Binaryjesus

Celebrity equations

I don’t need an excuse to draw the guys from Mythbusters.

Hey! You know what? There’s still time to join Patreon this month and support SFAM! You guys have been amazing so far, Patreon has really turned things around and is making it possible for me to continue working.

If you’d like to see another two guaranteed comics per month, sign up to become a patron today and help us meet our next milestone!

I’m still gathering info for Patreon reward distribution; if you haven’t answered my message requesting your preferences, please do so soon or I’ll have to make a wildly inaccurate guess. Hoping to start getting these out next week.

Speaking of rewards, the Goats Kickstarter rewards are ALMOST done. I have two more pages I need to draw and then we can print the mini, which is the last thing keeping us from starting to ship rewards. I know it’s been a super-long wait but it’s almost over, I swear it. Please don’t lynch me quite yet.

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In honor of Pete Seeger's passing today, please take a moment to read his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee, which is a cross between a witch-hunt and a Marx Brothers' routine. It is inspired and inspiring. Goodbye, Mr Seeger.

MR. TAVENNER: The Committee has information obtained in part from the Daily Worker indicating that, over a period of time, especially since December of 1945, you took part in numerous entertainment features. I have before me a photostatic copy of the June 20, 1947, issue of the Daily Worker. In a column entitled "What's On" appears this advertisement: "Tonight-Bronx, hear Peter Seeger and his guitar, at Allerton Section housewarming." May I ask you whether or not the Allerton Section was a section of the Communist Party?

MR. SEEGER: Sir, I refuse to answer that question whether it was a quote from the New York Times or the Vegetarian Journal.

MR. TAVENNER: I don't believe there is any more authoritative document in regard to the Communist Party than its official organ, the Daily Worker.

MR. SCHERER: He hasn't answered the question, and he merely said he wouldn't answer whether the article appeared in the New York Times or some other magazine. I ask you to direct the witness to answer the question.

CHAIRMAN WALTER: I direct you to answer.

MR. SEEGER: Sir, the whole line of questioning-

CHAIRMAN WALTER: You have only been asked one question, so far.

MR. SEEGER: I am not going to answer any questions as to my association, my philosophical or religious beliefs or my political beliefs, or how I voted in any election, or any of these private affairs. I think these are very improper questions for any American to be asked, especially under such compulsion as this. I would be very glad to tell you my life if you want to hear of it.

MR. TAVENNER: Has the witness declined to answer this specific question?

CHAIRMAN WALTER: He said that he is not going to answer any questions, any names or things.

House Unamerican Activities Committee

Guitar goddess Kaki King, who was the featured artist on a recent edition of Boing Boing's in-flight entertainment channel on Virgin America airlines, launched a Kickstarter last week: "The Neck is a Bridge to the Body." It's already surpassed the initial goal. It looks totally amazing. Go, Kaki!

An hour-long visual and live music performance where the guitar is used as a projection screen to tell a creation story. The Neck is a Bridge to the Body is a new kind of guitar exploration with live music and video projection. What sets this show apart is that for the first time the guitar itself is being used as a projection screen. The show opens as a creation story where the notes and sounds create the images. It then broadens into an exploration of the guitar where we learn that it is shape shifter, it has travelled all over the world, it has a background with friends and family, and it even has an internal skeleton and nervous system. Finally, we see that music creates the musician, and the guitar creates the guitarist.

The New York Times published a fantastic slideshow detailing how the product is, more or less, bullshit. A splendidly revealing tl;dr: Italy is the world's largest importer of olive oil.

odditiesoflife:

Incredible Ice Sculptures from a Single Block of Ice

Fairbanks, Alaska, is home to the World Ice Art Championships, one of the world’s largest ice sculpting competitions and exhibitions. From its beginning in 1988, the World Ice Art Championships has grown to a month-long event featuring more than 70 teams from around the world.

The 2013 event ran from February to March and scheduling has already begun for the 2014 event. The competition had 40 sculptures made by teams of one or two members. Each team was given one block of ice and a period of 60 hours to create their works of art. The results were astounding.

source

While not a shot-for-shot remake, like their prior Prisoner video, Do Not Foresake Me Oh My Darling is back at it again. They've interpreted one of my favorite Prisoner scenes, Number 6's flawless reaction to being poisoned.

I really enjoy both this, and their remake of the intro. You'll want the awesome pint glass. Here is a MAKE project to make your own.

Thanks, Sophia!

I'm thinking of getting a Grom, an inexpensive, fuel-efficient new bike from Honda. Joel Johnson likes his a lot: it sounds like the best of both worlds when it comes to scooters and motorcycles.

That light weight changes the "intimidation factor" of the motorcycle. Riding the Grom doesn't feel like you've just swung your leg over a headstone with an exhaust. Everyone larger than a toddler can easily put both feet on the ground at a stop; keeping the bike upright when it starts to lean over takes little-to-no muscle. It almost feels like a toy.

But then somewhere in the top end of second gear the little 9-horsepower engine overcomes its trifling torque and gets some real speed under your butt, cruising between 35 and 45 mph with ease.

He warns that it's not that great for suburban commuting, though, thanks to a top speed in the 50s. And it's still a grand pricier than Honda's other hip little machine, the 50cc Ruckus, which has a similarly utilitarian vibe. I just can't decide!

Officemax sent junkmail to Mike Seay at his address in Lindenhurst, IL, with the notation "Daughter Killed In Car Crash" under his name. Seay's 17 year old daughter was killed in a crash last year. Officemax says it bought Seay's name from a marketing company, and implies that the company had made the notation in its list. It's not clear what marketing purpose this information was intended for (is there a sub-list for "bereaved parents" that's rented out to grief counselors looking for business?) or whether this was a one-off in a data-entry department.

Seay is understandably very upset. The Officemax call-center person he spoke to refused to believe him, as did an official spokesdroid. He's seeking an apology from Officemax's CEO.

Seay, who is unemployed, said that he isn't interested in suing OfficeMax, but that since his wife was "traumatized" by the letter, he wants an apology from the company's chief executive.

He also wants to know how OfficeMax got the information. The last thing Seay remembers buying at OfficeMax since his daughter's death last February is some paper.

"Why do they have that?" Seay said of the information about his daughter's death. "What do they need that for? How she died, when she died? It’s not really personal, but looking at them, it is. That’s not something they would ever need."

Dad gets OfficeMax mail addressed 'Daughter Killed In Car Crash' [Matt Pearce/Los Angeles Times]

Portlan-based photographer Lanakila MacNaughton created the Women's Motorcycle Exhibition of her photos "to document the new wave of modern female motorcyclists." It's currently on view at the Riverside Art Museum near Los Angeles. To me, MacNaughton's photos have a timeless quality to them, depicting women who are basking in the thrill and freedom of the ride. You can see many of the images online: The Women's Motorcycle Exhibition

Go ahead, kill the magic. (Via Neatorama)

Adermatoglyphia is a very rare genetic condition causing you to be born without fingerprints. In 2011, a small group of researchers pinpointed the genetic mutation behind it. One of them, dermatologist Peter Itin, was drawn to the mystery after he was contacted by a Swiss woman who found trouble at the US border when immigration agents couldn't take her prints… because she doesn't have any. "Adermatoglyphia: The Genetic Disorder Of People Born Without Fingerprints" (Smithsonian)

Ever since RSA got caught sabotaging its own products to aid the NSA for a piddling $10M, it's been corporation-non-grata in the security world. Prominent experts are bailing on the RSA conference where they'd been scheduled to speak. Now, a Fight for the Future petition is asking Stephen Colbert to walk away from his guest speaker slot. I hope he does -- Colbert's reputation is worth more than the fee he commands from RSA.

Via StuffJournalistsLike twitter feed. Appears the sign is stolen so often that the Colorado Department of Transit settled on this.

Thanks, Ryan!

A broad coalition of organizations -- including Boing Boing -- have joined forces to declare February 11 a day of action in memory of Aaron Swartz and against NSA Internet spying and mass surveillance. Just as we did with the SOPA fight, we're asking people who care about this to make their own personal expressions of resistance, and take the case for caring about this and fighting back to the people closest to them. Each of us knows the arguments that will convince our friends and loved ones.

The Day We Fight Back sets out a number of ways you can participate, small and large. This is a fight we can win.

David Segal, executive director of Demand Progress, which he co-founded with Swartz, said: "Today the greatest threat to a free Internet, and broader free society, is the National Security Agency's mass spying regime. If Aaron were alive he'd be on the front lines, fighting back against these practices that undermine our ability to engage with each other as genuinely free human beings." According to Roy Singham, Chairman of the global technology company ThoughtWorks, where Aaron was working up until the time of his passing:

"Aaron showed us that being a technologist in the 21st century means taking action to prevent technology from being turned against the public interest. The time is now for the global tribe of technologists to rise up together and defeat mass surveillance."

The Day We Fight Back - February 11th 2014

Nico Sell is the CEO of Wickr, a privacy-oriented mobile messaging system that's been deliberately designed so that the company can't spy on its users, even if they're ordered to do so. As we know from the Snowden leaks, spooks hate this kind of thing, and spend $250M/year sabotaging security so that they can spy on everyone, all the time.

After a recent presentation, she was approached by an FBI agent who asked her if she'd put a back-door into Wickr.

She declined. What's more, she lectured the agent on the First and Fourth Amendments, and on her family tradition of upholding liberty (her ancestor was a drummer boy in Washington's corps: "Washington thought it was very important to have freedom of information and private correspondence without government surveillance.").

Her lecture concluded, she proceeded to grill the agent. "I asked if he had official paperwork for me, if this was an official request, who his boss was," said Sell. "He backed down very quickly."

Though she didn't budge for the agent, Sell makes it clear that surveillance and security is a complicated issue. "Ten years ago, I'd have said yes," said Sell. "Because if law enforcement asks you to catch bad guys, who wouldn't want to help?"

The difference now, she explained, was her experiences at BlackHat. Among those, Sell pointed to a BlackHat event where Thomas Cross demonstrated how to break into lawful intercept machines—or wiretaps. "It was very clear that a backdoor for the good guys is always a backdoor for the bad guys."

What It's Like When The FBI Asks You To Backdoor Your Software [Max Eddy/PC Mag]

(Thanks, Nico!)

(Disclosure: I am proud to serve as an advisor to Wickr)

(Image: Back Door?, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from swanksalot's photostream)

Hot Socks does a nice line of multicolored socks embroidered woven with all sorts of fine-art images.

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Hot Sox (via Pipe Dream Dragon)

Here's a collection of gorgeous high-magnification photos of grains of sand, taken by Dr Gary Greenberg, whose site is full of astounding macrophotography shots (check out the moon dust and discover why Katie Levinson calls it "microscopic razors that cling like packing peanuts").

If these pics excite you, check out Grain of Sand: Nature's Secret Wonder, Greenberg's very highly rated 2008 art book showcasing his work (with an introduction by Stacy Keach) (!). He's also got a book of macrofocus flower photos that looks promising.

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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU MAGNIFY SAND 250 TIMES? MAGIC. (via MeFi)

Little Maddie is Big Shot Toyworks's first character in a new toy line called "Friendship is Maddness." (via Laughing Squid)

 

Colorado has legalized recreational marijuana, and now New York looks poised to become the next medical marijuana state. It’s only a matter of time before civilization decays entirely.

Smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em!

Hey, are you following me on Twitter? If not, you’re missing out on a whole bunch of exciting stuff.

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