Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing
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Chinese court hands down prison for extortion of virtual wealth

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:46 PM PDT

A court in China sentenced a gangster to three years in prison for extorting virtual goods from a game-player (presumably someone involved in gold-farming, running a large guild or something other than simple play, as the man had nearly $15,000 worth of virtual items; though he may have just been super hardcore):
According to the Xinhua news agency, the man, along with three others, assaulted another man in the cafe, forcing him to give up various virtual goods and 100,000 yuan ($14,700) worth of the virtual currency known as QQ coins. The coins are the currency utilized by the major Chinese web portal, Tencent. It is used for the purchase of online goods and premium services for supported titles...

Despite the clear financial value, no law exists in China to protect virtual goods or currency. This case changed set a new precedent: The court ruled that the victim should be protected because he spent money on the extorted items. Under the ruling, the three men who assisted in the crime were fined. The primary defendant was sentenced to three years in prison.

(via Raph)

BART punks out, pulls cheeky doubleTwist ad near Apple store

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:44 PM PDT


Jon Johansen's doubleTwist -- a package that lets you manage all your media, uncoupling iTunes and the iPhone -- bought an ad outside the Apple Store by the Powell Street BART station in San Francisco, proclaiming that doubleTwist is "The Cure for iPhone Envy."

Not long after this cheeky -- but paid-for -- ad went up, BART tore it down, citing the lame excuse that the ad was "too dark." So doubleTwist submitted the same ad with a white background, and BART rejected it for "having a solid white background." Now they're doing it on a transparent background -- what excuse do you suppose BART will come up with this time?

We then submitted the following revised ad with a white background. A white ad would have let even more light through (notice how bright the bottle is in the original ad above). However, it was rejected for having a solid white background (!).

At the ad agency's request, we then made the background completely transparent. It's a lot harder to read text on a transparent background... After complying with all their requests to change the ad, we still haven't been given a firm date on when the ad will be back up.

Apple is a major BART advertiser (in the past they've plastered entire BART stations with iPod ads). Apple's WWDC conference ends on Friday. It's pretty obvious what's going on here... I'm sure our ad will conveniently be back up after WWDC ends.

The Cure for iPhone Envy: The story behind the doubleTwist ad (Thanks, Jon!)

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets

Posted: 10 Jun 2009 12:36 AM PDT

boinger dogs.png Today at Boing Boing Gadgets, we paid special homage to our best doggie friends by doing a series of posts about dogs and technology. Among them:

* An illustrated guide to the history of the artificial dog;

* Photo galleries taken by minpins Ruby and Malcolm using Uncle Milton's Pet's Eye View camera;

* How to carry a laptop and a lapdog at the same time;

*A retro-robotics robo-dog;

*A developmental study on robotic pets and children;

*An x-rated clip-on speaker a la Up;

*A $3K doggie treadmill;

* A review of the Zoombak GPS locator;

* A review of the SpotBot Pet dog stain cleaner;

* A review of an ice cake maker for dogs, and

* Geeky dog toys for geeky dogs.

For those of you who aren't interested in dogs, we had some other fun stuff today too, like the self-proclaimed world's most technologically advanced roller coaster, bluetooth motorcycle gear, and a video on making living movie posters.

Left 4 Dead 2 screenshots -- Offworld

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:48 PM PDT

Bad News From the Past: blog devoted to century-old bad newspaper stories

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:34 PM PDT


The Hope Chest: Bad news from the past is a blog that reproduces late 19th/early 20th century bad news reports from various American newspapers, with a little snappy commentary at the end, such as "Telling little snapshot of what life was like before the liberalization of divorce laws. I wonder what the charge might have been had there been no children in the household to 'protect.'" and "The democratization of the automobile in the late Teens and Twenties was not without its social costs. Neighborhood pedestrians conditioned to horse-drawn traffic were slow to adapt to the new speed of life; drivers didn't know what the fuck they were doing. The consequent death toll gave rise to the journalistic concept of the 'vampire auto,' which basically meant a hit-and-run car."

The Hope Chest: Bad news from the past (via Beyond the Beyond)

Repo man who specializes in recovering planes from deadbeat con-artists, gangsters and drug-lords

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:29 PM PDT

Salon's got a great feature on Nick Popovich, the "Learjet repo man," a pilot who specializes in repo'ing airplanes from deadbeat drug lords in the jungles of South America, heavily armed American white-supremacist gangs, and collapsed pyramid-scheme pilot schools. Some of the planes he flies are barely airworthy, neglected by their owners, and once, back in Papa Doc's Haiti, he didn't get the plane off the ground (instead he was captured, tortured and imprisoned, only gaining his freedom once Papa Doc was overthrown).
These days, Popovich is fielding assignments as fast as he can handle them. "We've got a lot of business right now," he says. "We recently recovered planes from Okun and Nadel." Popovich is referring to Edward Okun and Arthur G. Nadel, two Bernie Madoff-manqués that have been accused of stealing hundreds of millions of dollars from unsuspecting clients who thought they were safely investing their money ($300 million in Nadel's case, the largest alleged hedge fund fraud in Florida history). Among the booty that Popovich was hired to return were two Gulfstream IIs and a Learjet...

Using his European scouts, Popovich tracked one plane in Milan; the other was sitting on the tarmac near Terminal One at Charles DeGaulle Airport. The MD-81 was covered in official-looking documentation written in French, so Popovich just ripped everything off and hopped in. Big mistake. The airport cops stopped him as he was taxiing and threw him in a cell overnight. The next day, a French magistrate had handcuffs slapped on Popovich and ordered him returned to Chicago. "I was more determined than ever to grab those damn planes," he says. "You push me, I push back harder."

A few weeks later he snuck back into the country, convinced a captain with an Air Afrique fuel bus to fill up Arpel's Boeing and flew it out. But the Milan plane was trickier. The engine was behaving erratically, and no sane person should fly a bird with a hinky engine. Popovich had a replacement engine in Munich (engine-swapping is a common occurrence in the business) and the only way to get it would be to make the 50 minute flight and pray.

The Learjet repo man

Hallmark's radiation-scarred ceramic Star Trek keepsake

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 10:24 PM PDT

Hallmark's delightful miniature "The Menagerie" is advertised as a way to "relive moments from Star Trek's beloved two-part episode featuring the radiation-scarred Captain Christopher Pike." This would be a great Thanksgiving centerpiece, or topper for your toilet-paper cozy.

"The Menagerie"


Keeping a bald eagle feather could result in a $100,000 fine and a year in prison

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 05:41 PM PDT

Eagle Feather Quill

Eagle Feather On The Beach-2

John Gallone shared this story with me and kindly gave me permission to post it on Boing Boing. He writes:

The beaches of the Pacific Northwest are loaded with interesting finds.

From glass floats that have drifted from Japan to carcasses of sea life that defy the imagination but one of the items I have been searching for for years has been an eagle feather. Yesterday during a beach hike near my home I found a large wing feather from a mature bald eagle.

Now, not only is the bird a thing of beauty in itself but its feathers are beautifully constructed with ample size and a thick quill.

When proving Galileo’s theory of gravitational pull in a vacuum it was an eagle feather, which Neil Armstong used on the first moon landing. The landing probe was called the Eagle, remember “The eagle has landed” ?

These items are very highly prized among Native Americans and in fact they are the only people allowed to posses an eagle feather and even they must have certification of tribal membership and the appropriate registration license to acquire one legally. And there is the rub... or a mere pale-face such as myself, possession of even one feather brings a fine of $100,000 and a jail sentence.

The law: “Anyone who possesses an eagle feather, and doesn't meet the requirements, could face fines up to $100,000 and a year in prison. A second offense is upgraded from a misdemeanor to a felony, and carries a maximum penalty of two years in prison and a $250,000 fine. The act also provides for a civil penalty of up to $5,000.”

I returned my incredible find to the beach... all I have are these photos.

Take only pictures; leave only footprints indeed...

BB Video: "A VOLTA" from NASA Project: Narco-Cholo Game Ultraviolence

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 07:23 PM PDT


(Download MP4 / YouTube | Warning: NC-17, cartoon nudity/ultraviolence)

Boing Boing Video proudly presents the world-premiere of a third video, above, from the N.A.S.A. music project (here was our first, here's the second) -- "A Volta," featuring Sizzla, Amanda Blank & Love Foxxx. Video by Logan, with art by The Date Farmers. Executive Producer: Susan Applegate.

NASA, short for "North America South America," is a music collaboration project assembled by Squeak E. Clean (aka Sam Spiegel, brother of film director Spike Jonze) and DJ Zegon (Ze Gonzales, professional skateboarder).

Buy the album, The Spirit of Apollo, here. More than 40 music artists are featured, including David Byrne, Kanye West, Ghostface Killah, Yeah Yeah Yeahs' Karen O and Nick Zinner, M.I.A., Santogold, E-40, Tom Waits and Kool Keith. Music videos for the project involve a similarly diverse team-up of visual artists and directors.

Logan, the folks who directed the video for this track, create TV commercials and music videos, content for video games, and experiment with animation and visual effects. We caught up with Alexei Tylevich of Logan for a conversation about how this unusual music video -- kinda like GTA: Juarez -- came together with the Date Farmers.

The text of our interview follows (+ more after the jump).

Video #2, embedded below (Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube): Logan's mockumentary web-film about the making of this NASA video.

[Q] XENI JARDIN / BOING BOING VIDEO: When I was struggling to explain your "A Volta" video to others, I found myself referring to it as an "8-bit narco nightmare." What's the story we're seeing here?

[A] ALEXEI TYLEVICH / LOGAN: I hope that the "narrative" is not taken too seriously. It wasn't meant to be a great "story" but just another structural device to keep the viewer occupied. It's a music track with a "plot" thinly stretched over it. I thought it might be clever to turn this video into a mini-film with a semblance of a plot. A plot that has the same level of strategically naive incompetence and misdirected energy that is implied in the work of Date Farmers.

At first there was no plot, just a setting: an isometric metropolis inhabited by deranged inhabitants, full of senseless violence and anarchy. Then it sort of evolved into a semblance of a story. We started imagining what these characters could do and the plot sort of developed on its own, little by little.

[Q] Can you walk us through the creative process behind this video? A collaboration between Logan and the Date Farmers, but -- how did these characters morph into digital form, what came first, the music or the story or the look and feel... how did it all unfold, who did what?

[A] It began with looking at the Date Farmers' work, and trying to figure out a way to bring it to life that would not fight against their aesthetic. It's always hard to adopt an accomplished visual style from a static medium without compromising it.

Their world is devoid of perspective, decidedly two-dimensional. Their visual vocabulary is a mix of pop culture references and cholo folklore, a violent combination of corporate iconography, found objects and jail tattoos. The smelly back alley of our collective subconscious soaked in pop culture detritus. It's pretty disturbing, but somehow endearing at the same time. They don't seem to be taking themselves too seriously.

Besides paintings and collages, they make these robots out of scrap materials. There's a whole series of them. The lineup in its entirety is like a medieval bestiary.


Video #3, above (Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube): A soft-rock introduction to the Coachella Valley, CA-based art duo of Carlos Ramirez and Armando Lerma, better known as The Date Farmers.

(Interview continues after the jump...)

[LOGAN] ...I actually preferred NOT knowing the full intent or story behind each character before making up scenarios in which these robots could exist and interact.

What is the cinematic equivalent of the Date Farmers' pictorial universe? A blunt storyline, trite genre referencing and Scarface quotations. Compulsive borrowing and regurgitation of pre-existing elements. Lack of any sort of narrative syntax and the overall "flatness". "Poor acting" on the part of the characters that have no range and no faces. Canned robotic voice-over. A patchwork of elements and layers that make up a saturated cacophonous experience of visuals, music, plot, voiceover and subtitles...

And so on and so forth. What would normally be considered negative connotations could actually be used to attempt a different approach. It was really liberating.

[Q] How did you come to collaborate with the Date Famers?

[A] The idea of our collaboration with the Date Farmers I believe came from Syd Garon and Sam Spiegel, who chose the pairings of artists and directors for each of the tracks on the NASA album.

I am not quite sure what criteria was used to make the pairings. Maybe they thought we had some similarity in our work, or maybe it was just the opposite. Or maybe it was a random juxtaposition. We didn't get to pick the music track from the album either. I guess the whole thing was conceptualized as a bit of an exquisite corpse. In any case, I am quite pleased with the way it all worked out.

I recently saw the Date Farmers work at a group show and it really stood out. It has freshness and immediacy that makes it instantly recognizable as theirs, despite the fact that a lot of it is based on found or appropriated imagery. They seem to have found a magic formula.

[Q] Did you all work in the same space at any time, or was the collaboration virtual?

[A] We were free to choose and remix anything from their body of work. The Date Farmers weren't really involved in the making of the actual video. We borrowed the robots, photographed them and recreated them in CG. A lot of their paintings and textures were used in the model of the city. They saw the video for the first time at the February Flux screening at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles, after it was finished.


Photo (courtesy Flux): Left, Alexei Tylevich of Logan; Right, Carlos Ramirez and Armando Lerma, aka The Date Farmers.

[Q] The theme at hand -- extreme narcoviolence -- is, sadly, very timely. This piece is fictional / fantasy, but did real-world news stories influence this piece?

[A] Maybe on a subconscious level but not intentionally. In retrospect it seems like an obvious parallel but it wasn't originally meant as any kind of commentary on current events. I guess everything is ultimately interconnected. I wouldn't want this video to be viewed in that context because the real events that are taking place are not that funny.

[Q] Part of what I love most about the video are the messed-up isometric perspectives, the loopy, angular, dizzy POV shifts. As if you're navigating this world from the perspective of one of these 8-bit narco characters -- after a few snorts or puffs of something stimulant and hallucinogenic. Was part of the aesthetic intent here to simulate that kind of charged, psychically-altered state?

[A] The look was really important to me. I immediately thought of the isometric approach simply because the Date Farmers' work has no perspective -- it's really flat. Even the dimensional figurines are "flat". Their faces are crude and not articulated. Their behavior is not motivated by any sort of emotional response, it's just pathological.

The camera movements had to be repetitive and mechanical to illicit the sense of anxiety and paranoia. I wanted it to have a Q*bert feel with a bit of "Street of Crocodiles" mixed in, a video game with a stop-motion feel which seemed right for the track. The subtitles where designed to be part of the stimulation overload... like watching Santo movies on VHS late at night.

# # #

Previously:
(Special thanks to Susan Applegate and Syd Garon)



R. Crumb's Book of Genesis excerpted in The New Yorker

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 06:22 PM PDT

200906091307 Img 9332

R. Crumb's upcoming "The Book of Genesis" was excerpted in The New Yorker this week. It looks amazing.

At first, he thought about doing a take-off of the story of Adam and Eve, and then a friend suggested he do the whole of Genesis. Crumb accepted the challenge, but the text seemed to him so bizarre that he quickly realized he couldn't sustain a satirical approach. He resolved to use the words of the Bible unabridged: "I did it as a straight illustration job."

Pre-order R. Crumb's Book of Genesis on Amazon.

UPDATE: You can see a poor-quality scan of the excerpt here.

R. Crumb's Book of Genesis excerpted in The New Yorker

Mr. Rogers visits Koko

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 12:56 PM PDT


Koko loved watching Mr. Rogers on TV and was happy to see him in person. (Via The Sound of Young America)

Preternaturally Verbose Infant Instigates Spontaneous Outbreak of Lulz (video)

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 04:13 PM PDT


Video Link. (thanks, Wes Varghese!).

UPDATE: Here's someone identified as the baby's mom, sharing some funny details about the talkative 12-month-old and the situation in which the video was shot. Here's a better-quality source for the video.

DIY breast lump examination gadget

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 12:38 PM PDT

200906091228 200906091228-1

The breastlight is a medical gadget that allows women to examine suspicious breast lumps.

Malignant lumps have an increased blood supply to feed them so any dense areas may indicate an abnormality. Fluid filled cysts, however, will not absorb the light.
I don't think they are sold in the US, but in the UK they cost £77.50.

Breastlight Helps Augment At-Home Self Exams

Bloody tongue from Tootsie Pop

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 12:19 PM PDT

Img 0035

The first time my 11-year-old got a bloody tongue from licking a Tootsie Pop, we thought it was a fluke. The second time it happened, we examined the Tootsie Pop and figured out that the voids that had formed in the pop had sharp edges. Anyone else have this happen to them?

To do in LA: Police Academy's Michael Winslow, The Human Foley, "Scores" Silent Films, Live.

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 11:37 AM PDT


If you happen to be in Los Angeles on the evening of June 10, the underground cinema appreciation group Cinefamily is hosting an evening of weird, mutant fun that is quintessential Boing Boing. "Michael Winslow, Man of 1000 Noises," who you may recall from Police Academy (see clip above), will perform a live "score" for an assortment of silent films...

You know him best as Officer Larvell Jones, the irrepressible burbling, beep-borping human Foley machine that was a mainstay character in the Police Academy repertory company. Be it helicopters, electric guitars, cop sirens, the inner workings of robots, barking dogs, squishing soggy sneakers, roaring jets, spine-tingling scratches on a chalkboard, screaming guitars, cell phones, kung fu dubbing--he is truly the man of a thousand noises, at the very least. He captured the juvenile fascinations of a generation with his uncanny talent for imitation, and tonight, Winslow takes the Cinefamily stage to embark on a new venture: a never-before attempted challenge that only he could possibly fulfill. Yes, Winslow will be providing a live music-and-effects track to a varied sampling of classic and not-so-classic shorts from the silent era. Not so silent anymore.
I know only a small portion of Boing Boing readers are in Los Angeles, but this event was so cool, I had to post. And -- hey, if you can't make it, there's the YouTube video, above, for a sampling of Winslow's insane skillz. Link to Event Info on Cinefamily site, here's the official Michael Winslow site, and here's his Wikipedia entry. (Thanks, Hadrian!).

Absinthe Crazed Man Attacks Clemenceau

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 08:16 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)

Paris - Premier Clemenceau, as he was leaving his residence to-night, was attacked by a man who raised a cane to strike him. A policeman sprang forward and overpowered the man.

He is proved to be an aged street hawked, (sic) who, it is believed, was half crazed by absinthe.
-- New York Times article from exactly 100 years ago
The Absinthe Drinker BB.jpg In Absinthe and Flamethrowers, I shed some light on the traditions, mysteries, and fallacies surrounding the world's most misunderstood alcoholic beverage. As part of the rigorous and assiduous research that went into writing this book, I was compelled to sample over a dozen different brands of the stuff, resulting occasionally in a somewhat intimate embrace with the green fairy.

Yesterday, a bottle of Kubler Distillee Au Val-De-Travers arrived in the mail. Kubler is a Swiss Absinthe, pale white in color. I had some last night. Ah, those Swiss. They do not produce good comedy (smallest book in the world: The Treasury of Swiss Humor) but they do make a fine absinthe. Kubler has a pronounced anise aroma. Pleasantly sharp initial taste, quickly trailing off into subtle wormwood bitterness. Louches well. As good as Taboo, but in a much different way.

Cockeyed: "I Caught Kevin Heoffer Barbecuing at Costco"

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 11:15 AM PDT

Picture 2-9

Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed.com discovered that the same photo of "Kevin Heoffer" -- the guy who has ads on Facebook and SurftheChannel about "How I Started Making $7,500 a Month Working An Online Part-Time Job from Home" -- also appears on a box for a barbecue grill. You know what that means, but it's fun to read Rob's take on it.

I Caught Kevin Heoffer Barbecuing at Costco

Wails and Murmurs: Eating Couscous at the Chi-Chi's in Walla-Walla

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 07:45 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)

Tautonym -A word or name composed of two identical parts; e.g. pawpaw, yo-yo, tutu, bye-bye.
For a long time, I had planned to name my first child, irrespective of gender, Gurstelle Gurstelle. But I knew he would never be able to type his name in MS Word without the spell checker forever putting a squiggly red line under the poor kid's name. I worried that the constant digital reproof could lead to self esteem problems. So we named him Ben instead.

Last week, in Walla Walla, Ben and I walked into a Chi-Chi's where he ordered couscous. I Love Lucy was on (I think Ricky Ricardo is a hoot.) Anyway, who do you think walks in but Lando Calrissian himself, Billy Dee Williams! He sat down at Boutrous Boutrous Galli's table. They got into a literary debate, something about whether Ford Madox Ford's characters were as richly crafted as those of William Carlos Williams. Then they argued about who was a more interesting character, Humbert Humbert in Lolita or (Major) Major Major in Catch 22.

Finished, they turned the channel to ESPN classic sports, just in time to watch Cubs slugger Billy Williams interview ski jumper Eddie (the Eagle) Edwards.

By the way, Sirhan Sirhan is still in jail, isn't he?

P.S.: There must be some females who are tautonymically named, but I can't think of any.

Uganda: "Invisible Children," Joseph Kony's Army, and How It Ends.

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 09:23 AM PDT


Above, an earlier a rough cut of the film Invisible Children. The movie appears to be an ongoing work in progress, and as much an advocacy movement as much as it is a work of filmmaking. Richard Metzger writes,

This is one of the most fucked up things I have ever heard of: A Ugandan warlord by the name of Joseph Kony kidnaps children from their parents who are powerless to do anything about it. He is feared as if he has voodoo powers and any kids trying to escape from his army have their tongues cut out or are killed.

The young guys who organized the "How it Ends" event made the film. I saw it on Rick Sanchez's CNN show last month at the gym and it is WEIRD and disturbing. I ran home and looked it up.

The interesting thing about their movie (much of it online at their site) is that they were these these young guys from San Diego who made skateboarding videos and were best friends. They had the idea to go to Africa to have an adventure and shoot it for a movie. What they found was Joseph Kony's child army. The story had not been really been told before that. They brought it back with them and started a movement. They've been on Oprah and Larry King. They're heroes, full stop.

It's riveting scary, stuff. A nightmare. A human rights disaster of the worst kind.

The film: Invisible Children
The event in DC: How it Ends
And: Night of the Rescue.

Goths in Hot Weather

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 09:07 AM PDT

Goths. Whatever do they do when it's warm and sunny out?
All that makeup, long black leather and rubber must get very sticky. I think we should show our respect for these poor unfortunates, struggling to stand out from the vanilla crowd despite blazing temperatures and sunshine that puts the rest of us in shorts and vest tops. Join me in celebrating the majesty of the Goth, who, eschewing any practicality whatever, still has the commitment to don a full length leather trenchcoat, stupid New Rock boots, and half a Superdrug counter of makeup. All hail the Hot Goth!
gothsinhotweather.com (via @richardmetzger, via coilhouse.net)

Sub Pop Cybersex Digital Sampler

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 09:07 AM PDT

200906090905 Sub Pop is giving away a bunch of its songs as MP3s. The download page they created for it is funny a take-off on 1996-era Web design, with lots of animated gifs and nauseous backgrounds.

Sub Pop Cybersex Digital Sampler (Via Very Short List)

Obama Continues Bush-Era Secrecy: No Release of Transcripts for Destroyed "Torture Video" Tapes

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 08:54 AM PDT

Last month, President Obama vowed to bar the release of photographs that depict torture (or detainee abuse, depending on your truthspeak) at military prisons during the Bush administration. Today, this news, about transcripts of those torture videotapes that were destroyed by the CIA in 2005. I'm seeing a pattern here...
The Obama administration objected yesterday to the release of certain Bush-era documents that detail the videotaped interrogations of CIA detainees at secret prisons, arguing to a federal judge that doing so would endanger national security and benefit al-Qaeda's recruitment efforts.

In an affidavit, CIA Director Leon E. Panetta defended the classification of records describing the contents of the 92 videotapes, their destruction by the CIA in 2005 and what he called "sensitive operational information" about the interrogations.

CIA Urges Judge To Keep Bush-Era Documents Sealed (Washington Post, via @dangillmor)

Previously:


Desk with treadmill

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 08:25 AM PDT

Steelcase-Walk

Steelcase announced its Sit-to-Walkstation, which "combines a complete, low-speed treadmill with an electric, height-adjustable worksurface, so it's easy to add movement and burn calories as you work, whenever you want." It costs $4,899, minus the chair.

Old Jews Telling Jokes is Back

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 08:12 AM PDT


Above, award-winning television writer Norman Stiles. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Old Jews Telling Jokes. (thanks, Eric Spiegelman)

Recently on Offworld

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 08:02 AM PDT

old_5F00_school_5F00_kodu.jpgRecently on Offworld we took a longer look at what Apple's WWDC keynote -- most obviously, the announcement of the new 3GS model iPhone -- means for gamers and indie devs, and what, more specifically, Apple didn't announce to create a better landscape for the latter. We also saw that Microsoft's Kodu (above) -- it's 21st century LOGO-like package meant to help children learn game/programming logic by assembling their own 3D games -- is due for a release in just a few short weeks, and saw Rare's Nintendo 64 GoldenEye 007 spiritual sequel Perfect Dark officially coming to Xbox Live Arcade. Elsewhere we saw a new Twitter tool tracking gaming trends, vinyl wall decals invading our space, Blitz Arcade's 70s kung fu film inspired Invincible Tiger, watched the latest drip-fed chiptune video to come out of the 2007 BlipFest, saw more of Media Molecule's crossover-collab bringing Ico to LittleBigPlanet, and the day's 'one shot's: Hollis Brown Thornton's fine art meditations on Space Invaders, and a wonderful new iPhone wallpaper from Mikko Walamies for the upcoming Rolando 2.

Service helps Africans spot fake drugs

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 06:57 AM PDT

Alex from Worldchanging sez, "You mentioned the problem of fake drugs being passed off in Nigeria. The problem is widespread. By coincidence, we recently published a story about mPedigree, an innovative new system which helps poor people verify the legitimacy of the drugs they're buying with tools they have at hand, namely, a cell phone and text messaging. It's pretty damn cool:"
The program combines mobile phones, scratch-off drug labels and text messaging into a simple, effective way for consumers in places like Accra to find out if the medicines they purchase are the real deal or counterfeit.

Here's how their method works: mPedigree provides pharmaceutical manufacturers with specially coded labels, which are affixed to individually packaged medicines. At the drugstore counter, the purchaser scratches off a label to reveal a unique code, which he or she texts to a four-digit number. An automated service looks up the code in a database. On the spot, the consumer gets a reply message indicating whether the drug is genuine or fake.

The idea puts drug authentication into the hands of consumers, "who are the ones with the most to lose," Gogo points out. By empowering end users, he aims to ultimately create safer pharmaceutical distribution networks throughout the developing world."

mPedigree: Putting Safety into Consumers' Hands (Thanks, Alex!)

Bullwhip Artist Attempts Record

Posted: 09 Jun 2009 06:56 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)

dante.jpg

Bullwhip artist Robert Dante brings the spirit of Indiana Jones to life on the steps of the Natural History Museum in London on Thursday, June 11.

Dressed as the whip-wielding archeologist, Dante will attempt to break his own Guinness World Record for "Most bullwhip cracks in one minute." ... Dante is billed as "the real Indiana Jones" because of his expertise with bullwhips, which feature prominently in the four Indiana Jones films.

Since 2003, Dante has set three Guinness World Records, with his most recent attempt in October 2008 resulting in 254 whip cracks in 60 seconds.
Robert is the fellow who taught me how to crack a whip. He's no young whipper-snapper but he's awfully good. Here's what 250 beats per minute sounds like. Just imagine doing that with bull whips instead of drum sticks!

Part of my intent for Absinthe and Flamethrowers was to survey a wide variety of "Golden Third dangerous activities" and provide enough information for readers to try them out and learn the art of living dangerously. But for those wanting to delve deeper into whip handling, see Robert's book: "Let's Get Cracking! the How-To Book of Bullwhip Skills"

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