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Overly Attached Girlfriend on Prism

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:06:33 +0000

Laina, AKA "Overly Attached Girlfriend" (a YouTube comedian and memestar who trades on her ability to stare intensely while monologuing hilariously about her terrifying romantic attachment) has outdone herself with an Uncle Sam edition, commenting on Prism

Overly Attached Uncle Sam

Lawsuit: Warner Brothers a cat meme copycat

Rob Beschizza — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:12:20 +0000

Media companies have dirty hands when it comes to copyright infringement? Timothy B. Lee at Ars:

Warner Brothers is facing a federal lawsuit for using two feline-themed Internet memes in a video game without their creators' permission. The authors of "Keyboard Cat" and "Nyan Cat" have sued the media giant arguing that the game Scribblenauts, published by WB Games, infringes their copyrights and trademarks. The game's developer, 5th Cell, is also named in the lawsuit.

TODOCAT: a cat-meme-based to-do-list manager

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 02:43:26 +0000

Soma of the Brooklyn Brainery created TODOCAT, a to-do list manager based on the elegant cat meme. I fucking hate cat memes, but I love to-do lists. I love this cat meme to-do list manager.

TODOCAT (via Waxy)

Best. Harlem. Shake. Ever.

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 20 Feb 2013 04:03:32 +0000

JWZ's law: "Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail."

Doctorow's law: "Every meme advances until it destroys white goods."

Best Harlem Shake EVER (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Monkey Ikea Beast Jesus

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 02:11:17 +0000

Naturally, once a monkey in coat visited an Ikea in suburban Toronto, it was only a matter of time until the image was combined (to excellent effect) with Monkey Jesus by @Justin_Ling.

New image of #ikeamonkey. I knew I recognized him from somewhere. http://twitpic.com/bkls2s (Thanks, Christian!)

Overly attached undead girlfriend

Cory Doctorow — Thu, 01 Nov 2012 22:26:27 +0000

Laina Walker, better known as "Overly Attached Girlfriend," has treated her legion of fans to a zombified version of her face for the season. Let the memes begin!

Overly Attached Zombie? (imgur.com)

3D printed "Success Kid"

Cory Doctorow — Fri, 26 Oct 2012 21:46:17 +0000

Ryan sez, "I did a digital sculpture of the e-famous Success Kid and am selling 3D printed copies through Shapeways. Here's a video timelapse of the sculpting process."

Success Kid (Thanks, Ryan!)

Sociology Student Sheep have fun-ruining epiphanies

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 17:51:48 +0000

Holly curates a Tumblr called FUCK YEAH SOCIOLOGY STUDENT SHEEP, featuring a wide variety of symbolic Soc students having ironic epiphanies, and whose motto is "Time for some motherfucking Sociology." I love having my fun ruined!

FUCK YEAH SOCIOLOGY STUDENT SHEEP (via Sociological Images)

Monkey Jesus cosplayer

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 03 Oct 2012 15:42:48 +0000

Here's a Monkey Jesus/restored icon cosplayer in full regalia. The identity of the person behind the mask is the source of controversy: it was posted to Reddit by OhioUPilot12, whose description implied that s/he was the creator of the costume. However, when Spinjump posted that this had been her/his Anime Weekend Atlanta costume, OhioUPilot12 backpedaled and claimed that the original description was an unfortunate misunderstanding.

Facebook God gave me a halloween costume idea... (imgur.com)

Commodity market prediction takes the Internet by storm

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 27 Sep 2012 19:59:06 +0000

Good news! There is not an unavoidable bacon shortage looming in our future. Bad news! What was actually being predicted was really an increase in meat prices across the board. Droughts have completely decimated this year's corn crop, and as corn is the stuff we usually feed our meat, it's going to cost more to raise a pig (or a cow, or a chicken) next year. Key takeaways: There will still be meat, it's just going to be more spendy next year, and also don't trust the British when they offer you "bacon" because they actually mean Canadian bacon, which is different (and inferior).

PSY foam-art

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 26 Sep 2012 22:31:18 +0000

Redditor DivineBaboon posted an unattributed photo of an espresso drink with a beautiful PSY (of Gangnam Style fame) portrait in the foam.

My friend ordered a cappuccino and this is what he got.. (i.imgur.com)

Privilege denying dude

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 01:44:30 +0000

I have encountered his type on the internet before. (via Theremina)

F&*#ing Internet, how does it work?

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Wed, 06 Jun 2012 16:54:06 +0000

For the next 60 years or so—basically, until everyone roughly my age has died off—former Alaskan senator Ted Stevens will be widely remembered (and mocked) for once describing the Internet as "a series of tubes".

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—for lay people with no tech background—what actually happens when they call up a web page.

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.

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.

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.

Video Link

Mispronounced tech terms

Rob Beschizza — Mon, 07 May 2012 16:17:39 +0000

Nate Smith explains the right pronuncuations for all sorts of nerd words like "GIF" and "meme" -- if not the correct ones. [Slacktory]

Forever Alone statue

Rob Beschizza — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:39:21 +0000

Matt Scone and sculptor Sanden Henning offer this splendid Forever Alone sculpture. Despite there being only 30 in the limited edition run, they're only $79 each: "We learned a bunch on the whole process of making a toy and shipping it to the US from overseas. We invested about 2.5k into the project, in fact we're still losing money selling them. But we had fun working on the project so it's not all a lost."

Scone describes the development and manufacturing process:

1) We had a 3D render of the statue made
2) 3D printed it, which is really expensive but getting cheaper by the day
3) Cast a mould around the figure
4) Had 30 of them made in resin
5) Hand paint them
6) Custom packaging
7) Ship from China to the States

CISPAcat: using memes to fight America's terrible, net-breaking "cybersecurity" bill

Cory Doctorow — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 13:11:20 +0000

Zakkai from Fight for the Future (the folks who brought you the war on SOPA) sez, "Want to fight for Internet privacy with cute cat photos? CISPAcat is a new advice animal that wants nothing more than to spy on your internet activity. He's the child of the privacy-killing cybersecurity bill CISPA and the equally creepy ceiling cat. Check him out and submit your own. Curious why CISPA is so bad? Read about it at the EFF's website."

CISPA CAT IS WATCHING YOU

The science of the Cinnamon Challenge

Maggie Koerth-Baker — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 15:53:38 +0000

Last week, lost in a haze of book tour, I found myself at brunch with several friends who were talking about a YouTube meme I'd entirely missed—people attempting to eat whole spoonfuls of cinnamon and failing miserably. (Warning, the video ends in tears and heaving.)

While others wonder "why?" or, perhaps, "why not?", we here at BoingBoing prefer to ask, "No, seriously, how does that work?" Luckily, Jason Bittel at BittelMeThis had the answer. Turns out, humans are generally doomed to fail the Cinnamon Challenge for a very specific scientific reason—we need things to be lubricated in order to swallow them.

The spice that magically transforms dough and sugar into a sticky bun is actually ground up tree bark, which means we’re talking about a lot of water-resistant cellulose. And according to retired physical chemist Vince Calder, the rest is “a mixture of volatile organic compounds, a major component being cinnamanaldehyde, which is not very water soluble.”

If you want to see this in action without risking asphyxiation, put a tablespoon of cinnamon in a bowl and jostle it until the powder is level. Using a straw, allow a drop of water to fall on the surface. Instead of saturating the cinnamon – like it would with sugar – the water just beads up and rolls around like the liquid seed of a rusty T1000.

In a nutshell, all of this means that the Cinnamon Challenge can, in fact, be fairly dangerous.

Read the rest of the story at BittelMeThis.

Video Link

Net-meme tile-game on Kickstarter

Cory Doctorow — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 02:23:26 +0000

Some game developers are raising Kickstarter money to fund a production run of For the Win, a fun-looking tile-game based on net memes. The developers have a good track-record for producing great games funded through Kickstarter:

For The Win is an abstract game at heart, with a solid theme of internet memes applied. Players control a host of characters, playing them to the board and using their powers in order to arrange a group of all 5 types. Each character has thematic abilities in this easy to learn and fast playing game:
* The Zombie turns non-zombies into zombies.
* The Pirate shoots people out of cannons, moving them wherever you want.
* The Ninja through the power of stealth can disappear and reappear wherever desired.
* The Alien utilizes its tractor bean to pull people next to it.
* The Monkey messes everything up and toggles all of her neighbors.
Be the first person to get one of each adjacent to each other, FOR THE WIN!

For The Win! - Zombies, Pirates, Ninjas, Aliens, and Monkeys