Boing Boing
The Prisoner viewable online

I didn't watch AMC's remake of The Prisoner when it aired last November, but I was delighted to see that all 17 episodes of the original 1967-1968 British series are still viewable in full for free on the AMC site. If JG Ballard wrote a TV series, I'd imagine it would have been something like The Prisoner. For those who aren't hip to it yet, the show is a trippy psychological drama about a former spy held captive in a mysterious resort-like prison. The Prisoner video player (AMC, apologies if non-US viewers are shut out)

Youthful harmonica prodigies have the blues
Murray sez, "I recently launched a podcast at the UK-based harmonica website www.harpsurgery.com. The episode here features five young players aged 14-18 (with one 22-year-old to mess up our average) who are playing WAY beyond their years... and in some cases, pushing harmonica-playing into dark scary places where it was never meant to go. The podcast is a little ragged but the playing is great. I thought it pertinent to send this through after Roger Daltrey's shabby harp solo at last night's Super Bowl show. Any one of these kids could destroy Roger Daltrey with a single fog-horn like blast from their instrument. All he'd leave behind is a smoking pair of hush puppies." Damn skippy: these kids are honkin' and smokin'.
Harmonica Podcast: The Kids Are Alright
MP3 link
(Thanks, Murray!)


Beautiful Japanese gramophones
Alan sez, "A Japanese company is producing gramophones with natural touches such as bamboo needles."
The player is produced by world-class hobbyist supplier Gakken, and the quality shows. This gramophone supports all record sizes, features speed and tone adjustment, and even lets you record music! No file formats to worry about, no batteries to replace, and the warm, nostalgic sound of analog - this just might be the perfect music player.
Gakken Premium Gramophone (Thanks, Alan!) Previously:
o Gramophone DIY kit - Boing Boing
o DIY gramophone build-notes and video - Boing Boing
o Shellac Sisters, DJs who play 78s - Boing Boing
o Boing Boing: Convergence, circa 1895


Iceland's paper of record bans linking
Morgunblaðið, Iceland's oldest newspaper and most-visited website (now co-edited by the former prime minister and head of the central bank) has just announced an anti "deep linking" policy saying that Icelanders aren't allowed to link to individual pages on the site, only the front door. Which is to say, the people of Iceland can no longer talk about any news online unless it happens to still be on the front page of the newspaper. Ah, there's the commitment to public service that makes journalism so critical to a free society! (Thanks, Halli!)

Hipster puppies
hipsterpuppies.tumblr.com (via @tokyomango)

Mt. Semantics
Mount Everest may be the tallest mountain on Earth, but that's only if you're measuring from sea level. Thanks to the curvature of the planet,Mount Chimborazo in Ecuador is the highest if you're measuring from the center of the Earth. In fact, by this system, Everest comes in fifth. (Via Chris Pasco-Pranger)


Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition, March 12-14 in Emeryville, CA
The Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition takes place March 12-14 in Emeryville, CA. Organizers promise "the best elements of traditional science fiction and fantasy conventions, [combined] with the passion, ingenuity, and hands-on workshops of Maker events, in a steam-powered, neo-Victorian setting that spans the 1830s through the early 1910s, from the cultured salons of gaslit London to the rugged coast of San Francisco." Sure sounds fun. I'm delighted to see a number of folks we've covered on Boing Boing before, including Jon Sarriugarte, Kimric Smythe, and The Neverwas Haul Crew in the "kinetics" portion of the event.
[ Image: Neverwas Haul, photo by Redteam. ]
Previously:
Previously:
o Test-driving the Electrobite, a trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle (BB ...
o Sarriugarte and Mate's trilobyte vehicle
o boingboing.net/2009/05...
o Three story, mobile Victorian mansion for Burning Man
o Boing Boing "Steampunk" archives


Standard vaccine injections don't work as well for the obese
Standard vaccine injections, done with a 1-in.-long needle, aren't as effective in obese patients. Instead, they need a longer needle to get the same level of immune response. Researchers aren't sure why, but it's possible that fat prevents shorter needles from delivering the vaccine directly into muscle, where it has better access to immune cells.(Via Ivan Oransky.)


Energy use and your food
The whole American food system, from farm to fork, accounts for about 10% of the energy we use in this country. Of that, the largest single portion, 32%, is the energy involved in household food storage and cooking.
Put it another way: If we reduced agricultural energy use by 5%, nationwide, we'd save about 20 trillion British Thermal Units of energy a year. Them's no small potatoes.
But if just 5% of American households got a more efficient refrigerator, we'd save 54 trillion BTU.
Context: I'm spending today and tomorrow at a conference on energy efficiency in agriculture, put on by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy. Those stats come from a presentation by Martin Heller, a researcher with the University of Michigan's Center for Sustainable Systems.


Ugly furniture
Video Link. I sneer at your loveseat! (via Dangerous Minds, thanks, Tara McGinley)



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