By Joel Johnson at 11:27 am Tuesday, Dec 16
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Last week Boing Boing
was invited along with a small group of political bloggers and analysts to a sit-down Q&A with departing Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff. I had a chance to ask Secretary Chertoff a few questions about the TSA screening process. (Although had I more time, there would have been plenty of other questions I would have loved to ask, such as why U.S. Customs confiscates laptops; more on that in another post.)
While I will be posting the complete transcript of the interview with everyone's questions (along with the audio recording if anyone is interested), I've excerpted the discussion about the TSA with questions from me and Security Catalyst's Michael Santarcangelo. I've edited the transcript slightly for clarity.
"
Joel Johnson: What's the number of direct terrorist actions that have been interfered with by TSA screening?"
Michael Chertoff interview [BBG]
By Joel Johnson at 11:44 am Wednesday, Dec 10
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Hey, folks. I'm getting ready to head into Manhattan to get ready for
Fünde Razor, our yearly fund raising event for the
Child's Play Charity. If you like to drink beer, play
Guitar Hero and
Rock Band, and win prizes to raise money to keep kids entertained when they're at hospital, please stop on by.
Unless you hate children/to rock.
And it's not just New York: there are sister events happening in Denver and San Francisco. But if you can make it to the New York event (now in our fourth year!) please come say and tell me hello! And as always, if you can't make it,
you should toss a few bucks in the box for the kids.
Times, locations, information, and more (not that much more, really) [FundeRazor.com]
By Joel Johnson at 12:26 pm Thursday, Dec 4
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A few years ago I held an event each year to raise money for the
Child's Play Charity that puts videogames into the hands of kids staying at children's hospitals. We called it, in proper rock style,
Fünde Razor. We're now in our fourth year, and thanks to help from friends in the industry —
Kotaku,
Game|Life,
Rock Gamer,
Gizmodo, not to mention tons of game and gadget manufacturers — we've raised thousands of dollars that we give over in its entirety to Child's Play. We've even moved beyond our original New York event to add a Denver and San Francisco event, all next Wednesday evening. (Location and times over on
FundeRazor.com. [There's a similar event on Tuesday in
Chicago.])
Prizes will vary a little bit from event to event (a lot of what we bring in are review items and such that all we bloggers have in our closets) but here's a partial list of what you can expect to win in the raffle or as door prizes at all three cities' events.
It really is a blast. If you make it to the NYC event, come tell me hi! And if you can't make it out to any of the nights (or even if you can), please consider
donating to Child's Play anyway. They're amazing.
All the prizes that you could maybe possible win but if not you can still drink beer and play Rock Band [Offworld!]
By Joel Johnson at 10:17 am Wednesday, Dec 3
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Raph Koster's
Metaplace is offering the first 250
Offworld readers a chance to play around with the company's web-embeddable virtual meta-world.
Brandon has more:
Metaplace is also jumping ahead of the pack in modeling the software's Terms of Service around his 2000 manifesto “Declaring the Rights of Players", which gives creators "freedom of expression, ownership, including earning money & running their own world, privacy," and the ability to develop their own individual terms of service. Users, too, get "freedom of speech & assembly, privacy, rule of 'law' and due process," and full ownership of their own IP.
Bop over and get your invite key. You'll never guess what it is. (Translation: You probably will.)
Only on Offworld: Be one of the first to join virtual world Metaplace [Offworld]
By Joel Johnson at 4:39 am Monday, Nov 24
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Above is a picture of the hand-blown recreation of the LSD molecule that I received for making a donation to the Erowid Center, the non-profit 501(c)(3) organization behind
Erowid.org. Erowid has been a measured, sane repository for chemical and counterculture information online for twelve years and relies on donations to continue its operation.
Nearly anyone who has looked up drug and entheogenic plant information online has stumbled across — and subsequently been edified by — Erowid. For a subject as politically and personally charged as ingesting chemicals, Erowid remains one of the few rational sources of real-world experience reports, safety warnings, and advocacy of safe but individually accountable drug use available online or elsewhere.
If you're like me, your recreational and experimental drug use has tailed off over the years, but even so, I still use the site as a reference and source of entertainment. (I probably shouldn't laugh, but some of the negative experience reports can be hilarious. Hang on, lil' cowboy!) Moreover, "check out Erowid" is the first advice I offer to a young head. Kids are going to experiment — better they get unbiased information about the risks and rewards of their drug use than rely exclusively on well-meaning but often ignorant peers.
I am proud to give Erowid my money. Throw 'em a buck!
Art Glass Molecules incentives [Erowid.org]
By Joel Johnson at 3:03 am Wednesday, Oct 15
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My friend Josh Rubin has gone from
hunting cool things to making them: he's launched a new set of gloves called the "Freehands" with flip-back fingers that make it possible to use your gadgets without taking off your gloves. Magnets in the fingertips match to others above the knuckles to keep the fingertips back out of the way.
This may seem a bit superfluous to those of you who drive cars to work, but for city folk it solves a common problem. It's a pain in the ass to have to strip off your gloves and hold them in your teeth or pocket just to dial a phone number or change a song.
There are three different versions: a leather set for $40; a stretchy nylon and micro-fleece set for $30; and a basic fleece pair for $20.
Freehands gadget gloves product page [Freehands.com]
By Joel Johnson at 3:37 pm Tuesday, Aug 12
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Today on
Boing Boing Gadgets we discovered Toastabags, designed to make
grilled cheese in the toaster; a handy
online calculator to help you determine your roof's solar energy harvesting potential; a clip-together
lamp that looks like a T-Rex; a strappy underwater case for your
iPhone or other MP3 players; Yet Another Netbook, the
ECS G10IL; an iPhone/Touch dock that
flips on its side for movie watching; a
Corona typewriter bent into a waffle iron; and Lenovo's garguantuan W700 laptop that includes not only a quad-core processor but a
built-in Wacom tablet. It gives me the vapors.
Then, bastards:
states wanting to tax digital downloads; donating to the EFF as an
AT&T sin tax; Apple's refusal to
refund App Store purchases/a> that they kill.
The Olympics were pirated heavily. Two industrial robots were locked in a
pantomimed melee. Bell Canada got a
new logo. (It's nice.) Someone
hides a flat-panel TV behind a two-way mirror. (Also nice!)
Lifehacker's Adam Pash explains how easy it is to
set up a multiroom music system using Apple gear. Someone invented a device that
blocks the C-word. (Well, not really.) A forest-clearing
stimpank tank
carved spokes in the Tunguska impact.
Deals were sorted.
And most of all,
Stephan Hawking was memorialized on black velvet.
By Joel Johnson at 4:53 pm Thursday, Jul 17
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Today on
Boing Boing Gadgets we saw these
good-lookin' helmets from Jérôme Coste (which sadly do not include a face mask); an austere
camper made from a Unimog; tape that makes
perfect garden rows more simple; a
Bioshock Big Daddy from scrap metal; the clever hacks of
German prisoners; a
single drawer which no one else thought was handy but me, apparently; a
pocket watch with a gun inside; and a
robot that was not a robot.
We got a little preoccupied with videogaming, as is our wont:
EA harshing on the iPhone's accelerometer hardware (they're wrong, in my opinion); Sony claiming the
PSP is dying because of piracy (here comes the PSPhone!); and a
Wired blogger got a little too presumptuous in his
Fallout 3 preview for some, although I think he's getting hung out to dry a bit.
John took umbrage with the claim that
the mouse is dying and noticed that
quad-core laptop chips are coming. Rob noted that
a judge isn't having ATI and Nvidia's nonsense about trade secrets and that
French women like to use their phones in the bath.
The
Japanese did something weird/awesome. (Surprise!) That
ripped cord flash drive is now for sale. The saga of an
iPhone clone maker continues to be full of pathos.
Nerds attacked. Someone put a
USB hub in a VHS tape. And I — oh I — I
dealed everything that you want me to. Ooh ooh.
By Joel Johnson at 3:12 pm Friday, Jun 27
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Today on
Boing Boing Gadgets — a site which we suspect you'll enjoy reading even if you often find gadgets tire- and irksome (so do we!) — we spotted these top-notch
crank-powered greeting cards from Hallmark, of all people; hacked
sunglasses that block CCTV cameras; a book about
making LEGO weapons; a
human-powered party bike, complete with lights and sound system; and the
Venture Bros. era-appropriate love of
fancy chairs.
A team of Israeli art students made a
wooden coffee grinder shaped like a cuddly tumor; a crappy newspaper made a
crime spree by stupid kids the fault of
Grand Theft Auto; ICANN unveiled a new plan for top level domains, putting me only $100k away from owning
http://cluster.fuck.
Rob documented
BBG's
first word coinage; John exposed a
traumatic misunderstanding of the nature of lumberjack hibernation; I got off my ass and started
rounding up deals again.
One of Pixar's own
made a cute Wall•E in LEGO. (And I'm going to see it tonight. I'm pumped!) AT&T may actually be
adding MMS to iPhone, which for the first time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple. Nokia released some
new phones, which for the second time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple.
Then there were the
sexy stormtrooper boots, our enthusiasm over which only slighted muted by the acknowledgement that every stormtrooper was a clone, then brought back into vibrant excitement when reader Rob Cockerham invented the term "Fett footish."
There was a
Steampunk sonic rifle. Despite indications to the contrary, use of the term did not cause the internet to implode. Yet.
Helio, a company that thought it could build a business by buying expensive phones and selling them to poor teens has — surprisingly — been
sold for scrap. Perhaps they'd have been better selling
buckets for making dogsicles.
Once again, someone made a
dot-matrix toaster, but only
in their mind. (Hey, MAKE:RS! You can do this!)
World of Warcraft added a
real-world security dongle to protect you from gold farmers stealing your account. Yahoo hiked domain prices in a
fairly scummy manner.
And someone made a
lamp from dishes which looks an awful like the stuff I used to make on the lathe when I was sequestered in wood shop for seventh-grade homeroom.
By Joel Johnson at 1:47 am Wednesday, Jun 25
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Yesterday on
Boing Boing Gadgets...
Danger! Excitement! An
SD Card that turns into a USB dongle! An
LED Chess Set!
Rocketmen! Nazis!
The Phantom Lapboard! An artifact of awesome power that
reduces noise on your PC... but only if you have faith! A futuristic city
made of dreams!
Babes! Floozies! Electric women on drugs
bouncing around their immoral soirees, listening to
LEGO synths played by devil DJs.
Passion! Drama! Romance!
Caulk Singles!
Monsters! Griphons! Starving, vicious
Snow Leopards! Cell-phone touting
monkeys, "aping" presidential candidates!
War! Carnage! Bloodshed! A
more defensible unimog! A toaster that can
blow your brains out!
And
video games!
What will happen in our next exciting installment? Stay tuned!
Link
By Joel Johnson at 12:19 pm Monday, Jun 23
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Today at
Boing Boing Gadgets, we looked at a magic dongle that promised to boost a
cellphone signal and a
phone that looks like a Lamborghini. An absurd
hooded scooter was examined, and oh! how we laughed and laughed and laughed at the
Amazon.com Denon cable reviews.
Beschizza got incensed about Atari
suing a website that had published a review of a game without their permission, then had a three hour angry nap on a pair of
Dig Dug pillows, cramming
pig-shaped ear buds in his aural cavities and playing whale songs to soothe his spirit.
Meanwhile, we read a
UMPC manifesto and looked at some
zany retro-futuristic products of yesteryear. A
decapitated Gene Simmons head made Brownlee want to french kiss, before he was distracted by
torture porn for bicycles. He also learned how to love through the conduit of a
USB Killbot thumb drive.
There was a
KITT GPS Unit. There were sketchy
Mac clones. An artificial twister
promised energy to the future. A tiny little computer
promised every grandma web browsing. We wondered about the ramifications of
leaving our Wi-Fi open. We looked at a touchscreen
dredged up from the primordial goop of the 80's.
And we all thought
this Ultraman statue was pretty groovy.
Link
By Joel Johnson at 1:48 pm Friday, Jun 20
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Today at
Boing Boing Gadgets, Joel wished he was part of
the greatest NERF office war in history, and Brownlee wtfed over a Texas Instruments ad featuring
an evil floating elephant and a girl with her head exploding, while Rob got pissed about a
psychic accusing an autitstic girl's parents of child abuse... and how they only cleared their name because of a GPS recording gadget.
We also looked at a
scale for professional bodybuilders and this year's
Tokyo Toy Show. Joel slummed inside the insidious bowels of some
Chinese gadget sweatshops, scheduled a voyage on
the world's largest cruise liner and looked at some
faux skylights capable of programmable lighting. John looked at a
gorgeous $400k watch, a
geiger counter case mod and a
piggy bank with a built-in RPG. Rob lusted after a
prosthetic foot, then locked himself inside a
robot vault.
And we couldn't end the week without flipping the double deuce at the
pissloafers who convinced Congress to give carte blanche to the government spying on us. Good one, jackwads.
Link
By Joel Johnson at 7:58 am Friday, Jun 13
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We'll be talking with Brendan at 11 Eastern in #boingboing. Click
here to join the conversation or join #boingboing on chat.freenode.net in your client of choice.
We'll post the transcript here after we're done.
Update: Edited transcript after the jump.
Read the rest
By Joel Johnson at 7:11 pm Thursday, Jun 12
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Brendan I. Koerner, author of "
Now the Hell Will Start," will be joining us in the #boingboing IRC channel tomorrow at 11AM Eastern time to discuss his book and the story of Herman Perry.
We'll put up a post about an hour before we get cooking tomorrow reminding you of how to access IRC. Here's the
details about connecting to the chat. There's a web-based Java client if you don't want to fire up a whole separate IRC client, but you won't be able to private message without registering your nickname on Freenode.
Start thinking up those questions and we hope to see you there!
Previously •
Review: "Now the Hell Will Start" by Brendan I. Koerner
"How can you be serious?" Not by wearing this T-shirt! The classic Mark Pawson T-shirt, updated for 2012.