Collector's Weekly looks at the history of attack-pinbacks in politics. As a little kid, I remember finding an "Impeach the Cox Sacker" pinback in my big brother's desk. I had no idea what it meant at the time, but it was fun to say aloud. — Read the rest
A gang of thieves in Istanbul, Turkey have reportedly been dressing like doctors and distributing sedatives door to door, telling residents the medicine was related to a test for high blood pressure. Once the victims dosed, the thieves would rob them. — Read the rest
Photo: Bathed in xenon lights, space shuttle Endeavour moves along the crawlerway from the Vehicle Assembly Building to Launch Pad 39A at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Riding atop a crawler-transporter attached to its external fuel tank and solid rocket boosters, Endeavour's last scheduled 3.4-mile trek to the pad, known as "rollout," took just less than eight hours. — Read the rest
In the 19th and 20th centuries, laryngologist Chevalier Jackson pioneered new methods to remove weird things that people swallowed, from safety pins, buttons, cigarette butts, and even a toy dog (seen here in the esophagus of the 3-year-old who gulped it down). — Read the rest
This SpaceX video unveiled today at a NASA press conference shows how commercial flight crew will take off, travel, and land in the company's Dragon spacecraft…. on a mission to Mars. Notable for details like, "escape engines for on-target propulsive landing will enable landing on any solid surface in the solar system," followed by a CGI dude high-fiving another CGI dude. — Read the rest
Jamie Boyle has a sad remembrance for Keith Aoki, the legal scholar and artist who co-wrote and illustrated Bound By Law, a brilliant "Understanding Comics"-style volume about copyright and documentary filmmaking. Keith, who taught at UC Davis, died at 55, leaving behind a family and a wide circle of friends and colleagues. — Read the rest
Chicago's Museum of Contemporary Art store sells this stainless steel cocktail shaker that comes disguised as a graffiti-writer's spraycan — $20 for non-members, $18 for members. I'm guessing that there's a good reason for the flared shape of a traditional shaker that you lose out on by opting for this, but it's still a great novelty for your rec-room bar, to be shelved next to the peeing boy liquor dispenser and the novelty Bols liqueur bottle with the waistcoat and the monocle. — Read the rest
Painters paint picture edges black on the roof of a studio at Dafen Oil Painting Village in Shenzhen, China, on April 26, 2011. Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee
Listen to anyone talk about schools today: classical education just can't keep up. In the digital generation's world of constant change, most schooling is profoundly boring. But what else is possible? Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown on games and education.
It took me a moment to figure out that the three women in this undated, black-and-white ad for a multifunction fridge/sink/stove for were all the same woman. My first thought was, "Jeez, those three roommates really need to learn to take turns using that tiny kitchen gadget or they're going to drive each other nuts and possibly set one another on fire." — Read the rest
ReadWriteHack'sBen Chun's ilearnedtoprogram.com shares brief accounts of why programmers learned their craft and art. A large number mention creative satisfaction (which is certainly why I started).
"by writing a BASIC game on a manual typewriter, and being driven by my mom to the local Radio Shack where I typed it in to the TRS-80 I coveted."-
Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "Tennessee is trying to pass bill SB0049. The "Don't Say Gay" bill would prohibit speaking about homosexuality at middle schools and elementary schools, while talking about heterosexuality would be fine ('(2) Notwithstanding any other law to the contrary, no public elementary or middle school shall provide any instruction or material that discusses sexual orientation other than heterosexuality.') — Read the rest
Christy from Instructables sez, "GuokrDIY just posted a fully detailed build of the Escher Waterfall, complete with Google SketchUp model, two videos, and full-on background, models, and textures to look exactly like Escher's original drawing. It's clearly building on the YouTube video postedpreviously on Boing Boing." — Read the rest
David Lereah served as economist for the National Association of Realtors and published a series of books advising readers that there was no real estate bubble and that buying highly leveraged property would make them rich. The Amazon reviews sections for these books have become a kind of performance space for highly sarcastic commentary on the conmen who sold America on the idea of going into hock to buy real estate. — Read the rest
Here's Dan Snow explaining the "alternative voting" scheme that Britons will have the chance to vote on next week. Critics of AV have described it as too complicated. I don't know that "simple" necessarily means "better" when it comes to governments — the "simplest" government being: "I am in charge and you do what I say or I chop your head off." — Read the rest