Online Knitting/Burma Internet Crackdown
In today's edition of Boing Boing tv:
0:11 -- Knitters find a community online in Ravelry.com. One of the site's 21,000 beta users, Ruth Waytz, tells us why she digs Ravelry for swapping patterns, tools, yarns, and "ugh" files (perfectly good projects that went crappy) with fellow knitting fanatics.
Online knitting isn't always precious. Sure, baby booties, tea cozies, and hippie shawls abound. But how about a hand-knitted version of The Fantastic Four character The Thing by knittycat? Craft becomes anti-craft in a lovably loathsome knitted teratoma tumor (by Zabet Stewart, Jane Roth, Heather Hard, and Sarabeth Brownrobie). BTW, image search for "teratoma tumor" at your own peril: it's goatse-grade gross.
2:29 -- More on the internet crackdown by the government of Burma (or Myanmar). As military violence against pro-democracy forces continues, information channels are increasingly blocked. The 'net blackout there gave free speech activist Shava Nerad (also Development Director for the Tor project) deja vu.
Hear the rest of Shava's story, then look for rolling updates on the situation inside Burma at this website, along with other Burma blogs and independent media sites.
Correction: The teratoma tumor is misidentified in the video as being the work of Shelley Batts. Shelley kindly blogged about it, and pointed to related medical photos on her blog post -- but Zabet Stewart explains:
It's not based on an actual medical photo at all. Heather (a doctor who was pregnant at the time) and Sarabeth came up with the idea, I designed and knitted it, and Jane crocheted the attachable parts. It was gifted back to Heather after the birth of her son, Sam.We regret the error.
the latest
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...Damn. Is that a knitted bra she's wearing!?!?!
Hi, could you somehow normalize the volume of your audio? The difference between Xeni and the ads is retardedly loud.
Please please, if you want the audio for the ads to be heard as well as your content then try and sort those levels out.
Great work though, I enjoy your work!
Cheers
Hey guys, we're so sorry about the ad volume issue. It's known, and our hamsters -- i mean, admins, are working on it.
I personally apologize to your ears! Also the plosives and sibilants are too poppy and hissy, we're recording next week's material with a new setup. Thanks for your patience.
This is awesome! Very much like another podcast I've seen at Godnews.podomatic.com.
Thanks
CCC
I saw the world's largest teratoma tumor on the Guinness World Records TV show several years ago. Teeth and hair in a tumor frightened and confused me. The tumor was larger than the person.
And it was benign.
The interview for the Burma piece was very powerful, thanks Xeni! (They should call this Xeni TV ;p)
-pat (banned or something)
Another great episode.
As long as we're talking tech issues, there's something in this one I haven't noticed before. When you go to the two-shot with your guest and turn to profile, both of your noses iz gettin cutted off.
This is most likely due to the green screen bouncing too much light into your semi-reflective faces. The green screen is too close, too hot, or both.
Knit bloggers are taking over the interwebs! Great piece of Ravelry, my home away from home.
Where's Mark?
Funny. That looks a lot like my damn teratoma and my damn husband's hands in a picture that I damn well took for a project I damn well designed.
http://theanticraft.com/archive/samhain06/teratoma.htm
.:Zabet Stewart
Hey, Zabet -- yes, that's why we credited you in the blog post and linked to your site!
Oh great, and since I stopped the episode at the point where my teratoma was given over to someone else (and of course, didn't read the synopsis where I am properly credited until after), I now have the ignominious honor of looking like an idiot who favors knitted tumors over actual people's lives. *sigh* The shit going down in Burma is much more important than knitting - who decided to pair these stories together?
.:Zabet
Zabet wrote:
[[I now have the ignominious honor of looking like an idiot who favors knitted tumors over actual people's lives.]]
Zabet, I'm so sorry you are offended, but I don't agree at all. The question of how to combine lighthearted and more serious subject matter is something we've wrestled with on Boing Boing the blog for years, too, and I guess we're still figuring out how best to do that in what is, for us, a new medium: video. On Boing Boing the blog, you'll often see posts about war or torture or human rights smacked right up against silly posts about papercraft or comics or what have you.
Again, I'm so sorry if you would rather we hadn't included your wonderful work in this piece. If anyone is at fault here for not presenting it properly, it's me. I thought that naming you, individually and collectively, in this very detailed accompanying blog post, and linking twice to your work (here and on boingboing.net) was the right way to do this.
Very sorry.
XJ
Zabet, you didn't look like an idiot, honest. Boing Boing has always had an extremely diverse mix of stories. It's neither your fault nor Xeni's that the Burmese government went spla just in time for that story to be featured the same broadcast as your knitting.
(By the way, I also blogged your teratoma. It's very cool.)
I heart Xeni.
I love how you guys put Boingboing TV together - you cut right to the chase and I, personally, happen to like the diversity of the subject matter. Extremely well executed and produced, as well... some of the nationally televised documentary TV shows could take a lesson from your stuff!
Whoa - Jess and I were very surprised to see Ravelry on bbTV. Thanks Xeni! Not everyone in the tech press takes the time to understand what we are all about and we appreciated your report.
oh - and since Zabet made an appearance I gotta mention that she is the proud parent of one of the most infamous designs on Ravelry - the Snatchel.
Casey (half o' Ravelry)
.....urk. phew. I made it to the end without an embarrassing "OMG we love you Xeni!"
This support-staff member of the tech press just got off the waiting list. Ravelry is crack for knitters. And if you're going to mention Zabet's Snatchel, you should go all the way and list the fetus coin purse that goes with it.
Great show, and I like the mix. Knitting bloggers amaze me-- it's such a vibrant hightech-lowtech subculture. Here's one of my favorites (and I don't even knit): Lauren Weinhold of Lollyknitting Around, who traveled to Peru recently and blogged about men knitting by the side of the road with bicycle spoke knitting needles, gorgeous alpaca yarn in hole-in-the-wall yarn shops, and surviving the Lima earthquake. She's also the founder of the wildly popular Socktoberfest, which is going on now: http://lollygirl.com/blog/socktoberfest