 is an adult, enjoys crafts but is not particularly artistic, and got super-duper into this with a glass of wine, a pocket knife for the stickers that wouldn’t come loose, and tweezers for precise placement. The subject had a meditative blissful time putting the stickers on the water towers and matching up the shapes with the numbers, and ooooh it was so satisfying, maybe not as an expression of emotion, but as a soothing and enjoyable treasure hunt with a weird and cool final project. Test subject #3 is a teenager, was also absorbed by the task, and assembled the fox while eating dinner. Test subjects #2 and #3 have decided to save the rest of the book for an airplane flight they have coming up. – Sara Lorimer
Larry Decker, 77, arranged rocks into a 60 x 90 foot extraterrestrial face in his Rosmoland, California backyard "in hopes of inviting aliens" to pay him a visit. He's also installed cameras to film them when they do land.
"Aliens watch everything we do," Decker told ABC News today. "My idea was to build this thing big enough to be seen from up there, and hopefully, they'll decide to come down and check it out."
"Wouldn't it be nice to go to the porch swing and have a nice chat?" he added. "So hopefully this face will trick them to come, so we can shake hands and talk."
Shanghai's Longhua Funeral Parlor now offers 3D printing of faces and other body parts to improve the appearance of the deceased during viewing.
"It is difficult for relatives to see incomplete faces or bodies of their loved ones when they attend memorial services, and makeup cannot always sufficiently repair them," Liu Fengming, an official with the Shanghai Funeral and Interment Service Center, said. From the Shanghai Daily:
After the explosion at Tianjin Port in August last year, the center sent experts to help repair the faces of firefighters killed in the blast.
The 3D-printing technology can also be used to make loved ones appear younger or better looking before they are interred, said Liu, who added that partial repair costs less than 10,000 yuan.
More at the World Post: "Chinese Funeral Home 3D Prints Body Parts For Damaged Corpses"
ToxicEternity plays a metal medley of iPhone ringtones.
Without his trademark orange tan, Trump looks surprisingly horrific: click through for Buzzfeed's "Trump without the tan" slider widget.
Follow the exposure of his interest in an offshore business – and several days of insisting that he would not resign – the prime minister of Iceland has resigned.
Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson has resigned, the deputy chair of Iceland's Progressive Party said Tuesday. Gunnlaugsson had been under intense pressure to step down since leaked documents hacked from a Panamanian law firm revealed his links to an offshore company, triggering mass protests in the capital.
Improvising on guitar has long been a challenge of mine. Chord Tone Soloing by Brett Tagliarino has helped a lot!
I have played guitar for several decades, but I never really understood how a guitar worked. Chord Tone Soloing helps explain the music theory behind improvising solos. Adding riffs and melody lines to chords, becomes quite easy, as you work through quizzes and exercises.
The CD book of examples is easy to work with, and play along to. You'll need a good foundation in guitar skills, and chord building, but once you are past the basics, Tagliarino will give you the tools to start working on your own!
I still need a metronome to keep a beat.
Chord Tone Soloing: A Guitarist's Guide to Melodic Improvising in Any Style via Amazon
See inside our Maker Box with Quarterly!
Earlier this year we teamed up with Quarterly Co. to curate their very first Maker Box! This was a brand new subscription and we were stoked to be apart of it. Each Maker Box includes at least three kits with a variety of themes and projects to be worked on. For this box, the theme was “grow”. We wanted to cover all aspects of DIY with a focus on growing - as a person, through the gadgets you’ll build and your plants!
The first kit was hand-picked by us for you: Farm Curious Vegetable Fermenting Kit. Fermentation is a fascinating chemical process that transforms food, making it more delicious and nutritious. Every time we ferment something we’re amazed. Milk into yogurt! Cabbage into sauerkraut! Cucumbers into pickles! Our mouth is watering as we write these words. We hope the Farm Curious kit turns you into a fermented food fanatic, too.
Also included was an original Makey Makey kit. Ever wanted to turn bananas into a piano? Or make your own game controller for a computer game? Well with the Makey Makey Classic you can! Makey Makey is an invention kit that allows you to turn any object into a touchpad and connect it to the internet.
For those with green thumbs, and those who tend to forget, we also included this DIY Thirsty Plant Kit from Technology Will Save Us. With this, you will always know when your plants needed water. Using this kit you can build a solar powered moisture sensor to make sure your plants never go thirsty again!
Last, but not least, we also included a three month Skillshare trial, because who better to introduce you to the world of Maker than Mark Frauenfelder himself? Skillshare offers hundreds of classes taught by various professionals, etc. And Mark Frauenfelder just happens to be one of them and teaching an intro class to none other than becoming a Maker. In this class, Mark Frauenfelder—legendary maker, creator, and founder of Boing Boing and MAKE magazine—introduces the fundamental world of Making and guides you in transforming your curiosity into a DIY project that makes, modifies, or repairs an everyday object in your life.
While this one-hour class is structured for a true beginner, you'll find a wealth of ideas no matter your background or knowledge. It's a class for everyone who believes in possibility, in practice, and in fun.
As a fun side project, subscribers had to solve a puzzle custom created by Shinteki in order to access the letter that is usually included in Quarterly boxes. Did any of you guys solve the puzzle? If you are still stuck, just tweet @Quarterly!
Well that’s a wrap, we hope you enjoyed this Maker Box! Have you guys made anything else? Share your projects in the comments below or tweet @boingboing with #MKR01.
Think big - the world can be your DIY kit! If you missed out, be sure to subscribe here to receive the next Quarterly Maker Box!
The LUCY is a drawing tool I wish I had in art school. The device has been around for 500 years and though it uses no electricity, it's able to project images from your environment onto your drawing pad. The LUCY will make you feel like you have special abilities by letting you look at two things at once – and have them converge in the same spot for you to draw on top of.
Essentially, the LUCY is an improved, simplified version of a camera lucida – below is a sketch and an explanation of how it works.
First - the object you want to draw sits anywhere in your environment with the LUCY angled toward it. The image of the object passes through a one-way mirror and reflects into a second mirror and then back again onto the first mirror.
When you look through the top of the device, you see not only straight through to the paper you’re drawing on, but you’ll also see the reflection of the object you want to draw.
The brighter the environment around the object, the brighter the object will be on the paper. Then it’s up to you to trace what you see.
Here’s a video that shows the LUCY in action.
By helping you quickly block in shapes for layout and proportion, your final drawings will naturally be improved - how many times have you sketched only to find your subject's body parts cut off because you miscalculated your starting position?
If your answer is zero you should stop reading now - because you’re kidding yourself. Even great artists fall into that trap from time to time.
Here’s a bit of art trivia I most certainly just made up: Sandro Botticelli was famous for having to paint his masterpiece The Birth of Venus a second time.
Why?
Because he started with her head and painted her legs last before realizing too late that he had cut off her feet! Imagine the time he could have saved if he had a LUCY of his own.
Again, I probably made that last part up - Moving right along.
The LUCY takes away the guesswork in the most important phase of drawing but I know what you're thinking - "Isn't this a cheaters tool?" and to me the answer is simple. If master painters used the camera lucida to help them with the under drawings of their own paintings, how can we say it’s cheating.
As a teaching tool, the LUCY is amazing and I have to admire the effort that Les Cookson has put into it. His simplified version of the camera lucida has come a long, long away from its predecessors.
If you like ancient technologies that enhance your artistic talents, you should definitely check out their Kickstarter and become the first kid on your block to own something that took over 500 years to perfect!
TSA guards at airports had a new weapon in their arsenal in 2014: tablets that they held up to randomly direct travelers into different lines. According to the TSA's documentation, they spent $47k developing the app that did this. In this YouTube video, Chris Pacia develops a clone of the app in a few minutes.
The implication is that the TSA is astoundingly wasteful: Kevin Burke's FOIA request reveals a total spend of up to $336k to develop and distribute the related software, and about $1m more for the actual devices and training. Use of the app was discontinued by the TSA in any case.
You know, I've been thinking about it a while, and while they obviously have travelers' safety and best interests at heart, after seeing TSA guards ostentatiously standing with their arrow apps and "swiping" travelers this way and that, I'm beginning to suspect – forgive me! – that this whole deal might have had more to do with the appearance of security than the real thing. Crazy, right? And that in the absence of any real objectives, expertise or oversight, these guys are easily taken to the cleaners by opportunistic contractors. Someone should figure out a snappy phrase to describe this "theater of security" and do something about it. [via r/PoliticalVideos]
HP's Spectre is thinner than all the others, and the company says that it is "more artisan than manufactured" in a promo video that touts its slim, jewelry-like design. The $1,170 laptop has an Intel Core i7 processor, 8 GB of memory and a 13" display. It's 2.5 pounds: heavier than the 12" MacBook and Lenovo Yoga, but lighter than pretty much anything else and much more powerful than those machines.
Depending on whose estimate you believe, as much as 10% of the population of Iceland demonstrated outside Parliament yesterday, and everyone agrees that they were the largest demonstrations in Icelandic history (and possibly the largest demonstrations, proportionally of any country in history).
