The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Homemade globe
• TSA bans snowglobes. TSA, meet Archimedes.
• Remixing the default Twitter avatar
• I am unicorn, destroyer of ponies
• Orgy: the game from 1967
• Hurting Google
• Transborder Immigrant Tool helps Mexicans cross over safely
• URL shorteners suck less, thanks to the Internet Archive and 301Works
• Eyeball removal tool
• EFF launches international copyright news site
• Auction for a private tour of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles with Leonard Nimoy
• Stupid, draw back your bow
• The Eyewriter
• Tales from a kangaroo shooter
• Subversive anti-cancer cross-stitch kits
• In Fort Hood story, are reporters rushing to press too fast?
• Coffee flavor Yoplait
• NASA: water on the moon
• Frédéric Lebain's real world collages
• Animation: pitcher Dock Ellis's no-hitter while on LSD
• Brian Despain's new show of robot paintings
• Just Thinking About the Charmin Bears Makes Me Cringe
• Goldwag: The Sarah Palin Conspiracies
• Sony, B&N promise to rekindle rights for book owners
• Bibliotherapy for traumatized kids
• Science of fiction
• Best exercise for healthy bones
• Bush feared successor would revoke telecom spying immunity
• Anatomical vegetarian ad
• Peter Tchaikovsky (and Friends) Messing Around With A Wax Cylinder Phonograph

Homemade globe Posted: 14 Nov 2009 03:27 AM PST Davesbit made his own globe using maps from the Generic Mapping Tools project; he used a beachball for a mold and cast the sphere with fiberglass and foam. here is the plastic beach ball covered in paint for the inside of the sphere-half mold... the stand was made from scraps of red oak from a computer table i built... globe with stand (via Make)

TSA bans snowglobes. TSA, meet Archimedes. Posted: 14 Nov 2009 03:18 AM PST The TSA says you can't carry a snow-globe onto a plane, even if it fits in your freedom baggie, because they can't measure how much liquid it contains, and therefore it must contain more than three oz of potential explosive, um, water. TSA, meet Archimedes. He lived over 2,000 years ago and figured out how to calculate the volume of a object by measuring its displacement. If you actually believe that 3 oz is a magical high-danger threshold, please consider adding a delightful, hallucinatory element of science to your pseudoscience by putting an Archimedes tank at the checkpoint. It would be a lovely counterpoint to your other scientific tests, such as the ducking stool and the spirit-rattles. "Snow globes are not permitted to be carried through security checkpoints," said Transportation Security Administration spokesman Dwayne Baird. The reason is that the globes contain liquids, and TSA rules say that only liquids, gels or aerosols in containers of three ounces or less are allowed through security in carry-on bags... "I would think they would just say 'no,' because they can't really determine how many ounces are in there," Baird said. Snow globes? TSA will likely just say 'no' (via MeFi)

Remixing the default Twitter avatar Posted: 14 Nov 2009 03:09 AM PST Ape Lad sez, "I've taken the shape of the default twitter avatar and adapted it to some non-bird characters. I still haven't figured out how to fit Galactus into that shape." Twitter Avatars (Thanks, Adam!) Previously: Catoonn avatar videoconferencing - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Interview with an avatar creator from Second Life Roll your own Lego Person avatar - Boing Boing Sex Tips for the Modern Avatar machinima - Boing Boing Anatomically correct avatar - Boing Boing Sex Tips for the Modern Avatar machinima - Boing Boing Anatomically correct avatar - Boing Boing Virtual drug gets you and your Second Life avatar high - Boing Boing

I am unicorn, destroyer of ponies Posted: 13 Nov 2009 08:53 PM PST Image link. Devin McGrath. (via galadarling via Susannah Breslin)

Orgy: the game from 1967 Posted: 13 Nov 2009 09:13 PM PST The aim of Orgy, circa 1967, is to see how far you can pour "your favorite libation" into someone's mouth using the "beautiful hand-blown Porron." (i am bored via @fordradio)

Hurting Google Posted: 13 Nov 2009 08:30 PM PST TechCrunch agrees with Cory's (and Jason Calacanis') predictions from last week: Murdoch is about to sign an exclusivity deal with an also-ran search engine. (There was more at the Graun.) Mike Arrington, however, suggests this will succeed in hurting Google.

Transborder Immigrant Tool helps Mexicans cross over safely Posted: 13 Nov 2009 05:38 PM PST Vice has an interview with b.a.n.g lab's Ricardo Dominguez about the Transborder Immigrant Tool, a GPS device based on a cheap cell phone that will help Mexican immigrants safely cross the border." For the past few years you've been working on the Transborder Immigrant Tool, which sounds like it's really going to chafe the asses of millions of people--civilians and government entities alike. What was the impetus for this project? My research lab at Calit2 is called BANG Lab, which stands for Bits, Atoms, Neurons, and Genes. One of the areas I've focused on since I've been in San Diego is developing what we call border-disturbance technologies. What is the device, exactly? We looked at the Motorola i455 cell phone, which is under $30, available even cheaper on eBay, and includes a free GPS applet. We were able to crack it and create a simple compasslike navigation system. We were also able to add other information, like where to find water left by the Border Angels, where to find Quaker help centers that will wrap your feet, how far you are from the highway--things to make the application really benefit individuals who are crossing the border. Are you worried that you're going to rile anti-immigration militias? One of the first things we did at BANG Lab was to interfere with the Minuteman Project in 2005. They were quite angry because not only were we committing public actions against them, but Calit2 and the UCSD system were also supporting it. They're well aware of who we are and what we do. Once they get full knowledge of the Transborder Immigrant Tool--and we're very transparent about it--I'm sure they'll be quite critical. The Transborder Immigrant Tool Helps Mexicans Cross Over Safely

URL shorteners suck less, thanks to the Internet Archive and 301Works Posted: 13 Nov 2009 04:51 PM PST URL shorteners like bit.ly present some profound problems for the health of the web: for one thing, they might vanish if they company that provides them goes bust (for some other things: it exposes your internet browsing to surveillance by random URL-shortening companies; it exposes you to malware and phishing attacks, and so on). The first problem -- URLs can vanish -- looks like it may be solved soon. Many URL shortening companies are escrowing their databases of shortened URLs with the Internet Archive, an honorable, established nonprofit. If the companies go bust, their URLs will be redirected to the Archive and thus persist. The non-profit Internet Archive, a digital library with extensive text, audio, video and web collections, will administer 301Works.org as a project of the Internet Archive. "Short URL providers have in the space of eighteen months become a corner stone of the real time web -- 301Works.org was conceived to provide redundancy so that users and services could resolve a URL mapping regardless of availability. The Internet Archive is a perfect host organization to run and manage this for all providers," says Bit.ly CEO John Borthwick. "The Internet Archive is honored to play this role to help make the Web more robust," added Brewster Kahle, founder and Digital Librarian of the Internet Archive. All participating companies are members of the 301Works.org Working Group, a technical and policy discussion group, but the Internet Archive will manage the over all initiative in a fashion consistent with its charter as a non-profit organization, and supporting the interests of the greater community ahead of those of the participating companies. Participating companies will provide regular backups of their URL mappings to the 301Works.org service. In the event of the closure of a participating organization, technical control of the shortening service domain will be transferred to 301Works.org in order to continue redirecting existing shortened URLs to their intended destinations. URL shorteners working with Internet Archive for long-term preservation (via Kottke) Previously: Why URL shorteners suck

Eyeball removal tool Posted: 13 Nov 2009 08:26 PM PST So this is apparently real (?!): an eyeball removal tool for "Reborn" baby-dolls. Holy creepy. BEST REBORN EYEBALL-REMOVING TOOL I'VE FOUND! (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) Previously: Eyeball matrioshke - Boing Boing Electronic eyeball - Boing Boing Eyeball accidentally delivered to hotel guest - Boing Boing Cow eyeball found in juice bottle turns out to be mold - Boing Boing What should I do if my eyeball pops out of its socket? - Boing Boing Chewable eyeball cameras: sf video podcast - Boing Boing Eyeball massager - Boing Boing

EFF launches international copyright news site Posted: 13 Nov 2009 04:38 PM PST Danny from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "Copyright lobbyists often indulge in what's called "policy laundering" -- if you can't get an amendment to copyright in one country, just shop it around until you find somewhere that will take it. Keeping track of changes and variations in over 180 countries and dozens of international venues is a challenge, but necessary if we're going to stop ill-advised copyright law from taking hold and spreading. That's why EFF, librarians, and researchers all around the world have teamed up to start Copyright Watch. We've spent months pooling together every copy of every country's copyright law that we could find. From now on, Copyright Watch will be spotting new changes, identifying quirks and novelties in different laws, and keeping watch at the IP fronter -- wherever in the world that might be." Copyright Watch collects and monitors copyright laws from all over the world. (Thanks, Danny!)

Auction for a private tour of Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles with Leonard Nimoy Posted: 13 Nov 2009 04:39 PM PST This is neat -- CharityBuzz is auctioning off a private tour of Griffith Observatory with Leonard Nimoy! The tour is for two people and the current high bid is $5,250. The proceeds will go to the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights. Also in the auction block: A tour of Industrial Light and Magic with George Lucas. Max bid on this is $300.

Stupid, draw back your bow Posted: 13 Nov 2009 04:28 PM PST In my spam: boner pill fantasy art. This is a real image that adorned a spam email message from a Chinese meds site.

The Eyewriter Posted: 13 Nov 2009 09:05 PM PST The folks at Graffiti Research Lab, openFrameworks, The Fat Lab and The Ebeling Group have teamed up to create The EyeWriter, a "low-cost eye-tracking apparatus + custom software that allows graffiti writers and artists with paralysis resulting from Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis to draw using only their eyes." Instructables has a post up. I'd love to witness this in action, up close, with someone who really needs to use it. I am personally familiar with ALS (a family member died of the disease). Any technology that helps people with ALS retain the ability to communicate sounds like a wonderful, wonderful thing to me. (Thanks, Christy Canida!)

Tales from a kangaroo shooter Posted: 13 Nov 2009 03:56 PM PST Jeff Simmermon says: I worked as an offsider (assistant) to a kangaroo shooter in the Australian Outback in early 2004. It was dirty, disgusting, blood-soaked work and it was one of the most beautiful experiences of my entire life. Not a day goes by that I don't think of that experience in some way or another. It taught me a lot: I learned to get tough, how to do some hard, hard work, and how to put aside all my delicate city liberal ideas and face the realities of the food chain. Kangaroos are pests in Australia, and people eat their meat all the time. And meat does not just cheerfully lie itself down on the burger bun, either. Kangaroo meat is as free-range and organic as it gets, but you've still got to do a fair bit of old-fashioned killing to make it happen — and the process is disturbing, gory, and pretty hideous. Not unlike the rest of nature, the parts they don't show you on the television programs. Roo Shooter

Subversive anti-cancer cross-stitch kits Posted: 13 Nov 2009 04:00 PM PST For survivors-to-be whose healing arsenal includes attitude. I dedicate this post, on this particular day, to Gloria Rosa Linda, who is going to beat the living shit out of breast cancer. Sewing kits range from $12 to $20, depending on what materials you'd like to include. The folks behind this made bracelets, too, but not for sale. "Just to yell back at the fucking cancer." (subversivecrossstitch.com, via Fuzzy Gerdes)

In Fort Hood story, are reporters rushing to press too fast? Posted: 13 Nov 2009 03:16 PM PST Two stories on "fast news," and how the rush to press in the Fort Hood story may have led to major inaccuracies. ProPublica: "Remember the hero female cop who shot Hasan? Well, maybe she did and maybe she didn't." And, NYT: "Another officer, Senior Sgt. Mark Todd, 42, said (...) he fired the shots that brought down the gunman after Sergeant Munley was seriously wounded."

Coffee flavor Yoplait Posted: 13 Nov 2009 01:01 PM PST Verdict: Horrid.

NASA: water on the moon Posted: 13 Nov 2009 12:39 PM PST NASA found water on the moon! For real! A "significant amount," in fact! (CNN)

Frédéric Lebain's real world collages Posted: 13 Nov 2009 12:13 PM PST Over at the Imaginary Foundation blog, amazingly surreal photos by French artist Frédéric Lebain who superimposes his photographs on top of the real world.

Animation: pitcher Dock Ellis's no-hitter while on LSD Posted: 13 Nov 2009 02:43 PM PST We've posted before about Dock Ellis. He was the baseball player who in 1970 pitched a no-hitter for the Pittsburgh Pirates while tripping balls on LSD. Ellis died last year. In his honor, James Blagden and Chris Isenberg animated Ellis's retelling of his acid adventure on the mound. "Dock Ellis's Legendary LSD No-Hitter animation" (Dangerous Minds)

Brian Despain's new show of robot paintings Posted: 13 Nov 2009 11:35 AM PST BB's favorite robot painter, er rather... painter of robots Brian Despain has a show of new paintings opening tonight, November 13, at Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. Above, "The Prodigal Son" (oil on panel, 15" x 19").Also showing is John Brophy, whose paintings mixes up iconography from various cultures and religions in a bowl of consumer culture. The full show is viewable online. Brian Despain and John Brophy

Just Thinking About the Charmin Bears Makes Me Cringe Posted: 13 Nov 2009 11:23 AM PST According to this story on mental_floss, nothing is more American than Mom, apple pie, and the freedom to wipe your butt with commercially produced toilet paper.

Goldwag: The Sarah Palin Conspiracies Posted: 13 Nov 2009 11:32 AM PST Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books. Today's is my last guest post here. I want to take this opportunity to thank Pesco and Boing Boing for inviting me here and giving me the latitude to say whatever I wanted to about whatever crossed my mind. I'm especially grateful to everyone who took the time to comment on my posts, whether you agreed with them or not. You're an amazingly thoughtful, opinionated, funny, articulate, out-of-the-box bunch, and for the most part admirably civil. The reservoir of wit, knowledge and intellectual firepower that Boing Boing has on tap is truly astonishing. As I'm sure I've said before, I don't write because I know so much--I write because it gives me an opportunity to learn. And you've all taught me a great deal. I hope I can come back and contribute to Boing Boing again; in the meantime, you're all welcome to drop by my own blog any time. I began last Monday with my lucubrations about Orly Taitz and the birther movement. For the sake of symmetry, I will close out with some remarks about another woman of the right, Alaska's ex-governor Sarah Palin. Her block-buster memoir Going Rogue will be published on November 17th; last Friday she market-tested a new speech before some 5,000 right-to-lifers at the state fairgrounds outside Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Though the press was banned from the event and recording devices forbidden, several reporters, Politico's Jonathan Martin among them, attended as paying customers (tickets went for $30; pledge cards on the chairs offered attendees the opportunity to become one of "Sarah's Rogues" and receive an autographed copy of her book by donating $1000 to Wisconsin Right to Life). A subject of innumerable conspiracy theories herself--about the state of her marriage, the circumstances surrounding her last pregnancy, the reasons for her abrupt resignation from the governorship--Palin alluded to a conspiracy theory in her speech that got a lot of play last summer: the "death panels" canard. If law-makers don't believe that the lives of the unborn matter, she said ominously, then: "Perhaps the same mind-set applies to other persons."  "What may they feel about an elderly person who doesn't have a whole lot of productive years left... In order to save government money, government health care has to be rationed... Do you think our elderly will be first in line for limited health care?   "And what about the child who perhaps isn't deemed normal or perfect per someone's subjective measure of their use or questionable purpose in the eyes of a panel of bureaucrats making our health care decisions for us," she continued. And then she launched a new conspiracy theory of her own: Noting that there had been a lot of "change" of late, Palin recalled a recent conversation with a friend about how the phrase "In God We Trust" had been moved to the edge of the new coins. "Who calls a shot like that?" she demanded. "Who makes a decision like that?" She added: "It's a disturbing trend." Unsaid but implied was that the new Democratic White House was behind such a move to secularize the nation's currency. Actually it wasn't quite her own. Martin noted that Palin was echoing charges that first began circulating in a chain letter dating back to 2007; the redesign of the dollar coin had in fact been approved in 2005, during the presidency of George W. Bush. Astoundingly, not just Politico fact-checked Palin, but Fox News. Fox even reported that "In God We Trust" was moved back to the front of the coin in 2007, by an act of Congress. Snopes.com had debunked that chain letter back in February 2007; Hoax.com posted on the subject a month later. The Hoax post includes a link to a press release from the United States mint which admits--collectors take note!--that "an unspecified quantity" of coins were in fact released without the edge lettering. As for the conspiracy theories about Palin herself.... Andrew Sullivan has blogged obsessively about her eye-brow raising account of the circumstances of her youngest child's birth--he posted a picture of her taken a month before Trig was born in which she barely has a bulge; he noted how her water broke when she was in Texas and, despite her high-risk pregnancy, she flew back to Alaska for the delivery; he's pressed for (and not received) detailed medical records. (Click here and here for just two of his many posts on the subject.) Even Sullivan admits that he's become something of an Ahab on the subject of Palin; not long ago one of his readers tried to calm him down by suggesting that most of the inconsistencies in her stories stem from her characteristically careless attitude with the truth--there's no grand conspiracy, in other words, just self-aggrandizing lies. "Always tell the truth," as the old admonition goes, "It's easier to remember." Sarah Palin would have done well to heed it. One of Sullivan's posts included a link to the Alaska Daily News's editor's blog, on which an e-mail exchange between Palin and Executive Editor Patrick Dougherty can be found. It's dated January 12, 2009. In it Palin complained that the ADN had called Levi Johnston a "highschool dropout" (which he was) and implied that she was connected to Levi Johnston's mother's drug dealing activities (the paper had written nothing of the sort). Then she moved onto the issue of Trig. "And is your paper really still pursuing the sensational lie that I am not Trig's mother?" she asked. "Is it true you have a reporter still bothering my state office, my very busy doctor (who's already set the record straight for you), and the school district, in pursuit of your ridiculous conspiracy?" "Yes, it's true," Dougherty replied. He went on: You may have been too busy with the campaign to notice, but the Daily News has, from the beginning, dismissed the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth as nonsense. I don't believe we have ever published in the newspaper a story, a letter, a column or anything alleging a coverup about your maternity. In fact, my integrity and the integrity of the newspaper have been repeatedly attacked in national forums for our complicity in the "coverup." I have personally received more than a 100 emails accusing me and the paper of conspiring to hide the truth....I want to be very clear on this: I have from the beginning and do now consider the conspiracy theories about Trig's birth to be nutty nonsense. If that's true, then why has Lisa Demer been asking questions about Trig's birth? Because we have been amazed by the widespread and enduring quality of these rumors. I finally decided, after watching this go on unabated for months, to let a reporter try to do a story about the "conspiracy theory that would not die" and, possibly, report the facts of Trig's birth thoroughly enough to kill the nonsense once and for all...... But because of Palin's refusal to cooperate, he tells her--to release records, to give statements, to allow third parties to speak candidly--he'd had to spike the story. "It strikes me," he concludes, "That if there is never a clear, contemporaneous public record of what transpired with Trig's birth that may actually ensure that the conspiracy theory never dies. Time will tell." In our age of viral communications, thought contagions spread within seconds. Politicians like Palin try to take advantage of the phenomenon for their own purposes. With one well-timed applause line at the Republican convention she was able to recast herself as an opponent of the bridge to nowhere that she'd in fact supported. Unfortunately her gaffes--"I can see Russia from my house"--were propagated just as swiftly. Judging from the story in this morning's New York Times about her claims that the McCain campaign is stiffing her for $50,000 in legal charges, some of the untruths in her new book might bite back at her as well. Karl Popper wrote of "the unwieldiness, the resilience or the brittleness of the social stuff, or its resistance to our attempts to mould it and to work with it." The medium in which thought contagions travel--and in which politicians campaign--is social. "Conspiracies occur, it must be admitted," Popper wrote in The Open Society and Its Enemies (1952). But the striking fact which, in spite of their occurrence, disproves the conspiracy theory is that few of these conspiracies are ultimately successful. Conspirators rarely consummate their conspiracy. Why is this so? Why do achievements differ so widely from aspirations? Because this is usually the case in social life, conspiracy or no conspiracy. Social life is not only a trial of strength between opposing groups: it is action within a more or less resilient or brittle framework of institutions and traditions, and creates--apart from any conscious counter-action--many unforeseen reactions in this framework, some of them perhaps unforeseeable. Though powerful interests have invested in Sarah Palin's presidential ambitions, her path to the White House is far from assured. I hope.

Sony, B&N promise to rekindle rights for book owners Posted: 13 Nov 2009 09:39 AM PST I recently talked to Sony's Steve Haber, President of Digital Reading, about its flagship ebook reader. Named the "Daily Edition," it hits stores next month. Notwithstanding differences between each manufacturer's respective libraries, it offers all the best features of its main rival, the Kindle. But Sony says it offers one thing that Amazon won't: actual ownership of your books. "Our commitment is that you bought it, you own it," Haber said. "Our hope is to see this as ubiquitous. Buy on any device, read on any device. ... We're obligated to have DRM but we don't pull content back." Sony's adopting the ePub open file format and encouraging DRM-insistent publishers to offer files that use a less restrictive scheme from Adobe. In doing so, Haber suggested that the worst case scenario would be 12 devices per account, effectively "books uncoupled from hardware." Ebooks can also be digitally "loaned" free of charge for up to 21 days, from participating libraries. This works thought a deal with Overdrive, which facilitates such loans by backing them with hard copies. Sony's new reader also features a 9" display, page-changing swipe gestures, annotations and a cellular connection to download new titles on the go. At $400, however, it's as pricey as the top-of-the-line Kindle DX that it resembles; Sony already has a new generation of cheaper e-readers out which lack the fancy features and big screen. Barnes and Noble announced its own reader, the Nook, a few weeks ago. At $260, it's competitively priced and has a secondary LCD display. It also focuses hard on consumer-friendly features that Amazon seems unwilling to indulge: in its case, books can be shared between devices and even with friends. Not all books will be available, and shares are limited to 14 days at a time. Without solid co-operation from publishers, Sony's adoption of ePub and B&N's sharing feature won't make much of an impact: what use are they if bestsellers aren't included? When the new devices appear and their associated stores are ramped up, we'll get to find out if the proposed changes make a difference--and whether Amazon can be reeled in.

Bibliotherapy for traumatized kids Posted: 13 Nov 2009 08:18 AM PST Incredibly moving Reading Summit presentation from the International Board on Books for Young People, who practice bibliotherapy: reading to traumatized children all over the world (war zones, disaster areas, kids who've been abused). Incredibly humane, incredibly effective. Nearly cried during the presentation.

Science of fiction Posted: 13 Nov 2009 08:16 AM PST I've just sat in on a presentation at the Canadian Reading Summit by one of the editors of OnFiction, an online scientific journal devoted to understanding the psychology of fiction reading. It was an incredibly exciting look into the neurology of fiction as an "embodied simulation." The journal looks like great reading.

Best exercise for healthy bones Posted: 13 Nov 2009 07:52 AM PST The best form of exercise for maintaining healthy bones is apparently jumping up and down as many times as you can without inspiring your downstairs neighbor to come upstairs and break your bones.

Bush feared successor would revoke telecom spying immunity Posted: 13 Nov 2009 07:51 AM PST Wired on what's in the FOIA'd fed wiretapping docs EFF released yesterday: "The George W. Bush administration expressed concern future administrations might not use the legal amnesty it wanted to give the nation's telecommunication companies that were being sued for assisting the president's warrantless, electronic wiretapping program."

Anatomical vegetarian ad Posted: 13 Nov 2009 07:38 AM PST Look at this kick-ass anatomical ad for the International Vegetarian Union. Vegetables are all your body needs (via Street Anatomy) Previously: Anatomical latex Hallowe'en mask - Boing Boing Anatomical models for artist's reference - Boing Boing Anatomical armchairs - Boing Boing Plush anatomical model of a foot - Boing Boing Anatomical paintings on vanity and fading beauty - Boing Boing Artistic and scientific anatomical models from Anatomy Tools ... Anatomical paintings on vanity and fading beauty - Boing Boing Artistic and scientific anatomical models from Anatomy Tools ... Plush anatomical knee - Boing Boing 19th century pregnancy anatomical models from Japan, - Boing Boing

Peter Tchaikovsky (and Friends) Messing Around With A Wax Cylinder Phonograph Posted: 13 Nov 2009 07:25 AM PST In 1890, a group of eminent musicians (including Peter Tchaikovsky!) got together to screw around and experiment with what was then a wacky novelty. On this early Edison Phonograph recording, the group alternately showboats, teases each other and generally pokes the new technology with a stick. This is basically the audio equivalent of how you (meaning me) used to spend entirely too much time playing with the system preference settings on the school library computer back in 1993. Recording quality (and the fact that everybody is speaking Russian) makes it difficult to understand what's going on. Luckily, there's a translation after the cut... This Edison phonograph cylinder recording from 1890 was made by Julius Block, a Russian Businessman of German descent (The Old Man with the Umbrella in this video) who became fascinated with the phonograph (and even convinced Tchaikovsky to sign an endorsement). The recording was re-discovered in the Pushkin archive of St.Petersburg, Russia in 1997, and was labelled with the names of the participants: Anton Rubinstein (composer), Elizaveta Lavrovskaya (singer), Peter Tchaikovsky (composer), Vassily Safonov (pianist and conductor), Alexandra Hubert (pianist), Julius Block (the host himself). One can imagine the scene - a group of eminent musicians each standing around this new 'wonderful invention', being gently encouraged to say something. So there are a few words of banter, some musical scales, whistles, etc., much of which is only just audible. Here is the translated contents of this recording: A. Rubinstein: What a wonderful thing [the phonograph]. J. Block: Finally. E. Lawrowskaja: A disgusting...how he dares slyly to name me. W. Safonov : (Sings a scale incorrectly). P. Tchaikovsky: This trill could be better. E. Lawrowskaja: (sings). P. Tchaikovsky: Block is good, but Edison is even better. E. Lawrowskaja: (sings) A-o, a-o. W. Safonow: (In German) Peter Jurgenson in Moskau. P. Tchaikovsky: Who just spoke? It seems to have been Safonow. (Whistles) From Transforming Art Previously: Wax cylinder xmas music MP3s - Boing Boing Victrola Favorites book and CD - Boing Boing 5000 music cylinders digitized and posted Thomas Edison's crappy, price-fixing EULA - Boing Boing

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