Shared posts

30 Jul 03:23

Professor fools $80M superyacht’s GPS receiver on the high seas

by Cyrus Farivar
A team from the University of Texas spoofed the GPS receiver on a live superyacht in the Ionian Sea.

One of the world’s foremost academic experts in GPS spoofing—University of Texas assistant professor Todd Humphreys—released a short video on Monday showing how he and his students deceived the GPS equipment aboard an expensive superyacht.

Humphreys conducted the test in the Ionian Sea in late June 2013 and early July 2013 with the full consent of the “White Rose of Drachs” yacht captain. His work shows just how vulnerable and relatively easy it is to send out a false GPS signal and trick the on-board receiver into believing it.

“What we did was out in the open. It was against a live vehicle, a vessel—an $80 million superyacht, controlling it with a $2,000 box,” he told Ars. “This is unprecedented. This has never been shown in this kind of demonstration. That’s what's so sinister about the attack that we did. There were no alarms on the bridge. The GPS receiver showed a strong signal the whole time. You just need to have approximate line of sight visibility. Let’s say you had an unmanned drone. You could do it from 20 to 30 kilometers away, or on the ocean you could do two to three kilometers.”

Read 9 remaining paragraphs | Comments

    


17 Jul 16:51

HDTV antenna of a different color

by Mike Szczys

hdtv-antenna-of-a-different-color

We’ve seen our share of commercially available HDTV antennas that work really poorly. For at least four years now we’ve gone without cable television, using a coat hanger antenna we made ourselves to record over-the-air broadcasts. But it’s a pretty ugly beast — we’re lucky enough to have an attic in which it can be hidden. If you’re in need of free television and don’t want an eyesore of a an antenna try building this foil and cardboard version. Even it if doesn’t work at all you’re only out about ten bucks.

The expensive part is the matching transformer which converts screw terminals to a coaxial cable connection so that it may be connected to your HDTV. You’ll need a few nuts and bolts, but we assume you can beg, borrow, or steal the tin foil, cardboard, and blue that round out the parts list. Glue, measure, cut, fold, fasten, finished! You’ll be watching horrible summer TV in no time!

If it doesn’t perform as expected just reuse that connector and try your luck with a fractal antenna.


Filed under: home entertainment hacks
17 Jul 16:48

Problems of 1960s Adolescents

by Cory Doctorow

Stephanie writes, "I found this absurd 60s adolescent psychology record in a thrift store years ago and finally digitized it - the world needs to hear it. It's plagued by bad acting but peppered with amazing quotes about paisley-wearing longhairs, dating older boys, and mothers who force you to go to church." (here's the whole thing)

    


17 Jul 16:46

Bath Buddy

by Greg Ross

https://www.google.com/patents/USD173979

In 1955, James D. Crenshaw patented the greatest shower head in the history of human civilization.

Unless you’re hung over.

09 Jul 21:25

Every single coffee and pie scene from Twin Peaks, you're welcome

by Meredith Woerner

This might he our favorite supercut to ever grace our computer screen. Slackstory has compiled every single coffee and/or pie scene from the great Mark Frost and David Lynch series Twin Peaks. It's all just so wonderful.

Read more...

    


05 Jul 14:36

Vibrating train window to play ads through the skulls of tired commuters

by Cory Doctorow

A nightmarish vision straight out of The Space Merchants: a gadget that purportedly vibrates train windows at the right frequency to beam advertisements straight into your head by means of bone-conduction, should you tire and rest your head against them.

All the references to this point to one video posted by someone with no other videos in her or his account, and there's not much other detail (Adweek attributes it to BBDO Dusseldorf). I'm betting hoax and/or grad project-cum-design fiction, but in this topsy-turvy world, anything is possible. The comments on the YouTube video are even more internetrage than usual, and may be the most interesting thing about it.

The talking window

    


03 Jul 16:48

Gorgeous Old Movie Theaters That Have Fallen Into Ruin

by Vincze Miklós

Gorgeous Old Movie Theaters That Have Fallen Into Ruin

Movie theaters used to be glamorous places, like music halls or opera houses. The spectacle of the movie-going experience extended out into the actual look and feel of the cinema. But many of these ornate old movie theaters have fallen into disrepair, and look like gorgeous disaster areas.

Read more...

    


03 Jul 16:36

Alastair Reynolds takes on Doctor Who, and the result is quite strange

by Charlie Jane Anders

Alastair Reynolds takes on Doctor Who, and the result is quite strange

Hard to believe, but yes — Alastair Reynolds, author of Revelation Space and House of Suns, has written a Doctor Who novel. And it's really quite good. Harvest of Time starts out feeling like a straight-up tribute to the early 1970s era of Jon Pertwee, but slowly develops into something a good deal stranger.

Read more...

    


03 Jul 16:36

Diseased Switch Plate

by Mark Frauenfelder

The "Diseased Switch Plate" was created by sculptor dogzillalives. (Via Neatorama)

    


02 Jul 20:09

Edward's Snowden's search for political asylum is not going well

by Xeni Jardin


Image: The Guardian

Wikileaks and various news agencies report that NSA leaker Edward Snowden has prepared asylum requests for (at least) 21 nations, including Austria, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Nicaragua, Norway, Poland, Spain, Switzerland and Venezuela.

The government of Ecuador said they couldn't consider his request unless he was in Ecuador or inside one of their embassies. The US has revoked his passport, which makes getting anywhere difficult from his current (presumed) location: an international no-mans-land connected to Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.

The AP's Eastern Europe News Director, Ian Phillips, flew there to try and find Snowden. He didn't, despite wardialing all floors of the prison-hotel where stateless passengers are held. But his surreal account of 21 hours in Snowden's shoes is a must-read.

If Snowden is in the transit zone, Phillips writes, "he may already have a taste of what it's like to be in prison."

But Snowden would very much like to avoid prison. Norway and Poland have replied to the former government security contractor's plea with what amounts to "fat chance." Russian president Putin said "only if you stop hurting America," which effectively means "nyet."

Reuters reports that "Finland, Spain, Ireland and Austria said he had to be in their countries to make a request, while India said 'we see no reason' to accept his petition. France said it had not received a request."

Russian news services report that the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, defended Snowden while speaking to legislators and reporters at Russia's Parliament. “He did not kill anyone and he did not plant a bomb,” Maduro is quoted as having said in Russia, “He only said a big truth to prevent wars.”

Maduro continued, "We think this young person has done something very important for humanity, has done a favor to humanity, has spoken great truths to deconstruct a world... controlled by an imperialist American elite."

The Venezuelan leader said Snowden deserves protection under international law, but that the South American nation has not yet received his application for political asylum.

Would he take Snowden back from Russia to Venezuela with him, if he did receive such a request? Ever the pragmatist, Maduro replied, "What we're taking with us are multiple agreements that we're signing with Russia, including oil and gas."

It's getting hard to keep track of which countries have said what in response to Snowden's plea. Luckily, the Guardian has a scorecard here.

But as the prospects appear increasingly dim, remember: Snowden only needs one "yes." Well, that and safe passage.

Previously: Boing Boing archival coverage of Edward Snowden

    


19 Jun 20:26

Mechanic accused of inventing a death ray for Israel and/or the KKK

by Annalee Newitz

Mechanic accused of inventing a death ray for Israel and/or the KKK

A mechanic who worked at General Electric in New York spent the past several years perfecting a deadly, truck-mounted radiation weapon. According to the FBI, he tried to sell it to some Jews in his area, whom he figured could hand it over to Israel. Failing that, he tried to sell it to some friends in the KKK.

Read more...

    


18 Jun 14:12

Channel 5 Exposed: The Gadget Show’s RFID + Human Microchipping Propaganda

by poohkits4@aol.com (Andrew)

'On Monday June 3rd, Channel 5′s ‘The Gadget Show’ aired a disturbing, eight-minute segment featuring the highly-invasive, RFID microchipping agenda, AKA “The Internet of Things”.  The episode not only presented an entirely pro-RFID message featuring numerous menacing applications for the phenomenon, but went as far as nonchalantly stating that "the ultimate goal will be to have RFID chips fitted directly into our bodies".'

Read more: Channel 5 Exposed: The Gadget Show’s RFID + Human Microchipping Propaganda

11 Jun 18:26

Insanely detailed Ghostbusters documentary gives Slimer ADD

by Meredith Woerner

Did you know that Slimer is really a metaphor for ADD? The exceptionally detailed (and a little nutty) documentary Spook Central takes a page from The Shining's ridiculously detailed movie dissection Room 237 and just analyzes the crap out of Ghostbusters. It's kind of hilarious.

Read more...

    


24 May 16:55

The World's Most Awkward Taxidermy

by Vincze Miklós

In case you were worried you'd ever get a good night's sleep again, here are some stuffed animals that go way beyond wrong.

Read more...

    


01 May 14:19

IBM makes stop-motion film using atoms as pixels

by WIRED UK
IBM Research

IBM has made a stop-motion filmA Boy and His Atom—using individual molecules as pixels, in what Guinness has acknowledged is the world's smallest movie.

The movie's plot line depicts a character called Atom who befriends a single atom and goes on a "playful journey." This journey involves dancing, jumping on a trampoline, and playing catch. It's unlikely to win any Oscars, but that's not really the point; it's designed to get people inspired about science.

IBM moved the molecules using two of its own scanning tunnelling microscopes. It's a huge machine that weighs two tons, operates at minus 268 degrees Celsius and magnifies atoms—placed on a copper surface—by 100 million times. The machine moved around 5,000 carbon monoxide molecules to create the movie. Each time the molecules were arranged in the right way, the IBM team rendered a still image to create each of the 242 frames. In those frames, you can only see one atom or pixel because you look at it from above. It took roughly 10 days of 18-hour shifts to get each frame right.

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

26 Apr 20:39

The last words of murderer Richard Cobb

by Rob Beschizza
"Wow, that is great, that is awesome."
    


12 Apr 13:32

The Guardian, a spooky free flash game

by Rob Beschizza
Nicole Brauer's The Guardian is a dreamlike adventure about a boy with a girl's name who feels compelled to leave the village where he is shunned. I love both the Shadow of The Colossus-inspired design and the fact that your sprite is a single pixel seen from afar—like my own TinyHack, but backed by beautiful artwork and effective storytelling. Kevin McLeod's ominous music ties the mood together.
    


12 Apr 13:31

Noted

by Greg Ross

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:TurdusCrossleyiKeulemans.jpg

Letter to the Times, June 15, 1962:

Sir,

All thrushes (not only those in this neck of the Glyndebourne woods) sooner or later sing the tune of the first subject of Mozart’s G minor Symphony (K. 550) — and, what’s more, phrase it a sight better than most conductors. The tempo is always dead right and there is no suggestion of an unauthorized accent on the ninth note of the phrase.

Yours, &c.,

Spike Hughes

See Bird Songs.

09 Apr 13:26

How the global hyper-rich have turned central London into a lights-out ghost-town

by Cory Doctorow

In an excellent NYT story, Sarah Lyall reports on "lights-out London" -- the phenomenon whereby ultra-wealthy foreigners (often from corrupt plutocracies like Kazakhstan and Russia) are buying up whole neighbourhoods in London, driving up house-prices beyond the reach of locals, and then treating their houses as holiday homes. They stay for a couple weeks once or twice a year, leaving whole neighbourhoods vacant and shuttered through most of the year, which kills the local businesses and turns central London into something of a ghost town.

“Some of the richest people in the world are buying property here as an investment,” [Paul Dimoldenberg, leader of the Labour opposition in Westminster Council] said. “They may live here for a fortnight in the summer, but for the rest of the year they’re contributing nothing to the local economy. The specter of new buildings where there are no lights on is a real problem...”

Meanwhile, prices are rising beyond expectation. For single-family housing in the prime areas of London, British buyers spend an average of $2.25 million, Ms. Barnes said, while foreign buyers spend an average of $3.75 million, which increases to $7.5 million if they are from Russia or the Middle East...

The most visible, and also the most notorious, of the new developments is One Hyde Park, a $1.7 billion apartment building of stratospheric opulence on a prime corner in Knightsbridge, near Harvey Nichols, the park and the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, which functions as a 24-hour concierge service for residents. Apartments there have been purchased mostly by foreign buyers who hide their identities behind murky offshore companies registered to tax havens like the Isle of Man and the Cayman Islands.

It is rare to see anyone coming to or going from the complex, and British newspapers have been trying since it opened two years ago to discover who lives there. Vanity Fair reported recently that as far as it could discern after a long trawl through records, the owners seem to include a cast of characters who might have come from a poker game in a James Bond movie: a Russian property magnate, a Nigerian telecommunications tycoon, the richest man in Ukraine, a Kazakh copper billionaire, someone who may or may not be a Kazkh singer and the head of finance for the emirate of Sharjah.

A Slice of London So Exclusive Even the Owners Are Visitors [NYT/Sarah Lyall]

(via Beyond the Beyond)

    


04 Apr 14:24

We would pay good money for just one episode of Adventurama

by Meredith Woerner

Spencer Duffy's Futurama and Adventure Time mashup art has galloped straight into our hearts. Look at Leela's giant purple eye, baby Dr. Zoidberg -- it's all too perfect. Can the brilliant minds behind both shows meet up one night for just a fleeting moment of hot animation love? We would seriously enjoy an Adventurama love child.

Read more...



04 Apr 14:20

The Bizarre Case of the Stratospheric Skyfish

by Esther Inglis-Arkell

Skyfish, also known as solar entities or rods, are well-known cryptids. If you point your camera in just the right direction at sunset, you just might catch one on film. Where do these mysterious creatures come from?

Read more...



04 Apr 14:18

Gas masks for babies, 1940

by Cory Doctorow


From the Imperial War Museum in London, a couple of incredible photos of nurses testing out infant gas-masks: "Three nurses carry babies cocooned in baby gas respirators down the corridor of a London hospital during a gas drill. Note the carrying handle on the respirator used to carry the baby by the nurse in the foreground."

GAS DRILL AT A LONDON HOSPITAL: GAS MASKS FOR BABIES ARE TESTED, ENGLAND, 1940 (via Kadrey)

04 Apr 14:11

Oh this? Nothing. Just the 3D-printed skeleton of a living, breathing animal.

by Robert T. Gonzalez

This is what you get when you take data from a CT scan and convert it into a format that can be read by a 3D-printer. It's a skeleton. But not just any skeleton. The 3D model you see here was printed while the rat whose bones it's based on was still alive. Intact. Still wrapped in muscle, skin and fur.

Read more...



04 Apr 14:09

No. Words.

by Charlie Stross

Iain Banks diagnosed with cancer. (Stage IV, inoperable, months to live.)

I first met Iain about 25 years ago. I am not only an unabashed fan; I consider him an object of emulation, one of the celestial lights I steer my own course by. He's also a very nice guy when you get to know him, if a little bit difficult to buy a pint for. This news has me about as personally upset as you might expect. Cancer: just fuck off, OK?

04 Apr 14:08

Specialists

by Greg Ross
pemdasi

Papabile is a good word

In 1970 Dmitri Borgmann and Dwight Ripley compiled a list of “missing words” — foreign words with complex or interesting meanings that have no counterparts in English. I can’t immediately confirm most of these, but they’d certainly be useful words:

DENTERA (Spanish): a setting of the teeth on edge
PAPABILE (Italian): having some chance of becoming Pope
PIECDZIESIECIORUBLOWY (Polish): costing fifty rubles
PREDSVATEBNY (Czech): taking place on the eve of a wedding
KWELDER (Dutch): land on the outside of a dike
EZERNYOLCSZAZNEGYVENNYOLCBAN (Hungarian): in 1848
PASAULVESTURISKS (Lettish): of worldwide significance
MIHRAP (Turkish): a woman still beautiful though no longer young
UBAC (Provençal): the sunless north side of a mountain
HARFENDAZ (Turkish): one who makes insulting remarks to women in the street
PENCELESMEK (Turkish): to lock fingers with another and have a test of strength
MEZABRALIS (Lettish): a revolutionary hiding in a forest
MATAO (Brazilian Portuguese): a jockey who crowds the others against the fence
NEMIMI (Japanese): the ears of one sleeping
YOKOTOJI (Japanese): bound so as to be broader than long — said of a book
TOADEIRA (Portuguese): a harpooned whale that continues to sound

In 2006 the Goethe Institute held a competition to find German words that deserve a place in English. The winner was Fachidiot, literally “subject idiot,” a scholar blinkered by long study: “A one-track specialist still notices what is going on around him in the world which has nothing to do with university. A Fachidiot simply does not, or not anymore.” Runners-up included Backpfeifengesicht, “a face which invites you to slap it”; Kummerspeck (literally, “grief bacon”), “excessive weight gain caused by emotion-related overeating”; and Torschlusspanik (“gate closing panic”), the fear that time is running out to act.

English has some show horses of its own: to groak is to gaze longingly at one who is eating, and a ucalegon is a neighbor whose house is on fire.

(Dmitri Borgmann, “Missing Words,” Word Ways 3:1, February 1970.)

03 Apr 15:09

Adafruit debuts "Circuit Playground" -- a kids' puppet show about electronics

by Cory Doctorow

I've written before about Adafruit's "Circuit Playground," a kids' puppet show about electronics (with accompanying coloring book and plushies!). The first episode, "A is for Ampere," just went live and it's a smashing history and explanation of the ampere and the electron.

Circuit Playground “A is for Ampere” – Episode 1

03 Apr 13:53

Iain Banks Diagnosed With Terminal Cancer

by John DeNardo
pemdasi

:(

The sad news broke today that Iain M. Banks, author of the Culture space opera novels, has late stage gall bladder cancer. The prognosis is not good, and Ian thinks it’s “extremely unlikely I’ll live beyond a year”.

Ian goes on to state that he is withdrawing from public engagements and his latest novel, The Quarry, will be his last.

Our best wishes go out to Iain and his family.

For more info, see Ian’s personal statement

[via Fred Kiesche]

Related posts:

  1. Transition by Iain M. Banks Free on iTunes
  2. Science Fiction Series Spotlight: The Culture Series by Iain M. Banks
  3. Iain M. Banks’ Culture (Finally) Heads to the Big Screen
01 Apr 14:41

Sunday Cinema: Lovecraft – Fear of the Unknown

by John DeNardo


Here’s an in-depth documentary on H.P. Lovecraft, featuring John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon, Caitlin Kiernan, Peter Straub and more…

H.P. Lovecraft was the forefather of modern horror fiction. What lead an Old World, xenophobic gentleman to create one of literature’s most far-reaching mythologies? What attracts even the minds of the 21st century to these stories of unspeakable abominations and cosmic gods? This release is a chronicle of the life, work, and mind that created these weird tales as told by many of today’s luminaries of dark fantasy including John Carpenter, Guillermo Del Toro, Neil Gaiman, Stuart Gordon, Caitlin Kiernan, and Peter Straub. Extras include 90 minutes of extended interviews, stills galleries of Lovecraftian art, “”Making of the Music”" featurette, trailer, and coming attractions.

Related posts:

  1. Sunday Cinema: Lovecraft Documentary ‘Fear of the Unknown’ (2008)
  2. Sunday Cinema: X The Unknown (1956)
  3. Sunday Cinema: The Thing from Another World (1951)
27 Mar 13:13

USPS Discriminates Against 'Atheist' Merchandise

by Soulskill
fish waffle writes "Suspecting that their strongly branded 'Atheist' products may be treated differently by more religiously-oriented postal regions, Kickstarter success Atheist Shoes conducted an experiment. They sent 178 packages to 89 people in different parts of the U.S., each person receiving one package prominently branded as 'Atheist' merchandise, and one not. The results: packages with the atheist label were nearly 10 times more likely to be 'lost,' and took on average 3 days longer to show up when they did. Control experiments were also done in Europe and Germany — it's definitely a USPS problem."

Share on Google+

Read more of this story at Slashdot.



26 Mar 21:28

Upcoming: ESP & Psi Phenomena

Air Date: Tue, 26 Mar 2013

Dr. Diane Hennacy Powell will discuss her work breaking down the prejudice in mainstream science against the exploration of paranormal and ESP phenomena, as well as her recent work with the tremendous gifts of autistic savants.

First Hour: Numerologist Glynis McCants will discuss Pope Francis' personal numerology verses Pope Benedict's, and what kind of differences we can expect to see as this new Pope moves forward.