tech@vedella

BestSFBooks produces lists of the most award-winning and award-nominated science fiction and fantasy novels, as well as lists of new releases from writers whose works have won a lot of awards in the past. A good place to go for book reccos. (Thanks, Adam!) BestSFBooks [bestsfbooks.com]

Scored is Lauren McLaughlin's latest YA science fiction novel, a remarkable book about surveillance, class, and culture. It's McLaughlin's third novel, and her best so far (though the previous two were very good). In Scored, the American middle class is no more, wiped out by economic catastrophe. Social entrepreneurs bent on restoring class mobility have [...]

Twaggies presents another quiz, which this time will have you in knots of frustration behind the media center.

Thanks to Boing Boing reader "WhishingOnAsTar!" for submitting today's background image to the Boing Boing Flickr pool!

I was at a friend's birthday dinner when he received a WeWOOD wooden watch from his wife. Everyone at the table was quite impressed. The wooden watch is very striking, elegant, and solid. WeWOOD timepieces come in a variety of colors and each one is slightly different because, well, they're wood. The dual movement watches [...]

B3ta user Limpfish's "Lossie" graphic is great JPEG artifact humor -- and other B3tans took up the challenge with similarly altered movie posters. Home » Messageboard » Message 10579834 [b3ta.com]

Pere Tarragó built this MV Agusta 750 S. For the fun surprise, click here.

Here's the latest Narco Polo comic by Rob Arthur, a a former inner-city teacher and public defender and author of one of my favorite books, You Will Die: The Burden of Modern Taboos. The astronomer and author, Carl Sagan, attributed numerous insights to marijuana and has defended this inspiration from those who call it illusory. [...]

Leaky ex-Scientology bigwig Marty Rathbun reveals that the Church of Scientology has been running deep "public records checks" (including dumpster-diving and investigating friends) on South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, looking for damaging/discrediting material: "Scientology's standard procedure would be to put its private eyes on a complete check of these people and their [...]

Spotted in the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, NJ: a "garbage omelette" with "anything the cook can find." Check out the omelette I'm too scared to order at the Clinton Diner. (It's the last on the list.) [twitter.com]

Spotted in @carriebish's Twitter, this insane and menacing shop-window sign about an improbable sky-diving trip and a fraught marriage. Just about the amazingest craziest sign I've ever seen [twitter.com]

Charlie Stross goes on a tear with "A cultural thought experiment," looking at what the wealth of the 1 percent means, what it can't buy them, and how it might be viewed from a future society. The diminishing marginal utility law dictates that the more money we have, the less utility we get from any [...]

Teller (of Penn & Teller fame) is working on a stage adaptation of William Peter Blatty's The Exorcist. Teller's got an eclectic, less-well-known scholarly/serious bent, having contributed to peer-reviewed work on the neuroscience of magic as well as directing an acclaimed performance of Macbeth. From the early notes, it sounds like this adaptation will play [...] Presented By: Visualize the Future of the Anywhere Office   Has your company seen an increase in workplace mobility? Does the cloud really matter for your business? Make sure you’re in the know with Cisco and be prepared for what’s in store. Read, learn, share and discuss the future of the network. http://network.cisco.com/ Ads by Pheedo

A man carries an injured girl after an earthquake in Tabanli village. REUTERS/Abdurrahman Antakyali/Anadolu Agency. Turkey's Kandilli Observatory estimates that 1,000 or more people were killed today in a powerful earthquake in southeast Turkey's Van province. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay told reporters some 10 buildings had collapsed in Van city and around 25-30 [...]

A new DARPA solicition seeks "swarming robot space vampires" (in JWZ's evocative phrasing) to disassemble and harvest valuable components from decommissioned satellites before they're decommissioned, to use as spare parts for the stuff that's still functional: More than $300 billion worth of satellites are estimated to be in the geosynchronous orbit (GEO—22,000 miles above the [...]

On October 23, 2001, Steve Jobs and Apple unveiled the first iPod: 5GB of music packed into a white box no bigger than a deck of cards. More on the history, and Tony Fadell's role in developing the device: Macworld.

PA Design sells die-cut post-its shaped like wristwatches, gummed so they can be joined at the wrist. A cute way to put notes where you're sure to glance at them. Montre Post It Pense bête [pa-design.com] Presented By: Visualize the Future of the Anywhere Office   Has your company seen an increase in workplace mobility? Does the cloud really matter for your business? Make sure you’re in the know with Cisco and be prepared for what’s in store. Read, learn, share and discuss the future of the network. http://network.cisco.com/ Ads by Pheedo

The network of global corporate control (PDF), a study published in PLOS One, analyzes the ownership structures of the world's corporations and finds a tightly-knit cluster of 147 entities control 40 percent of the world's wealth. Not only is this creepy inasmuch as it puts a lot of power into a small number of hands, [...]

Some damned good fiction advice from Teresa Nielsen Hayden, just back from teaching the Viable Paradise science fiction/fantasy writing workshop on Martha's Vineyard. Rules 3 and 4 are particularly nice stuff, just the sort of thing I find myself paying attention to as I work on the sequel to Little Brother: 3. Recycle your characters. [...]

The Consumerist: "Someone has graffitied this Burger King billboard in downtown Seattle to transform it into criticism about how sugary fast food contributes to diabetes and the obesity crisis."