Apparently officials at San Francisco International airport are size queens. When selecting vendors for the terminals, SFO uses gross revenue as an indicator a business can handle their scale. Read the rest
Last week, artist Michelle Pred celebrated the anniversary of the Patriot Act by dressing up as an old-timey Pan Am flight attendant (she wore her mother's old Pan Am hat!) and handing out "Official Air Travel Replacement Knives" to people waiting for their bags at SFO (she had 50 knives, but it took more than 50 tries to give them away, as more than half of the people she approached refused to engage with her). Read the rest
Sleepbus is a startup that's "disrupting long distance transport" -- it's a bus. Read the rest
It's been a quarter-century since the Electronic Frontier Foundation was founded by John Perry Barlow, John Gilmore, and Mitch Kapor, and we're celebrating! Read the rest
Josh writes, "Boing Boing readers and Eco-Futurists are invited to the 25th Annual Bioneers Summit Conference in Marin, CA, October 17-19. Enter BOING4BIONEERS at check out for an exclusive 25% discount!" Read the rest
Are you in San Francisco? Do you want to drink something that's on fire? Here are (purportedly) the best flaming drinks in the area. Shown above, the $36 volcano, sold at Smuggler's Cove: "pineapples, limes, and passion fruits, but it gets spiked with a healthy dose of reserve rum and Maraschino liqueur."
Porno for Cocktail Pyros: S.F.'s Best Flaming Drinks [The Dapper Diner/SF Weekly]
(via JWZ) Read the rest
The brewing class-war in the Bay Area between tech companies and people who aren't inside the bubble (and are finding themselves priced out of their hometown), has produced almost no useful discourse. Anil Dash has some "stupid simple" suggestions for tech workers in San Francisco who want to move the conversation forward and do something constructive to make themselves part of the solution to San Francisco's problems: Read the rest
Ukraine's dictatorship is revelling in its new, self-appointed dictatorial powers. The million-plus participants in the latest round of protests received a text-message from the government reading Dear subscriber, you are registered as a participant in a mass disturbance. Read the rest
Eddan sez, "The Oakland City Council is in the final stretch of approving the funding of the Domain Awareness Center to be built in Oakland. Though there has been a great deal of public outcry at the City Council itself, it just keeps going forward especially because they're now trying to pitch this as a crime-fighting law enforcement tool. Which is especially important to be on the right side of in Oakland during a City Council/Mayor election year. The Public Safety Committee to meet Jan. 28 is made up of most of the City Council members that are most skeptical and least supportive of the way this Department of Homeland Security new gadget funding is dangled before a resource-poor and embattled police department." Read the rest
Rudy Rucker -- science fiction writer, mathematician, painter, hoopy frood -- has a new art show going up at San Francisco's Borderlands Books tonight, and there's a reception from 5:30 to 7:30PM. The show includes work by Vernon Head, who makes gorgeous, weird assemblage sculptures that perfectly complement Rucker's work.
Art Show, Reading, & Reception: Borderlands, Jan 17 Read the rest
Following on the revelation that RSA broke its own technology to help the NSA, and RSA's craptastic non-denial, F-Secure's Mikko Hypponen has pulled out of RSA's upcoming conference in San Francisco. As a foreigner, he opposes NSA's mission to spy on foreigners like him. (via Interesting People) Read the rest
Here's a Craigslist ad for a "hub for entrepreneurs" where you can be barracked in one of dozens of bunk-beds ranked in rows for a mere $999/month. But you also get access to plenty of whiteboards and brainstorm areas, and will no longer have to endure the misery of "hop[ping] from coffee shop to coffee shop" as you seek to launch your tech business.
When I moved to San Francisco in the late nineties, I lived in half an illegal sublet for about $2K/month, and that was a deal by the standards of the day. But I had it better than the guy paying $800/month for the Sears shed in the back-yard -- I got a toilet! Read the rest
A San Francisco artist commissioned a Chinese artist to make a copy of "The Banality of the Banality of Evil" -- a painting that Banksy thrifted, added a Nazi to, and shop-dropped back into the thrift store. The copy, called "The Banality Of The Banality Of The Banality Of Evil," is now being auctioned to support 826 Valencia, a literacy for kids program in San Francisco. Read the rest
Lisa Rein writes, "Noisebridge and the Internet Archive are hosting a big event on Nov 8 (1830h-2100h) to celebrate Aaron Swartz’s life and accomplishments, and kick off an international series of hackathons that will be taking place all over the world in his honor, during what would have been his 27th birthday weekend, November 8-10, 2013. (Confirmed locations include, Amsterdam, Bangalore, Berlin, Boston, Brisbane, Buenos Aires, Chicago, Houston, Kathmandu, Magdeburg, New York, Santiago, Chile, Seattle and San Francisco.)" Read the rest
Samantha Cook sez, "Hacker Scouts, a nonprofit organization based in Oakland CA, has launched a Kickstarter to fund a new hackerspace designed for kids and their families. Due to the increase in demand for their programs, Hacker Scouts is working with local partners to build a space that is practical and exciting where they can run classes and workshops, support outreach programs to Oakland's diverse community, and continue to prototype programs and activities that they release open source to the global community. Hacker Scouts has been successfully bringing STEAM Education and real, relevant skill building for over a year and have grown from one program in Oakland to over 30 programs all over the US. In order to continue the high level of individualized learning and mentorship, they need a space that matches their growth. Please support Hacker Scouts by donating and/or sharing this project. More information can be found on the Hacker Scouts website and on our Kickstarter page."
Hacker Scouts got written up here recently when the Boy Scouts of America threatened to sue them over the use of the word "scouts" in their name. Read the rest
How cool is this? My novel, Little Brother, is the San Francisco Public Library's "One City One Book pick for 2013, which means that it's the book for the annual "citywide book-club." The library is advertising the initiative with bus-shelter, bus- and coffee-sleeve-ads all over town, and the librarians just tweeted me this pic of the first ads going up in situ.
Holy.
Awesome.
There's a whole ton of events, from screenings of movies like Sneakers, Source Code and Existenz to a "LED Robot Plushie Workshop + Little Brother Book Discussion" and Lego robotics workshops, and I'm doing a public event in conversation with Wickr/DEFCON's Nico Sell, at the Main Library's Koret Auditorium on Oct 2. I'm totally, utterly thrilled!
This week's SF in SF (science fiction in San Francisco) reading series features Nick Mamatas & Greg Bossert. I reviewed Mamatas's excellent, acerbic novel Sensation back in 2011. The event's set for Sat, Sept 14, and doors open at 6PM. As always, Terry "They're Made of Meat" Bisson will emcee, and as always, admission is free, though they ask for a $10 donation to Variety Children's Charity. Read the rest
