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<channel>
	<title>Boing Boing &#187; Internet</title>
	<atom:link href="http://boingboing.net/tag/internet-2/feed" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
	<link>http://boingboing.net</link>
	<description>Brain candy for Happy Mutants</description>
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		<title>Duck penises: The saga&#160;continues</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/10/duck-penises-the-saga-continu.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/10/duck-penises-the-saga-continu.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 10 Jun 2013 15:19:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[anatomy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[biology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[duck penis]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evolution]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=235054</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[As we all know by now, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/12/23/duck-sex-competition.html" title="Duck Sex: Competition between sexes leads to crazy anatomy">ducks have penises</a>. Rather <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/why-government-funded-duck-pen.html" title="Why government-funded duck penis research is a good thing">epic penises</a>, in fact. Chickens, though, are penis-less. In fact, most birds don't have them.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[As we all know by now, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2009/12/23/duck-sex-competition.html" title="Duck Sex: Competition between sexes leads to crazy anatomy">ducks have penises</a>. Rather <a href="http://boingboing.net/2013/03/25/why-government-funded-duck-pen.html" title="Why government-funded duck penis research is a good thing">epic penises</a>, in fact. Chickens, though, are penis-less. In fact, most birds don't have them. In an important update in duck sex news, <a href="http://phenomena.nationalgeographic.com/2013/06/06/how-chickens-lost-their-penises-ducks-kept-theirs/">Ed Yong follows the work of several scientists who are trying to better understand how genitals evolve and why they differ so much between species and genuses</a>. Bonus new fact: A dissected goose penis looks surprisingly like a less-colorful Man-O-War jellyfish. ]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>7</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Bubble boy: Baby born inside intact amniotic&#160;sac</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/06/baby-born-still-inside-intact.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/06/baby-born-still-inside-intact.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 06 Jun 2013 16:18:57 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[birth]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[mythology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[reproduction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sociology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Weird]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=234572</guid>
		<description><![CDATA["Born in the caul" is a phrase that's connected with a lot of cross-cultural myths and superstitions &#8212; babies born in the caul are supposed to be destined for lives of fame and fortune (or, possibly, misfortune and grisly death, depending on which legends you're listening to).]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>"Born in the caul" is a phrase that's connected with a lot of cross-cultural myths and superstitions &mdash; babies born in the caul are supposed to be destined for lives of fame and fortune (or, possibly, misfortune and grisly death, depending on which legends you're listening to). Biologically, though, it refers to a baby that's born with part of the amniotic sac &mdash; the bubble of fluid a fetus grows in inside the uterus &mdash; still attached. Usually, a piece of the sac is draped over the baby's head or face. These are called caul births, and they're rare. But, about once in every 80,000 births, you'll get something truly extraordinary &mdash; "en-caul", a baby born inside a completely intact amniotic sac, fluid and all.</p> 

<p>There's a photo of a recent en-caul birth making the rounds online. The photo is being attributed to Greek obstetrician <a href="https://www.facebook.com/DrArisTsigris">Aris Tsigris</a>. It's fascinating. But it's also pretty graphic, so fair warning on that. (If the sight of newborn infants and blood gives you the vapors, you might also want to avoid most of the links in this post, as well.)</p>

<span id="more-234572"></span>

<p><a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/article-0-1A285066000005DC-569_634x431.jpg"><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/article-0-1A285066000005DC-569_634x431.jpg" alt="" title="article-0-1A285066000005DC-569_634x431" width="634" height="431" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-234588" /></a></p>

<p>Check that shit out. I mean, seriously. That's awesome.</p> 

<p>There doesn't seem to be a lot of information on the details of this particular birth, but, most of the time, when a baby is born this way it's also born premature. Sometimes, <em>really </em>premature. There are case reports in medical literature of <a href="http://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/Abstract/2002/06000/Extremely_Preterm_Vaginal_Breech_Delivery_en_Caul.13.aspx">babies being born en-caul at 23 weeks, 6 days gestation</a>, which, for context, is a little over half the weeks you'd want a baby to gestate. Fetuses aren't large or well-developed enough to even be able to clearly tell their sex on an ultrasound until about 20 weeks gestation.</p> 

<p>The premie connection is probably more than coincidence. For one thing, the smaller the fetus, the more space the sac around it has to ballon outward and come through the birth canal intact. What's more, there's evidence that being born en-caul has a protective effect for premature infants. Nobody is exactly sure why. But it might have something to do with the physical mechanics of birth, which, I'm sure you're aware, can be a little rough on both mother and baby. Premies born en-caul essentially come with their own cushiony air bag, which might protect them from physical injuries that could otherwise be life-threatening.</p> 

<p>So, in that sense, babies born en-caul really are lucky. Just not in the way the ancient legends would have you believe. In fact, in 1975, <a href="http://archpedi.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=506130">a newborn survived for 25 minutes outside the uterus, but inside the fluid-filled amniotic sac</a>, not breathing air, and turned out completely healthy.</p>

<p>Speaking of legends of the caul, back in 1952 The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine published a manuscript by Thomas Forbes, which collected literary and documentary references to caul-related superstitions dating back to Roman times.  I wanted to share one particularly fun story from Forbes' account. This refers to a caul birth, rather than an en-caul birth, so the amniotic sac wasn't totally intact. Instead, just a part of it was draped over the newborn baby's head.</p>

<blockquote><p><em>Notes and Queries</em>, that extraordinary repository of antiquarian and other information, offers a quotation from a British newspaper, the <em>Leeds Mercury</em>, for 14 September 1889.</p>

<p>"A laborer's wife bore a son on whose head was a caul. The veil was placed on one side, and no notice was taken of it until some hours after the child's birth. When examined, however, it was found that the words 'British and Foreign Bible Society' were deeply impressed upon the veil. When this discovery was made the greatest excitement prevailed in the neighbourhood, some of the women declaring that nothing short of a miracle had been enacted. The doctor, who inquired into the matter, however, soon explained the affair. The veil, whilst in a pliable condition, had been placed upon a Bible, on the cover of which the words 'British and Foreign Bible Society' were deeply indented. The words were in this way
transferred to the veil; but some of the inhabitants still ascribe the affair
to supernatural influence..."</p></blockquote>

<p>READ MORE
<br />&bull; <a href="http://www.medicaldaily.com/articles/16255/20130605/newborn-baby-delivered-floating-intact-amniotic-sac.htm">Medical Daily has information about the recent Greek birth pictured here</a>. The baby was delivered via c-section and is healthy.
<br />&bull; <a href="http://www.musaeduca.cl/site/lib/revistas/Julio%202012/perfectlypackaged.pdf">A 2012 case study of another en-caul birth</a>, from the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. This brief write-up has a photo of the baby, neatly packaged in its bubble.
<br />&bull; <a href="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2599448/pdf/yjbm00328-0063.pdf">The Social History of the Caul</a> &mdash; Thomas Forbes' 1952 account of the history of caul-related myths and stories.
<br />&bull;<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amniotic_sac"> Wikipedia on the amniotic sac</a>, in case you need more background about what that is and how it works.</br></p>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>39</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>The evolution of&#160;@</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/05/the-evolution-of.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/06/05/the-evolution-of.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 05 Jun 2013 17:32:13 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=234433</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[John Brownlee on <a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672733/the-unlikely-evolution-of-the-symbol">the unlikely evolution of the @ symbol</a>: "Rejuvenated by its insertion before every Twitter handle, the @ symbol today is almost a pronoun.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[John Brownlee on <a href="http://www.fastcodesign.com/1672733/the-unlikely-evolution-of-the-symbol">the unlikely evolution of the @ symbol</a>: "Rejuvenated by its insertion before every Twitter handle, the @ symbol today is almost a pronoun. It has a very personal meaning for billions of people across the planet. It’s the symbol that means “digital me.”"]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>In defense of the&#160;selfie</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/05/21/in-defense-of-the-selfie.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/05/21/in-defense-of-the-selfie.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 21 May 2013 15:06:45 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[selfies]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=231490</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sam Kassé <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/selfie-swag/">defends the selfie</a>, blight of social networks: "I know most people hate selfies. They groan and complain about them, from the duck lips to the filters.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/robbeschizza.jpg" alt="" title="robbeschizza"  class="alignright bordered size-full wp-image-231491" />Sam Kassé <a href="http://thoughtcatalog.com/2013/selfie-swag/">defends the selfie</a>, blight of social networks: "I know most people hate selfies. They groan and complain about them, from the duck lips to the filters. Why, just the word “selfie” can induce legendary amounts of eyerolling. What people seem to miss, is that selfies are actually great. No, scratch that, selfies are brilliant! One of my favourite pastimes at work is to (discreetly) scroll through my Instagram feed and see pictures of my friends feeling good about themselves."]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>18</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>No internet for&#160;Syria</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/05/08/no-internet-for-syria.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/05/08/no-internet-for-syria.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 08 May 2013 14:51:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[arab spring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[syria]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=228981</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Nicole Perlroth: "<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/syria-loses-access-to-the-internet/?smid=tw-nytimesbits&#038;seid=auto">Syria’s access to the Internet was cut on Tuesday</a>. The most likely culprit, security researchers said, was the Syrian government." [NYT]]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Nicole Perlroth: "<a href="http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/07/syria-loses-access-to-the-internet/?smid=tw-nytimesbits&#038;seid=auto">Syria’s access to the Internet was cut on Tuesday</a>. The most likely culprit, security researchers said, was the Syrian government." [NYT]]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Secrets of the world&#039;s most successful tumbleweed&#160;farm</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/04/10/secrets-of-the-worlds-most-s.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/04/10/secrets-of-the-worlds-most-s.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 10 Apr 2013 12:30:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[businesses]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trolling]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[trolling subverted]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=223770</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Tumbleweeds aren't a type of plant. It's more of a description &#8212; the thing that happens when the bushy above-ground parts of lots of different types of plants dry, die, and disconnect from the healthy root system below.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Tumbleweeds aren't a type of plant. It's more of a description &mdash; the thing that happens when the bushy above-ground parts of lots of different types of plants dry, die, and disconnect from the healthy root system below. It is then free to blow wherever the wind takes it. That's your basic free-range tumbleweed. At Prairie Tumbleweed Farms, the weeds are a bit more constrained and they're shipped, rather than blown, to customers all around the world. This podcast by Rose Eveleth is a cute, quirky piece, <a href="http://scienceline.org/2011/12/tumbling-along/">but you MUST listen to the whole thing</a>. Because the backstory of Prairie Tumbleweed Farms is what makes this truly worthy of BoingBoing. ]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>8</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>A cat video about the science of&#160;cats</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/04/04/a-cat-video-about-the-science.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/04/04/a-cat-video-about-the-science.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 04 Apr 2013 19:26:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[animals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=222987</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Interesting facts about how their adorable bodies work, and what's really going on when they interact with you. ]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<!--http://youtu.be/PoGXr6hUTD4--><div class="video-container"><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/PoGXr6hUTD4?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<p>Two things I learned from this video: 
<br />1: I am my cat's Facebook page. That rubbing-up-against-you-and-leaving-scent thing? It's not just to mark you as "theirs". It's also a way of communicating information about themselves to other cats that you might encounter. 
<br />2: My cats poop in a box and bury it as a gesture of submissiveness to me. Good cats.</br></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>6</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Internet apocalypse? In the next bag o&#039;&#160;chips</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/03/28/internet-apocalypse-in-the-ne.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/03/28/internet-apocalypse-in-the-ne.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 28 Mar 2013 15:16:34 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=221863</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Sam Biddle writes that <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5992652/that-internet-war-apocalypse-is-a-lie">this week's epic, internet-shaking DDOS was a lie</a>. Spamhaus was indeed under a record-size denial-of-service attack, but the protection company it hired, Cloudflare, turns out to be the only source of the bigger story that went with it: that the internet at large was significantly affected.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Sam Biddle writes that <a href="http://gizmodo.com/5992652/that-internet-war-apocalypse-is-a-lie">this week's epic, internet-shaking DDOS was a lie</a>. Spamhaus was indeed under a record-size denial-of-service attack, but the protection company it hired, Cloudflare, turns out to be the only source of the bigger story that went with it: that the internet at large was significantly affected.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What would happen if an unstoppable force met an immoveable&#160;object?</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/what-would-happen-if-3.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/what-would-happen-if-3.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 18:42:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Video]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[physics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=208344</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Minute Physics tackles the greatest mystery in all the Internet and solves it with the power of science (and pedantry)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<!--http://youtu.be/9eKc5kgPVrA--><div class="video-container"><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/9eKc5kgPVrA?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<p>Minute Physics tackles the greatest mystery in all the Internet and solves it with the power of science (and pedantry).</p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>14</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Fans fix Aliens: Colonial Marines&#039; amateurish game&#160;trailer</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/dgsdgdsgsdg.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2013/01/25/dgsdgdsgsdg.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 25 Jan 2013 14:21:49 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[law]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rights]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=208233</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div class="video-container"></div>

<strong>UPDATE</strong>: Reader Pat David went the extra mile and improved the trailer a different way: by keeping the music and sound effects but removing the dreadful voiceover: "turns out it's a center-panned vocal - so just inverted the LR stereo channels." Pat's edit is pasted above, UberWaz's is below.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[
<!--http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&#038;v=GitkTg-mHNY--><div class="video-container"><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/GitkTg-mHNY?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<p style="border-bottom:1px solid silver;padding-bottom:1em"><strong>UPDATE</strong>: Reader Pat David went the extra mile and improved the trailer a different way: by keeping the music and sound effects but removing the dreadful voiceover: "turns out it's a center-panned vocal - so just inverted the LR stereo channels." Pat's edit is pasted above, UberWaz's is below.


<p>After years of waiting, <em>Alien</em> fans were shocked yesterday by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&#038;v=vrzscdQ5fMc">the appalling state of the trailer for <em>Aliens: Colonial Marines</em></a>. Badly-acted and terribly-scripted, it made the forthcoming game look amateurish and cheesy; the project's lead writer <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/24/new-aliens-colonial-marines-trailer-heavy-on-the-colon/">immediately and publicly disowned it</a>. But what a difference a day makes: <em>Rock Paper Shotgun</em> reader UberWaz <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/01/25/hey-sega-this-is-a-better-aliens-trailer/?utm_source=feedburner&#038;utm_medium=feed&#038;utm_campaign=Feed%3A+RockPaperShotgun+%28Rock%2C+Paper%2C+Shotgun%29">remixed the clip with new audio</a>, creating something that perfectly matches the franchise's gloomy mix of science fiction and horror. <span id="more-208233"></span>

<!--http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&#038;v=H20QEkP-UOk--><div class="video-container"><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/H20QEkP-UOk?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

<p>Here's the "fixed" trailer using the original <em>Aliens</em> soundtrack as a mood piece. Below is the excruciating, official original. 

<!--http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrzscdQ5fMc--><div class="video-container"><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/vrzscdQ5fMc?showinfo=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>
]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>64</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Glaucus atlanticus: For once, the Internet is not lying to&#160;you</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/glaucus-atlanticus-for-once.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/09/17/glaucus-atlanticus-for-once.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 18 Sep 2012 00:24:22 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[awesome]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Delightful Creatures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oceans]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=181502</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/glaucus-banner-white_72611_11.jpeg"></a>

This is actually a real life animal.

I know. I didn't believe it either. When it turned up in my Facebook feed, via my Aunt Beth, I assumed that this had to be a hoax photo.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/glaucus-banner-white_72611_11.jpeg"><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/glaucus-banner-white_72611_11.jpeg" alt="" title="glaucus-banner-white_72611_1" width="490" height="374" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-181507" /></a></p>

<p>This is actually a real life animal.</p>

<p>I know. I didn't believe it either. When it turned up in my Facebook feed, via my Aunt Beth, I assumed that this had to be a hoax photo. Had to be. I mean, just look at it. This animal looks like it should appear in pretty photos forwarded to you by your aunt that later turn out to be the result of a photoshopping contest on Something Awful, right?</p>

<p>But then it was on Wikipedia, too. And I thought, "Okay, it's still the Internet. Somebody is clearly just getting really elaborate in their trolling."</p>

<p>And I suppose that's true. If by "somebody", what I mean to say is "natural selection".</p>

<p>This is the Glaucus atlanticus. It is a type of nudibranch&mdash;shell-less mollusks known for their extravagant shapes and colors. It is venomous. And I am now almost completely convinced that it's not a joke.</p>

<span id="more-181502"></span>

<p><a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/parkindon-glaucus-62504-1.jpeg"><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/parkindon-glaucus-62504-1.jpeg" alt="" title="parkindon-glaucus-62504-1" width="200" height="174" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-181503" /></a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.nhm.ac.uk/nature-online/species-of-the-day/collections/our-collections/glaucus-atlanticus/index.html">The London Natural History Museum has some good information about these creatures</a>, including the drawing at left, which was made in the late 1700s by  Sydney Parkinson, the official ship's illustrator for Captain Cook's second voyage to the Pacific.</p>

<p>You see all those pointy bits Glaucus atlanticus? According to the Natural History Museum, those are called cerata. They are the organs where G. atlanticus stores the stinging cells that it steals from the jellyfish it eats.</p>

<p>Because it eats jellyfish. And not just <em>any</em> jellyfish&mdash;but Portuguese Man o' War jellyfish. G. atlanticus eats the jellyfish tentacles and, as part of the process of digestion, stores stinging cells from those tentacles in the tips of its cerata. Then G. atlanticus gets to be venomous, too. Fun! Sharing!</p>

<p><a href="http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/science/2012/04/picture-of-the-week-atlanticus-pokemon-er-sea-slug/">Here's how the Smithsonian Magazine blog described the process last Spring</a>:</p>

<blockquote><p>A gas-filled sac in the stomach allows the small slug to float, and a muscular foot structure is used to cling to the surface. Then, if it floats by a man o’ war or other cnidarian, the blue dragon locks onto the larger creature’s tentacles and consumes the toxic nematocyst cells that the man o’ war uses to immobilize fish.</p>

<p>The slug is immune to the toxins and collects them in special sacs within the cerata—the finger-like branches at the end of its appendages—to deploy later on. Because the man o’ war’s venom is concentrated in the tiny fingers, blue dragons can actually have more powerful stings than the much larger creatures from which they took the poisons.</p></blockquote>

<p>In conclusion, there are two lessons to take away from G. atlanticus.
<br />First, the Internet isn't always lying to you. Just sometimes.
<br />Second, don't touch things that look pretty. Because they will probably kill you.</br></p>

<p>More at <a href="http://eol.org/pages/451180/overview">The Encyclopedia of Life</a></p>

<p><a href="http://www.sljol.info/index.php/TAPRO/article/viewFile/4386/3545">A scientific paper documenting the presence of G. atlanticus in Andhra Pradesh</a>.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.seaslugforum.net/factsheet.cfm?base=glauatla">The Sea Slug Forum has a description, photos, and sightings</a>.</p>

<em><p>Image: Glaucus atlanticus © Taro Taylor, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic</p></em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>33</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>A handwriting font for&#160;doctors</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/08/27/a-typeface-for-doctors.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/08/27/a-typeface-for-doctors.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 27 Aug 2012 15:59:35 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fonts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funny]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[graphic design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[meme]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[type]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=178247</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://i.imgur.com/wnN9Z.jpg">Link to larger size</a>. Created by Orion Champadiyil (<a href="http://orioncreatives.com/">web</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/orionartist">Twitter</a>). 
<em>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/239539134413295616">Steve Silberman</a>)</em>]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/wnN9Z.jpg" alt="" title="wnN9Z" width="600" height="800" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-178248" /><p><a href="http://i.imgur.com/wnN9Z.jpg">Link to larger size</a>. Created by Orion Champadiyil (<a href="http://orioncreatives.com/">web</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/orionartist">Twitter</a>). <p>
<em>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/stevesilberman/status/239539134413295616">Steve Silberman</a>)</em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>21</slash:comments>
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		<title>Minneapolis: Home of the first (annual?) Internet cat video film&#160;festival</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/07/12/minneapolis-home-of-the-first.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/07/12/minneapolis-home-of-the-first.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Jul 2012 18:17:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Art and Design]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[events]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Everything Happens in the Midwest]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[happy mutants]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[minneapolis]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=170811</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Well, it's been a quiet week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, my hometown. The heatwave broke. There was a giant tomato fight downtown.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe width="600" height="450" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/8uDuls5TyNE" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>

<p>Well, it's been a quiet week in Minneapolis, Minnesota, my hometown. The heatwave broke. There was a giant tomato fight downtown. And the Gonzo Group Theater is <a href="http://blogs.citypages.com/dressingroom/2012/07/gonzo_group_prepares_for_greeks_in_the_street_festival.php">performing Aristophanes in the middle of the lightrail construction</a> zone. But out on the Internet, everybody is talking about the fact that Minneapolis will, on August 30, play host an Internet cat video film festival.</p>

<p>Yes, a film festival of Internet cat videos. Curator Katie Czarniecki Hill is accepting nominations through July 30, <a href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHk0cEl0NE5XRnNkcUdkWlpWSldqaVE6MQ#gid=0">so you should totally submit your favorite</a>.</p>

<p>But I also wanted to talk briefly about the context of this, because it's awesome, and you should know about it. Czarniecki's Cat Video Film Festival is part of a summer-long program at the Walker Art Center (our fabulous modern art museum) called Open Field. If you're not familiar with Minneapolis, the Walker sits at the base of a big hill. Part of the lot is covered with art museum, and part of it is given over to a broad, grassy slope*.</p> 

<p>That's where Open Field happens. What's Open Field? Partly it's just a reminder that this big public greenspace exists behind the Walker and, hey, maybe you should come hang out there. But it's also sort of an ad-hoc, crowd-sourced, summer-long festival space, where both Walker artists-in-residence and average folks can stage unique community events, skill-shares, workshops, and projects. <em>Today</em>, for instance, you could go down to Open Field and team up with<a href="http://www.walkerart.org/openfield/event/the-swatch-team-the-abundant-harvest-6/"> a group of knitters and fiber artists who are building an interactive fabric installation</a>; join the band Dear Data for<a href="http://www.walkerart.org/openfield/event/acoustic-campfire-dear-data/"> a low-key acoustic campfire sing-a-long</a>; watch your own (and other people's) <a href="http://www.walkerart.org/openfield/event/home-movie-night/">old, film-based home movies</a> and learn about film preservation; and participate in <a href="http://www.walkerart.org/openfield/event/post-office-love-letter/">an interactive workshop about the history and future of print-letter writing and the post office</a>.</p>

<p>Basically, you should know this&mdash;Walker Open Field: It's like a Happy Mutant smorgasbord.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.walkerart.org/openfield/">See the Open Field Schedule, including the Cat Video Film Festival</a></p>

<em><p>*And an absolutely awesome installation piece that takes the form of a semi-hidden, ancient-temple-looking room cut into the side of the hill. Seriously, go check it out. Preferably after dark because it's most awesome then.</p></em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>12</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What it&#039;s like to be the subject of a conspiracy&#160;theory</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/18/what-its-like-to-be-the-subj.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/18/what-its-like-to-be-the-subj.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 18 Jun 2012 18:12:52 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cryptography]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dubious fame]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[stories]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vast conspiracies]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Zodiac Killer]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=166756</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Michael O'Hare is a public policy researcher. He teaches at UC Berkeley and specializes in the arts and the environment. He does not sound like a very threatening guy.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p>Michael O'Hare is a public policy researcher. He teaches at UC Berkeley and specializes in the arts and the environment. He does not sound like a very threatening guy. But, since the early 1980s, Michael O'Hare has been the subject of another man's obsessive quest to find the true identity of the Zodiac Killer.</p>

<p>Let's be clear. Michael O'Hare is not the Zodiac Killer. He's got a pretty good alibi&mdash;namely the fact that he was nowhere near California when the murders happened. In fact, his name only entered the field because an enthusiast named Gareth Penn analyzed some of the famous Zodiac cryptograms and somehow came up with the name "Michael O". How that led Penn to O'Hare isn't exactly clear, but however it happened, Penn has spent the last 30 years telling anyone who will listen that Michael O'Hare is the Zodiac Killer.</p>

<p>And that has made O'Hare's life rather ... interesting. This weekend, I ran across a 2009 essay, written by O'Hare, describing his experience as the unwitting subject of somebody else's conspiracy theory. This is old, but I wanted to share it because it's such a rare perspective on this kind of thing. In the age of the Internet, it's easy to read up on conspiracy theories covering just about any topic. For most of them, you can also find extensive debunking sources. It's much less common for somebody at the center of the story to talk about what that experience has been like. Totally fascinating.</p>

<blockquote><p>The decades since Penn fixed his sights on me have not been a living hell, much as that would spice up this story. They have been an ordinary life, punctuated by one or another flurry of fuss from Penn, sometimes involving pages of numbers (for example, the data pages from my PhD thesis) with this or that sequence picked out, circled, and "decoded" into words that fit somehow into Penn’s model of the crimes.</p>

<p>My favorite episode was the phone calls. Sometime in the 1980s, I started getting them at two and three in the morning. When my wife or I answered, a male voice would say something vaguely threatening like "I’m coming north, and I’m going to get you soon!" .... The calls were supposed to be transmitting coded messages via numbers—in particular, the time of the call! Apparently, Penn’s assumption was that when the average person is aroused by the phone in the middle of the night, the first thing he does, before woozily answering, is to note the time of the first ring on the digital clock he keeps by the bed—which is, of course, synchronized with the clock in the Naval Observatory. If your clock (or his) is off by just a couple of minutes, the call that was supposed to register as "2:14"—code for "Got you dead to rights this time"—will be misinterpreted as "2:16," which I think means "The Sox can’t make the playoffs without a closer." (Sadly, I’ve lost the magic decoder ring I got in exchange for cereal box tops as a child, so I can’t be sure.) The story got even better years later, when I discovered that a Penn skeptic had been calling him at home at times that figured into Penn’s theory, whereupon Penn assumed the calls came from me and "returned" them to my house, so he thought he was having a conversation with me, all in three-digit numbers.</p></blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2009/0905.ohare.html">Read the rest of O'Hare's essay at Washington Monthly</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>46</slash:comments>
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		<title>F&amp;*#ing Internet, how does it&#160;work?</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/fing-internet-how-does-it.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/06/fing-internet-how-does-it.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:54:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[behind the scenes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[explainers]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[memes]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[World Science Festival]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=165091</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[For the next 60 years or so&#8212;basically, until everyone roughly my age has died off&#8212;former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens will be widely remembered (and mocked) for once describing the Internet as "a series of tubes".]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe width="600" height="338" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/WwyJGzZmBe8" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>

<p>For the next 60 years or so&mdash;basically, until everyone roughly my age has died off&mdash;former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens will be widely remembered (and mocked) for once describing the Internet as "a series of tubes".</p>

<p>But here's the thing. It's easy to make fun of Ted Stevens. It's harder (much harder) to explain quickly and at a relatively simple level&mdash;for lay people with no tech background&mdash;what actually happens when they call up a web page.</p>

<p>That's why Greg Boustead and the nice folks at the World Science Festival put together this short video, explaining the basics of the Internet, specifically the basics of packet switching. The video should help the average person understand the Internet just a little better and it has been run by several experts for accuracy, Boustead says.</p>

<blockquote><p> I have to admit that when I had to screen it for "father of the Internet" Vint Cerf, who invented this process, I was more than a little nervous, certain he would pick it apart. When he replied with "This is so good - can I please use it to explain the concept of packets at public lectures," needless to say, I was over the moon.</p></blockquote>

<p>So, the Internet. It's not a big truck. It's not a series of tubes. It's more like a bus full of tourists.</p> 

<p><a href="http://youtu.be/WwyJGzZmBe8">Video Link</a></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>39</slash:comments>
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		<title>Like “Kardashians,” but dumber: Gay-hating Evangelical gun nut ‘reality’&#160;TV</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/05/like-kardashians-but-du.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/05/like-kardashians-but-du.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 06 Jun 2012 00:49:46 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pop culture]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[video]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=164907</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds  <a href='http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/gay_hating_christian_gun_nuts_self_produced_reality_tee_vee_show'>introduces us to <em>Call of the Giles</em></a>, which he describes as a "gun-totin’, Bible-quotin’, homo-hatin’, and obviously over-compensating for sumpthin’ macho, macho man douchebag Doug Giles and his “kickass” Christian family’s low-brow version of <em>Keeping Up With the Kardashians</em>."]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Richard Metzger at Dangerous Minds  <a href='http://www.dangerousminds.net/comments/gay_hating_christian_gun_nuts_self_produced_reality_tee_vee_show'>introduces us to <em>Call of the Giles</em></a>, which he describes as a "gun-totin’, Bible-quotin’, homo-hatin’, and obviously over-compensating for sumpthin’ macho, macho man douchebag Doug Giles and his “kickass” Christian family’s low-brow version of <em>Keeping Up With the Kardashians</em>."]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>23</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>NYT-“MEN invented the&#160;internet”</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/03/nyt-men-invented-the-inter.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/06/03/nyt-men-invented-the-inter.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Sun, 03 Jun 2012 15:43:19 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[carousel]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ellen pao]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[john doerr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[kleiner perkins]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[lol]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[men men men men]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[new york times]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sexism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[silicon valley]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[SRSLY?]]></category>
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		<category><![CDATA[venture capital]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[WTF]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=164401</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<div align="center">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper"></a></div>What a steaming turd of an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/technology/lawsuit-against-kleiner-perkins-is-shaking-silicon-valley.html?_r=2&#038;smid=tw-nytimes&#038;seid=auto">opening line in David Streitfeld's otherwise serviceable <em>New York Times </em>piece</a> about the Ellen Pao/Kleiner Perkins sexual harassment lawsuit, and gender discrimination in Silicon Valley.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><div align="center">
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper"><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/LIKEHELL.jpg" alt="" title="LIKEHELL" width="511" height="599" class="bordered" /></a></div></p><p>What a steaming turd of an <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/03/technology/lawsuit-against-kleiner-perkins-is-shaking-silicon-valley.html?_r=2&#038;smid=tw-nytimes&#038;seid=auto">opening line in David Streitfeld's otherwise serviceable <em>New York Times </em>piece</a> about the Ellen Pao/Kleiner Perkins sexual harassment lawsuit, and gender discrimination in Silicon Valley. 
<p>
Here's the opening graf (bold-ing, mine):



<p>
<blockquote><p><strong>MEN invented the Internet.</strong> And not just any men. Men with pocket protectors. Men who idolized Mr. Spock and cried when Steve Jobs died. Nerds. Geeks. Give them their due. Without men, we would never know what our friends were doing five minutes ago.<p></blockquote>

<p>

You guys, ladies suck at technology and the New York Times is ON IT.<p>

<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radia_Perlman">Radia "Mother of the Internet" Perlman</a> and the ghosts of RADM <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper">Grace Hopper</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ada_Lovelace">Ada Lovelace</a> and every woman who worked in technology for the past 150 years frown upon you, sir. Women may have been invisible, but the work we did laid the groundwork for more visible advancements now credited to more famous men. <p>
 "Men <em>are credited</em> with inventing the internet." There. Fixed it for you.<p>
<span id="more-164401"></span>
I ragequit this article like, 10 times, and couldn't get past that awful opening line. But eventually, I managed to put down my frying pan and unbunch my apron, and I sat down on my princess tuffet and asked a man to help me read the whole thing.<p>

I appreciate that in this article, Mr. Streitfeld is advancing a public conversation about gender inequality in the tech industry. Reporting about a phenomenon many would prefer to deny, and including women's voices in that conversation (though many of them sound too afraid of retaliation by potential male funders to be candid)&mdash;that's a good thing. Pointing out how rare it is that this sort of sex discrimination lawsuit makes it to trial is also a good thing.

<p>
I know that headlines aren't always written by the reporter, so I can't fault Streitfeld for the abominable one used for this article in the <em>Times</em> print edition: "A Lawsuit Shakes Foundation of a Man’s World of Tech." Go ahead, throw up in your mouth a little. I did.
<P>
I know that photo captions aren't always written by the reporter either, so I can't fault him for the lack of logic behind this one:


<p>
<blockquote><p>Ellen Pao, a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield &#038; Byers, has filed a lawsuit contending sexual harassment. The suit has surprised some people in Silicon Valley because Kleiner Perkins is among relatively few such firms there to routinely hire and promote women.<p>
</blockquote><p>
Well, duh. If a VC firm does not hire any women VCs, then there are no women VCs at the firm to sexually harass.<P>



<P>
There's a lot of other interesting but to my mind, tangential stuff in the body of the piece about the sexuality of Ms. Pao's husband, and accusations of litigiousness and sexual harassment on his part. And, a sweet but even more tangential quote from his ex-boyfriend, who sounds like a real mensch with a kind heart. I'm not sure why an accounting of the behavior of a woman's husband is so often needed to tell the woman's story. The reverse is not common. <p>
But the unchallenged dismissiveness of this quote is, for me, the kicker:


<p>
<blockquote><p>You don’t really hear about randiness and mistreatment of women. That doesn’t prove it’s not there, but that’s not the lore.” <p></blockquote><p>
The LORE? Are you fucking kidding me? <p>
I worked in Silicon Valley, and in technology startups in other regions, and have experienced sexual harassment and gender bias. It's as normal and constant a part of the landscape as the fabled foosball tables. <p>Where to begin with this quote, really? First, "randiness" isn't what causes sexual harassment. Men don't pressure junior female co-workers into unwanted sex because they're "randy." And the fact that it's not in the fucking "lore" doesn't mean it's not real. 
<p>
I have no special knowledge about the truth, or lack thereof, in the Pao lawsuit. I know only what you and I and everyone else can read in the court documents, in the context of what I've experienced as a woman who has worked in the technology industry for about 20 years. I can't speak to the merit of this case. But, Earth to dudes: yes, this stuff is real and normal, and so are we.<p>


Lucky for Streitfeld, and the rest of the world, that the <a href="http://www.witi.com/center/conferences/2012/summit/schedule.php">Women in Technology conference</a> happens to be under way today in Santa Clara. Stop by and get a clue. 

<p>Oh, and? I, too, cried when Steve Jobs died. And I still idolize Mr. Spock.<p>



<hr /><p>

<script src="http://storify.com/xeni/nyt-s-men-invented-the-internet-the-truth-about-wo.js"></script><noscript>[<a href="http://storify.com/xeni/nyt-s-men-invented-the-internet-the-truth-about-wo" target="_blank">View the story "NYT's \"MEN invented the internet\"—the truth about women in tech history" on Storify</a>]</noscript>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>180</slash:comments>
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		<title>Cyber-weapon Flame, &quot;most complex malware ever,&quot; identified by Kaspersky&#160;Lab</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/28/cyber-weapon-flame-most-com.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/28/cyber-weapon-flame-most-com.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 28 May 2012 17:28:16 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cyberwar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[hacking]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[malware]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=163444</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The <a href="http://usa.kaspersky.com/">Moscow-based security firm</a>  credited with solving various mysteries around Stuxnet and Duqu today announced  the discovery of Flame, a data-stealing virus said to have lurked on thousands of computers in the Mideast for as long as 5 years.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/flame.gif" alt="" title="flame" width="598" height="455" class="bordered" /><p>The <a href="http://usa.kaspersky.com/">Moscow-based security firm</a>  credited with solving various mysteries around Stuxnet and Duqu today announced  the discovery of Flame, a data-stealing virus said to have lurked on thousands of computers in the Mideast for as long as 5 years. A Kaspersky Lab spokesperson <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/28/net-us-cyberwar-flame-idUSBRE84R0E420120528?feedType=RSS&#038;feedName=technologyNews&#038;utm_source=dlvr.it&#038;utm_medium=twitter&#038;dlvrit=56505">described it in a Reuters interview</a> as "the most complex piece of malicious software discovered to date."<p>
 <a href="http://www.wired.com/beyond_the_beyond/2012/05/flame-a-cyberweapon-that-makes-stuxnet-look-cheap/">Adds Bruce Sterling</a>, "Given that this has been out in the wild for a couple of years now, what’s five times bigger than 'Flame' and even less understood?"<p>
Writing today <a href="http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/05/flame/">at Wired News, Kim Zetter reports</a> that Flame is believed to be "part of a well-coordinated, ongoing, state-run cyberespionage operation."<p>
Kaspersky has <a href="http://www.securelist.com/en/blog/208193522/The_Flame_Questions_and_Answers">a FAQ about Flame, here</a>. <p>
<em>(Image: Kaspersky Labs)</em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>28</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Facebook vs. Twitter, and user privacy: slow and steady wins the&#160;race?</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/18/facebook-vs-twitter-and-user.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/18/facebook-vs-twitter-and-user.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 21:28:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[twitter]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=161752</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The NYT's Nick Bilton compares <a href='http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/facebook-vs-twitter/'>Facebook and Twitter</a> to the tortoise and the hare. "Facebook exploded because it slurped up endless amounts of data about its users," writes Bilton.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[The NYT's Nick Bilton compares <a href='http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/18/facebook-vs-twitter/'>Facebook and Twitter</a> to the tortoise and the hare. "Facebook exploded because it slurped up endless amounts of data about its users," writes Bilton. "This race is not judged by speed, but a stopwatch with a much longer lifespan, one that is tied to trust."]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>1</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Princess awards First Amendment lawyer &quot;Defender of Internet&quot; medal for SOPA&#160;fight</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/17/princess-awards-first-amendmen.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/17/princess-awards-first-amendmen.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 18 May 2012 00:05:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Copyfight]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[pipa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sopa]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=161531</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Marvin Ammori's recently-bestowed freedom bling. Note the Nyan Cat. 

Constitutional law expert <a href="http://ammori.org/">Marvin Ammori</a>, one of the First Amendment scholars along with Larry Tribe <a href="http://ammori.org/2011/12/08/controversial-copyright-bills-would-violate-first-amendment-letters-to-congress-by-laurence-tribe-and-me/">who explained how SOPA would violate the First Amendment</a>, shares a wonderful story with Boing Boing.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/defenders-of-the-internet-medal1.jpg" alt="" title="defenders-of-the-internet-medal1" width="600" height="800" class="bordered" style="margin-bottom:0px;"/></p>
<p class="caption">Marvin Ammori's recently-bestowed freedom bling. Note the Nyan Cat. 
</P><br clear="all"><p>
Constitutional law expert <a href="http://ammori.org/">Marvin Ammori</a>, one of the First Amendment scholars along with Larry Tribe <a href="http://ammori.org/2011/12/08/controversial-copyright-bills-would-violate-first-amendment-letters-to-congress-by-laurence-tribe-and-me/">who explained how SOPA would violate the First Amendment</a>, shares a wonderful story with Boing Boing. 

Snip <a href="http://ammori.org/2012/05/17/medal-ceremony-in-real-life-for-internet-awesomeness/">from his blog post</a>:

<blockquote><p>When I was quite young, I saw the first <em>Star Wars</em> movie and believed that, if I took part in a great cause, it would end with a medal ceremony and a princess conferring the medal. It has finally happened.</p>
<p>Last night, I received a medal from Princess Tiffiniy Ying Cheng of Fight for the Future, representing the &#8220;committee for the Defenders of the Internet.&#8221; Bestowed upon me was the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nyan_Cat">Nyan</a> Cat Medal of Internet Awesomeness, the &#8220;highest honor known to Internet Defenders.&#8221; I could not be more honored.</p>
<p>Princess Tiffiniy&#8217;s organization was one of the leaders in the Battle of SOPA.  She and her partner Holmes Wilson are pretty amazingly brilliant&#8211;they were the people who organized the <a href="http://freebieber.org/">Free Justin Bieber campaign</a>, led American Censorship Day on <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2011/11/american-censorship-day.html">November 16,</a> and were among the leaders organizing the <a href="http://americancensorship.org/">January 18 Blackout</a>. Many people pulled together from an array of communities to fight SOPA&#8211;Redditers, Wikipedians, civil libertarians, entrepreneurs, artists, venture capitalists, tech executives, consumer electronics makers, tech bloggers&#8211;alongside millions of people who just love the Internet and hate Internet censorship, from technologically advanced Wookiies to technologically challenged Ewoks. Many awesome people were involved in leading, coordinating, and taking the time to fight SOPA.<p></blockquote><p>

Read the rest of his story, and see a larger version of the pic: "<a href="http://ammori.org/2012/05/17/medal-ceremony-in-real-life-for-internet-awesomeness/">Medal Ceremony in Real Life: for Internet Awesomeness</a>." [ammori.org] <em>Fast Company</em> <a href="http://www.fastcompany.com/most-creative-people/2012/marvin-ammori">also gave him props</a>.

<p>
<div class="previously2">
<em>&nbsp;</em><ul><li><a href="http://boingboing.net/2010/08/12/essential-new-book-o.html#previouspost">Essential new book on &#39;Net Policy (blessed by Lessig!)</a></li>
<li><a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/12/16/first-amendment-scholar-on-the.html#previouspost">First Amendment scholar on the failures of SOPA</a></li>
<li><a href="http://boingboing.net/tag/sopa#previouspost">Boing Boing's SOPA post archives</a></li>
</ul>
</div>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>18</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Enter the world of the&#160;xenopus</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/17/enter-the-world-of-the-xenopus.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/17/enter-the-world-of-the-xenopus.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 May 2012 12:00:01 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[amphibians]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facts]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[frogs]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[model animals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[research]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=161365</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/frogtube.jpeg"></a>

Every now and then, I get a glorious reminder of just how much the Internet has enriched my life. Fifteen years ago, if I had arrived at a conference center&#8212;as I did yesterday for my stint in the Marine Biological Laboratory Science Journalism Fellowship program&#8212;and seen a sign in the lobby announcing the presence of a "Xenopus Workshop" I could have, eventually, found out that a Xenopus was a frog frequently used as a model animal in medical research.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/frogtube.jpeg"><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/frogtube-600x450.jpg" alt="" title="frogtube" width="600" height="450" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-161367" /></a></p>

<p>Every now and then, I get a glorious reminder of just how much the Internet has enriched my life. Fifteen years ago, if I had arrived at a conference center&mdash;as I did yesterday for my stint in the Marine Biological Laboratory Science Journalism Fellowship program&mdash;and seen a sign in the lobby announcing the presence of a "Xenopus Workshop" I could have, eventually, found out that a Xenopus was a frog frequently used as a model animal in medical research.</p>

<p>Thanks to the Internet, though, I was able to learn the following things in a remarkably short period of time:</p>

<p><strong>Xenopus Fact:</strong> Xenopuses (Xenopodes? Xenopi? Freshman Latin was a really long time ago, you guys) <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenopus_laevis#Use_in_research">were used in one of the earliest reliable pregnancy tests</a>. That's because exposure even a tiny amount of the hormone human chorionic gonadotropin will cause a female Xenopus to lay eggs. Inject a female Xenopus with urine from a human female and, if the Xenopus lays eggs, it means the female human is knocked up.</p>

<p><strong>Xenopus Fact:</strong> You know how some lizards can grow a new tail if you cut the old one off? <a href="http://www.life.illinois.edu/henry/xenopus.html">Xenopuses can do that with the lenses of their eyes</a>.</p>

<p><strong>Xenopus Fact:</strong> Because Xenopuses are so widely used in laboratories, <a href="http://www.xenopus.com/products.htm">there's a whole industry of suppliers of Xenopuses and Xenopus accessories</a>. Case in point, the "Xenopus enrichment tube" in the photo above&mdash;apparently, they like to have something to hide out in. Also, you can buy synthetic slime to replace your Xenopus' natural protective coating that is often lost through frequent handling.</p>

]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>55</slash:comments>
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		<title>&quot;How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet&quot;—Mat&#160;Honan</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 16 May 2012 00:35:06 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[flickr]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[long reads]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[yahoo]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=161098</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An excellent long-read about Flickr and Yahoo by <a href="http://twitter.com/mat">Mat Honan</a> at Gizmodo today. Anyone who has loved and been let down by the once-great photo-sharing site now caught in the purple zombie's death spiral will nod in agreement throughout.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[An excellent long-read about Flickr and Yahoo by <a href="http://twitter.com/mat">Mat Honan</a> at Gizmodo today. Anyone who has loved and been let down by the once-great photo-sharing site now caught in the purple zombie's death spiral will nod in agreement throughout. The opening graf:


<p>
<blockquote><p>Web startups are made out of two things: people and code. The people make the code, and the code makes the people rich. Code is like a poem; it has to follow certain structural requirements, and yet out of that structure can come art. But code is art that does something. It is the assembly of something brand new from nothing but an idea.<p></blockquote>
<p>
</p><p>Read: <a href='http://gizmodo.com/5910223/how-yahoo-killed-flickr-and-lost-the-internet'>How Yahoo Killed Flickr and Lost the Internet</a>. <em>(Gizmodo)</em></p>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>36</slash:comments>
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		<title>GM to end display ads on&#160;Facebook</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/gm-to-end-display-ads-on-faceb.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/15/gm-to-end-display-ads-on-faceb.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 15 May 2012 23:07:37 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[advertising]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Business]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Economy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=161084</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[The <a href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460.html'><em>Wall Street Journal</em> reports that General Motors will soon stop advertising</a> on Facebook "after the auto maker's executives determined their paid ads had little impact on consumers' car purchases." GM will, however, engage in Facebook's "pages" that allow marketers to display promotional content at no cost.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[The <a href='http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304192704577406394017764460.html'><em>Wall Street Journal</em> reports that General Motors will soon stop advertising</a> on Facebook "after the auto maker's executives determined their paid ads had little impact on consumers' car purchases." GM will, however, engage in Facebook's "pages" that allow marketers to display promotional content at no cost. The news comes just days before Facebook's planned IPO.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>New evidence suggests people aren&#039;t nearly as dickish on the Internet as you might&#160;think</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/new-evidence-suggests-people-a.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/new-evidence-suggests-people-a.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 21:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[behavior]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sociology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=160224</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[A new study, published in the journal Nature, provides evidence that <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120510/srep00402/full/srep00402.html#/affil-auth">the way people communicate with each other doesn't change very much between offline and different kinds of online situations</a>, including chat rooms&#8212;even if the people are chatting anonymously.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[A new study, published in the journal Nature, provides evidence that <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2012/120510/srep00402/full/srep00402.html#/affil-auth">the way people communicate with each other doesn't change very much between offline and different kinds of online situations</a>, including chat rooms&mdash;even if the people are chatting anonymously. The catch: This only holds true in places where the same people are coming back to chat over and over. <em>(Via <a href="https://twitter.com/#!/_ColinS_">Colin Schultz</a>)</em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>15</slash:comments>
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		<title>Tor Project on The Alyona&#160;Show</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/tor-project-on-the-alyona-show.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/11/tor-project-on-the-alyona-show.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Fri, 11 May 2012 20:19:05 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[appelbaum]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[tor]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wikileaks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=160211</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[On <em><a href="http://rt.com/programs/alyona-show/">The Alyona Show</a></em>, Jacob Appelbaum talks about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCYO19YfFfY&#038;feature=youtu.be">the Tor Project and internet anonymity</a>.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><iframe width="600" height="437" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/RCYO19YfFfY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

<p>On <em><a href="http://rt.com/programs/alyona-show/">The Alyona Show</a></em>, Jacob Appelbaum talks about <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RCYO19YfFfY&#038;feature=youtu.be">the Tor Project and internet anonymity</a>.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>3</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>Random network security tip for those about to appear on&#160;TV</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/07/random-network-security-tip-fo.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/07/random-network-security-tip-fo.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Mon, 07 May 2012 20:51:26 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Wide]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[herpderp]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[oops]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[privacy]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[security]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Technology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=159074</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Don't do this. (via @<a href="https://twitter.com/ryanaraine/status/199596362592034816">ryanaraine</a> + @<a href="https://twitter.com/motherjones/status/199597727447908352">kimzetter</a>)]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/523042_10151563910152841_132520367840_9277012_1277049259_n.jpg" alt="" title="523042_10151563910152841_132520367840_9277012_1277049259_n" width="720" height="519" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-159075" /><p>Don't do this. (via @<a href="https://twitter.com/ryanaraine/status/199596362592034816">ryanaraine</a> + @<a href="https://twitter.com/motherjones/status/199597727447908352">kimzetter</a>)]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>26</slash:comments>
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		<item>
		<title>This just in: Internet not actually full of sad, lonely&#160;rejects</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/02/this-just-in-internet-not-act.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/02/this-just-in-internet-not-act.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 May 2012 23:37:00 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Maggie Koerth-Baker</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[evidence-based everything]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Science]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sociology]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=158162</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Personally, I'm about to sprain something from rolling my eyes so hard at all the hand-wringing news stories about how the Internet is disconnecting us from other people and making us more lonely.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Personally, I'm about to sprain something from rolling my eyes so hard at all the hand-wringing news stories about how the Internet is disconnecting us from other people and making us more lonely. So it's gratifying to<a href="http://www.bostonreview.net/BR37.3/claude_s_fischer_loneliness_facebook.php"> read this piece in the Boston Review </a>that points two key problems with that thesis (besides being fracking obnoxious): First, the evidence doesn't support it; second, humans have apparently been worrying about increasing levels of loneliness  since the 1700s.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>17</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Facebook launches a new game: Organ&#160;Farmville</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/01/facebook-launches-organ-farmvi.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/05/01/facebook-launches-organ-farmvi.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 02 May 2012 01:18:40 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Culture]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[ethics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[facebook]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[health]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[social networks]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=157900</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[Facebook announced today that the social network's 161 million members in the United States will be encouraged  to begin displaying "organ donor status" on their pages, along with birth dates and schools.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[Facebook announced today that the social network's 161 million members in the United States will be encouraged  to begin displaying "organ donor status" on their pages, along with birth dates and schools. Some 7,000 people die every year in America while waiting for an organ transplant, and the idea here, <a href='http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/01/technology/facebook-urges-members-to-add-organ-donor-status.html?_r=1'>according to this New York Times story</a>, is to "create peer pressure to nudge more people to add their names to the rolls of registered donors." Absolutely nothing could go wrong. <em>(via <a href="https://twitter.com/jswatz/status/197312837637509120">John Schwartz</a>)</em>]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>22</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>Internet freedom fighters&#160;listed</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/04/24/internet-freedom-fighters-list.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/04/24/internet-freedom-fighters-list.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Tue, 24 Apr 2012 16:12:03 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Rob Beschizza</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Short]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[freedom]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[open]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=156374</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[<em>The Guardian</em> picks its <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/20/twenty-fighters-open-internet">"Open 20" fighters for internet freedom.</a> Included are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/10/31/air-space-a-trip-through-an-airport-detention-center.html">Jacob Appelbaum</a>, and anonymous.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<em>The Guardian</em> picks its <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/apr/20/twenty-fighters-open-internet">"Open 20" fighters for internet freedom.</a> Included are Sir Tim Berners-Lee, <a href="http://boingboing.net/2011/10/31/air-space-a-trip-through-an-airport-detention-center.html">Jacob Appelbaum</a>, and anonymous.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
		</item>
		<item>
		<title>What cyberwar is, and is&#160;not</title>
		<link>http://boingboing.net/2012/03/07/what-cyberwar-is-and-is-not.html</link>
		<comments>http://boingboing.net/2012/03/07/what-cyberwar-is-and-is-not.html#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Wed, 07 Mar 2012 21:19:14 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator>Xeni Jardin</dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Post]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[cyberwar]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[infrastructure]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Internet]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[military]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[war]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://boingboing.net/?p=147580</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[There's a good <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/cyberwar_is_already_upon_us">long read by John Arquilla in <em>Foreign Policy</em> magazine</a> this month. He argues that a concept of cyberwar he proposed some <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP223.html">20 years ago with David Ronfeldt</a> "has become a reality," in that battlefield information systems have "profound impact" as a disruptive force "in wars large and small." But Arquilla goes on to argue that a parallel notion of cyberwar popularized by others-- "less a way to achieve a winning advantage in battle than a means of covertly attacking the enemy's homeland infrastructure without first having to defeat its land, sea, and air forces in conventional military engagements" -- is a bunch of hype-y hooey.]]></description>
			<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><img src="http://boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/arquilla_4ivers_via_bigstockphoto.jpg" alt="" title="arquilla_4ivers_via_bigstockphoto" width="325" height="211" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-147583" /><p>There's a good <a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/02/27/cyberwar_is_already_upon_us">long read by John Arquilla in <em>Foreign Policy</em> magazine</a> this month. He argues that a concept of cyberwar he proposed some <a href="http://www.rand.org/pubs/reprints/RP223.html">20 years ago with David Ronfeldt</a> "has become a reality," in that battlefield information systems have "profound impact" as a disruptive force "in wars large and small." But Arquilla goes on to argue that a parallel notion of cyberwar popularized by others-- "less a way to achieve a winning advantage in battle than a means of covertly attacking the enemy's homeland infrastructure without first having to defeat its land, sea, and air forces in conventional military engagements" -- is a bunch of hype-y hooey.]]></content:encoded>
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		<slash:comments>10</slash:comments>
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