Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Sunday, 4 December 2011
Instapaper 4
By Rob Beschizza at 12:28 pm Monday, Oct 17 Best-in-class "Read Later" app Instapaper hit version 4 today, featuring redesigned navigation and much else besides. [Marco Arment]
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Does light make people safer? Maybe. Maybe not.
By Maggie Koerth-Baker at 9:14 am Monday, Oct 17
One of the cool things about LED lighting is that it provides opportunities to bring some of the benefits of big, modern infrastructures to developing countries without having to actually build the big, modern (and expensive) infrastructure.
A couple of years ago, I wrote a story for ArchitecturalSSL magazine about people installing solar-powered LED streetlights in remote villages in southern Mexico. Tying these places into the larger electrical grid would have been extremely difficult. But solar LED streetlights allowed the people who lived in those places to get the night light they wanted.
Now there's similar work happening in refugee camps in Haiti, where many people displaced by the 2010 earthquake still live. The change is undoubtedly useful: LED streetlights don't have to be powered by expensive gasoline generators, they're better on the lungs than fires, and the light level is bright enough to allow people to work and live far more easily. But what about physical safety? Surprisingly, there turns out to be a decent amount of debate over whether or not the extra light actually reduces violence and makes people safer. It's an interesting case study in how "common sense" doesn't always match up with reality and how difficult it is to attribute cause and effect in complicated social environments. From at story Txchnologist:
Tags: Culture, electricity, good works, infrastructure, Science, society, Technology, yesbutIn recent months, the lights have come on at two camps through the efforts of aid groups, the Haitian government and the particular expertise of the Solar Electric Light Fund, or SELF, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that uses renewable energy to provide light and power in developing countries.
The nexus between public lighting and safety is hotly debated in Western countries.
Some studies show a decline in crime after an area is illuminated while other research has found that crime actually increases after lights are installed, though it may be because crime is more visible. These studies are of little value, however, in places with collapsed infrastructure like Haiti, which plunged into darkness after the magnitude 7.0 earthquake flattened entire neighborhoods and killed untold thousands.
The security improvements were immediate. The lights function at full power from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. and at 50 percent between 12 a.m. and 6 a.m. Reported acts of violence, including sexual assault, declined from about six per week when the installations began in June to one or zero per week when streetlights came online in August, according to J/P HRO data provided by SELF. While it’s possible to attribute this drop to other factors – the population of the camp had declined to 23,000 by September and community-based “protection teams” have increased patrols – residents reported feeling an increased sense of security. Increased usage of the latrines also improved Sanitary conditions “significantly,” according to J/P HRO.
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Epic Star Wars snark tee: "Show us on the trilogy where George hurt you"
By Cory Doctorow at 6:03 am Sunday, Oct 16
Another find from New York Comic-Con: this epic Star Wars snark tee from Joel Watson, creator of Hijinks Ensue, a most excellent webcomic.
T-shirt: George Hurt You [shop.blindferret.com] Tags: Copyfight, fashion, Funny, happy mutants, nycc, shirt, star wars, t-shirt
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Friday, 2 December 2011
Teenage Mutant Ninja Noses: a Tumblog of Greatness
By Xeni Jardin at 2:35 pm Monday, Oct 17 
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA NOSES, by Simon Fletcher. "GOD IS THE ARTIST. I JUST FIND THE NINJA TURTLE IN HIS WORK." (thanks, Joe Sabia) Tags: Funny, meme, photoshop, teenage mutant ninja turtles, tumblr
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Nun becomes ninth Tibetan to self-immolate as protest against Chinese military repression
By Xeni Jardin at 2:28 pm Monday, Oct 17 Tenzin Wangmo, a 20-year-old nun from Dechen Chokorling Nunnery in Tibet, is the ninth Tibetan to commit self-immolation since March, and the fifth of those to die. They are protesting repression by Chinese security forces. More at Free Tibet. Tags: tibet
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Thursday, 1 December 2011
The Willat Effect - hedonic change caused by side-by-side comparison of similar things
By Mark Frauenfelder at 10:46 am Tuesday, Oct 18 
After just having read Seth Roberts' blog post about The Willat Effect (the hedonic change caused by side-by-side comparison of similar things), it was interesting to see Xeni's post about the side-by-side comparison of video shot with the iPhone 4S vs the Canon 5d MKII.
I discovered the Willat Effect when my friend Carl Willat offered me five different limoncellos side by side. Knowing that he likes it, his friends had given them to him. Perhaps three were homemade, two store-bought. I’d had plenty of limoncello before that, but always one version at a time. Within seconds of tasting the five versions side by side, I came to like two of them (with more complex flavors) more than the rest. One or two of them I started to dislike. When you put two similar things next to each other, of course you see their differences more clearly. What’s impressive is the hedonic change.The Willat EffectThe Willat Effect supports my ideas about human evolution because it pushes people toward connoisseurship. (I predict it won’t occur with animals.) The fact that repeating elements are found in so many decorating schemes and patterns meant to be pretty (e.g., wallpapers, textile patterns, rugs, choreography) suggests that we get pleasure from putting similar things side by side — the very state that produces the Willat Effect. According to my theory of human evolution, connoisseurship evolved because it created demand for hard-to-make goods, which helped the most skilled artisans make a living. Carl’s limoncello tasting made me a mini-connoisseur of limoncello. I started buying it much more often and bought more expensive brands, thus helping the best limoncello makers make a living. Connoisseurs turn surplus into innovation by giving the most skilled artisans more time and freedom to innovate.
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words -- exclusive preview
By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:43 pm Tuesday, Oct 18
The following Steve Jobs quotes are reprinted with permission from the new book I, Steve: Steve Jobs In His Own Words, edited by George Beahm, Agate B2.
Broad-Based Education
Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country... I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this... It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating. None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me.
-- Commencement address, Stanford University, June 12, 2005Broad Life Experiences, Importance of
A lot of people in our industry haven't had very diverse experiences. So they don't have enough dots to connect, and they end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem. The broader one's understanding of the human experience, the better design we will have.
-- Wired, February 1996Competition
After Apple management complained about the six Apple employees SJ was taking with him to start NeXT: I wasn't aware that Apple owned me, you know. I don't think they do. I think that I own me. And for me not to be able to practice my craft ever again in my life seems odd. We're not going to take any technology, any proprietary ideas out of Apple. We're willing to put that in writing. It's the law, anyway. There is nothing, by the way, that says Apple can't compete with us if they think what we're doing is such a great idea. It's hard to think that a $2 billion company with 4,300+ people couldn't compete with six people in blue jeans.
-- Newsweek, September 30, 1985Consumer Product Design
Re: the iPod--Look at the design of a lot of consumer products--they're really complicated surfaces. We tried to make something much more holistic and simple. When you first start off trying to solve a problem, the first solutions you come up with are very complex, and most people stop there. But if you keep going, and live with the problem and peel more layers of the onion off, you can oftentimes arrive at some very elegant and simple solutions. Most people just don't put in the time or energy to get there. We believe that customers are smart and want objects which are well thought through.
--Newsweek, October 14, 2006Deadlines
Real artists ship.
-- Folklore.org, January 1984
I, Steve: Steve Jobs in His Own Words
Where not otherwise specified, this work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)