The Latest from Boing Boing

Giant Star Wars pool toys and kites Posted: 02 Apr 2009 04:23 AM PDT Lucas has licensed a killer line of inflatable Star Wars beach toys for the summer, including the long-awaited Death Star beachball, giant Millennium Falcon and Starfighter toys, and so on. There's also a trio of gigantic Star Wars kites -- TIE fighters, X-Wings, and the Falcon, natch. Blow Up the Death Star! (via OhGizmo)

Every Nebula-award-nominated story as a free podcast Posted: 02 Apr 2009 04:19 AM PDT Tony sez, StarShipSofa has, in one day, done what no other SF podcast has done before. In another unprecedented move, StarShipSofa has put out all seven Nebula Short Story 2008 nominees, all available as free audio podcasts for your listening pleasure. The Nebulas are a very special event in the SF world and I wanted the StarShipSofa to mark this occasion by doing something unique for this year's awards. I wanted to put out all the stories nominated in one day so people can, straight away, have them downloaded back to back... sitting on their iPod and, for the next few hours, submerge themselves in SF stories of the very best calibre. All for free. Things are changing rapidly in this medium and this is just one example of StarShipSofa pushing the boundaries of normal podcasting in both terms of quality and accessibility. It's what the StarShipSofa was built for. StarShipSofa podcasts all Nebula Short Story nominees for 2008 (Thanks, Tony!)

German retro-futuristic group-dancing Posted: 01 Apr 2009 11:23 PM PDT Check out the wild futuristic dancing in this classic German 1960s space opera Raumpatroullie. Funny futuredance (Raumpatrouille Orion) (via IO9)

"Marx was Right!" Posted: 01 Apr 2009 11:24 PM PDT Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger. Watching the news with the G20 protesters in London carrying banners reading "Capitalism Failed Us" and "Marx was Right!" I felt quite good about the day's events. In 1983 and 1984, I was living in London and going to protests like this myself and it brought back long-forgotten memories. When I was younger, I considered myself a staunch socialist, but as I got older that way of identifying myself fell away. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the break-up of the Soviet Union, it seemed like Marxism was something that the world had moved on from and so did I. During the dotcom era, I was as greedy a capitalist as the next guy. Five years ago, slimming my library down for a cross country move, I unemotionally tossed all of my "Karl Marx and related" books. Boy do I regret doing this now! One recent evening, I was writing something and I thought I'd coined a nifty new phrase to describe a major factor in the economic meltdown: "fictitious capital." I decided to Google the term and it's a good thing that I didn't pat myself on the back too hard because it's something that Karl Marx came up with about 150 years before me. That Google search led me down a Karl Marx rabbit hole that lasted for weeks (My wife, Tara, called it "worse than your reggae phase!"). I bought a new copy of "Capital" and read deep into the night. I emerged a few days later, bleary-eyed, unshaven and proudly declaring myself a socialist again. The work of Karl Marx is ultra relevant to understanding the world's current financial mess, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Marx has become intellectually indispensable to me again, as if there ever should have been any doubt. It's fascinating to consider that during the time period when Marx was writing "Capital," there were few factories in England --it was largely an agrarian society still-- yet somehow Marx was able to see clearly the mess that we would be in today. He's the most accurate prophet in all of history, there should be no doubt about this. Marx viewed history with a very, very long telescope. How he was able to see so far into the future is a mystery of his particular genius, but Marx accurately extrapolated how capitalism's endgame would play itself out at the very birth of the system. Marx saw how utterly destructive this system would ultimately become. Look around you: Marx was right. If you disagree, well, I have a challenge for you: Start reading Marx's "Capital" and see what you think afterward. Keep an open mind and try to get past the drier chapters up front. It's a richly rewarding intellectual journey to take. There is an online course taught by Professor David Harvey that I found quite helpful, you might want to take in some (or all) of his lectures for chapters that are more difficult to understand. Maybe some of you might want to form an online reading group on Facebook. The important point is to READ Marx again and to rediscover how prescient his ideas really were and how well they explain what's going on today. The Revenge of Karl Marx by Christopher Hitchens Marxism (Wikipedia) An excellent overview Reading Marx's Capital with David Harvey (13 part video lecture series)

Thriftstore paintings enhanced with Katamari Damacy Posted: 01 Apr 2009 09:40 PM PDT Over at Offworld, Brandon has the lowdown on loudxmouse's thriftstore paintings embellished with Katamari Damacy.

No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford Posted: 01 Apr 2009 04:18 PM PDT Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger. Artist Brandon Bird's website has many pleasures, including the lovely piece above these words, "No One Wants to Play Sega with Harrison Ford." I really wish this painting were mine. I'm so jealous of whoever owns it. A pity that all the prints are sold out, too. Maybe if enough people email him and want them, he'll do a new edition! Are you listening Brandon? Do not miss the "Letters to Walken" section of his site documenting an art project of Bird's that saw school children writing their annual Christmas letters to ... Christopher Walken. Thanks Lenora Claire!

Unicorn Chaser beverage from ThinkGeek! Posted: 01 Apr 2009 01:49 PM PDT ThinkGeek has launched a fantastic new Boing Boing-inspired product, the Unicorn Chaser! Sadly though, they got their facts wrong about the creator of the Unicorn Chaser. They said "the brilliant minds at BoingBoing (esp. Cory Doctorow!) originated the concept for a Unicorn Chaser." Actually, it was Xeni. Our badass attorney will be in touch. So buy the beverage now before our C&D shuts 'em down! It'll be the best $2.99 you never spent. From the product description: We've all been there. You are innocently Twit-blogging on the Interscape, logging a few hours on Facebook, or checking your e-mail and you click on a link without thinking. Suddenly, you are confronted with an image or video so horribly nauseating it makes your eyes bleed. Whether it be pictures of someone's overstretched nether regions or a video of two young ladies sharing substances they oughtn't - your mind begs for cleansing (or a swift death)!... Introducing, the Unicorn Chaser - a drink shot specially formulated to cleanse your mind and soul. Featuring a perfect blend of vitamins, herbs and minerals (each selected for its body purification, mood elevation, stomach calming, and other beneficial qualities), the Unicorn Chaser is a life saver. Chug it within one minute of viewing the offending internet image (really, as fast as possible) and in mere seconds you will begin to feel better. It won't erase your memory, but each Unicorn Chaser will pump you with enough goodness that it just won't matter. You'll be healed. You're welcome. Think Geek's Unicorn Chaser beverage

Nom Nom Nom: The Bunny Song. Posted: 01 Apr 2009 11:48 AM PDT Link to video. It is cute, and it is kid-safe, and it may make you hungry. For what the bunnies are eating, or, heck, maybe for the bunnies themselves. (Thanks, Allison Kingsley, via John Walsh!) Presented By: Inside Guantanamo: Sunday at 9P e/p Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's controversial prisons. This may be its final chapter. With unprecedented access, National Geographic has the story you haven't heard. Both sides, told from the inside, before its doors close forever. Click to learn more and go Inside Guantanamo >> natgeotv.com/guantanamo   Ads by Pheedo

Man dances in public, videotapes self for 366 days straight "to do something new" Posted: 01 Apr 2009 11:49 AM PDT Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger. Meet Mike Long, a Canadian performance artist from Hamilton, Ontario. Mike freaky danced and taped himself doing so for 366 days straight, mainly in his hometown, but he includes NYC, SF and various European locales in his work. He has great taste in music and some of these videos are hysterically funny, reminding me a lot of Spike Jonze's classic Fatboy Slim video. Here is his interpretation of the Delta 5's "Mind Your Own Business": Mike says "I made a dance video, almost always in public places, every single day for an entire year. I am only here to make you smile and hopefully change the way you think about 'genres,' and show you what honest reactions to music look like.' He added "And to do something new." Mike told me that he next plans on releasing twelve books in one year. Three are already complete. When asked what he's writing about, Mike says, "Everything and nothing. Being and living. Wit and lowbrow culture. I will write about every topic I can think of." He seems to have a lot of energy! I believe he'll do it. Thanks Tara McGinley! Can "Vitamin C" A Number of Names "Sharevari" Black Sheep "E.F.F.E.C.T." (NSFW, but hilarious) Captain Beefheart "Zig Zag Wanderer" Toots & the Maytals "Pressure Drop" Brainiac "Nothing Ever Changes" The Stooges "Shake Appeal" Screamin' Jay Hawkins "I Put a Spell on You" Mummies "Stronger than dirt"

"Ah Pook is Here": Unseen William S Burroughs Graphic Novel Art Show Posted: 01 Apr 2009 10:39 AM PDT Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger. When "Ah Pook is Here" was published in 1979, it was in a form greatly diminished from the authors' original intent. Originally conceived as a graphic novel in the pictographic format of the surviving Mayan codices, the project --eight years in the making-- consisted of over 100 illustrations by Malcolm McNeill, 30 in full color and about 50 pages of text. "Ah Pook is Here" would have been prohibitively expensive to publish at the time. As Burroughs wrote "over the years of our collaboration Malcolm McNeill produced more than a hundred pages of artwork. However, owing partly to the expense of full color reproduction, and because the book falls into neither the category of the conventional illustrated book, nor that of a comix publication, there have been difficulties with the arrangements for the complete work. The book is in fact unique…" The illustrations from "Ah Pook is Here" have been rediscovered after 38 years and are traveling the world, displayed in various art galleries. On April 4, the exhibit opens at the Track 16 Gallery in Los Angeles. I can't wait to see this! One of the paintings is 25 feet long! Hopefully the attention the work has received lately will see "Ah Pook is Here" published as Burroughs and McNeill envisioned it. Malcolm McNeill interview about working with WSB "Ah Pook is Here" --a quite incredible short film, with Burroughs own narration.

Tolkien's City of Kings made from matchsticks Posted: 01 Apr 2009 10:49 AM PDT Marevelous matchstick artist Patrick Acton - maker of the matchstick Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, matchstick battleship, matchstick Notre Dame, and dozens of other sculptures - is currently building a model of JRR Tolkien's City of Kings from the Lord of the Rings. He expects the model to be completed next year. Acton is proprietor of the Matchstick Marvels Tourist Center in Gladbrook, Iowa and you can also see many of his models online. Matchstick Marvels (thanks, Kirsten!) Previously: Matchstick Hogwarts - fantastic and detailed! - Boing Boing Wacky/gorgeous online gallery of burning matchstick art - Boing Boing Matchstick Rockets! Fun! Link - Boing Boing Presented By: Inside Guantanamo: Sunday at 9P e/p Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's controversial prisons. This may be its final chapter. With unprecedented access, National Geographic has the story you haven't heard. Both sides, told from the inside, before its doors close forever. Click to learn more and go Inside Guantanamo >> natgeotv.com/guantanamo   Ads by Pheedo

World's tiniest frogs Posted: 01 Apr 2009 10:03 AM PDT This is likely the smallest frog species in the world, discovered in the Andes Mountains' upper Cosnipata Valley in Peru. From National Geographic: "The most distinctive character of the new species," scientists write in the February issue of the journal Copeia, "is its diminutive size." Females grow to 0.49 inch (12.4 millimeters) at most. Males make it to only 0.44 inch (11.1 millimeters). What's most surprising is that the frog lives at such high elevations, said study co-author Alessandro Catenazzi, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley. In general, larger animals are found at greater heights. Coin-Size Frog Found -- One of World's Smallest

Boing Boing Video: Jane McGonigal - Games Can Change the World. Posted: 01 Apr 2009 09:23 AM PDT Download the MP4 here. Flash video above, click "fullscren" icon inside player to view large. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. Today on Boing Boing Video, more of the interviews we conducted during the recent Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, and ran on a marathon streaming video webcast. Today, part two of our conversation with Jane McGonigal of Institute for the Future. In this episode, Jane talks with us about the responsibilities of designers who create virtual worlds, and how the emotional and human exchange within gaming worlds has the potential to change life in the "real world." Previously: * Jane McGonigal on Emotion, Gaming, and Dance. * Jane McGonigal's Game Developers' Conference talk on Making Your Own Reality * BBV @ GDC live stream archives, at Ustream.tv * Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: offworld.com archive * Boing Boing Video and Offworld.com Live at GDC09: boingboing.net archive [ Credits and props for BBV Live @GDC09: Production Team -- Jolon Bankey, Derek Bledsoe, Daniela Calderon, Eddie Codel, Xeni Jardin, Allison Kingsley, Matty Kirsch, Alice Taylor, Wesly Varghese. Special thanks to Wayneco Heavy Industries (accommodation and studio facilities), Virgin America Airlines (air travel), Celsius (thermogenic energy beverage), Ustream.tv (streaming video host). Moral support, production assistance, additional talent, and good vibes provided by: Domini Anne, Scott Beale, T.Bias, Jeremy Bornstein, Brandon Boyer, Chris The Van Guy, Peter S. Conrad, Marque Cornblatt, Wayne, Bre, and the entire de Geere family, Marcy DeLuce, Cory Doctorow, Joel Johnson, Kourosh Karimkhany, Jim Louderback and the Revision 3 team, Karen Marcelo, Rocky Mullin, Alicia Pollak, Jackie Mogol, Taylor Peck, David Pescovitz, Micah Schaffer, and Teal. ]

Neon Fractal Sculpture Posted: 01 Apr 2009 09:16 AM PDT Theodore Gray, who is responsible for those stunning Periodic Table of Elements works I've blogged about before, points us to this beautiful 3D Hilbert fractal in neon, which is about four inches tall. Theodore explains, "It was a gift from Richard Crandall, a long-time Mathematica user and Apple fellow who also has a business, Perfectly Scientific, which sells algorithms, lab equipment, and scientific art, including this lovely object." More about the artwork here, including some video and QTVR panoramas. Presented By: Inside Guantanamo: Sunday at 9P e/p Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's controversial prisons. This may be its final chapter. With unprecedented access, National Geographic has the story you haven't heard. Both sides, told from the inside, before its doors close forever. Click to learn more and go Inside Guantanamo >> natgeotv.com/guantanamo   Ads by Pheedo

Funny homemade Star Wars costumes Posted: 01 Apr 2009 09:20 AM PDT Holy Taco posted a collection of what they've deemed "The Worst Homemade Star Wars Costumes." The costumes may be pretty silly, but I think they look kinda fun too. (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!) Previously: ComicCon's best Star Wars costumes - Boing Boing AT-AT homebrew Hallowe'en costume - Boing Boing Pet costume: slave girl Princess Leia - Boing Boing

Bunny with two noses Posted: 01 Apr 2009 09:16 AM PDT It's hard to tell in the photo, but apparently this baby bunny has two noses. The dwarf rabbit lives at a pet store in Milford, Connecticut. From the Connecticut Post: Gregg Dancho, director of the Beardsley Zoo in Bridgeport, said there's usually two reasons for such deformities. "It's mostly genetic," he said. "Most of the dwarf bunnies pet stores sell are bred for sale. There's a lot of in-breeding going on because the breeders are looking to produce them en mas." But the anomaly can also be caused by something in the environment. "Maybe the parents got into poison or pesticides used to control pests," he said. But Dancho said people interested in buying a dwarf rabbit or any animal as a pet should really think about what they are doing and not buy on impulse. "When that animal comes home you will have to take care of it," he said. "No fooling: This bunny has two noses" (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!) Previously: Calf with two noses - Boing Boing Two-faced kitten - Boing Boing Two-faced calf - Boing Boing

Recently on Offworld Posted: 01 Apr 2009 08:13 AM PDT Recently on Offworld, as we slowly recover from the hangover of GDC, a quick look back at the things you may have missed: GDC things: 2D Boy and Polytron giving their top 10 ways to market indie games, a fantastic new trailer for Polytron's Fez, Keita Takahashi's Noby Noby Boy coming to the iPhone as his original Katamari Damacy gets revamped for PS3, LucasArts vet Tim Schafer's first point & click adventure in a decade. Also, streaming video of both the Indie Games Festival Awards and the Game Dev Choice Awards, experimental PC game Achron lets you manipulate time for strategic multiplayer battles, and prolific prodigy Cactus lets you play his method of creating brilliant games in four hours (above). iPhone things: Hand Circus spin Rolando into a powerhouse franchise with two new sequels due by the end of the year, and we search desperately for an iGameBoy case. Console and handheld things: Fans of underdog RPG Earthbound/Mother 3 take ownership of the series with an amazing DIY guidebook, a new downloadable app in Japan turns your DS into a portable streaming game music receiver, Introversion publish confidential docs on bringing Darwinia to Xbox 360, and D2 creator Kenji Eno returns to consoles with a jaw-droppingly gorgeous retro-futuristic balancing WiiWare game. Art, toy, music, and misc. things: preorders open for Mezco's LittleBigPlanet toys, a new series of NES box art for modern day games, a new guide is published for following Pokemon on Twitter, and 6955 remixes the Fez soundtrack live. Presented By: Inside Guantanamo: Sunday at 9P e/p Guantanamo Bay is one of the world's controversial prisons. This may be its final chapter. With unprecedented access, National Geographic has the story you haven't heard. Both sides, told from the inside, before its doors close forever. Click to learn more and go Inside Guantanamo >> natgeotv.com/guantanamo   Ads by Pheedo

Ant slaves' murderous rebellions Posted: 01 Apr 2009 06:18 AM PDT From last month's journal Evolution, a fascinating tale of slave rebellion among ants kidnapped by other ant species and forced to work for the rival colony: When these youngsters mature, they take on the odour of their abductors and become the servants of the enslaving queen. They take over the jobs of maintaining the colony and caring for its larvae even though they are from another species; they even take part in raids themselves. But like all slave-traders, P.americanus faces rebellions. Some of its victims (ants from the genus Temnothorax) strike back with murderous larvae. Alexandra Achenbach and Susanne Foitzik from Ludwig Maximillians Universty in Munich found that some of the kidnapped workers don't bow to the whims of their new queen. Once they have matured, they start killing the pupae of their captors, destroying as many as two-thirds of the colony's brood... Two-thirds of pupae died before they hatched. The mortality rate was even higher (83%) for pupae containing queens, but very low (3%) for those containing males. The duo saw that the captives were deliberately killing the healthy pupae. In about 30% of cases, as in the photo, the workers would gang up to literally pull the developing ants apart. Another 53% of the pupae were killed by neglect, by workers who moved them out of the nest chamber. These murders were solely the acts of the slaves. No P.americanus worker ever lifted a mandible against its own pupae. Nor are the deaths a reflection of a generally poor standard of care on the part of Temnothorax. In their own colonies, the majority of pupae hatched, with just 3-10% dying before that happened. The rebellion of the ant slaves FIRST EVIDENCE FOR SLAVE REBELLION: ENSLAVED ANT WORKERS SYSTEMATICALLY KILL THE BROOD OF THEIR SOCIAL PARASITE PROTOMOGNATHUS AMERICANUS (Image: Ant Actions, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from CharlesLam's Flickr stream)

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: adding much-needed zombies to the Austen classic Posted: 01 Apr 2009 04:50 AM PDT I don't often give books mixed reviews here on Boing Boing. If I don't like a book enough to wholeheartedly recommend it, I generally pass on it -- after all, there's no shortage of books that I love, so why make note of the flawed ones? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies is the exception to the rule, because there's so much to like about this book, even if it didn't actually do it for me. Here's the pitch: Seth Grahame-Smith has taken Jane Austen's classic, beloved novel Pride and Prejudice and, by means of cunning textual insertions and deletions, changed the story so that it takes place in the midst of a Regency England that has been plunged into chaos by a plague of the living dead. It takes surprisingly little work to do this, and the book ends up feeling substantially like the classic mannered novel that so many adore. Except with zombie mayhem. The execution is flawless, often hilarious, and just plain clever. So, what's the problem? Well, the problem is Jane Austen. Can't stand her. Never successfully read Pride and Prejudice. Bored to tears by it. I'm not proud of the fact. Plenty of smart people have the utmost respect for the book, and I'm perfectly willing to stipulate that the problem is with me, not with Austen. But P&P&Z has just too much Austen and not enough zombies. I found myself skimming, skipping larger and larger chunks of text to get to the zombie sequences, desperate to escape the claustrophobic drawing-room chatter of Austen's characters with a little beheading, disemboweling and derring-do. I couldn't finish it. But I expect if you were the kind of person who loves both Austen and zombies, this book would just plain knock your socks off. And Quirk Books, the publisher of P&P&Z, was kind enough to give us an exclusive link to the first three chapters online for free, so you can make up your own mind. I understand they're planning on doing more books on these lines, and I'm really looking forward to them. It's a great way to celebrate the public domain, to bring classics to a new audience, and to undermine the gravitas with which we often approach "difficult literature." Which Quirk book would you like to see? Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance - Now with Ultraviolent Zombie Mayhem! First three chapters of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

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