Russell Brand's obituary for Margaret Thatcher is a beautiful and incisive piece of writing, and a good example of why he's not just another actor: When I was a kid,… Read the rest of the article: Russell Brand on Margaret Thatcher

Here's Telma Costa's beautiful, knit skullkerchief — perfect for staying warm, attending Misfits concerts, or everyday use. The SkullKerchief (via Make)

Adam P sez, "I first found out about the Aeropress on Boing Boing and it has dramatically improved my quality of life as an expat here in China. When purchasing… Read the rest of the article: HOWTO spot a counterfeit Aeropress

Tanya Khovanova has a fascinating and illuminating story about the blind-spots that can leave security systems vulnerable. She describes a clever one-way function using real-world tools: Silvio Micali taught me… Read the rest of the article: How cognitive blind-spots compromise security systems

If you need to wrap a pigeon for aircraft-drop, this will help. From the surprisingly useful Pigeon Service Manual, Air Ministry, 1919 (featuring "Some meritorious performaces," "Writing the message," and… Read the rest of the article: HOWTO wrap a pigeon for aircraft drop

Michael Geist sez, Months after the Supreme Court of Canada delivered a stinging defeat to Canadian copyright collective Access Copyright by ruling for an expansive approach to fair dealing and… Read the rest of the article: Access Copyright Canada goes on anti-fair-dealing war-path

Sean Murphy's Punk Rock Jesus is a rockin' comic about the Second Coming. It opens with a psychotically ruthless show-runner arranging to clone Jesus from DNA salvaged from the Shroud… Read the rest of the article: Punk Rock Jesus: media-savvy second coming/reality TV comic

Julia Kononenko, a designer in Kharkiv, Ukraine, created a clever piece of furniture that converts from a coffee table to a sofa to a dining room table with chairs. It's… Read the rest of the article: Convertible coffee-table/sofa/dining room table + stools

In this video, Sidney Cohen (author of The Beyond Within: The L.S.D. Story, administers LSD under clinical conditions to an unnamed "normal person" (her description), some time in the 1950s.… Read the rest of the article: Rare footage of a "normal person" given LSD in 1950s clinical research

I was delighted today to discover that my novel Pirate Cinema had been nominated for the Libertarian Futurist Society's annual Prometheus Award, amid a slate of absolutely wonderful books: Arctic… Read the rest of the article: Pirate Cinema nominated for the Prometheus Award

danah boyd sez, "Researchers who focus on technology's role in human trafficking and the commercial sexual exploitation of minors teamed up to create a short primer for technologists who are… Read the rest of the article: Technology design for addressing human trafficking

Dr Shankar's Brain Museum in Bangalore is shelf upon shelf of largely unlabelled brains in jars, along with various other bits of anatomical pickle (human and otherwise). Andy Deemer took… Read the rest of the article: Bangalore's brain museum

Designer Kevin Kidney's posted more of the awesome Tiki Room stuff he and Jody Daily designed for the Disneyland Tiki Room 50th Anniversary event this summer (he posted his Luau… Read the rest of the article: Tiki Room mugs

Since at least 2001, Colin Purrington, a former Swarthmore Evolutionary Biology prof, has been publishing a great guide to conference posters that is widely read and linked. It's also widely… Read the rest of the article: Consortium for Plant Biotechnology Research rips off writer, threatens to sue him for plagiarism

Redditor Federal Reservations has made a handy post enumerating all the regressive, authoritarian, corporatist policies enacted by the Obama administration in its one-and-a-bit terms. You know, for someone the right… Read the rest of the article: Obama's regressive record makes Nixon look like Che

Read this if you want to stay out of jail. When my friend Aaron Swartz committed suicide in January, he'd been the subject of a DoJ press-release stating that the… Read the rest of the article: Today, we save the Internet (again): fix the CFAA!

Inthralld showcases a 130 square-foot apartment in Paris, where a set of insanely clever design decisions allows for a full apartment's worth of amenities to be jammed into a teeny… Read the rest of the article: Clever, 130sqft Paris apartment

A company called RT66 appears to be injecting code into secure Web-sessions, possibly with collusion from ISPs like CMA Communications. No one's sure how they're doing this, neither RT66 or… Read the rest of the article: ISPs and creepy ad company injecting traffic into secure Web sessions

Larry Lessig presented at TED his new project, an effort to curb the corrupting influence of money in American politics with a reform to campaign finance.

An unidentified person — possibly an art student, based on the title — has come up with a pretty seriously worded note to other people in the computer lab in… Read the rest of the article: Great "do not disturb" status message