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.
Ixil witnesses inside the courtroom, Tue. Apr. 30, 2013. At center, Maria Sajiq of Nebaj, Quiché, Guatemala. Ms. Sajiq was among the survivors Miles O'Brien and I interviewed in Nebaj recently, for a forthcoming PBS NewsHour report. (Photo: Xeni Jardin)
I am blogging from inside the Supreme Court of Guatemala, where Judge Jazmin Barrios has just re-started the genocide trial of Efrain Rios Montt and Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez after a two-week suspension, during which a series of obscure legal battles took place.
"How do you upchuck if there is no up or down? ISS commander Chris Hadfield explains what astronauts do if they have to vomit." More information on this very important skill for space travelers here.
Just what you always needed, but did not know until it existed, and it exists now: "A super detailed T-Rex eating fried chicken leg," which is available in dark oxidized silver or gold brass and sterling silver. Endorsed by Zach Galifianakis. Has crystal eyes (the ring, not Mr. Galifianakis). A hundred bucks. [verameat.com via @llaurappark]
A brief update on the trial of former US-backed military dictator José Efrain Rios Montt and his then chief of intelligence Jose Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez: word here in Guatemala is that the trial will re-open tomorrow in Judge Jazmin Barrios' courtroom. I will be present, continuing to blog the historic trial for Boing Boing. NISGUA has this update on the past week's legal wranglings that led up to today's news the trial will restart. — Xeni
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Ann Friedman writes, "In my ongoing quest for the perfect framework for understanding haters, I created The Disapproval Matrix." With Ann's helpful diagram, one can more easily "separate haterade from productive feedback." [annfriedman.com]
Ellen Nakashima in the Washington Post: "A government task force is preparing legislation that would pressure companies such as Facebook and Google to enable law enforcement officials to intercept online communications as they occur, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with the effort." Companies that fail to obey wiretap orders would be penalized. — Xeni
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Seems legit: "For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency." Tens of millions of American taxpayers' dollars, off the books, referred to by those who received it as "ghost money." [NYTimes.com] — Xeni
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The administration of former president Felipe Calderon had granted high-flying U.S. spy planes access to Mexican airspace for the purpose of gathering intelligence. Unarmed Customs and Border Protection drones had flown from bases in the United States in support of Mexican military and federal police raids against drug targets and to track movements that would establish suspects’ “patterns of life.” The United States had also provided electronic signals technology, ground sensors, voice-recognition gear, cellphone-tracking devices, data analysis tools, computer hacking kits and airborne cameras that could read license plates from three miles away.
One of the most gorgeous sights we have been privileged to see at Saturn, as the arrival of spring to the northern hemisphere has peeled away the darkness of winter, has been the enormous swirling vortex capping its north pole and ringed by Saturn's famed hexagonal jet stream.
Today, the Cassini Imaging Team is proud to present to you a set of special views of this phenomenal structure, including a carefully prepared movie showing its circumpolar winds that clock at 330 miles per hour, and false color images that are at once spectacular and informative.
"After considerable speculation since Record Store Day, we can reveal that the new album by Boards of Canada, "Tomorrow’s Harvest," will be released on Tuesday June 11th in North America on Warp Records."
• Bruce Sterling on the role of startups in helping the rich get richer
• Video about Judith, the strange pregnant "barbie doll" from 1992
• A new retrofuturist short from Popper and Serafinowicz
• Which is more painful? Childbirth vs. Getting kicked in the nuts
• Marijuana reporter accidentally gets high on marijuana
• Baboons raise pet dogs
• Russian paratroopers deploy inflatable Orthodox church
Just what you always needed, but did not know until it existed, and it exists now: "
