tech@vedella

Removing Orbital Debris with Lasers. How's that for a great research paper title? Most of you are probably aware of the existence of space trash—that collection of disused satellites, lost tools, spent rocket boosters, and various other flotsam that is starting to become a physical hazard to the objects we actually want circling the globe [...]

Jonathan Doyle, a performance artist, has appealed a case involving his right to film bigfoot skits in New Hampshire's Monadnock State Park to the NH Supreme Court. He argues that the permit requirements are unduly onerous for small-scale productions: "I am maintaining the integrity of being real, enjoying day-to-day things, and having fun with your [...]

You might know that I'm a big fan of Jake Shimabukuro, who is probably the greatest living ukulele player. His latest album, Peace Love Ukulele features his standing-ovation cover of Bohemian Rhapsody that he performed at TED last year. I interviewed Jake at TED and asked him to play on old Hawaiian song for me. [...]

I love Gary Schwitzer, a former journalism professor at the University of Minnesota and a key advocate for better health and medical reporting at HealthNewsReview.org. Schwitzer has a quick list of the most common mistakes reporters make when writing about medical science, and I think it's something that everybody should take a look at. Why [...]

No, no, silly: not for that stolen iPhone prototype, but for a series of stories on technology used inside California's San Quentin State Prison. First up, "prison hacks." Next, perchance, heirloom pruno recipes? This should keep 'em busy. #wishidthoughtofitfirst

My sister-in-law recently gifted me "True Love Cast Out All Evil," psych rock pioneer Roky Erickson's first album in more than a decade. The disc is a collection of unreleased songs that Roky wrote over his career and, with the help of Will Sheff and Okkervil River, completed and put to tape. The entire record [...]

Mitch O'Connell chose "Good Works" as the door to Heaven. Whoops!

Vintage plastic foot charms, via The Girl Can't Help It As regular BB readers know, Mark and I have been fascinated by the dozen or so mystery feet that have washed up on the shores of Canada's Pacific coast over the last few years. Another pair has been identified through DNA matching. Apparently, they belonged [...]

Thomas Gideon at the Command Line podcast has done me the honor of selecting a couple of essays from my new collection Context for his latest podcast.

Make way for The Real World, Zuccotti Park. MTV television will premiere "True Life: I’m Occupying Wall Street" on Saturday, Nov. 5, according to NYT media writer Brian Stelter. Word spread of TV pilot plans after this casting call appeared on Craigslist. Perhaps the "Hot Chicks of Occupy Wall Street" tumblog gave execs ideas? A [...]

Brian Krebs posts a list of additional organizations said to have been targeted in the RSA attack, that massive data breach disclosed back in March. How many additional targets? Nearly 800 of them.

Love this typewriter-part fraidy cat from Jeremy Mayer, a real favorite around here. It's an older piece, dated 2000. (via Super Punch) Cat X [jemayer.tumblr.com]

As every blog and news site everywhere has already reported (including Boing Boing), the definitive biography of the late Steve Jobs, by Walter Isaacson, is out today. Actually, it's out today in paper, but was released yesterday for download via Amazon and iTunes. I'm willing to bet it breaks some sort of download sales record. [...]

The Microsoft YouTube channel was hacked over the weekend, but it was totally the weakest hack of all time. Nary a nyan cat, not one dicksuit, not a speck of porn, not a single Katy Perry bewb. You call that a defacement, son?

In a press conference today, Julian Assange announced that WikiLeaks will temporarily suspend all publishing activities to "ensure future survival." A financial blockade against Wikileaks by payment processing services and credit card companies has "destroyed" 95% of the project's revenue, Assange said, costing “tens of millions of dollars” in lost funding. Wikileaks solicits donations here, [...]

Gweek is a podcast where the editors and friends of Boing Boing talk about comic books, science fiction and fantasy, video games, board games, tools, gadgets, apps and other neat stuff. In episode 023, Boing Boing’s managing editor Rob Beschizza and I spoke with David-Michel Davies, the executive director of The Webby Awards and the [...]

This old Frigidaire ad features some crazy, exuberant kitchen-cabinet decor, and the classic fridge-as-cornucopia imagery, nicely offset by the creepy girl-and-doggy posed in postures of supplication and yearning. Frigidair [vintage-ads.livejournal.com]

"Just unpacked my suitcase and found this note from TSA," tweets writer and attorney Jill Filipovic of Feministe. "Guess they discovered a 'personal item' in my bag. Wow." It was a standard-issue we got all up in your baggagebusiness Transportation Security Administration Notice of Inspection (NOI), but with these handwritten words in pen, overlaid: "GET [...]

Danger Room reports that an Army-backed R&D project called “Power Dreaming” at Naval Hospital Bremerton in Washington State promises to help troops battle their nightmares with digital "counter-dreams": virtual dream stimuli. The Army awarded about half a million dollars to a consulting company for help developing the experiment, which is scheduled to launch next year.

The paperback edition of my book, Made by Hand: My Adventures in the World of Do-It-Yourself is coming out tomorrow (October 25). It includes a new section with a recipe for making kombucha and instructions for making a nice-sounding 2-string guitar out of a tin can. If you pre-order a copy of the paperback edition [...]