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Turns Out You Actually Can Be Bored To Death
A study conducted by researchers at University College London shows that boredom can kill you. The researchers found that people who reported feeling a great deal of boredom were 37 per cent more likely to have died by the end of the study. Martin Shipley, who co-wrote the report said, "The findings on heart disease show there was sufficient evidence to say there is a link with boredom."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
US soldier waterboards his 4-year-old daughter for not reciting alphabet
Joshua Tabor, a 27-year-old Army sergeant who served in Iraq for 15 months, was restricted to his Washington state military base after being accused of waterboarding his 4-year-old daughter because she refused to recite her ABCs. (via Andrew Sullivan)
Categories: Other
Tech can be romantic: ask Ryan and Veronica
This is the first time I thought a Q&A about IM, press events, and World of Warcraft was really romantic: read Geeksugar's pre-V-day interview with tech journalists Ryan Block and Veronica Belmont.
Categories: Other
Cacti 0.8 Network Monitoring
GJdeBoer writes "The book is aimed at people who are managing a network and would like to get insight into the performance of that network. It covers the installation and configuration of the Cacti application. In the preface the book states that it's not necessary to be a Linux Guru to use the book and that exactly is the case. The book builds up your knowledge about Cacti and the necessary steps to configure it for your network, and it teaches you about Net-SNMP and RRDTool, the building blocks of Cacti." Read on for the rest of GJdeBoer's review.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
Donate your old yoga mat to Haiti
This sign, spotted by James Fallows of the Atlantic in the Marina district of San Francisco, reminds me of that scene in Clueless where Alicia Silverstone donates her skis to the Pismo Beach Disaster.
(via @1bobcohn)
Categories: Other
BirdBox turns iPhone into nesting-box cuckoo alarm clock
Emma says: BirdBox is a physical bird box that turns an iPhone or iPod Touch into a nesting-box cuckoo alarm clock. Touching the clock face reveals the interior of the birdbox, whilst the alarm gently wakens you with the soundand sight of the nesting birds.
The BirdBox app is free and is on the App Store, whilst Birdboxes are for sale.
BirdBox Alarm Clock
Categories: Other
Challenger space shuttle disaster amateur video discovered after 24 years
On January 28, 1986 a retired optometrist named Jack Moss captured the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster on his Betamax camcorder. He never showed it to anyone, but told his pastor, Marc Wessels, about it shortly before he died from cancer in December. Wessels, who is also the executive director of the Space Exploration Archive, found the tape and added it to the Archive. It is believed to be the only amateur film in existence of the world's worst space disaster, recorded in an era before mobile phone cameras, when even home camcorders were rare.
... "It took a while to find someone with an old Betamax video player, [said Wessels] then I had to watch four hours of gameshows and sitcoms from the 1980s, but when I found the Challenger film my reaction was that people really have to see this."
Challenger space shuttle disaster amateur video discovered after 24 years
Categories: Other
What Are the Best Valentine's Day Stunts?
With the oh-so-dreaded Hallmark holiday on the horizon we are flooded with tips and tricks (mostly designed to sell us things our mates cannot live without) of how to please/capture/sedate the ones we care for. One writer even suggests ways to capture the interest of a geeky girl. That said, what are some of the crazier romantically inspired, geeky V-day stunts or activities that you or someone you know has executed to terrible success or failure?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
SourceForge Removes Blanket Blocking
Recently there was much gnashing of teeth as SourceForge (who shares a corporate overlord with Slashdot) started programmatically blocking users in certain countries to comply with US export restrictions. Thankfully they didn't let it end there and have found a way to put the power back in the hands of the users. "Beginning now, every project admin can click on Develop -> Project Admin -> Project Settings to find a new section called Export Control. By default, we've ticked the more restrictive setting. If you conclude that your project is *not* subject to export regulations, or any other related prohibitions, you may now tick the other check mark and click Update. After that, all users will be able to download your project files as they did before last month's change."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
Nexus One First Phone Linus Torvalds "Doesn't Hate"
SpuriousLogic writes "Linus Torvalds, the inventor of the Linux kernel, has an absolute disdain for mobile phones. All of the ones he has purchased in the past, the man writes on his personal blog, ended up being 'mostly used for playing Galaga and Solitaire on long flights' even though they were naturally all phones run on open source operating systems. Things have changed now, he adds, now that he has caved and bought Google's Nexus One a couple of days ago."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
BookBook
As case classification goes, the BookBook, offered in black and red for 13" and 15" laptops, would fit in the 'hardback leather' category. But where, pray tell, does it go under Dewey? An iPad edition is planned, too. Wouldn't a real book, cut hollow and appropriately modified, do the trick for less than the $80 price? [TwelveSouth] Categories: Other
Sensored: podcast short story about ubiquitous computing
I've just posted a new short-short story to my podcast: "Sensored" was commissioned by the UK Open University's computer science department for use in My digital life (TU100), its ubiquitous computing course. It's licensed Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. I'm pleased with how it worked out, and I'm honoured to be a Visiting Senior Lecturer in the OU's comp sci department.
Podcast feed Previously:
- Bruce Sterling speech at Ubicomp - video - Boing Boing
- Gershenfeld pulls down the pants of ubicomp - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: Sterling on Ubiquitous Computing and the canard of ...
- Notes from "Roboflies, Flexonics, and the Social Life of Smart ...
- Boing Boing: Ethics and RFIDs - video of Adam "Everyware" Greenfield
- Camera glasses on sale -- goodbye, photography bans Boing Boing
Categories: Other
Zero-Day Vulnerabilities On the Market
An anonymous reader writes "Zero-day vulnerabilities have become prized possessions to attackers and defenders alike. As the recent China-Google attack demonstrated, they are the basis on which most of the successful attacks are crafted these days. There is an underground market growing around these vulnerabilities, but there are also 'white markets' — set up by VeriSign, TippingPoint, Google — where they buy zero-day flaws and alert the companies so that they can patch their products before the vulnerabilities can be taken advantage of."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
Mozilla Puts Tiger Out to Pasture
Barence writes "Mozilla is ready to exorcise support for Mac OS X 10.4 from Firefox's development code, closing the door on Apple's aging OS. The foundation stopped supporting 10.4, codenamed Tiger, in September 2009, but, according to Josh Aas, a Mozilla platform engineer, "we left much of the code required to support that platform in the tree in case we wanted to reverse that decision." We had come to a point where we need to make a final decision and either restore 10.4 support or remove this (large) amount of 10.4 specific code," he notes on the Mozilla developer planning forum."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
Jon Stewart and Bill O'Reilly: the unedited interview
Here's the entire video of Jon Stewart's Fox interview with Bill O'Reilly. I know I'm biased, but I think that Stewart comes across as smart, funny and substantive and O'Reilly comes across as a defensive, deluded nut.
Man, it's good to see Jon Stewart again. It's been a year or so since Comedy Central started blocking Daily Show clips from the UK, where I live -- I know I could just use a proxy to get at them, but I'm always racing the clock and there's always something else that I can watch without messing around, and I somehow never get around to it. But I missed Jon.
Entire Jon Stewart Interview (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Previously:
- Boing Boing: Jon Stewart's Crossfire appearance on bittorrent
- Jon Stewart clips galore - Boing Boing
- Jon Stewart on CSPAN - Boing Boing
- Jon Stewart on US torturers - Boing Boing
- White-collar crime pays: Jon Stewart - Boing Boing
- Audioclips of Bill O'Reilly reading his bad porno novel - Boing Boing
- Bill O'Reilly discovers Super Mario -- Offworld - Boing Boing
- Bill O'Reilly's alleged falafel fetish now has a name - Boing Boing
- Bill O'Reilly Hollywood Goatse Moment - Boing Boing
- Billy O'Reilly meltdown dance mix video - Boing Boing
- Bill O'Reilly trying to bury his Fresh Air interview - Boing Boing
- Boing Boing: Talk Like Bill O'Reilly Day -- Shut up!
Categories: Other
Cutest Japanese stopmotion crocheted beachside critter ukelele video ever
Mark usually has Boing Boing's ukelele beat covered, and Lisa's our go-to Japan expert. But neither of those guys are blogging today, so here goes. U900, "Diamond Head" Japanese Ukulele Duo! Features a crocheted bear and a bunny on a beach, and is the very definition of kawaii. They has a myspace, too. (thanks, Susannah Breslin!)
Update: Mark previously blogged an earlier video from these cuties, "Walk, Don't Run."
Categories: Other
Pedobear: 2010 Vancouver Olympics mascot?
Hayyyyyy. How'd Pedobear get into the mascot lineup for the 2010 Vancouver Olympics in this highly esteemed Polish newspaper (hi-res scan JPEG)? Who cares! Buzzfeed article, and more here about the pedoshop disaster. Anything's possible on the internet, maybe the whole thing's a hoax, but it looks like this /b/eautiful art really did get published in Poland.
Update: More online news coverage indicates this really happened. LOL. And BB moderator Antinous points out that a sports blog in Spain did the same thing, even straightfacedly crediting the guy who altered the image as the artist behind the official mascot drawings. (via @veronica, @jpdef)
Previously:
Categories: Other
My own private... hydrogen power station?
For years, it's been called the fuel of the future. But I wasn't expecting THIS vision just yet.
Hydrogen fuel cell technology was first embraced a few years back by carmakers eager to go green. The big obstacle? Hydrogen at the pump wasn't available, and was expensive to produce.
But one inventor hope to change that.
Hubbing through Hong Kong, Taras Wankewycz showed me a table-top hydrogen power station that can extract hydrogen from water to be used in fuel cells.
The Hydrofill uses electricity from the outlet (as well as solar panels if you're particularly green), and produces hydrogen that can then be stored in refillable cartridges. The system can pump out 2.5 watts of power.
(And brushing Hindenburg nightmares aside, the company insists the technology is safe.)
No word yet on the cost. Online chatter puts it at about $200 for the whole kit, but Taras himself is mum on giving an exact number because he's still in talks with retailers. He expects to have it on shelves at the end of the year.
Taras' company, Singapore-based Horizon Fuel Cell Technologies, is also pushing out a range of products which can use the cartridges to power up smartphones, lights and other devices including a zippy RC hydrogen fuel cell car.
Taras is confident his invention is the very first step to a so-called hydrogen economy where hydrogen displaces oil as our chief source of energy.
One interesting upside -- hydrogen is a compact and relatively light source of power... which is why the US military has been developing hydrogen-powered drones.
Of course, the obvious big upside of hydrogen is that it's clean. Hydrogen fuel cells produce only water vapor as a by-product. But power is still needed to produce the stuff.
My own private... wind turbine? (Hat tip to Constance Cheng, my Eco Solutions producer.)
Categories: Other
Shuttle Endeavour Blasts Off For Space Station
Gwmaw writes "The space shuttle Endeavour bolted off its seaside launch pad on Monday on a voyage to install the last two main pieces of the International Space Station. The 4:14 a.m. EST (0914 GMT) blastoff from the Kennedy Space Center shattered the predawn tranquility with a deafening roar and a brilliant tower of flames that momentarily turned the dark Florida sky as bright as day." HD video of launch attached.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
Google Mystery Domain Reroutes 3% of Net Surfers
An anonymous reader writes "A new Google domain — 1e400.net, a nod to the company's famously misspelled name — is now the net's 44th most visited site. Google says the domain is used to 'identify servers' on its internal network, hinting that reverse DNS plays a role. The domain was registered in September and launched in October, about the same time Google unveiled Spanner, a new addition to its backend infrastructure designed to automatically shift loads between its data centers."
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Categories: Tech
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