Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets
24 Jul 2008 11:15am GMT Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we found the best places to buy the worst gadgets, reviewed D-Link's DSM 330 Medialounge, and wondered how someone can retrospectively patent something and then shake down an entire industry. Joel wants to know if miniature swamp coolers are any good; Brownlee spotted an Algebraic wall clock that implies its own answers; and Rob found a Tetris pain box. There was an aluminum lego key chain; 365 free games; emo Qtips; a carbonite George Lucas; and a terrible,...
CNN reporter says bad things about the TSA, gets hassled every time he flies
24 Jul 2008 6:41am GMT CNN reporter Drew Griffin reported on the TSA's 1,000,000+ name watchlist of "potential terrorists," and now his name seems to have been added to the list. The TSA denies it, but Griffin is held up every time he flies, and the airlines tell his that it's because he's on the list: "Coincidentally, this all began in May, shortly after I began a series of investigative reports critical of the TSA. Eleven flights now since May 19. On different airlines, my name pops up forcing me to go to the...
Shapeways 3D printing by Internet: 500 free beta signups
24 Jul 2008 6:24am GMT Philips has spun out a new company called Shapeways that does cheap remote 3D printing -- send them a design in 3D and they'll fabricate it out of a variety of materials and send it back to you. It's still in beta, but they've sent me 500 free signups for BB readers -- first come, first served: Beta users can sign up via http://www.shapeways.com/beta BetaCode: BoingBoing Link...
Crooked Little Vein: Warren Ellis's novel now in paperback
24 Jul 2008 5:30am GMT Warren Ellis's fantastic net-perv novel Crooked Little Vein's just come out in paperback -- here's the review I posted of the hardcover last year: Warren Ellis's first novel, "Crooked Little Vein" is about what you'd expect from the Internet's most gonzo celebrant of the kinky, deviant, gross, hard-boiled and manic. Like Hunter S Thompson with an Internet connection, Ellis's hard-boiled detective story veers into hilarious gross-out turf from the first page, when a heroin-addicted presidential...
Can ACLU and other advocacy orgs be journalists too?
24 Jul 2008 5:27am GMT Dan "We the Media" Gillmor has a fascinating editorial up today, "Helping the Almost-Journalists Do Journalism" about the "journalistic" work that organizations like the ACLU are doing in covering stories like the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and how they're filling a gap left by the traditional press, whose reportage has trailed ACLU's work. He proposes that these organizations can be turned into actual journalistic orgs with the addition of a little bit of journo practice. They’re...