Tuesday, June 9, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing
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Noir Bosch meets Ren n Stimpy

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 04:40 AM PDT


Sam Branton describes his "Erotica Beastia" drawings as "a cross between Hieronymus Bosch, Ren and Stimpy, and the Maltese Falcon." I really like them (though I wish the online versions were a little bigger and sharper). He's showing them at the Sesame Gallery in London from the 16th of July.

Erotica Beastia (Thanks, Sam!)

Students who went on strike over CCTVs in classroom speak

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 04:36 AM PDT

Leia Clancy and Sam Goodman, two of the English students who staged a strike when they discovered CCTV cameras had been installed in their classrooms have written an impassioned-but-reasoned op-ed about their desire to be educated without surveillance. I was so inspired by these kids' story that I asked my British publisher, HarperCollins, to send them a case of copies of Little Brother, my novel about young people who fight off governmetn surveillance.
It turned out that our entire class was angry or confused over the cameras. Out of a class of 18 students, 17 felt uncomfortable with the idea and decided to boycott the room until the issue, and the students, were addressed. This was a difficult decision as we were three months away from exams and we had five lessons a fortnight in the room. The student body was supportive and a petition gained over 130 signatures from the sixth-form...

Many users suggested that cameras were a good idea because they could be used to keep an eye on bullying and student behaviour, we were accused of been "narcissistic megalomaniacs" angry at "being nabbed for our churlish troublemaking". This stereotypical and frankly ignorant view ignores the fact that Davenant Foundation School produces some of the best exam results in Essex. Violent behaviour among pupils is simply not an issue, making the justification for putting cameras in our classrooms more surprising.

Adults are often quick to define the youth of today as stereotypical troublemakers and violent offenders - generalisations which are prompted by the media - when in fact the majority of students at our school are as responsible and arguably better behaved then the majority of adults. Some commentators insinuated that we overheard adults talking about rights and repeated it. That notion isn't worth the space it was typed upon. We are A-level politics students who have been studying civil liberties as part of the curriculum for the last two years...

Eroding standards in schools and deteriorating discipline are down to a broken society and the failure of the education system. The truth is that we are whatever the generation before us has created. If you criticise us, we are your failures; and if you applaud us we are your successes, and we reflect the imperfections of society and of human life.

We don't need no CCTV in our classroom (Thanks, Cassidy!)
Previously:


Fake Chinese antimalarials sold in Nigeria with "Made in India" lable

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:45 PM PDT

There's a whole geopolitical story lurking here: Indian trade reps sending stern diplomatic letters to the Chinese embassy over fake drug sales in Nigeria:
Last week, the National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control (NAFDAC) of Nigeria issued a press release stating that a large consignment of fake anti-malarial generic pharmaceuticals labelled `Made in India' were, in fact, found to have been produced in China.

New Delhi has registered ``strong protest'' with the Chinese mission and China's foreign trade ministry, according to sources in the commerce ministry.

Chinese passing off fake drugs as 'Made in India'

Fees waived for US marrow donation signups

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:23 PM PDT

Help Emru Heal Someone sez,
Beginning June 8, the first 46000 people to sign up to the National Marrow Donor Program in the United States can do so for free. While there are ways to register for free or at a lower price during the year, you often have to know the ins and outs, and it is uncommon to be able to register online and get a kit sent directly to your home at no charge. For those who are eligible, the most daunting part of considering becoming a donor are the unanswered questions and misconceptions of the registration, matching, and donation process (which is why I have linked to the NMDP's FAQ).

Here are some things you may or may not know:

-Over 70% of people will not match someone in their family and will search for a registered stranger to be found as a match.

-In most of North America, you can register using a simple cheek swab test to determine your profile.

-Most people will never donate, because it is very hard to find a match, but the procedure is low-risk and not lengthy.

-Your ethnicity plays a large role in determining a match. Many people are in underrepresented donor pools, but no one is guaranteed a match.

-2 in 10 patients with active requests will find an unrelated match.

FAQs about Joining the Registry (Thanks, Tamu!)
Previously:


GE sucks up government money, invests in secret stuff that we're not allowed to know about

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:17 PM PDT

Jason sez, "GE bought a patent for a device called a Stamet Pump that was developed with significant taxpayer money by DOE and then refused to share the device with other firms or the public at large. DOE argued unsuccessfully that the patent should be part of the public domain. This device has tremendous potential in aiding gasification of certain types of coal, something that would pave the way for carbon sequestration from coal-fired power plants. DOE argued with GE execs that they should either release the technology to the public domain or license it to multiple other firms in the interest of the public, since it was funded with public money. Also intriguing in this story is that the state of Wyoming has partnered with GE to build a $100 million gasification test center using this technology--Wyoming is chipping in half of the money from federal funds that were released to the state after a long battle by coal-friendly legislators. Wyoming released the documents detailing the partnership with so many pages blacked out because of "intellectual property, commercial, and trade secrets" that no one can figure out the answer to questions like "what does Wyoming get for its $50 million?" GE and Wyoming decided to start a new test center after DOE officials, upset at GE's selfishness, pulled the plug on other gasification research based on the device and instead shifted their funding to a competitor who would presumably be more willing to share the fruits of taxpayer research dollars."

$100-million GE-Wyoming Coal Project Found Willing, Discreet Partner In Wyoming (Thanks, GE!)

Get your face into the NYC premiere of RIP: A REMIX MANIFESTO

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:15 PM PDT


Cameron from Creative Commons sez, "Brett Gaylor and the crew at Open Source Cinema are running an awesome promotion to get yourself included in the NYC theatrical debut of 'Rip! A Remix Manifesto'. Simply edit yourself into Javier Gutierrez's Times Square photo (available at OSC's site) in place of one of the advertisement billboards and they will compile and animation of Times Square being overrun by Free culture activists as opposed to advertisements."

Remix NYC: Get Your Face In The Opening NYC Screening of "Rip! A Remix Manifesto" (Image: Times Square, J Gutierrez | CC BY)

Previously:


Michael Geist explains Canada's screwed-up Internet to the Canadian Senate

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:12 PM PDT

JF sez, "Canadian law professor Michael Geist recently appeared before a Canadian Senate committee for a no-holds-barred testimony on the sorry state of Canadian broadband and wireless. The opening statement is a must-read as is the full transcript as Senators from across the country begin to realize just how bad the current situation is."

This is great -- open spectrum, net neutrality, surveillance and packet-shaping, the whole shebang, laid out with the legal, economic and ethical arguments:

First, Canada is relatively expensive, ranking fourteenth for monthly subscription costs at $45.65. By comparison, Japan costs $30.46 cents and the U.K. is $30.63. Second, the Canadian Internet is slow, ranking twenty-fourth out of the 30 OECD countries. It is truly a different Internet experience for people in Japan, Korea and France, where the speed allows for applications and opportunities that we do not have. Moreover, Canada lags behind in fibre connections direct to home fibre with 0 per cent penetration, according to the OECD. By comparison, Japan sits at 48 per cent, Korea at 43 per cent, Sweden at 20 per cent and the United States, which has been slow in this area, is at 4 per cent. Third, when you combine speed and pricing, Canada drops to twenty-eighth out of the 30 OECD countries for price per megabyte. In other words, as consumers, we pay more for less -- higher prices, slower speeds. Fourth, in addition, Canada is one of only four OECD countries where consumers have no alternative but to take a service with bit caps. That means the service provider caps the amount of bandwidth that the consumer can use each month. In almost every other OECD country, consumers at least have a choice between providers that use bit caps and those that do not.

What can be done about this issue?

We need a firm commitment to universal broadband access akin to the same type of commitment that we once had to universal telephone service. As I say, it is the price of admission for much that the Internet has to offer. All Canadians should have access to reliable, high-speed networks. In addition, we need a strategy for faster networks because it is clear that we cannot rely on our existing networks as we slip further and further behind. This might mean more competition, market-based incentives and potentially community-based networks as local communities take this issue into their own hands.

THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON TRANSPORT AND COMMUNICATIONS (Thanks, JF!)

Terrorism is auto-immune war; war-on-terror does the terrorists' job

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:08 PM PDT

The Yorkshire Ranter recasts terrorism as an "auto-immune war" -- a war intended to inflict maximum damage by getting the host's defense mechanisms to overfire, damaging the host well beyond than the actual terrorist attacks:
Specifically, auto-immune war is a strategy, but its tactical implementation is the creation of false positive responses. Security obsession gums up the economy with inefficiencies. Terrorism terrorises the public; security theatre keeps them that way. As Kilcullen points out, every day, millions of travellers are systematically reminded of terrorism by government security precautions. Profiling measures subject entire communities to indignity and waste endless hours of police time. Vast sums of money are spent on counterproductive equipment programs and unlikely techno-fixes. National identity cards and monster databases are the specific symptoms of this pathology in the UK, just as idiotic militarism is in the US.
Accidental Guerrilla; Part 2, Strategy (via Futurismic)

GM bailout will never pay off

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:06 PM PDT

Wondering if your government's investment in GM will ever pay off?

It won't.

So $83,000,000,000 is what New GM would have to be worth in order for us to break even on our investment.

But $56,000,000,000 is what GM was worth at its all time peak in 2000.

And it's only worth about $7,300,000,000 now.

0.000000435% (via Kottke)

USB-powered baked-bean microwave

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:04 PM PDT


Heinz's Beanzawave is a USB-powered microwave that operates in concert with Heinz's "Snap Pots" individually-sized baked beans cups. This is all so that you can eat baked beans at your keyboard without having to burn unnecessary calories getting up and walking to the kitchen or break room. I wonder if Heinz will follow this up with other bean-delivery innovations -- for example, they could carbonate the beans by including one of those CO2 cartridges that you get in cans of Guinness: fizzy bean desk-snax for everybody!

Beanzawave: The World's Smallest Microwave (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Slate on favorite orphaned tweets -- "picking lint from Judy's naval while she is napping!"

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 04:03 PM PDT

John Swansburg wrote a piece for Slate about "orphaned tweets" ...
200906081602 ... that is, the tweets left behind by the people who sign up for Twitter, post once, then decide Twittering isn't for them and never log back in. Some of them are quite funny ("eating a miniature pie"), some are quite bizarre ("picking lint from Judy's naval while she is napping!"), and some are a little scary ("it hurts to breathe. should I go to the hospital?").

Thought BoingBoing readers might get a kick out of the examples; also, we're inviting readers to submit their own favorite orphan tweets -- I bet BoingBoingers have seen a good many such posts, and would love to hear about them.

Slate on favorite orphaned tweets

New issue of h+ magazine now online

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 03:13 PM PDT

200906081510

The Summer 2009 issue of h+ magazine, edited by R.U. Sirius, looks terrific. Here's the story lineup:

Cover Stories

:: Designer Baby Controversy
:: From X Prize to Singularity U
:: Biohacking Arrives
:: Legalize Sports Doping?
:: Was That a Bot or a Human?
:: Chris Conte's Microbotic Art

Features:

:: Here Come the Neurobots
:: Real Discrimination Against Virtual People
:: The Man Behind Biosphere 2
:: Everything of the Dead: The Future of Humanity is Zombie
:: Life On Mars with Pete Worden

Summer 2009 issue of h+ magazine

Annie Pootoogook’s Drawings of contemporary Inuit life

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:59 PM PDT

200906081457

The Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian is exhibiting 39 drawings "that chronicle the realities of contemporary Inuit life by renowned artist Annie Pootoogook." It open on June 13.

Pootoogook's detailed work describes everyday life in her home community of Cape Dorset, Nunavut. Her scenes of Inuit traditions include the less romantic but real integration of modern technologies such as video games and televisions as well as domestic abuse and tragedy. Her method, carefully outlined shapes in black filled with blocks of solid color, recalls traditional Inuit drawing while the subject matter reflects the unvarnished viewpoint of her generation. Other drawings are more personal and abstract, illustrating an emotional landscape of mental anguish, such as "Sadness and Relief for My Brother," and the austere but compelling, still life of the artist's prescription- medicine bottle, cup and a single dangling key in "Composition (Annie's Tylenol)." Cheerful domestic scenes such as a family opening Christmas presents ("Christmas") are depicted with the same precision and calm attention to detail as the emotion-laden composition "Memory of My Life: Breaking Bottles."
Annie Pootoogook's Drawings of contemporary Inuit life

Laura Ling Interview from 2005

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:48 PM PDT


Zadi Diaz interviewed Current TV correspondent Laura Ling for this episode of Rocketboom back in 2005. Ling and colleague Euna Lee were this week sentenced to 12 years hard labor by North Korea's high court, with no ability to appeal the ruling, and no direct diplomatic ties in place to help secure their release.

Here is an archive of Ling's work for Current. Some BB commenters have asked why no comment from the network, or its co-founder, Al Gore -- this Gawker post addresses the matter. My thoughts, and my most sincere hope for safety and release, go out to Ms. Ling and Ms. Lee, and their families.

Previously:


Hullabaloo salute to the Beatles' Rubber Soul

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:51 PM PDT

Picture 4-27

Spike Priggen says:

Man, they loved those Beatles Medleys back in the 60's and 70's... Here, the Righteous Brothers and Nancy Sinatra tackle songs from "Rubber Soul" with predictable results (very lame but slightly amusing).

Righteous Brothers – "I've Just Seen A Face"
Nancy Sinatra & The Righteous Brothers – "Run For Your Life"
The Righteous Brothers – "Girl"
Nancy Sinatra & The Righteous Brothers – "Wait"
The Righteous Brothers – "Michelle"
Nancy Sinatra & The Righteous Brothers – "I've Just Seen A Face" (end of medley)

Hullabaloo Salute To "Rubber Soul"

The Remains play "Let Me Through" on Ed Sullivan (1965)

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:42 PM PDT

Picture 3-31

Spike Priggen says:

I've spent the better part of the last couple weeks looking at Garage Rock videos and trying to compile the best quality ones I could find. I was really struck when I discovered this one, because it's just about the only one I could find (the other being The Monks on the German show "Beat Beat Beat") where the band is actually playing live and not just miming to the record. And they sound awesome. I'm no Garage expert but I 'm pretty sure that The Remains were one of the best Garage Bands, musicality-wise. They sound amazing here. (I should add that I'm talking about US Garage Bands, there's alot of great live video of Euro and UK Garage and Psych bands, mostly from the German TV show "Beat, Beat, Beat")
The Remains - "Let Me Through" (Live)

Literal Music Videos: Total Eclipse of the Heart

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 02:29 PM PDT


I'm late blogging these, I know everyone else discovered "literal music videos" a month ago. A quick YT search for "literal" turns up nearly 10,000 results, Rocketboom has already done a "Know Your Meme" on 'em, and here's a dedicated blog. But I'm fairly certain this is one of the more awesome specimens: TOTAL ECLIPSE SPOOF.

Because I love Radiohead, I love this one, too. Please post links to your favorites in the comments. (via Danny Sullivan and Laughing Squid)

Frank Zappa plays a bicycle on the Steve Allen show

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 12:07 PM PDT


Watch the entire 3 part series over at A Facemelting Blog of Staggering Riffage. (Via Mt. Holly Mayor's Office)

Cartoonist Lucy Knisley's comic strip about a 7-day-fast

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:39 AM PDT

200906081129

Cartoonist Lucy Knisley went on a seven-day fast and drew a comic about it.

Her work is excellent. I recommend her book, Radiator Days.

Cartoonist Lucy Knisley's comic strip about a 7-day-fast (Via The Daily Cross Hatch)

BB Video: Miles O'Brien on Technology Questions in The Air France Disaster

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:41 PM PDT


(Download MP4)

In today's episode of Boing Boing Video, space/aviation/tech reporter Miles O'Brien speaks with me about the role of technology in the recent Air France crash.

He answers a number of questions posed here on Boing Boing by commenters on our previous episodes: how "black boxes" work, why they're not built to float, whether they would be more effective if they streamed data constantly while in use, and whether more training in the "lower-tech" aspects of piloting could have helped.

Since we taped this two-way conversation on Friday, recovery teams off the coast of Brazil have recovered some 16 bodies, and wreckage from the crash.

Here's a snip from his latest blog post about the disaster, over at True Slant.

The Air France 447 mystery may never be solved beyond a shadow of doubt, but there are some telling, tragic clues to consider based on what we know about the airplane systems and the extreme weather and aerodynamic conditions it encountered before it went down a week ago.

First, a bit of aerodynamics: The doomed Airbus A-330-200 was flying ever so close to its maximum altitude - in a zone pilots call the "Coffin Corner". It refers to the edge of so-called "flight envelope" of an aircraft. At this altitude, the air is much thinner and that significantly narrows the swath of speed at which the airplane can safely operate.

Read the whole post: "The 'Coffin Corner' and a 'Mesoscale' Maw." And speaking of True Slant, check out these two articles about the recently-launched site, a rare refuge for hardcore journalism in these hard times: Washington Post, and Associated Press.

If you're interested in this story -- or in aviation and space news in general -- you really should also follow Miles on Twitter to see his thought-stream unfold in real time.

Previously:
Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

Funny tattoo for syndactyly

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:18 AM PDT

Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:10 AM PDT

joelpalmshot.jpg

• Joel reviewed the Palm Pre. But first, he unboxed it reverently.

• The Pre's charger is, perhaps, just $5 of stuff sold for $70. Nonetheless, it's an amazing work of engineering.

• We spotted an ingenious and beautiful design for a steampunk thumbdrive.

• Maingear sells a PC with a superfluous map of futuristic city on the side.

• There was a Lego Ghetto Blaster Yoda.

• Reebok made a high-tech baseball bat.

• Behold! The Choculator.

• Olympus sneaked out a shot of its new retro Four Thirds camera.

• JVC announced what it claims is the world's thinnest 32" LCD display.

• We humbly request that someone autotune Jay-Z's latest, "Death to Autotune."

Recently on Boing Boing Video...

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 11:27 AM PDT


* BB Video + PopSci: Frozen on Video: Theo Gray Sculpts in Solid Mercury, with Some Help from Liquid Nitrogen.
(Download) We team up with PopSci and Theo Gray to bring you this episode -- in which the MAD SCIENCE author shows you how to make delicious mercury-sicles shaped like fishies and turtles!


* "Tank Tour": One of World's Largest Collections of Historic Military Technology
(Download/YouTube) Guest-host Todd Lappin explores a massive collection of historical military vehicles tanks collected by an eccentric Silicon Valley multimillionaire.


* "Olé Cordobes," a 1966 Scopitone via Oddball Film + Video
(Download / YouTube) A video from a long-defunct "visual jukebox player" format tells the romantic tale of a Spanish bullfighter, with help from an Amy Winehouse lookalike and mustachioed Flamenco dudes bearing overwrought facial expressions.

Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, 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. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic).

Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

New Jersey police officer enjoys clubbing man for complying with another officer's request to zip his sweatshirt

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:47 AM PDT

Officer-Friendly-Pummels-Man

The CNN video shows a man standing on a street corner in Passaic, NJ. According to the story, a police car drove next to the man, and one of the officers instructed the man to zip up his sweat shirt (Apparently the police officer decided it was OK to abuse her authority to enforce her personal dress code on the man). The man complied with the request immediately and another officer jumped out of his car and ran to the man and proceeded to beat him senseless.

Imagine what officer friendly would have done to the man had he refused to zip his sweat shirt!

After the incident, police locked Holloway in a holding cell for the night and did not provide treatment for his injuries, according to Holloway's attorney, Nancy Lucianna. Those injuries included a torn cornea and extensive bruising to the left side of his body, she said.

The Passaic Police have filed three charges against Holloway: resisting arrest, disorderly conduct and wandering for the purpose of obtaining controlled dangerous substances.

The man, 49-year-old Ronnie Holloway, is mentally challenged. His attorney says his client's neighborhood walks are a "chief pastime."

New Jersey police officer pounds man on tape (Via The Agitator)

More on YouTube phenom Justin, aka "Tsimfuckis" aka "Chick3n Little"

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:25 AM PDT


Aude Baron, the French journalist who interviewed "Tsimfuckis" for that article in Lepost.fr (article: French original / English robo-translation), wrote in to Boing Boing to say...

That's really cool to talk about this kid, with whom I exchanged few mails last week. Just one little thing. At the end of your post, you talk about his YouTube account. Here's what happened...

Justin's first YT acount was "Tsimfuckis". He closed it on June, 2nd because he was fed up with comments coming from the "haterz", as he calls them. But then, his friends and fans told him that it was too bad, that he should keep going on YouTube. So he opened another account with the nickname "Tsimfuckus" on June 3rd. So it's him who controls it.

You may have seen there is another "Tsimfuckis" account on YT, recently created. This one is not Justin's. It's a f*cking "haterz", and who announced Justin's death...

Justin is a real cool kid, and I hope he'll see your article, and the great reactions following it.

Previously: Justin (aka "Tsimfuckis," aka "Tsimfuckus," aka "chick3n little.")

Polyhedral dice cake

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:18 AM PDT


Jason sez, "I took this photo of the groom's cake from my sister's wedding this past weekend. As you can see, the cake is adorned with giant, edible polyhedral dice. (I'm not sure what they are made out of, but the cake itself was chocolate and delicious.)"

d20 groom's cake (Thanks, Jason!)

Previously:


Japan's "Herbivore Men"

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 09:28 AM PDT

Japan buzzword watch: "Herbivore Men." Not to be confused, I presume, with "vegan guys." Snip:
They are young, earn little and spend little, and take a keen interest in fashion and personal appearance -- meet the "herbivore men" of Japan. Author and pop culture columnist Maki Fukasawa coined the term in 2006 in a series of articles on marketing to a younger generation of Japanese men. She used it to describe some men who she said were changing the country's ideas about just what is -- a
Japan's 'herbivore men' -- less interested in sex, money (CNN, via @dannychoo)

The Endangered Japanese Giant Salamander: a Real-Life, Gentle "Monster."

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 09:24 AM PDT


Japan-based bloggers and authors Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda filmed an amazing little documentary for National Geographic's Wild Chronicles about the troubles facing the endangered Japanese Giant Salamander.

"As a kid I dreamed of growing up to direct kaiju creatures on the silver screen," says Matt, "so getting this chance to stalk some real-life giant monsters in the wild was an incredible treat."

Called "oosanshouo" (OH-san-show-oh) in Japanese, anime fans may recognize these gentle giants as the inspiration for the huge salamander-creature that appears towards the end of Howl's Moving Castle and Ranka's super-kawaii smartphone pal from Macross Frontier, among many others.

SOS: Save Our Salamanders (altjapan)

Previously:


Robogames, "world's largest robot competition," in SF June 12-14

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 09:11 AM PDT

The annual DIY robotics event is just a week away. Anyone can participate -- and that means you.
This years attendees come from Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Iran, Japan, Mexico, Peru, Russia, South Korea, UK, and the United States. Can the UK's 5-time gold medalist "Ziggy" retain it's lead for an amazing 6th year? Will Brazil finally sweep the combat classes? Can Team USA regain the top spot in humanoid soccer, having lost a heartbreaking defeat to Austria?

The event will host over 70 different competitions, including 18 different events just for walking humanoids. Large scale combat robots will fight to the death behind bulletproof glass, thrilling the crowd with crashing, smashing, flame-throwing, and miscellaneous wanton destruction. The combat robots, weighing as much as 340 pounds, are what draws most people to the event, but many stay for the AI based sumo robots, soccer bots, and kinetic art that fills out the venue.

But that's not all - other events include kung-fu humanoids, hockey bots, fire fighting competitions, autonomous explorer bots (like the Mars Rovers!), art bots, bartending robots, and mechanical marvels that defy description! The newest event is "Mech Warfare." Humanoid robots with bb cannons and rockets with try to take each other down, while the pilots control them remotely via in-robot cameras, with no look at the field from above.
Robogames: Friday-Sunday, June 12-14, 2009, Fort Mason, San Francisco. Kids under 7 get in free, tickets for everyone else range from $15-20 per day. I've witnessed their events before, and the Robogames folks always put on an amazing show. Well worth the modest ticket price. (Image courtesy Robogames)

Whip It Good

Posted: 08 Jun 2009 10:53 AM PDT

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

I'm into bullwhips. I make 'em, read about them, use them, and write about them. Being able to handle a bullwhip is an impressive skill. There's a section in Absinthe and Flamethrowers that covers the basics in terms of whip use and technique. If you don't think learning the bullwhip is Golden Thirdstuff, you haven't tried it.

The following movies are my Top Whip Movies, chosen for having characters known for their whip using skills. (Interested readers are invited to write me with their favorites. Whip experts will note that the movies below include both stockwhips and cat-O-nines, which are quite different from one another in purpose.)

1. All Indiana Jones Movies. My son Andy is a graduate student in archeology currently on a dig in Ghana. I gave him a bullwhip as an undergraduate. I wonder if he brought it, and if it could go as carry-on luggage?

2. Legend of Zorro ("Nobody leaves my tequila worm dangling in the wind,") Mask of Zorro, and the many other Zorros

3. King of the Bullwhip. This 1950 oater stars Lash Larue, the king of the bullwhip, hence the title.

4. Catwoman. Yes, a pretty bad movie, but it has Halle Berry in a tight leather outfit cracking a whip.

5. Blues Brothers. Jake Blues sings the theme from Rawhide in Country Bob's Bunker, while cracking a conveniently placed bullwhip.

6. Bullwhip (with Rhonda Fleming and Guy Madison.) GM is an underappreciated talent.

7. Mutiny on the Bounty. I seem to remember some sailors getting flogged.

8. Jailhouse Rock. I vaguely remember Elvis getting flogged.

9. The Ten Commandments. I also seem to remember some Israelites getting flogged. "I can flick a fly from my horse's ear without breaking his stride," - Vincent Price as he gently pets his whip in what I think is the best whip related scene from The Ten Commandments,
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