San Francisco's influential Noise Pop 2013 indie music, arts, and film festival kicks off its 21st year next Tuesday, February 26. The stellar lineup this year includes Califone, Yacht, Toro Y Moi, Grandaddy's Jason Lytle, Thao & The Get Down Stay Down, DIIV (video above), and dozens more musical performers, along with documentaries, art shows, panels, and other events. Our pals at Noise Pop gave us a pair of badges (valued at $150 each) to get a Boing Boing reader and a pal into all general admission (non-seated) concerts, films, happy hours, the Culture Club day of workshops and creative sessions, and other events during the festival. Noise Pop's Dawson Ludwig came up with the grand contest idea of asking you to pretend that NOISE POP is an acronym and tell us what the initials stand for. There were a slew of great entries but we managed to pick a favorite! The winning acronym came from Marissa Pike:
NOISE POP
noisemakers overtly inject songs effortlessly.
played out perfectly.
Marissa and a friend have scored a pair of Noise Pop 2013 Badges. What fun they will have making the scene next week. Congratulations, Marissa! Thanks to everyone who entered and see you at Noise Pop 2013!
Next Tuesday, February 26, marks the start of Noise Pop 2013, the 21-year-old San Francisco festival celebrating indie music, arts, and film across more than a dozen venues in the city. Wanna go? The musical lineup alone is marvelous, including the likes of Body/Head (Kim Gordon's new noise duo), The Fresh & Onlys, Toro Y Moi, Starfucker, Amon Tobin, Califone (video above), Yacht, Sonny & The Sunsets, Caspian, and many, many more. There are also excellent movies -- like "See A Little Light" about Bob Mould, "Punk in Africa," "Bad Brains: A Band in DC," -- art shows, talks, and panel discussions over the course of the festival, which runs until March 3.
Our pals at Noise Pop have kindly given us a pair of Noise Pop 2013 Badges that will get you into all general admission (non-seated) concerts, films, happy hours, the Culture Club day of workshops and creative sessions, and other events during the festival. The badges are $150 each but you can win a pair of them right here. All you have to do is pretend that NOISE POP is an acronym and tell us what it's an acronym for. Post your entry in the comments below before 11:00 AM PST tomorrow, Thursday February 21. We'll pick our favorite and announce the winner tomorrow! (Please only enter if you really would attend.) Good luck and hope to see you at Noise Pop 2013!
My friends over at my old stomping ground, The Mary Sue, are currently running a contest that will award two lucky winners the very fancy-looking 30th Anniversary Collector's Edition Blu-ray of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner. What do you need to do to win this? Fan art -- your best cosplay, drawings, anything that you create that is inspired by Blade Runner (and can be submitted as a .jpg file), The Mary Sue wants to see it, and then they will give you prizes! But not if you get a replicant to do it for you. Visit the site for more details. (via The Mary Sue) — Jamie
•
The Massey Lectures are an annual event in Canada, where one person gives five different public speeches over the course of a month. This year, the speaker is theoretical physicist Neil Turok. He's also the director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics and the Institute is sponsoring a contest where you can win tickets to the lectures (there are two left) or copies of Turok's latest book. The grand prize, though, is the really exciting bit. One lucky winner will get a 7-day trip for two to both the Perimeter Institute and CERN (home of the Large Hadron Collider). Feeling lucky? Enter your name in the drawing by October 24.— Maggie
•
On the NYC leg of my Pirate Cinema tour, I'll be stopping at Brooklyn's wonderful indie bookstore WORD. The WORD folks have cooked up a remix video competition for the event, inviting you to make short remix videos, 1-3 minutes long. I'll be judging the finalists, and the winner will be screened at my reading and signing on Oct 15. Submissions need to be in by Oct 12, so get cracking!
— Cory
•
There were a slew of amazing entries in our Treasure Island Music Festival ticket contest! We asked you to post a Haiku about your favorite band performing at this year's festival, October 13-14, in the San Francisco Bay Area. The amazing line-up includes The XX, M83, Grimes, Best Coast, Ty Segall, SBTRKT, Youth Lagoon, The Presets, and more than a dozen more eclectic artists. The finalists below each receive a Boing Boing t-shirt! The winner, to be announced tomorrow (Friday), will score a pair of VIP 2-Day Tickets, a $479 value, courtesy of our pals at co-promoters Noise Pop. Here are the three finalist Haikus:
mrambulancedriver:
How to describe Grimes:
Canadian Space Mermaid,
A Cyborg Banshee!
Joseph V:
the youth lagoon song
used in that skype commercial
saved me in prison
Russell Walks:
Love the Double X
He says, staring at her shirt.
Man, she hates liars.
The always-fantastic Treasure Island Music Festival returns to the San Francisco Bay Area on October 13 and 14. The exquisitely-curated line-up includes the likes of Girl Talk, The XX, M83, Joanna Newsom, Public Enemy, Youth Lagoon, Grimes, War On Drugs, and more than a dozen other acts. Our pals at Noise Pop, co-promoters of the event, have provided us a pair of VIP 2-Day Tickets (a $479 value) to give to Boing Boing readers. VIP includes preferred viewing area next to main stage, tented lounge with access to full liquor bar, private restroom facilities (yay!) and access to special VIP food concessions. Here's how to win 'em:
Write a Haiku about your favorite band performing at the festival. Here's the full line-up. The Haiku must consist of three lines, with the first line containing 5 syllables, the second containing 7 syllables, and the third line containing 5 syllables. Then post your Haiku in the comments of this thread. You have until 11:59pm tomorrow (Tuesday, 9/25). On Thursday (9/27), I'll post our three favorites. Those finalists will each receive a Boing Boing t-shirt! On Friday (9/28), I'll announce the winner. Please only one entry per person. Good luck!!!
The IFA folks have made a pair of tickets for the event available to Boing Boing readers. To win, answer the following question:
What is David Byrne's favourite mode of transportation?
And send us your answer by midnight eastern on September 16 to authorsmedia@harbourfrontcentre.com with the subject line "BYRNE TIX." One winner will be notified September 17.
The event is called "David Byrne and Cory Doctorow: Wassup Internet?!—Music in the Digital Landscape," and it'll be held at 7:30pm on Sept 19 at the Fleck Dance Theatre, 207 Queens Quay West.
Jill from Tachyon Books sez, "Is the Rapture of the Nerds just around the corner? Or is the Vingean posthuman technological Singularity the biggest myth since Y2K? You know—and you can prove it in verse. Post or email (tachyon@tachyonpublications.com) Tachyon a haiku that is either pro- (it's totally gonna happen) or con- (as if!) Singularity. There will be two winners, one for each argument. In addition to getting a signed copy of Digital Rapture: The Singularity Anthology, attendees at Chicon 7, the World Science Fiction Convention, will be treated to A FREE LUNCH with James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel."
— Cory
•
2012's Free! Music! Contest has opened it's gates at july first. It is the fourth time, that this event is being organized by Musikpiraten, a german society that promotes free art and espacially free music. Bands from all over the world participate in it to win a publication on CD, the so called "Free! Music! Sampler" and prizes worth more than 1.000 Euros.
This year's motto "Freedom and Free Beer" reflects the very basic choice, every artist has to challenge: Shall my art be "free" as in "freedom" or "free" as in "free beer"? So unlike last year, where only cc-by and cc-by-sa licenses where allowed, this year music licensed under and creative commons license can be submitted.
The contest is officially supported by Creative Commons and the remixing portal ccMixter. The latter even announced a project featuring the contest, titled "Free Music & Free Beer. Background is, that Musikpiraten e.V., the foundation behind the contest, is being sued by the german royalty collection society GEMA for having published a creative commons licensed song last year without unrevealing the civil name of the artists. GEMA claims, they cannot verify that the artists are really allowed to publish their songs for free in the internet.
Quinn DuPont writes in with "A cracking challenge to cryptanalyse a William Gibson poem ('Agrippa', written in 1992). The winner will receive a copy of every William Gibson book published. Project is academic (non-commercial)."
Gibson's poem is a beautiful work, and it came on a floppy disk that erased itself after displaying the poem's text a single time. Of course, it was cracked almost immediately (..f. all DRM, ever) but that wasn't really the point. The challenge site includes a System 7 emulator, an image of the floppy, some of the sourcecode for the app (which was apparently written in Lisp?!), and more.
Based on the pioneering work of Alan Liu and his team at The Agrippa Files, working in collaboration with Matthew Kirschenbaum at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and the Digital Forensics Lab, a a bit-for-bit copy of this application has been recovered, along with numerous archival documents.
The first person to successfully crack the code will win a copy of every William Gibson book ever published (except Agrippa). Every runner-up will have their name (if provided) posted on this website. To win you must submit a technical description of your cryptanalysis below, under Creative Commons usage rights (the results of which will be used to further research on Agrippa). The technical description should explain what kind of encryption is used (if any), how it functions, and how it was reversed or cracked (and what the key is, if there is one). Should there be no encryption at all (a possibility), or should the application merely “scramble” or “destroy” the data, this must be technically demonstrated or proved. Since the plain text is known, the cryptanalysis is purely for fun and academic curiosity, and thus the description should provide technical details.
Rob sez, "Do you like classic game graphics? Do you support free culture and free software? Can you see where this is going? Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, and OpenGameArt have launched a free-as-in-freedom game design competition, the Liberated Pixel Cup:"
Liberated Pixel Cup is a two-part competition: make a bunch of awesome free culture licensed artwork, and program a bunch of free software games that use it. Hopefully many cool projects can come out of this… but that will only happen if people like you get involved! Liberated Pixel Cup is a great opportunity for the commons in many ways! Right now it’s hard to find free culture content to bootstrap games that match a consistent style and hard for artists to collaborate on such. We’re also very interested in areas where free software and free culture directly intersect, which we don’t always see enough of (and which sometimes can even get a bit complex, so it’s good to have opportunities to think about them when we can), and games are a great example of this overlap. We hope you’ll participate!
The paperback for Welcome to Bordertown is out, this being the most excellent, long-awaited volume of short stories set in the Bordertown shared world, where Faerie has returned to Earth, and the Bordertown is the place where magic and technology meet and mix. To celebrate, the editors are holding a contest:
So you've already found your way to Bordertown. It wasn't easy, but you did it. You've found a place to live, and maybe a friend or two. Maybe you're in a band, or selling your sketches on the street, or just looking for work.... And now you'd like your friend (from the World or from the Realm, depending on your own origins) to come and join you.
Write them a letter, or send them a postcard (a photo or a drawing + a short note) telling them why they should come.
Then post it on your blog, Tumblr, Facebook notes, DeviantArt account... anywhere your friends* can read it. And then, to enter it in the contest (and make sure we know it's there!), put the URL for your post in the Comments on this page. The contest runs from now through Tuesday, April 17th at 11:59 p.m. EST (U.S.A. Eastern Time).
Plan on being in Florida on April 29/30? Then you should register to watch the launch of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as part of a NASA Social. There are only 50 spots available, randomly selected from the pool of registrants. If you get in, you'll get a tour of the launch pad and Kennedy Space Center, get to talk to people who work in both public and private space programs, and get to watch the launch from a splendid vantage point with a bunch of other awesome space geeks. Downside: You cover your own transportation. (Via Karen James) — Maggie
•
Next Tuesday, February 26, marks the start of 
Yesterday, I 
Based on the pioneering work of Alan Liu and his team at The Agrippa Files, working in collaboration with Matthew Kirschenbaum at the Maryland Institute for Technology in the Humanities and the Digital Forensics Lab, a a bit-for-bit copy of this application has been recovered, along with numerous archival documents.
Rob sez, "Do you like classic game graphics? Do you support free culture and free software? Can you see where this is going? Creative Commons, the Free Software Foundation, and OpenGameArt have launched a free-as-in-freedom game design competition, the Liberated Pixel Cup:"
Liberated Pixel Cup is a two-part competition: make a bunch of awesome free culture licensed artwork, and program a bunch of free software games that use it. Hopefully many cool projects can come out of this… but that will only happen if people like you get involved! Liberated Pixel Cup is a great opportunity for the commons in many ways! Right now it’s hard to find free culture content to bootstrap games that match a consistent style and hard for artists to collaborate on such. We’re also very interested in areas where free software and free culture directly intersect, which we don’t always see enough of (and which sometimes can even get a bit complex, so it’s good to have opportunities to think about them when we can), and games are a great example of this overlap. We hope you’ll participate!
So you've already found your way to Bordertown. It wasn't easy, but you did it. You've found a place to live, and maybe a friend or two. Maybe you're in a band, or selling your sketches on the street, or just looking for work.... And now you'd like your friend (from the World or from the Realm, depending on your own origins) to come and join you.