Ultimate t-shirt for trolling science fiction fans #2yrsago
$20-26 from Offworld Designs. (via Diane Duane)
https://boingboing.net/2015/06/21/ultimate-t-shirt-for-trolling.html
Trump officially nominated as Republican presidential candidate #1yrago
In the convention hall, Donald Trump has gotten enough votes from bound delegates to make it official.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/trump-officially-nominated-as.html
Marc “Half-Life” Laidlaw’s gonzo cyberpunk is back in DRM-free ebooks #1yrago
Marc Laidlaw, the cyberpunk pioneer who went on to serve as writer on some of Valve’s greatest video-game titles – the Half-Life series, Portal – has just posted his entire backlist to Amazon as $3, DRM-free ebooks, including his debut novel Dad’s Nuke (think Fallout, but with religious extremist militants who subsist on “Host on a shingle,” this being the cultured recovered foreskin tissue of Jesus Christ on fortified crackers) and Kalifornia, a brilliant and prescient novel about media, cultural disintegration, and celebrity.
Laidlaw retired from games to return to prose (as someone who enjoys reading more than gaming, I was very happy about this), and the revival of his backlist is cause for serious celebration.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/marc-half-life-laidlaws.html
GOP platform: repeal campaign finance laws, allow unlimited dark/offshore money in US politics #1yrago
The newly adopted campaign finance reform section of the GOP platform for the 2016 election calls for “raising or repealing contribution limits” for private individuals and demands an end to “requiring private organizations to publicly disclose their donors to the government,” which means that the identity of PAC financiers will be completely secret, opening up offshore financing of US political candidates; finally, the platform condemns “forced funding of political candidates,” meaning public election financing.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/gop-platform-repeal-campaign.html
Trump Tracts: Subgenius-inflected mini-comics about Trump in the style of Jack Chick tracts #1yrago
Ethan Persoff is releasing a new “Trump Tract” every day during the RNC, and he encourages you to print out stacks of them and leave them around Cleveland during the convention, “at a coffee shop, or in the bathroom at a $30,000/plate dinner, or hand-distributing these out in public.”
The four current tracts are: CHURCH OF THE SUB-DOOFUS, DO TRUMP’S SMALL HANDS MEASURE UP, BROKE AT BIRTH and THE GOP WORLD IS ENDING.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/trump-tracts-subgenius-inflec.html
Why DC should put Batman and Superman in the public domain #1yrago
Alex Schmidt of Cracked makes a passionate (and hilarious) argument for DC putting Superman and Batman into the public domain, pointing out that comics companiesmake a hell of a lot of money on public domain characters from Sherlock Holmes and Thor.
Schmidt points to the Copyright Term Extension of 1998, passed after strenuous lobbying by Disney, as the primary culprit for keeping these characters in private hands, and makes a compelling case that allowing anyone to make new art with characters we all know lets the best stuff rise to the surface, while keeping the characters in the hands of a few risk-averse corporations produces a string of largely mediocre, risk-averse properties like Batman vs Superman.
Copyright term extension will be back on the table next year, and all the players who lined up in 1998 will be back for another 20 years’ worth of copyright for works whose creators have been dead for at least 70 years. Videos like this are a reminder that we’d better get ready for a hell of a fight after this next election.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/why-dc-should-put-batman-and-s.html
Explainer: how anecdotal evidence about alternative medicine can lead you astray #1yrago
Jonathan Jarry’s short video on the problems with anaecdotal evidence for “alternative medicine” is a powerful, easy-to-digest primer on the ways that confounding variables, survivor bias and regression to the mean can make stuff like reiki seem like it works, and how double-blind tests can uncover these problems and help us figure out what works and what doesn’t – especially important is the idea that “dead men tell no tales”; that is, no one who died because alternative medicine failed to help them will ever tell you how great it worked. (via Motherboard)
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/explainer-how-anaedotal-evide.html
Humanitarian organization warns Pokemon Go players to stay out of Bosnian minefields #1yrago
Posavina bez mina, a humanitarian organization that works to defuse landmines in the former Yugoslavia, has posted a warning to its Facebook page saying that they’ve been told that Pokemon Go players are venturing into active minefields to catch virtual critters, and warning people not to go into minefields to catch Pokemon, which is very good advice.
Minefields in Bosnia and Herzegovina have killed 604 people and injured more than 1,100 people since hostilities ceased in the region in 1996.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/humanitarian-organization-warn.html
US congressman Steve King thinks white people are the most awesome “subgroup” #1yrago
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/us-congressman-steve-king-thin.html
Iowa congressman Steve King Steve King of Iowa loves his “sub-group” of people. Here’s what he said on a televised panel on MSNBC:
“This whole ‘old white people’ business does get a little tired, Charlie. I’d ask you to go back through history and figure out where are these contributions that have been made by these other categories of people that you are talking about? Where did any other subgroup of people contribute more to civilization?”
“Than white people?” Mr. Hayes asked.
Mr. King responded: “Than Western civilization itself that’s rooted in Western Europe, Eastern Europe and the United States of America, and every place where the footprint of Christianity settled the world. That’s all of Western civilization.”
Even if King’s proudly ignorant statement was true, which it most assuredly is not, the fact remains that King himself hasn’t invented anything, other than fabulist history. To be proud of someone else’s invention because you have the same color skin as them is just about the stupidest thing a human being could think. It’s unfortunate that this nincompoop has enough admirers to vote him into office.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/us-congressman-steve-king-thin.html
Movie tickets are at an all-time high #1yrago
The average price of a US movie ticket hit $8.72 during 2016’s second quarter, the highest they’ve ever been – in possibly related news, ticket sales were down 9.5% in the same period.
Prices were pushed up by premium charges levied for 3D and IMAX screenings.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/movie-tickets-are-at-an-all-ti.html
Make: Hobnailed Roman marching boots, the Caligae #1yrago
In 2010, Lee Holeva, a Roman legion reenactor, lavishly documented his efforts to create a faithful reproduction of caligae, the “ancient milspec Roman footwear” (as Bruce Sterling calls it), worn by Roman legionary soldiers and auxiliaries throughout the Roman Republic and Empire.
The same site has further instruction for would-be legionnaires, including calcae, lorica segmantata, balteus, and more.
Holeva’s commentary on the quality of different hobnails and hard-won knowledge about various glues are fascinating reading, but the caligae themselves take center stage. As Sterling writes,
*Just look at the industrial intricacy of that Roman Imperial design. What a weird mix of delicacy and martial ruthlessness. Those caligula guys weren’t kidding around. All roads lead to Rome and this is precisely how you march those roads.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/make-hobnailed-roman-marching.html
Melania Trump’s convention speech plagiarized from Michelle Obama #1yrago
The internet is aflame with mirth and wrath: Melania Trump’s speech on the first night of the Republican convention in Cleveland contained several lines lifted from a speech delivered by Michelle Obama. Just at the point where her husband, Donald, secures his grasp on the party, they find that the apparent level his campaign operates at is just another false bottom and there is always worse to come.
https://boingboing.net/2016/07/19/melania-trumps-convention-sp.html
Shadows in the Woods: candlelit board-game for kids and adults #5yrsago
“Shadows in the Woods” is the English version of the German board game Waldschattenspiel, an absolutely beautiful and extremely fun game for two or more kids and one adult. The kids play “dwarfs” who need to hide in a “woods” (a board with 3D trees made from slotted heavy card). The adult plays using a burning tea-light as his token. You play in a dark room, and the kids and adult take turns moving, with the adult turning away while the kids strategize and move. If the grownup manages to move the tea-light so that it casts a light on one of the kids’ tokens, the token is frozen and must be unfrozen with a visit from another kid. The kids try to consolidate all the dwarfs (wooden pawns that come with pointy bits of felt for you to glue on as hats) behind one tree, while the adult tries to prevent it. It’s a game of whispers and giggles in the dark, with the added delight of a real flaming candle in the middle of the table. I’ve played it with kids as young as four, and it’s great fun.
Alas, there doesn’t appear to be a US importer, though the title is listed on Amazon UK.
Kraul Toys Shadows in the Woods - Deluxe
https://boingboing.net/2012/07/19/shadows-in-the-woods-candleli.html
Microsoft posts first ever loss #5yrsago
The BBC: “The computing giant Microsoft has made its first-ever quarterly loss after it wrote off some of the value of its online advertising business.”
https://boingboing.net/2012/07/19/microsoft-posts-first-ever-los.html
Australia’s Prime Minister is a goddamned idiot
Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull: “Well the laws of Australia prevail in Australia, I can assure you of that. The laws of mathematics are very commendable, but the only law that applies in Australia is the law of Australia.”
The goddamned idiot continued, “I’m not a cryptographer, but what we are seeking to do is to secure their assistance. They have to face up to their responsibility. They can’t just wash their hands of it and say it’s got nothing to do with them.”
As a reminder: working crypto works. Stopping criminals from accessing working crypto is impossible. Trying to do so will make everything much, much worse.
The goddamned idiot plans to export this goddamned idiocy to Canada, the USA, the UK and New Zealand.
https://boingboing.net/2017/07/15/malcolm-turnbull-is-an-idiot.html
