Boing Boing editor/partner and tech culture journalist Xeni Jardin hosts and produces Boing Boing's in-flight TV channel on Virgin America airlines (#10 on the dial), and writes about living with breast cancer. Diagnosed in 2011. @xeni on Twitter. email: xeni@boingboing.net.
The tortilla printer, tentatively named the miMasa3000, is scheduled for a summer launch, with Molinero anticipating big Christmas sales in the fourth quarter. No price has been set for the product, but analysts think it will be a hit if it comes in under $200.
“Who doesn’t want hot fresh tortillas at a push of the button?” BoingBoing Mexitech reporter Zenia Jardinera told PNS. ”And Frida! It’s a guin guin situation!”
Photo via radio station Emisoras Unidas: "This Guatemalan was captured while doing risky work in Zona 1 of the capital." The commenters suggest that he may have been stealing some form of service, presumably phone or electric, but legit work by utility service workers also happens like this often in Guatemala, with no protection and no apparent regard for safety.
While I wasn't fast enough to take a photo, I did see something similar in the Ixil highlands region of Guatemala a few weeks ago, during my recent reporting trip. This dude climbed up to the top of a cell tower that must have been like 3 stories high. No wires. No ropes. No protective gear. Not even a helmet! You see stuff like that every day, and just shrug your shoulders and go, "Guatemala!"
That nationwide manhunt for a "John Doe" suspected child pornographer, featured here on Boing Boing earlier this week? It's over. They got the (alleged) bastard. About 24 hours after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) asked the public for help identifying a man who appeared in a series of videos documenting the sexual abuse of a 7-9yo girl, "John Doe" was arrested Wednesday afternoon on a tip called in to the ICE tip line. In the arrest notice, ICE didn't provide further details on the victim, but says she has "been rescued."
The FBI has launched an investigation into the beating death of a man by sheriff's deputies in Kern County, California. Two cellphones that contained video evidence at one point no longer contain the videos that show officers beating David Silva to death with batons on the head, "even after he was lying motionless on the ground." The deceased was 33, and a father of four. “Our credibility is at stake here,” said Kern County Sheriff Donny Youngblood “I have seen the video. I cannot speculate whether they acted approriately or not just by looking at the video.” More: Los Angeles Times. — Xeni
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Jose Efraín Ríos Montt, moments after being declared guilty of genocide and crimes against humanity in a Guatemala City court, May 10 2013. Photo: James Rodriguez.
• Xeni on NewsHour: Guatemala genocide trial aftermath.
• The amazed granddad, the restored portrait, and Reddit.
• You cannot light a candle with a taser
• It's a face! A skull! A mushroom! Psychedelic drawing lesson
• Self-assembling foldable inchworm robots
• Kool & The Gang's "Summer Madness" (1975)
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53 years of nuclear tests as electronic music
The New Yorker today launched ‘Strongbox,’ a whistleblower submission system designed to allow anonymous leakers to digitally transmit important information to journalists.
It’s too soon to declare victory in Guatemala, writes anthropologist Victoria Sanford in a New York Times op-ed today. "There is serious evidence that the current president, the former military commander Otto Pérez Molina, who took office in January 2012, may have been involved in the same mass killings for which General Ríos Montt has now been convicted." And, what's more: rumors circulating in Guatemala today that the Constitutional Court, the nation's highest legal body, may throw out the verdict. News is expected Wednesday mid-day Guatemala time. — Xeni
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Henri Cartier-Bresson believed that the photographer is like a hunter, going forth into the wild, armed with quick reflexes and a finely-honed eye, in search of that one moment that most distills the time before him. In this instant the photographer reacts, snatching truth from the timestream in the snare of his shutter. The Decisive Moment is Gestalt psychology married to reflexive performance art in the blink of a mechanical eye. It is the creation of art through the curation of time.
A bulletin released online today from the US department of Homeland Security solicits the public's help in tracking down a child pornography producer suspect [shown here] who is seen in a series of videos in which a 7-9 year old girl is repeatedly sexually assaulted. "He appears to have what is commonly referred to as a 'beer gut,'" the criminal complaint explains [PDF], and there's an interesting section involving the forensic implications of packaging for a container of pretzels that show up in the videos. — Xeni
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Josh Stearns of Free Press sends word that the journalism organization has just launched a citizen sign-on letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder and the US Department of Justice about the AP phone records scandal. "We'll deliver these to both the DOJ and Congress and call for an investigation," says Stearns. "We also have ideas about clear legal changes that could help address this in the future." Here's his blog post.
— Xeni
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Xeni live-blogging from the court in Guatemala City where Rios Montt was convicted of genocide and crimes against humanity in an historic trial. Photo: James Rodriguez, mimundo.org
Photo via 
That nationwide manhunt for a "John Doe" suspected child pornographer, 
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