tech@vedella

Behold the Liefeldchilla, one small illustrative component of Tracy Butler's latest drawing tutorial. [Lackadaisycats via Flooby Nooby]

RIM's attempts to stop people rooting their PlayBooks are failing. But it will keep trying! Because sunk costs aren't just about money, you know!

post presented by Volvo As its qualities are determined by the cutting edge of engineering rather than fashion or component cost, technology defines a competing system of value to traditional luxury. That hasn't stopped Bentley aiming for the old-school appeal with its curious clutch-style $20,000 laptop. Though about as powerful as a late-1990s toilet seat [...]

• David Pierce at The Verge reviewed the LG Nitro HD. The lowdown? Don't bother, because better stuff is on the way. • At Ars Technica, Ben Kuchera loves Serious Sam 3, a "hardcore, difficult, and lovely" FPS. It's available for Windows. At the other end of the gaming spectrum, John Walker reviews cute, curious [...]

Rick Roach, a highly educated, multi-term member of Florida's District 3 school board, took the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test (a mandatory standarized test that largely determines a student's final educational certifications) and failed miserably. He's gone public with his conclusion that the test "has no accountability." I'm sympathetic to his arguments on the reading sections [...]

FirstSecond has just re-released Derek Kirk Kim's Same Difference, his Ignatz, Harvey and Eisner award-winning indie comic from his early career. The FirstSecond edition is absolutely gorgeous, with a transparent plastic dustjacket printed with bug-eyed goldfish that swim through the cover-art. Same Difference is the story of Korean-American 20-something slackers in San Francisco who wrestle [...]

Lee sez, "The next generation of robots will be in homes, offices and hospitals, not to mention driving cars, flying around as drones, and, yes, working as prison wardens. Robots will be programmed to learn, and will exhibit emergent behavior not necessarily contemplated by their designers. What happens when good robots do bad things? Who [...]

The UK government has officially apologised to computing giant and war hero Alan Turing for forcing him to take hormone injections as "therapy" for being gay (driving him to suicide), but now a petition has been mounted to get an official pardon Turing's 1952 for "gross indecency." We ask the HM Government to grant a [...]

Karen sez, "Instructables user AussieCFViolin has rigged up a carbon fiber violin. This tutorial is an early entry in Instructables' ShopBot Challenge, which is accepting all sorts of creative projects for the chance to win an their own ShopBot. This contest has only been running for a week, and has already seen a lot of [...]

The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) has resumed at the Allen Telescope Array in northern California. The ATA was in hibernation for months due to a lack of funding. But new cash came in from the public (yay, public support of science!) and also the US Air Force "as part of a formal assessment of [...]

Science Fiction author and bOING bOING contributor Paul Di Filippo reviewed The Cult of Lego, By John Baichtal and Joe Meno for the Barnes and Nobel Review. When I was a child, and well into my adolescent years, I played with LEGO blocks in a curious fashion I invented for myself, and which, for all [...]

I wonder if the "scientists" in this Feb, 1930 Modern Mechanix article ever actually built the potato-cooking apparatus shown here, or whether it was purely for illustration purposes. SCIENTISTS have learned that our bodies are living machines of the combustion type in which the burning of fuel (food) is accompanied by the consumption of oxygen, [...]

Occupy Melbourne surprised the local law by turning their tents into costumes; when police attempted to tear down the tents, they sprouted legs and heads and started running around the park. The cops turned and left, chased by tents. But the cops came back, and exacted petty vengeance on the costumed protesters. Several officers grabbed [...]

Michael Schreiber, the editor-in-chief of Credit.com, interviewed me about my book, Made by Hand. Here's a short excerpt: Mike: Do you have a favorite project from the book? Mark: My favorite project was raising chickens. Every aspect was enjoyable: building a chicken coop, raising the baby chicks, watching my kids play with the chickens and [...]

This LEAPFactory Refuge Gervasutti is an alpine refuge commissioned by CAI Torino, the Italian Alpine Club. It perches, cantilevered, on a mountainside, offering accommodations and safety to mountain-climbers. It's got a clever prefab design, and is intended to reduce the amount of waste left on mountainsides by climbers. Each module is entirely prefabricated, from the [...]

A few months ago, Urban Outfitters launched a "Navajo" line of clothing (including, er, Navjoa Hipster Panties). The Navajo Nation sent a C&D, claiming that the company violated the Federal Trade Commission Act and Federal Indian Arts and Crafts Act of 1990 stating that "It is illegal to offer or display for sale, or sell [...]

Swedish design firm People People has prototyped a transparent speaker called "Speaker," which uses WiFi or a headphone jack to receive its signal. Being big is good for sound quality, but not so good for shipping. Any other speaker will ship a lot of air around the globe before ending up in your living room. [...]

Eric Lumbleau is the editor of my favorite music download blog Mutant Sounds, where he curates, presents, and contextualizes fine outré, obscure, and out-of-print recordings. For the most part, this music has has either been swept into the dustbin of audio history or are so painfully rare that only the most dogged (or wealthy) crate-diggers [...]

Carrier IQ, makers of controversial and covert software recently found to track user activity on cellphones, is only one of the eight companies sued as a result. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Apple, HTC, Samsung and Motorola are also named in a class-action lawsuit filed in Delaware. [Computerworld]

ThinkGeek's Portal bookends are a wonderfully geeky way to keep your books from falling off the shelf. Great for the bookish gamers in your life. Portal Bookends (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)