The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- List of books read by backpackers
- BBC wants to put DRM on the TV Brits are forced to pay for
- 1917 Beekman Street Subway collapse
- RFID Rube Goldberg device
- Amateur science tools and resources at Make's new Science Room
- Treehugger profiles off-gridders Abe and Josie about their desert homestead
- The Planet of Storms - 1962 Russian science fiction movie
- Bulletproof glass demonstration
- How to make chew-and-spit chica beer
- Author John Scalzi "On The Asking of Favors From Established Writers"
- Logorama, animated "city of corporate logos" short by H5, debuts in LA at Flux tonight
- Surveillance video of insurgents in Afghanistan accidentally blowing themselves up while planting a bomb
- COILHOUSE 03 is out, with a feature on Xeni + BB Video.
- Motor attached to series of reduction gears - final gear fixed in concrete
- Tonight: Search Engine launch party in Toronto
- Ron English print from Pressure Printing
- Media Literacy Week Canada: kids learn to remix
- Dumpsterologist radio documentary
- Animated short about the plague of "smooth jazz" in offices: "Distraxion."
- Many shower heads filled with nasty bacteria
- Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap finally has a podcast!
- Two Muslim guys photo-blog 30 NYC mosques in 30 days
- Dan Gillmor's "Eleven Things I'd Do If I Ran a News Organization"
- KlezHop freak Socalled
- Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused infringers from the net!
- Ira Glass talks about the Internet
| List of books read by backpackers Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:51 PM PDT I like this list of "backpackers books," compiled by Bookride. I am not sure which books backpackers carry with them these days so this list may be a little out of date. The concept of backpacker books goes back to the days of the hippy trail when travellers would carry such classics as the I Ching, the Tibetan Book of the Dead or anything by Herman Hesse. A backpacker classic should have an element of profundity, preferably mystical -if not it should have cult status or be a statement about who you really are. There is an element of self discovery in setting off - the path to enlightenment, the journey inwards...A backpacker book is not a 'beach read'--the book must be worth the weight and space it takes up and should be reverentially handed on to other travellers or left in a hotel or bus station for another seeker to chance upon. Here's a snippet of the list: Backpacker Classics |
| BBC wants to put DRM on the TV Brits are forced to pay for Posted: 15 Sep 2009 09:57 PM PDT Danny O'Brien sez, In the US, the movie and TV industry tried to get mandatory DRM into digital TV receivers by pressuring regulators and standards groups to enforce a "broadcast flag", a nonsensical "anti-copying" bit that would never have stopped piracy, but would have given the copyright industry a veto over new digital video technology. Now they're trying the same tactic in the UK. The BBC has written to Ofcom telling them rightsholders want DRM, and asking them if they can implement a crazy scheme to require it.License to Kill Innovation: the Broadcast Flag for UK Digital TV? |
| 1917 Beekman Street Subway collapse Posted: 15 Sep 2009 09:55 PM PDT  Graham sez, "Given the current building chaos for the new transport hub around Ground Zero, I thought the following might be of interest. It's a series of photos from what appear to be the early construction work on the Beekman Street Subway in 1916/1917. I've scanned them and mapped them according to the handwritten annotations on each one. Daunting to think about what the engineers were about to negotiate - the level of chaos already achieved in a relatively young infrastructure is impressive." Photos tagged with "beekman street subway" (Thanks, Graham!) |
| Posted: 15 Sep 2009 09:46 PM PDT London design firm Berg (formerly Schulz and Webb) is working on a series of provocative videos exploring "designerly applications for RFID." The first one is this lovely Rube Goldberg machine running on RFID: "With RFID it's proximity that matters, and actual contact isn't necessary. Much of Timo's work in the Touch project addresses the fictions and speculations in the technology. Here we play with the problems of invisibility and the magic of being close." Previously:
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| Amateur science tools and resources at Make's new Science Room Posted: 15 Sep 2009 04:11 PM PDT  Make Online has a new microsite called the Science Room, which offers "projects, tools, and techniques for backyard scientists." From Gareth Branwyn's introduction to the microsite: The Make: Science Room is our DIY science destination. Here you'll find how-tos on setting up a home lab, evaluating and buying equipment and supplies, and conducting all manner of fun and educational home science experiments. We also provide a forum, through Comments, for our readers to share their ideas and collaborate on their own experiments and discoveries. Robert Bruce Thompson is your host. He's the author of the best-selling Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments (O'Reilly/Make: Books, 2008) and the (not-yet-published) Illustrated Guide to Forensics Investigations. We'll be including modified content from these books as well as creating original content. As time goes on, we'll expand the Science Room to include sections on astronomy, Earth sciences, biology, and other disciplines. We already have dozens of additional articles on deck and will be posting batches of them each week, so check back often.Welcome to the Make: Science Room |
| Treehugger profiles off-gridders Abe and Josie about their desert homestead Posted: 15 Sep 2009 04:11 PM PDT  Treehugger profiled Abe and Josie about their neat off-the-grid homestead in Mexico's Chihuahuan Desert. (Abe is the brother of Shawn Connally, MAKE's managing editor!) Amidst the Chihuahuan Desert, Abe and Josie built a home out of dirt, designed a wind turbine from scrap parts, and raised their newborn without diapers and other conveniences ... Abe and Josie have the smarts to survive well in the big city, but they have chosen a different life, a remote life, off grid, debt free, and on their own terms and timeline. What is refreshing about this couple is that they are not rebelling against modern times. On the contrary, they are embracing it, and are in a sense early adopters of a lifestyle that was not possible until very recently. That is because their off grid, pay as you go lives are dependent on emerging technologies such as affordable DIY energy harvesting, satellite internet, and other modern advances. While off grid systems can be a costly investment, Abe and Josie have found the lo-fi, affordable route, proving that there is no reason to wait for off grid technology to improve or become more affordable.Young Couple Says NO to a Mortgaged Life |
| The Planet of Storms - 1962 Russian science fiction movie Posted: 15 Sep 2009 02:35 PM PDT  Here's a clip from a 1962 Russian movie called The Planet of Storms. The design of the vehicles and spacesuits is very nice. The information panel on the YouTube page has instructions for downloading the entire movie. "The Planet of Storms" was one of the first Soviet fantastic films directed by Pavel Klushantsev, a screen version of the novel of Alexander Kazantsev about space travel. The film has been made with use of unique technologies of the combined shooting at times leave behind of advancing foreign analogues existing in those days.The Planet of Storms (Thanks, Mike!) |
| Bulletproof glass demonstration Posted: 15 Sep 2009 01:43 PM PDT A woman holds a small rectangle of bullet-proof glass in front of her face while a man (her husband?) stands off in the distance and fires a rifle at the glass. (via Richard Wiseman) |
| How to make chew-and-spit chica beer Posted: 15 Sep 2009 01:26 PM PDT The folks at Dogfish Head Brewpub in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware show how they made chicha, a South American fermented beverage that sometimes involves chewing maize to convert the starch into sugar. |
| Author John Scalzi "On The Asking of Favors From Established Writers" Posted: 15 Sep 2009 02:20 PM PDT John Scalzi's scalding and funny diatribe about why he doesn't give favors to unestablished writers applies to more than just writers. 3. The person who determines what a writer should do for others is the writer, not you. Why? Well, quite obviously, because it's not your life, and you don't get a say. And if you're somehow under the impression that well, yeah, actually you do have a say in that writer's life, take the following quiz: UPDATE: Here's Glenn Reynold's video interview with author John Scalzi. |
| Logorama, animated "city of corporate logos" short by H5, debuts in LA at Flux tonight Posted: 15 Sep 2009 01:04 PM PDT  The entire universe of this film, even the characters within (a talking "Pringles" man, and a villainous Ronald McDonald), even the city of Los Angeles itself -- are all composed of repurposed corporate logo art, all of which is used without permission. If you're in LA, you really must head over there tonight. There's a great post (with video clips) about the making of Logorama over at Creativity Online. Jonathan Wells of Flux tells us, The short was created by directors within H5, a French graphic studio renowned for its CD front covers (Superdiscount, Air, Demon...) and artistic direction (Dior, Cartier, YSL...). Members François Alaux, Hervé de Crécy and Ludovic Houplain directed many music videos (Alex Gopher, Massive Attack, Goldfrapp, Röyksopp...), and are regularly invited to exhibitions for their artistic talents (2007 Nuit Blanche, Beaubourg, MoMA). Logorama is their first short film, and premiered at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival where it won the Kodak Short Film Discovery Prize at the 48th Critics' Week. The short was *four* years in the making, and features a voice cameo by filmmaker David Fincher as the Pringles man.More stills after the jump!
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| Posted: 15 Sep 2009 12:02 PM PDT  Surveillance video of insurgents in Afghanistan accidentally blowing themselves up while planting a bomb. What an explosion! Like a scene from The Hurt Locker (one of my favorite movies of the year). (Via Jack Shafer's tweet) |
| COILHOUSE 03 is out, with a feature on Xeni + BB Video. Posted: 15 Sep 2009 08:41 PM PDT  Buy Coilhouse #3 right here. We're big fans of Coilhouse Magazine over here at Boing Boing, so it was a special honor and delight when the gothtastically beautiful ladies who run the publication told us they were planning a feature on me/BB. I swear I'm not just vanity-blogging here -- this whole issue is awesome, and the insane illustrations by Stuntkid (aka Norfolk, VA-based artist Jason Levesque), including the unicorny one above, are the coolest ever. I love his work! I know the Coilhouse folks have been struggling of late to keep putting out such a high-quality, densely-packed publication in this crappy economy. Y'know how, some magazines, you buy 'em, then toss 'em right when you're done reading them -- but others, you stick on your bookshelf and keep 'em forever? Coilhouse is a keeper. They're doing amazing work in the true Boing Boing spirit of Happy Mutantry, and I hope you'll support them by buying a copy (or a t-shirt!) today. * Link to Coilhouse issue #03 preview (Special thanks to photographer Clayton Cubitt, whose work appears in the aforementioned feature; to Courtney Riot, who did the graphic design on this issue, and to Nadya Lev, Meredith Yayanos, and Zoetica, the co-editrix trifecta behind Coilhouse.) |
| Motor attached to series of reduction gears - final gear fixed in concrete Posted: 15 Sep 2009 11:38 AM PDT One of Arthur Ganson's kinetic sculptures, shown above, is a motor that turns at 212 RPM. It's attached to a series of twelve 50-1 reduction gear couplings. The final gear is fixed in a block of concrete. If it were free to turn, it would make a complete revolution in about two trillion years. Ganson gave a presentation at SALT in San Francisco last night. Here's Stewart Brand's recap, with links to videos of a few of his other mesmerizing sculptures: As Ganson spoke, a tiny chair walked meditatively around and around on a rock on the right side of the stage, projected live onto a video screen. (Thinking Chair.) No part in any of his kinetic art pieces is superfluous, he pointed out; everything functions. The piece should be crystal clear and also completely ambiguous. That's what allows each viewer to create their own story.Arthur Ganson at SALT |
| Tonight: Search Engine launch party in Toronto Posted: 15 Sep 2009 12:29 PM PDT Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast. poster by Emma Segal If you live in Toronto, come have a drink with me at the launch party for the new season of my podcast! It's tonight at The Ossington (61 Ossington) from 7pm on. If you can't make it, you can still have fun with us by putting words in my mouth: I'm crowd sourcing my toast, and will hold forth with whatever 400 words end up here. I will illustrate my speech with a slideshow using whatever pix end up here. Here's a sample of what's up there so far: "I'm Jesse Brown, and this speach (sic) is a dream come true...And it goes out to the ladies. To Search Engine! [Chewbacca sound here]" |
| Ron English print from Pressure Printing Posted: 15 Sep 2009 11:23 AM PDT Pressure Printing and Ron English released this magnificent hand-stained intaglio print, titled Zembo Boy. The 4.875" x 3.375" print of English's hypnotizing painting is encased in a hand-casted resin frame modeled on an original antique frame. It's an edition of 100 and each signed/numbered print is $395. The Pressure Printing blog has the details on the creation of this work: Ron English "Zembo Boy" Previously: |
| Media Literacy Week Canada: kids learn to remix Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:59 AM PDT Matthew sez, Media Literacy Week - November 2-6, 2009 (Thanks, Matthew!) |
| Dumpsterologist radio documentary Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:45 AM PDT  Dominic from CBC Radio sez, "Darren Atkinson is a husband, a father, a musician... and a dumpster diver. If he's not playing drums for a living, he's diving into industrial waste bins, looking for treasure. This is work. This is his 'job'. He sells what he can, or trades thrown-away goods for services and favours. But can a self-confessed - and possibly obsessed - 'dumpsterologist' make a living from the cast-offs of our consumer society?" Darren is an old pal of mine, and I've written about his amazing life and ethic for Wired and Forbes. This is fantastic radio documentary on him! Previously: |
| Animated short about the plague of "smooth jazz" in offices: "Distraxion." Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:38 AM PDT I love this little animated short by Mike Stern, and I'm delighted to see that he was part of the online school Animation Mentor, which I've reported on before. Watch: Distraxion, more at sternio.com (thanks, Joaquin Baldwin!). |
| Many shower heads filled with nasty bacteria Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:28 AM PDT New research suggests that many shower heads are teeming with Mycobacterium avium, a bacteria that can cause lung disease. The University of Colorado scientists report that a third of the 50 shower heads they checked contained a film coating of "significant levels" of the bacteria inside. "If you are getting a face full of water when you first turn your shower on, that means you are probably getting a particularly high load of Mycobacterium avium, which may not be too healthy," said lead researcher Norman Pace. (But how many people are facing the shower head when they turn on the water?) Anyway, from the BBC News: Water spurting from shower heads can distribute bacteria-filled droplets that suspend themselves in the air and can easily be inhaled into the deepest parts of the lungs, say the scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder...Taking showers 'can make you ill' (BBC News) "Opportunistic pathogens enriched in showerhead biofilms" (PNAS) |
| Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap finally has a podcast! Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:43 AM PDT Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.  Jonathan Goldstein's Wiretap is the greatest radio show you may have never heard of. That's because, despite being on CBC Radio for five years, building a dedicated cult audience, and just being generally wonderful, it's never been offered as a podcast. Until now! Subscribe with RSS here or via iTunes here. And check out the "unofficial" Wiretap archives here. If you've never heard Wiretap before (or heard Goldstein on This American Life, or read his books) then you're in for a treat- he's a humble weirdo semi-genius. Whether he's imagining a hostile correspondence between Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble or rewriting the Bible, or absorbing abuse from his supporting cast of equally funny Montreal cronies, Goldstein is always dry as a bone and completely original. Check it out. |
| Two Muslim guys photo-blog 30 NYC mosques in 30 days Posted: 15 Sep 2009 09:52 AM PDT  The "30 mosques in 30 days" blog documents Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq's "Ramadan journey through NYC's Muslim Community." It's a really neat project, and ends on September 19th (the last day in the Muslim holy month of Ramadan). Snip from one post, each one is about a different mosque, all are delightful. (via @ethanz via Global Voices) |
| Dan Gillmor's "Eleven Things I'd Do If I Ran a News Organization" Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:11 AM PDT A thoughtful list of things Dan Gillmor would do to fix news organizations, from one of the great sages of contemporary journalism. Spoiler alert: #11 involves the traffic-pander-y nature of lists themselves, including, yes, Gillmor's own. |
| Posted: 15 Sep 2009 08:10 AM PDT Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast. Socalled AKA Josh Dolgin is an annoying, talented, annoyingly talented "buddy" of mine. We used to make cartoons together but these days he's a big star on the European Klezmer circuit (!). He fuses klezmer with hiphop, rediscovers aging novelty musicians and does stupid magic tricks. His live show is incredible. I like this video of his better than his more successful one, but I'm usually difficult in that way. Enjoy! |
| Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused infringers from the net! Posted: 15 Sep 2009 10:21 AM PDT  Glyn sez, "The UK government is now considering laws that would allow individuals to be cut off from the internet. If Lord Mandelson's plan becomes law, disconnection may start for alleged copyright infringement, with no guarantee it would not be extended for other things. If you want to hear more about the Governments plans. David Rowntree (Blur), Ben Goldacre (Guardian / Bad Science) and Gerd Leonhard (Media Futurist) are doing a benefit talk for the Open Rights Group on October 2 in London, entitled 'Stop Mandelson's disconnection plans'." Open Rights Group | Stop Disconnection without trial (Thanks, Glyn!) |
| Ira Glass talks about the Internet Posted: 15 Sep 2009 05:57 AM PDT Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest-blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.  My podcast Search Engine launches a new season this week with a discussion between me and (my radio hero) Ira Glass, host of This American Life. Ira is a pleasure to talk to, nimble and playful in his conversation, even when he's insisting that he has nothing to say! Ira Glass on Search Engine (mp3) Subscribe to Search Engine: on iTunes |
Patrick Suskind. Perfume 
The image presented some unique printing challenges—Ron's imagery has a truly socks-knocking, insane hyper-real aesthetic about it and we wanted to preserve as much of that as we could when translating the large-scale oil painting into a small-scale intaglio print. Similarly, frames like the one employed here were originally made to showcase old-style, tack-sharp daguerreotypes; we went through not a few rounds of plates attempting to be true to our sources, squeezing (literally!) as much fine detail, smooth sheen, and as many bottomless rich darks out of the plate as is possible.
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