tech@vedella

Before the recently deceased Ken Russell made such phenomenal films as Women in Love, The Who's Tommy, and Altered States, he was a documentary photographer. In 1955, when he was still in art school, Russell shot a series of incredible photos of London's Teddy Girls, an East End teenage subculture. Here's a PDF of a [...]

Ukrainian steampunk leatherworker Bob Basset's taken a departure from his usual masks to produce these Christmas-themed "Mongol" decorative balls. Xmas ball “Mongol”

Arbroath says: "Anyone with a suspected marker pen in their trousers is now being closely monitored."

Many years ago, I went to a debate in Boulder, Colorado between a drug law reformer and a law enforcement officer on the subject of ending drug prohibition. I'm pretty sure the anti-drug officer was former Arapahoe County Sheriff Patrick Sullivan. Sullivan is a national “Sheriff of the Year.” Today he is being held in [...]

[Video Link] The felony eavesdropping case against Michael Allison (who was arrested for videotaping the police in public) was thrown out by a judge. However the state of Illinois is appealing the dismissal to the supreme court to overturn the ruling. What the hell is wrong with the Illinois government? (Via Cynical-C)

This is a giant weta, an insect found on New Zealand's Little Barrier Island. But this isn't just any giant weta. It's reportedly the largest ever found, weighing in at 71 grams. "She enjoyed the carrot so much she seemed to ignore the fact she was resting on our hands and carried on munching away," [...]

Last night was the opening party for the Idelsohn Society's Tikva Records, a pop-up Jewish record store and community space in San Francisco's Bernal Heights. The place is fantastic but it's the upcoming events there that will make it a magical month. (Boing Boing is honored to be the media sponsor.) Tomorrow evening (Saturday, 12/3), [...]

The Buddha Machine is a fantastically-fun little gadget that plays loops of experimental music. It's very low-fi, simple, inexpensive ($23!), and still wonderfully entrancing. Of course, there's also a Buddha Machine iPad app and I'm told that for the next 5 days, it's free! Buddha Machine - iPad edition Buddha Machine (Forced Exposure) Of course, [...]

In the New York Times, Ian Austen and Susanne Craig report that two executives of RIM were "intoxicated" and unruly on a Toronto-to-Beijing flight, forcing a stop-off in Vancouver to get rid of them.

"Consumer Guide on the Working Conditions of American Restaurants" is a 30-page guide to working conditions in popular American restaurants, published by Restaurant Opportunities Center United, a worker-rights advocacy group. It tells you whether the staff at the restaurant you're thinking of eating at gives its staff sick-leave, whether they are paid beyond the $2.13 [...]

One blazing hot afternoon in August of 2010, I stood on a mountain top in Alabama, staring at a styrofoam beer cooler upended over the top of a metal pole. Alongside me were a couple dozen sweaty engineers and geologists. That beer cooler was one of the few visible signs of the research project happening [...]

SpyFiles, a new project from Wikileaks and several partner organization, is based on 287 secret documents revealing a campaign of mass spying on users of webmail, GPS, and mobile devices, with this data being sold in a covert, 25-nation global marketplace that Wikileaks claims is worth $5 billion. At present, the underlying documents are not [...]

I'm coming to Zurich next week to do a series of high-school lectures in connection with the German edition of Little Brother, and while I'm in town, I've scheduled a free lecture, organised by local free culture and Creative Commons activists. It's at 8PM on December 6, at the Kunstraum Walcheturm. Hope to see you [...]

Designer Shay Carmon came up with this fantastic concept for a Defibrillator Toaster "to revive your old bread." (Thanks, Ariel Waldman!)

It's time for the triennial Copyright Office hearings on exemptions to the anti-circumvention measures in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Copyright Office will entertain submissions on when and how it should be legal to break DRM. In the last round, EFF successfully petititoned the Copyright Officeto legalize jailbreaking iPhones to enable the installation of [...]

Nate Anderson reviews the new "lurid" anti-piracy ad from the US Attorney General and the National Crime Prevention Council, and "does for 'piracy' what 'reefer madness' and 'hairy palms' did for an older generation’s social ills." The AG included a call on his fellow Americans to turn in their families and neighbors if they think [...]

A trio of Ur-nerds have recreated the Game Boy's Super Mario Land using Minecraft. They laid 18 million blocks to accomplish the feat. It took 500 hours. Each image is a masterpiece in block placement, dropping dyed wool blocks in the game's creative mode within the frame of a massive Game Boy created in the [...]

djBC has released the sixth Santastic collection, a set of holiday mashups from some of the greatest sonic plunderers in the world (earlier efforts). As always, the Santastic mixes are fantastic. If you want my favorites, try Divide and Kreate's Santatage (MP3) (mashing Otis Redding vs The Beastie Boys vs Run DMC); ATOM's Wonderland Walker [...]

The Infinite Yums created this elaborate, electrified, edible Ewok village with Rice Krispie treat Death Star. The Ewoks are chocolate, the straw thatching is shredded wheat, trees are texturized krispies painted with icing, the platforms are gingerbread... Humble beginnings for this formidable task. A giant ball of Rice Krispie treats, roughly shaped like the unfinished [...]

The Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in rural Kentucky has banned interracial couples from its congregation, following a visit from the Church secretary's daughter and her black African fiance.