The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Booklife: a guide to a sane, productive writerly life
- Giant World of Warcraft tankard
- Animated electronic zombie head that drinks the blood that oozes out of its eyesocket
- Whip-scorpion romance
- Ontario GNU Linux Fest this Sat in Toronto
- Kingfishers: incredible underwater hunting photos
- Gadget reviews: ZuneHD, Lenovo S12 netbook and Umid's Mbook pocket PC.
- Uke-abilly Zombie Music
- International Climate Day this Sat needs 22 countries to collect the set
- Improvising a car fuse
- Giant crocheted Raccoon Mario rug
- Animating the XKCD "I Love the Internet" strip
- Neuroscience of Mona Lisa's smile
- Digital Open Winners: Teen Designs Eco-Home of the Future
- WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms
- How To Eat a Horse
- Make magazine spy gadget contest
- Alligators Sing! (But Not to Attract Mates)
- RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan: "We geeks man, we geeks!"
- WTF is "Dairy Drink?"
- Ralph Lauren, at it again
- Coordinated motorcycle performance video from the 1950s
- Comic strip explains World Wars in five minutes
- Jolielips, the lip-plumping vacuum system
- Vic Mizzy, composer of Addams Family theme song, has died
- A geeky introduction to cheap remote control helicopters and planes
- Infographic: Left vs Right
- Massive toilet waterfall
- Safety Song: musical number about lab safety
- Mighty Boosh Halloween Costume: The Spirit of Jazz
| Booklife: a guide to a sane, productive writerly life Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:33 AM PDT  I often get email from writers who are starting out asking for career advice for "breaking in" to the field. I'm somewhat helpless to answer these queries -- my first professional sale was more than a decade ago, that sale itself represented a further decade of hard work on both my craft and my career. I can tell you a lot about how to break in from a standing start in 1988, when I sold my first story, but not nearly as much about how to break in today. Enter Jeff VanderMeer's Book Life: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer. Jeff and I were classmates at the Clarion workshop in 1992, and he is both a talented, prolific writer and a shrewd and successful trailblazer in 21st-century publishing and promotion. Talking about arts careers can be a little icky, because, well, there's a fine line between career-management and self-obsessed personal promotion. Likewise, it's hard to talk about what you do in the realm of imagination without sounding a little like someone droning on about his absolutely fascinating dreams of the night before. But Book Life avoids both of these pitfalls. It presents a well-organized masterclass in understanding how to fit both writing and a writing career into your life (hence "booklife"), covering everything from health and mental health advice (the chapter on envy should be required reading for everyone in the creative arts) to philosophical and practical advice on managing a blog, YouTube channel, MySpace/Facebook profile, and podcast. Like Jim Munroe's Time Management for Anarchists VanderMeer's book is about how to balance the desire to be a creative free-spirit with the preparation and planning necessary to arrange your life to maximize your freedom to pursue your creativity. It's not quite a book on how to write, more a book about how to be a writer at a time when the job of "writer" is in tremendous flux. Covering subjects from managing your relationship with agents, editors and publicists to avoiding flamewars on your blog and averting despair in the face of an uncaring world, Book Life is an ambitious and successful attempt at a comprehensive guide to maintaining your sanity while chasing your dreams. Book Life: Strategies and Survival Tips for the 21st-Century Writer Previously:
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| Giant World of Warcraft tankard Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:28 AM PDT  This 4lb, two liter "Tankard of Terror" World of Warcraft mug would be a fantastic addition to your kid's birthday party or family Thanksgiving dinner. Tankard O' Terror Replica Stein (via Geekologie) Previously: |
| Animated electronic zombie head that drinks the blood that oozes out of its eyesocket Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:23 AM PDT  Frank sez, "Looking for a Halloween decoration? Place this on your table and watch it pump blood from around an eye socket, flowing into the mouth, of the undead! This Zombie Head measures 7 inches tall and it runs on standard 120v power source with an indoor adaptor. No doubt an eye-popping for your guests with this gruesome Eyeball Fountain." I can't believe they're trying to sell this without a video of the head in action! Also: does it make gurgling, sucking, choking noises as it drinks its own blood? It says, "uses tap water," but can you put in other stuff? Rum? Chocolate? Kaopectate? Blood? Also: could you fit it with a small digital clock and a lamp so you could keep it on the bedstand? Spinning Eyeball Fountain (Thanks, Frank!) |
| Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:17 AM PDT  Fatlimey sez, "On the Arachnopets board, people enjoy keeping nature's nightmares as pets. and you can read about the owners going all squishy about their pets and their little arachnobabies. This thread is a whip scorpion love story with mysterious dances, spermatophores and ;cute baby whipling' pictures." Well, I have a pair of adult D. variegatus and this evening I put them together. The male touched many times the female body but she reject him. After that, I left them alone, more "private" and 2-3 hours late i found the male walking out of the cork and the female was behind a "drop", I think it was the structure where the sperm is guarded (I don´t know the english word, sorry) Damon variegatus male and female sex! :-P (Thanks, Fatlimey!) |
| Ontario GNU Linux Fest this Sat in Toronto Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:12 AM PDT Brian sez, " The third annual Ontario GNU Linux Fest will be this Oct 24th in Toronto at the Days Hotel and Conference Centre Toronto Airport East. I've been making the trip from Rochester, NY every year and wouldn't miss it. We've got a van full making the trip up this Friday. They've modeled the event after Ohio Linux Fest so it's not a vendor-centric sales pitch event. There's something for everyone take a look at the the list of talks. The most difficult choice is which talks you're willing to miss while attending another one." Ontario GNU Linux Fest 2009 (Thanks, Brian!) |
| Kingfishers: incredible underwater hunting photos Posted: 22 Oct 2009 03:18 AM PDT  Marilyn sez, "Charlie Hamilton James took some incredible photos of flashy Eurasian kingfishers diving and swimming underwater to spear a fish in a stream. The kingfisher's got a translucent membrane that protects its eyes, and you can see its eye very clearly in this underwater photo as it captures its prey. From National Geographic magazine, November issue." Blaze of Blue (Thanks, Marilyn!) |
| Gadget reviews: ZuneHD, Lenovo S12 netbook and Umid's Mbook pocket PC. Posted: 21 Oct 2009 11:13 PM PDT  ZuneHD Video MP3 Player, $220 Microsoft's ZuneHD is an excellent alternative to Apple's iPod touch, but not if you like apps or dislike the Windows-only media sync software.The new model's 3.3-inch, 480x272 multitouch display and compact form prove that MS can get the design right given a couple of tries. ZuneHD's squared-off geometry (53mm x 102 mm x 9 mm) is trendy and unpretentious, and frames a smooth, Tegra-powered user interface. It comes in 16GB or 32GB, black and silver, $220 and $290. Once loaded with music and video, you're all set ... assuming that's all you care about. Offered with it is a convincing subsription plan: $15 for all you can eat music over WiFi, locally cached, and you get ten keep-'em-forever MP3 downloads each month. ZuneHD's ability to output 14Mbps 720p video over HDMI is a killer app: this tiny PMP, three of which may fit in a deck of cards, is also a serviceable living room media center. There are annoyances. In bright sunlight, that lovely OLED display disappears behind glassy reflections. Microsoft's bloated software reminds us why it's just not necessary to jazz-up mundane, straightfoward stuff like media organization. ZuneHD doesn't show up as a USB drive, either. Its lack of an internal speaker is a likely annoyance for those used to the iPod touch: could you imagine having to wear headphones to enjoy games or hear incoming app notifications? Moreover, the first batch of available programs are amateurish and slow to load, with interstitial advertisments playing before they open. Let's not even get started on the lack of a cellphone edition or the platform's obvious superiority to Windows Mobile 6.5. Get the ZuneHD if you like the looks, run Windows, and don't care about apps. ZuneHD [Official website] Zune HD 32 GB Video MP3 Player [Amazon]   Umid mbook, $600Photo: Dynamism.com Umid's mbook miniaturizes the laptop to the point of near-absurdity: weighing just 0.7 pounds, it's 6" wide, 4" deep, and 0.7" thick. Smaller even than Fujitsu's U-series, it has a 4.8" display, a similarly tiny QWERTY keyboard, and netbookish hardware running Windows XP. Intel's 1.33GHz Atom, 512MB of RAM and a 32GB SSD lurk within. Outside are a microSD card slot and a single micro-USB port. Assuming you can type on it--and don't assume you'll be comfortable doing so until you've actually used it--other flaws mar it. The hinge only lets it fold back about 130 degrees, making it difficult to view and use two-handed. There's no trackpad or nub, just the touchscreen and a stylus: bearing in mind that XP is not very accessible to touch in any case, finessing that high-PPI 1024x600 display is often a chore. An option for 3G internet would have added some magic. Finally, there are better-looking MIDs about to hit stores, including Sharp's NetWalker and Nokia's N900. That said, if you want a real computer that fits in a normal pocket, this is currently the leader of that very small pack. UMID mbook M1 product page [Dynamism]  Lenovo IdeaPad S12, $430 With its 12" display and Via Nano chipset, Lenovo's IdeaPad S12 is larger than most netbooks, but doesn't quite qualify as a mainstream machine. The 1280x800 screen resolution offers 200 more lines than most Atom-based miniatures, and the $430 price tag keeps it competitively priced against them. On the other hand, Windows XP and dismal 3D video performance suggest the same old limitations. 1GB of RAM doesn't go far these days, either. In practice, the Via processor and HD display do lift the the S12 out of accessory territory, making it a productive and useful machine with an attractive budget price. And if the choppy full-screen YouTubes and lack of HD video get you down, it can be configured (for another $70) to have Nvidia's ION graphics chipset, which adds graphical grunt and 1080p HDMI output. The design is clean and unfussy, a stout plastic chassis in black or white, with no silly keyboard shenanigans to make typing a pain. BlueTooth, WiFi, a 160GB hard drive, an ExpressCard slot and a 6-cell battery round it out. Lenovo's S12 hits a sweet spot between compact size and practicality. It'll be most interesting to those who've been turned off by the experience of cheap netbooks, but who are still looking for something small. Product Page [Lenovo] |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 04:49 PM PDT  Gary says "Check out the new EP of Halloween themed uke-abilly music from Mad Tea Party! (And check out Ami's new uke-playing skeleton tattoo...)" |
| International Climate Day this Sat needs 22 countries to collect the set Posted: 21 Oct 2009 04:30 PM PDT Darren sez, "350.org, one of the coolest bottom-up, grassroots activist orgs around, is running a huge International Day of Climate Action this Saturday, Oct. 24. They have, at last count, over 4000 actions (parades, protests, flash mobs and so forth) in 170 countries. They're trying to cover off every country on the globe, but they're missing 22 (North Korea may prove particularly tricky). From the site:" "Below you'll find a list of the UN-recognized countries where as of yet there is no action registered. Do you know someone in any of these countries. Does your church or synagogue or mosque or temple have contacts there? What about your professional society? University alumni group? Would you be willing to send an email like this to them, explaining 350 and asking them to join in by organizing some event, large or small, for the 24th of October? Can you imagine the kind of message it would sound if every country on the planet joined in actions on Oct. 24th?"170 Countries! (And the "Missing 23") (Thanks, Darren!) |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 04:26 PM PDT From the RULES OF THUMB blog, whose RSS feed doesn't actually link to its items (?!), this interesting and potentially flammable tip: "If your car blows a weird-looking fuse and you don't have a spare--one wrap of cigarette-pack foil around the old fuse will give you a 20 amp emergency fuse; two wraps will give you about 35 amps. Submitted by: Douglass A. Pineo, biologist and falconer, Spokane, Washington" |
| Giant crocheted Raccoon Mario rug Posted: 21 Oct 2009 04:25 PM PDT Last summer, Crafster user Enemyairship debuted this magnificent 7' x 7' Raccoon Mario Rug, hand crocheted from 3.5" granny squares. ZOMGwonderful. 7x7ft Raccoon Mario Rug! (via Wonderland) Previously:
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| Animating the XKCD "I Love the Internet" strip Posted: 21 Oct 2009 04:20 PM PDT I Love xkcd from NoamR on Vimeo. Noam sez, "There are so many things to love in this world, so just to point a few of them I've animated the xkcd comic xkcd Loves the Discovery Channel. Singing by the amazing Olga Nunes." I Love xkcd (Thanks, Noam!) |
| Neuroscience of Mona Lisa's smile Posted: 21 Oct 2009 03:37 PM PDT  The vacillating emotion some people see in Mona Lisa's smile is a mindtrick caused by different kinds of visual information going to our brains, according to researchers at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain. Apparently, there are different visual channels that deal with data about the size, clarity, brightness, and location of an object you're looking at. In the case of the Mona Lisa, what you see in her expression is determined by which channel is dominating at that moment. From New Scientist: "Sometimes one channel wins over the other, and you see the smile, sometimes others take over and you don't see the smile," says Luis Martinez Otero, a neuroscientist at Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, Spain, who conducted the study along with Diego Alonso Pablos..."Mona Lisa's smile a mystery no more" Previously: |
| Digital Open Winners: Teen Designs Eco-Home of the Future Posted: 21 Oct 2009 03:13 PM PDT (Download MP4 video or Watch on YouTube, or view with subtitles on Dotsub). We're publishing an 8-part series of videos profiling the winners. Today, meet 15-year-old Ferran Rovira Bosca, of Spain. He created a concept for an "Eco Self-Sustaining House" -- architecture of the future that captures its own renewable energy, and operates off the grid. Ferran believes technology can help us come up with new ways of protecing the environment and saving money in our households at the same time. He says he learns a lot about what's possible in this realm from exploring sustainable technology websites online. Here's more about his "Casa Ecologica Autosuficiente." Read more about the youth competition in IFTF's press release announcing Digital Open winners. Previously:
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| WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms Posted: 21 Oct 2009 01:42 PM PDT Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night. Having lived in suburbia for the past 20 years, I often hear desperation-tinged fantasies (my own, mostly)of wanting to flee this neatly manicured existence to someplace that is rather different and very beautiful, but that's not too expensive and preferably not mucked up by other travelers. For anyone else who seconds this emotion, I believe the answer to our yearnings is WWOOF (World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms). Here's how it works: You choose a host organic farm in whichever country you like and arrange a temporary stay (ranging from a few days up to several months) during which you will work without pay in exchange for food and shelter. It's all the fun of being an indentured servant or migrant laborer without all the obligations! If you're thinking that this is mostly the sort of thing that middle class 20-somethings do right after finishing their undergrad education, you are probably right. But why let them have all the fun? There's always an excuse like, "I lack the strength and heartiness of a farmhand" or "I really enjoy being under fluorescent lights for 50 hours a week" but I would venture to say that if you think those excuses are valid, maybe you never really wanted to leave home in the first place. Here's an example of one farm listing in Denmark:
We live on a lovely 100-years-old traditional farm with horses, cats, bees, ducks and sheep. Close to the sea, centrally located in sunny Halsnæs. Near by is Dyssekilde eco-village and the costal cycling path. Eco bed & break-fast and basic camping facilities. In addition, we have a wood-carver and two blacksmiths on the farm. If this sounds half as dreamy to you as it does to me, I encourage you to make it happen ... I double dog dare you. WWOOF - World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms Photo courtesy of Howard F. Schwartz, Colorado State University, Bugwood.org / CC 3.0 |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 01:30 PM PDT If you ever feel like putting your dinner where your cliched saying is, you might first want to read up a bit on how to cook that horse you're so hungry you could totally eat. Doug Powell, Ph.D.---professor of food safety at Kansas State University, and proprietor of must-read food and food safety site Barf Blog--can help, with a story detailing the flavors and cultural history of several favorite horse-related dishes from world cuisine, including...  Pictured: A sandwich made with Dutch smoked horsemeat (paardenrookvlees), cucumber, pesto and what looks to be some kind of soft, white cheese. I won't lie. I would totally eat that. From Flickr user fotoosvanrobin, via CC.
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| Make magazine spy gadget contest Posted: 21 Oct 2009 01:33 PM PDT Becky Stern of Make Online says:
Alex Rider's High Tensile Yo-Yo: contest preview and book giveaway |
| Alligators Sing! (But Not to Attract Mates) Posted: 21 Oct 2009 03:07 PM PDT Chinese alligators like a good sing-a-long, but they don't worry about carrying a tune. They also don't much care what the opposite sex thinks of the song choice, according to a story on National Geographic News.  Researchers with the Chinese Academy of Sciences ran some tests to see whether alligator "songs"--it's really more like sustained, extremely loud croaking, which the researchers compare the sound to thunder--attracted mates to the singer. Surprisingly, it didn't work quite that way. More story and a video of singing alligators after the jump! The researchers had expected females to draw closer to the speaker that was playing recordings of males. Surprisingly, though, males and females reacted the same way to the calls of either gender. All the alligators stayed put, and about 75 percent of the alligators joined the recorded song. This response suggests that alligators don't sing to compete for prospective mates, the study says. And yet, the alligators do seem to sing more during mating season. So far, the best guess is that the songs are really a way of saying,"Hey, I'm an alligator, too. And I'm over here!" Which, in the context of mating, is just the time-honored tradition of hoping the opposite sex notices that you exist. Previously: Image courtesy Flickr user wwarby, via CC. |
| RZA of the Wu-Tang Clan: "We geeks man, we geeks!" Posted: 21 Oct 2009 11:26 AM PDT In an interview with True/Slant, the Wu-Tang Clan's RZA admits to being a geek; in fact, he claims that geekyness played an integral part of hip-hop history. This video is part of an interview about his new autobiographical, philosophical book, The Tao of Wu. RZA: 'Me Being a Geek Helped Hip-Hop Grow' (via Jason Tanz' Twitter) |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:54 AM PDT |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:44 AM PDT  Flickr Link. I gotta say, the breasts are a little large, I don't think they quite got the parody down yet. (thanks, Glenn "Instapundit" Reynolds) Related: Do read Cory's Guardian UK column this week: "Corporate Bullying Must Be Resisted."
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| Coordinated motorcycle performance video from the 1950s Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:28 AM PDT Here's a fantastic motorcycle demo by Italian police in the 1950s. |
| Comic strip explains World Wars in five minutes Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:41 AM PDT  I'm an idiot when it comes to geopolitical history, so I learned more about the World Wars from Angus McLeod's two comic strips than I learned from all my years of schooling. World War I simple version | World War II simple version (Thanks, Safiyya!) |
| Jolielips, the lip-plumping vacuum system Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:16 AM PDT  "Something about an oversized, oddly-shaped pump arriving in an unmarked box made the whole thing seem vaguely dirty." [MSNBC] |
| Vic Mizzy, composer of Addams Family theme song, has died Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:20 AM PDT Vic Mizzy, the composer best known for writing The Addams Family theme song, died of heart failure on Saturday at the age of 93. Mizzy was a prolific musician who worked for eight decades writing music for radio, TV, and Broadway. To pay homage to the man whose music we have all enjoyed, here's the opening sequence of the original Addams Family TV show circa 1964. Note that he is also the one singing. Vic Mizzy, who wrote the theme for "Addams Family", dies at 93 |
| A geeky introduction to cheap remote control helicopters and planes Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:06 AM PDT Here's Dan Shapiro's geeky, fun, and inspiring five-minute Ignite talk about becoming a remote control hobbyist for under $100. He writes: I've done a number of Ignite talks (5 minutes on a geek-friendly topics) but this was by far my favorite. Topics covered:Geeking out aero-style for a hundred bucks |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 09:45 AM PDT  Clark Kent told us about this "thought-provoking, artful schematic that explains the differences in basic political philosophy between progressives and conservatives." It was created by David McCandless and Stefanie Posavec, and appears in The Visual Miscellaneum, which comes out on November 10. I'm looking forward to the book. Below are some of the other infographics that are in it: 20th Century Death: What's Killed the Most? • 22 Stories • 30 Years Makes a Difference Alternative Medicine • Amphibian Extinction Rates • Articles of War: Most Edited Wikipedia Pages • Bee Limit Warning • Behind Every Great Man • Being Defensive • Better than Bacon • The Billion Dollar-o-Gram • Body by Insurance Value • The Book of You: Your Complete DNA • Books Everyone Should Read • Calories In, Calories Out • Carbon Aware The Carbon Dioxide Cycle • Celebrity Causes • Chatterboxes • Cocktails • Colors and Culture Cosmetic Ingredients • Creation Myths • The Creationism-Evolutionism Spectrum • Daily Diets • Dance Genreology • Dangers of Death • Enneagram • Fast Internet • Feeding Frenzy: the Organic Food Market • Food Coloring: Unpleasant Health Effects • The Future of Energy • The Future of Our Future • Global Media Scare Stories • The Global Warming Skeptics vs. the Scientific Consensus • Good News • Google Insights • The Great Firewall of China • Immortality • In 25 Words or Less • The "In" Colors • The "Interesting" Colors International Number Ones • Internet Virals • Kyoto Targets • Left vs. Right • Looking for Love Online • Low Resolution • Mainstream-o-Meter • Making the Book • Man's Humanity to Man • The Media Jungle • Microbes Most Dangerous • The Middle East • Moral Matrix Most Common Avatar Names • Most Popular Boys' Names • Most Popular Girls' Names Most Profitable Stories of All Time • Most Successful Rock Bands • Nature vs. Nurture The One Machine: Map of the Internet • Painkillers • Personal Computer Evolution Peter's Projection • Postmodernism • Red vs. Blue • Rising Sea Levels • Rock Genreology Salad Dressings • Selling Your Soul • Sex Education • Snake Oil? • Some Things You Can't Avoid • Stages of You • Stock Check: Nonrenewable Resources • Taste Buds • Things That'll Give You Cancer • Three's a Magic Number • Time-Travel Plots in TV and Film • Tons of Carbon • Types of Coffee • Types of Facial Hair • Types of Information Visualization Vacation Time by Country • Varieties of Romantic Relationships • Vintage Years • Virtual Kingdoms • Water Towers • We Broke Up Because ... • What Are the Chances?: Survival Rates • What Is Consciousness? • When Condiments Go Bad • Which Fish Are Okay to Eat? Who Clever Are You? • Who Owns the Top 100 Websites? • Who Reads the Most? • Who Runs the World? • Who Really Runs the World? • World Religions • X Is the New Black |
| Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:38 AM PDT  Above is a massive wall of toilets that was part of a "toilet waterfall" constructed at a "ceramics festival" in China, according to Izismile.com. Unusual wall or a toilet art (via Fortean Times) |
| Safety Song: musical number about lab safety Posted: 21 Oct 2009 10:07 AM PDT The talented UC Berkeley science grad students who created the wonderful and award-winning Nano Song earlier this year have followed up with the delightful Safety Song about lab safety. For more about these lively lyricists, check out The Sounds of Science. Previously: |
| Mighty Boosh Halloween Costume: The Spirit of Jazz Posted: 21 Oct 2009 09:15 AM PDT  Click here for large. Boing Boing reader Austin Sipes whipped up this superb Mighty Boosh themed "Spirit of Jazz" costume for Halloween. "If only I had flames to come from the hat," says Austin. Chicka-chicka-OW! My hat's on fire, man! Related Booshery on the internet this week: Star Wars vs. The Mighty Boosh. There's also word that Mighty Boosh creators and co-stars Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt are planning "a Halloween sack race in Glasgow." And, the Pocket Book of Boosh has come out, at long last. Fun stuff.
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On November 17th, we'll be launching the 
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