Thursday, November 26, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Famous portraits as mice

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 03:04 AM PST


Alan F Beck paints watercolors of mice posed and modelled on classic and famous portraits -- including wonderful versions of Poe, Asimov, and Frankenstein's Monster as mice. Saw some of these last weekend at Philcon and was very amused -- so much so that I couldn't stop thinking of them and just bought a Poe one for Poesy's room (she's a big mouse nut, and has a stuffed mouse ["Chairman Mouse"] that goes everywhere with her).

Classical Mouse Portrait Gallery

Previously:


Wooden orrery

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 02:02 AM PST


I love this simple wooden orrery from Muji's gift lineup. Sadly, their ecommerce-fu is about as terrible as it gets, but if you're near a Muji store, it's £16 well-spent.

Wooden Solar System (Thanks, Alice!)

Game-controller ornaments

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 12:23 AM PST

Snake fire-escape graffiti

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 12:14 AM PST

3D printed branding-iron

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 11:56 PM PST

Joris sez, "Turn any logo or words into a custom metal 3D printed branding iron. It snaps on over a lighter, you turn on the lighter for 30 seconds and presto you are ready to leave your brand anywhere."

I once sat in on a Bunnie Huang presentation about labor conditions in South China, and he described the factories where rubber logos - the Nike swoosh on the side of a shoe, the rubber designer's logo hanging from the top button-hole of a shirt -- are made. The workers lack basic safety clothes and often end up with several companies' logos branded into their skin by the hot metal.

Since then, I've found it nearly impossible to think about branding without thinking of the young women of the Pearl River Delta with all those logo-marks -- vector art from the west turned into curdled flesh in the east -- burned into their skin.

Of course, you could use this to brand lots of things that aren't human skin! Wood-burning, leather-burning, probably even some kind of crazy brulee effect.


You type in your text or send us a link to a logo and we model and 3D print a mini branding iron for you. The branding iron clicks onto standard disposable lighters. You simply turn the lighter on for 30 seconds until the branding iron is hot and then brand away. A text branding iron costs $25 including shipping. A logo BrandingIron costs $25, also including shipping.

Customizable 3D printed BrandingIron (Thanks, Joris!)

Previously:


EULAs + Arbitration = endless opportunity for abuse

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 11:48 PM PST

John sez, "We all know EULAs, and for the most part, we hate them. However, they do serve a valid purpose. In a complex consumer society it allows quick contracting without teams of lawyers hashing it out over every consumer purchase. The problem is that EULAs are easily abused. Arbitration is the same way. It is valuable in that it cuts down on the cost of litigation, and it is a simple way to resolve disputes. When it's abused, it ends up being an end run around Due Process and very, very unfair. When you add Arbitration (a creature of contract) to a EULA (a contract) both the good and the evil are magnified exponentially..."
Contract law in the U.S. has a defense to this, namely a doctrine where any contract that is so manifestly unjust so as to shock the conscience will not be enforced. The problem is that like all tech law, case law is all over the place.

The piece ends with suggestions on how to use the great power of Arbitration clauses and EULAS with great responsibly. I even included an "ethical arbitration agreement" in the EULA.

The Unconcionability of Arbitration Agreements in EULAs. (Thanks, John!)
Previously:


Happy Turkey Day from Mystery Science Theater 3000

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 11:43 PM PST

Tavie sez, "One of my favorite Thanksgiving memories is watching dribs and drabs of MST3K's 'Turkey Day' marathon on Comedy Central in the '90's. Although the marathon is long gone, I always sing this jingle at least once every Thanksgiving. Other people share a fondness for this Comedy Central 'Turkey Day Marathon' commercial and have tried to post it to Youtube, but Viacom seems quite protective of it. So, quick, before it's gone, enjoy this trip down memory lane!"

1991 MST3K Turkey Day Promo (Thanks, Tavie!)

Previously:


Wikipedia's facts-about-facts make the impossible real

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 11:42 PM PST

My latest Make: column, "Shortcut to Omniscience," talks about the cognitive shift that Wikipedians undergo in order to collaboratively write an encyclopedia, and how that kind of fundamental, subtle change enables networked groups of people to do things that were previously considered impossible.
Here's the thing about expertise: it's hard to define. It may be possible for a small group of relatively homogenous people to agree on who is and isn't an expert, but getting millions of people to do so is practically impossible. The Britannica uses a learned editorial board to decide who will write its entries and who will review them.

Wikipedia turns this on its head by saying, essentially, *Anyone can write our entries but those entries should consist of material cited from reliable sources.* While the Britannica says, *These facts are true*, Wikipedia says, *It is true that these facts were reported by these sources*. The Britannica contains facts, Wikipedia contains facts about facts.

Shortcut to Omniscience
Previously:


More Insight on Those Leaked Climate Change Emails

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:41 PM PST

2009 11 25 Climategg
[Image: "Earth Egg," from the CC-licensed Flickr stream of azrainman]

Cory told you earlier this week about the recent hacking at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, and the subsequent distribution of emails that some people say prove a global conspiracy to promote anthropogenic climate change contrary to evidence.

I wanted to get a handle on this before I posted, so I've been reading coverage and analysis for the last few days. Here's a few key points I'm picking up...


1) Evidence of vast conspiracy is sorely lacking. Ditto evidence disproving the scientific consensus on climate change. This isn't the "nail in the coffin" of anything. However, the emails do prompt some legit questions about transparency and how professional researchers respond to criticism in the age of the armchair scientist.

In fact, the whole reason the CRU seems to have been hacked is that the Unit was fighting off requests for access to the data sets it used to put together its climate models. This is one of the issues that gets discussed in the e-mails. Basically, some of the CRU researchers didn't want to release the data to people who weren't trained scientists because they were tired of spending their time fighting with bloggers and wanted to focus on research. Which is great, except for two things: First, from what I'm reading it looks like there might have been some ethical lapses in how the researchers went about blocking the release of data; Second, when you block the release of data, no matter what your real reason is, people will assume it's because you're hiding something nefarious. One of the positive outcomes of this whole hacking debacle is that it's forcing some discussion about when circling the wagons becomes protectionism, and might lead to the climate change data sets becoming more open source. Frankly, I think that's a good thing.

2) Theft is bad. But if you're a researcher who can explain context to the general public, decrying theft shouldn't be your primary objective right now.

This goes back to the whole transparency issue. This would-be scandal ought to be a learning opportunity--a chance for scientists to educate the public on the evidence for climate change. And while there is plenty of that going on, there's also a lot of people making arguments like, "we shouldn't even be talking about the content of the emails because they are stolen property." Well, you're right, they are stolen property and, technically, should be left private. But you know what? Skeptics of climate change are using these emails, no matter what you think. If experts and researchers refuse to address them, it's just going to mean that the only narrative the public hears is the one that thinks the emails are proof of conspiracy. Not helpful.

3) The Mainstream Media is covering this. They just might not be covering it the way you want, and that's probably a good thing.

I've heard from several people who have asked me why MM isn't on top of this story, and read several complaints to that effect on blogs. It comes both from people who think the emails are proof of conspiracy, and those who think there's absolutely nothing wrong in the emails at all. But I've been reading great coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post (both the official publications and attached blogs), and elsewhere. In that light, I kind of interpret the complaints as, "The MM isn't saying what I want them to say." OK. That's good. Because the story is a bit more nuanced than either opposing position would have you believe and MM coverage is reflecting that.

And now, I bring you a whole crap-ton of links.

Basically, everything I say above is a synthesis of what I've read here. I'm including all of these so you know I'm not just pulling this out of my tookus, so you can delve more deeply into this stuff if you want and because it's all pretty interesting if you're wonky like that. And I bet you are.

• FiveThirtyEight: I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail

• openDemocracy: The Real Scandal in the Hacked Climate Change Emails Controversy

• Ed Darrell Purloined: CRU e-mails on climate science: One scientist pleads for accuracy and Smoking guns in the CRU stolen e-mails: A real tale of real ethics in science

• The Guardian: Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see

• Wired: Hacked E-Mails Fuel Global Warming Debate

• Reuters: ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer

• Energy Collective: Do Leaked Emails Undermine the Scientific Consensus?

• Energy Collective: An Interesting Gripe

• Climate Progress: Here's What We Know So Far

• Climate Progress: Let's Look At the Illegally Hacked Emails In More Detail

• Washington Post Capital Weather Gang Blog: Two Parts in a Three-Part Series on Expert Opinions on Climate Change Emails (third part not yet published)

• Climate Audit: Curry on the Credibility of Climate Research

• Washington Post proper: Two Articles on the Hacking of the Files and Its Aftermath

• Science magazine Science Insider blog: In Climate Hack Story, Could Talk of Cover-Up Be as Serious as Crime?

• Yale Climate Media Forum: Climate Scientists' E-mails Hacked, Posted; So What Does it All Mean for the Climate?

• New York Times: Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute

• NYT Dot Earth blog: Two Posts Plus Expert Commentary

• National Review Online: Climate Change Scandal

• Real Climate: Two Posts + Tons More In Comments, Responses from Scientists Whose Emails Got Hacked

Ask the former head of the WTO anything

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 01:24 PM PST

Andrew sez, "Reddit's been rocking the 'I am an X, ask me anything' bit for a while now, but logging on to find this one was a bit of a shock. Mike Moore, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand & Director-General of the WTO from 1999 to 2002, recorded a youtube video introducing himself to reddit. People are asking him all kinds of questions this week & he'll be recording a video response on the weekend."

IAMA former Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, AMA (particularly regarding globalization). (Thanks, Andrew!)

Previously:


Freelancer vs cheap client: please design me a logo, with pie charts, for free

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 01:26 PM PST

From the very, very funny 27b/6 blog, an imaginary (I hope) correspondence between a guy who wants a free logo designed and the designer he's hitting up. Warning, contains lots of f-words.
From: Simon Edhouse
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 2.19pm
To: David Thorne
Subject: Logo Design

Hello David,

I would like to catch up as I am working on a really exciting project at the moment and need a logo designed. Basically something representing peer to peer networking. I have to have something to show prospective clients this week so would you be able to pull something together in the next few days? I will also need a couple of pie charts done for a 1 page website. If deal goes ahead there will be some good money in it for you.

Simon

From: David Thorne
Date: Monday 16 November 2009 3.52pm
To: Simon Edhouse
Subject: Re: Logo Design

Dear Simon,
Disregarding the fact that you have still not paid me for work I completed earlier this year despite several assertions that you would do so, I would be delighted to spend my free time creating logos and pie charts for you based on further vague promises of future possible payment. Please find attached pie chart as requested and let me know of any changes required.

Regards, David.


Please design a logo for me. With pie charts. For free. (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Previously:


Obey CDC, or Thomas R. Frieden Has a Posse

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:54 PM PST

In the future, everything will be Shepard Fairey-fied.

h1n1faireyfied.jpg

(Thanks, Jason DeFillippo!)

The Matrix in LEGO

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:25 PM PST


The Matrix is 10-years-old, and to celebrate Trevor Boyd and Steve Ilett recreated the iconic "Bullet Time" sequence out of LEGO. Their short film, titled "Trinity Help," is a frame-accurate stop-motion animation of the scene. It took them 440 hours to recreate the 44 second clip entirely "in camera." LegoMatrix

Mark Dery on the death and rebirth of malls

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:21 PM PST

Media Images Mall 2 Media Images Mall Co Wide
(left) Burdick Mall, Kalamazoo, MI, designed by Victor Gruen, 1959; (right) Dixie Square Mall, Harvey, IL, 2009, photo by Jon Revelle

In anticipation of the consumerist high holy day of Black Friday, I was delighted to read former BB guestblogger Mark Dery's insightful essay in Change Observer about the birth, and death, and rebirth, of the shopping mall. Mark begins with the father of mall architecture, Victor Gruen, and his Southdale Center built in 1956 outside Minneapolis. From there, it's a delightful Deryan romp through the death of malls and on to the present "rare window of opportunity to hit the re-set button on consumer culture as we know it." From "Dawn of the Dead Mall" in Change Observer:

Visions of taking a wrecking ball to malls everywhere are satisfyingly apocalyptic. But sending all that rebar, concrete, and Tyvek to a landfill is politically incorrect in the extreme. Already, architects, urbanists, designers and critics are thinking toward a near future in which dead malls are repurposed, redesigned and reincarnated as greener, smarter and more often than not more aesthetically inspiring places -- seedbeds for locavore-oriented agriculture, vibrant social beehives or [fill in the huge footprint where the mall used to stand].

Brimming with evangelical zeal, New Urbanists are exhorting communities with dead malls to reverse the historical logic of Gruenization, turning malls inside-out so storefronts face the wider world and transforming them into mixed-use agglomerations of residences and retail; repurposing parking lots into civic plazas; infilling the dead zones that surround most malls with transit-accessible neighborhoods checkerboarded with public spaces (a rare commodity in sprawl developments),and weaving the streets of said neighborhoods into those of the surrounding suburbs.  

The more visionary ideas sound a lot like what the cyberpunk designeratus Bruce Sterling calls "architecture fiction," somewhere between Greg Lynn and Silent Running, Teddy Cruz and Ecotopia.

"Dawn of the Dead Mall"

Previously:


Liveblogging the Mecca pilgrimage

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 11:58 AM PST

Liveblogging Hajj. Al Jazeera has live coverage of the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, including notes on how swine flu and the economy are affecting this year's observance.

Fancy thermochromic swine flu masks

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 06:06 PM PST

samrt-swine-flu-mask-4.jpg A Swedish textile design student has created this beautiful series of surgical masks for flu season. The patterns are printed with thermochromic ink, so the masks change color when the temperature of your breath changes. Some of them, like the one below, look more like neck warmers.

samrt-swine-flu-mask-2.jpg

Designer's profile via Ecouterre via NotCot

Paulina Sinaga plays "Don't Bogart Me" on Ukulele

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 10:26 AM PST


Paulina Sinaga was born in Poland and lives in California. She has a ton of ukulele videos on her MySpace page. (Thanks, Richard!)

Previously:


Wikileaks publishes massive archive of private 9/11 pager messages

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 10:52 AM PST

NYC snapshot (cross-shaped cloud?), a few days after 9/11, by BB reader Todd Warner

[Photo by BB reader Todd Warner. More about the image after the jump.]

As promised, Wikileaks is releasing on to the 'net more than half a million confidential pager messages sent around September 11, 2001. The data includes pager messages sent by officials from the NYPD and the Pentagon, as well as citizens who witnessed the collapse of the twin towers. As I scroll through the archives, though, what strikes me as most fascinating is the jumbled mix: plaintive, automated cries from printers who've gone offline, or servers begging for a reboot -- those pings are jammed up against urgent ALL-CAPS messages from wives asking their husbands to please call and let them know they're still alive. There are commands for officials to "meet in the situation room." And texts from disgruntled corporate employees, asking why their bosses don't just give them the day off already. There's not much fodder for conspiracy theorists, but there's a lot of random weirdness:

2001-09-11 09:15:38 Arch [1376997] B ALPHA (27)Hey Honey! Can you bring some bagels when you get back? The pork chop is now crying about the World Trade Center plane crash. Geez! It is scray but no reason to cry. Talk to you later! I love you!
And personal messages like this, odd in the context of great tragedy:
Good morning sexy man!! Got my zebra thongs on!!! Feeling a little animalistic!!!
Others make you stop and think -- did this person die moments later? Did this person narrowly escape death?
2001-09-11 07:51:33 Skytel [002691994] C ALPHA TAKE YOUR TIME. I WILL NOT BE AT 1WTC UNTIL 9:30 A.M. THANKS, SHAWN
The mundane, the mechanical, the meta, all in one data dump.

Some media coverage: Guardian, Telegraph.


The people at Wikileaks say they published the intercepts as a "completely objective record of the defining moment of our time".


As Kevin Poulsen at Wired News points out, it sounds like the data may have come from an organized, collaborative effort -- not just one person.

"While we are obligated by to protect our sources, it is clear that the information comes from an organization which has been intercepting and archiving national US telecommunications since prior to 9/11."

So many messages from so many different network sources -- all carriers? Where did this data come from? My bet is on a military or government agency, or a firm that provides commercial analytics services. Or, some combination thereof.



Declan McCullagh, whose politech email list I stayed glued to on 9/11/2001 and on the days following, has the best last word on the pager intercepts. Snip from his report for CBS News:


This should be a lesson to anyone who would prefer their personal details not go on public display: Without end-to-end encryption, and perhaps even with it, your correspondence is vulnerable to interception and publication. And if you're the Secret Service responding to threats against the president, or FEMA organizing an evacuation to an underground bunker, why are you letting anyone with a $10 pager and a Windows laptop watch what you're doing?


9/11 tragedy pager intercepts. (Wikileaks)


Related: Reddit thread is here.



ABOUT THE PHOTO: Click for full size.


Boing Boing reader Todd Warner shared this with us. See the cross-shape in the sky? He says it's a picture he took a few days after 9/11. Todd's life partner found it years later and scanned it for us to blog. My money's on lens flare. Todd explains:

You can see the smoke from the site. No one would ever publish it at the time, because I think they think I was some kind of religious nut... I'm not. Just find it interesting and kind of cool. This is a poor scan of the original picture but I checked the negative and the cross is there (upper right in the sky).

I was rollerblading on the west side of New York that morning headed south. When I was about a mile away from the World Trade Center, I noticed a low passenger plane out of the corner of my eye over midtown that looked like it was in trouble. I thought I was going to witness a terrible accident but assumed the pilot would try to go into the Hudson. Watched in horror as it plowed into WTC 1. Oddly, I immediately looked at my hands to see if I was really there. Literally thought I was having a nightmare. At that point since it was out of the clear blue, I assumed it was an accident. Couldn't fathom that anyone could have done it on purpose. By the time I got back to my apartment the second plane had hit.

Life-sized walking Tauntaun costume

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 10:22 AM PST

Scott Holden of Sacramento, CA made this incredible life-sized Tauntaun costume using a 3D Studio Max mesh model, wood, clay, plaster, metal, foam, silicone, homemade stilts, and lots of fur. Cockeyed.com had Holden document the whole process in words and pictures. Scott Holden's Tauntaun costume

Old advertisement for Evel Knievel's popsicles

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:45 AM PST

200911250942

Martin Klasch calls this ad for Evel Knievel's popsicles "sort of disturbing."

Pressure Printing: big sale on fine art editions

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 12:20 PM PST

Ppi Prints
My friends at Pressure Printing are holding their Fall sale, offering 25% off all their exquisite editions through December 8. I have several of their pieces and can vouch for the quality, craftmanship, and fantastic taste of these artisans. On sale are signed, limited pieces by Travis Louie, Todd Schorr, Ron English, Femke Hiemstra, James Jean, Glenn Barr, and all your other favorite pop surrealists (except for the ones that are already sold out, ahem, Mark Ryden and Audrey Kawasaki). Pressure Printing

Boing Boing Gift Guide 2009: Kids! (part 1/6)

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:46 AM PST

Mark and I have rounded up some of our favorite items from our 2009 Boing Boing reviews for the second-annual Boing Boing gift guide. We'll do one a day for the next six days, covering media (music/games/DVDs), gadgets and stuff, kids' books, novels, nonfiction, and comics/graphic novels/art books. Today, it's kids' books!

The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (Eleanor Davis): The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook is Eleanor Davis's kids' comic glorifying science, invention, and the joys of personal exploration. Julian Calendar is a bright 11-year-old who has moved to a new school where he is determined to fit in by masking his voracious intellect, but instead he finds himself (gladly) fallen in with two other science kids -- Greta Hughes, a "bad kid" with a reputation and Ben Garza, a "dumb jock" who shines on the basketball court but chokes on tests. Both kids are, in fact, natural scientists (as is Julian), but they aren't the right kind of smart to get ahead in school. Full review | Purchase

The Donut Chef by Bob Staake. It's the story of a chef who opens a donut store that becomes a big hit. But then a rival donut chef opens a store around the corner, and the two chefs compete by making increasingly elaborate donuts with flavors like "cherry-frosted lemon bar, peanut-brickle buttermilk, and gooey coca- mocha silk." Full review | Purchase


T-Minus: The Race to the Moon:
Jim Ottaviani's new science history graphic novel, T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, is a fast-paced, informative recounting of the events beginning with the launch of Sputnik, the first human-made satellite on Oct 4, 1957, to the first human landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Full review | Purchase

src="http://boingboing.net/images/day-glo-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The Day-Glo
Brothers I absolutely loved Chris Barton's true story about
the two brothers who invented fluorescent paint and Day-Glo paint in
the 1930s.
Full
review | href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157091673X/boingboing">Purchase



Night Cars (Teddy Jam):
Teddy Jam and Eric Beddows's 1988 classic picture book Night Cars has me absolutely charmed. It's a beat-poetry story of a little boy who drifts in and out of sleep while, on the commercial road below him, cars and people pass by in the night. I read this book to my daughter every night before bed.

Full review | Purchase


src="http://boingboing.net/images/pet-dragon-tb.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The Pet Dragon: A Story
about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters, is the story
of a little girl who gets a baby dragon, then loses it and goes
looking for it. Chinese characters are cleverly placed over some of
the things. What a fun way to learn the written Chinese language!
Full
review | href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061577766/boingboing">Purchase




Leviathan (Scott Westerfeld):
Leviathan is set in an alternate steampunk past, in which the powers of the world are divided into "Clankers" who favour huge, steam-powered walking war-machines; and "Darwinists," whose hybrid "beasties" can stand in for airships, steam-trains, war-ships, and subs (they even have a giant squid/octopus hybrid called the kraken that can seize whole warships and drag them to their watery graves).

Full review | Purchase

src="http://boingboing.net/images/classic-kids-comix-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The TOON Treasury of
Classic Children's Comics is a massive anthology of old comic
book stories for kids, and is a big hit around our house. My
six-year-old loves it so much she reads it to herself. The oversize
format and 350 pages make for a delightful reading experience.
Full
review | href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810957302/boingboing">Purchase




It's Useful to Have a Duck (Isol):
It's Useful to Have a Duck is the English translation of the delightful Spanish kids' board-book "Tener un patito es util," by Isol. It's an accordion-fold book that you can read from either end -- read from front to back, it tells the story of a boy who found a rubber duck that he loves but uses roughly, sitting on it, drying his ears with it and leaving it in the plug-hole when he's done with his bath. Read back to front, though, the story becomes "It's Useful to Have a Boy," and it tells the same story from the duck's perspective -- the boy "rubs my back," "waxes my beak" and when its all done, the duck finds "my little sleeping hole."

Full review | Purchase


src="http://boingboing.net/images/new-brighton-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The New Brighton
Archeological Society by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon
is one of the very best all ages graphic novels in years. It proves
that there can be an outlet to introduce kids to the world of
picture-based story telling without pandering to them or horrifying
their innocent sensibilities.
Full
review | href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582409730/boingboing">Purchase

Ariel (Steven R Boyett): I first read Steven R Boyett's novel Ariel in 1983: I was twelve years old, and I was absolutely, totally hooked.

Here's the premise: one day at 4:30 PM, the world Changes. Complex technology (anything beyond a simple machine) stops working. Magic starts working. Planes fall out of the sky, dragons take wing. Chaos wracks the world. Riots. Starvation. Murder. Full review | Purchase

Blueberry Girl (Neil Gaiman): Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's Blueberry Girl is a beautiful, affirming, inspiring picture book based on a poem that Gaiman wrote for Tash, Tori Amos's daughter (who is also Gaiman's god-daughter). The poem is a set of benedictions for girls, wishes for a realistically joyful life where what pain that comes only serves to make the pleasure sweeter. Vess (a well-known fantasy artist) has a distinctive style that gives the book much of its charm.

Full review | Purchase



The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Daniel M Pinkwater):
The Neddiad concerns the cross-country migration of Neddie Wentworthstein, who one day mentions to his war-enriched shoelace-magnate father that he'd like to eat in the Brown Derby in Hollywood (because, hey, restaurant shaped like a hat!), prompting his father to realize that he, too, had always dreamt of dining in a hat. The family immediately moves to Los Angeles, taking the train, and Neddie loses the family in Arizona, meets a shaman, is given a holy relic, meets a cowboy and a ghost and a best friend, finds his way to Los Angeles, and saves the world.

Full review | Purchase



The Education of Robert Nifkin (Daniel M Pinkwater):
Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.
Full review | Purchase



ABC3D (Marion Bataille):
It's called ABC3D, and it is an unbelievably witty and well-made pop-up ABC book, produced by Marion Bataille. It's one of those books that could only be a book -- there's no way this could be an ebook or a movie (though the little video above gives you an idea of the thing, it's a poor substitute) or an audiobook or whatever. This is the apotheosis of book, something you have to put between covers to really, really appreciate.

Full review | Purchase



Free to Be...You and Me (Marlo Thomas):
Free To Be... You and Me was one of my favorite movie/record/books when I was growing up. Marlo Thomas's 1972 project brought together an all-star cast to perform songs, poems and sketches that challenged gender stereotypes and delivered a fundamentally humane, loving message about being who you are and not being constrained by society's expectations.
Full review | Purchase



Mommy? (Mauice Sendak):
Mummy? is a practically wordless, six-page popup that follows the travails of a little boy who's looking for his mother in a castle full of monsters. The left panel shows junior saying "Mommy?" and the right panel shows a leering monster; flip it up and see how the boy has defeated it. Mommy?'s dimensionality is fabulous -- the monsters explode in all directions, portrayed in fabulous grisly style that's a cross between Big Daddy Roth and Marc Davis's Haunted Mansion ghouls.

Full review | Purchase

Last year's guides:


Abstinence-only rappers sing about the "Christian Side Hug"

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:15 AM PST


"Gimme Dat Christian Side Hug."

Christian youth groups finally have an alternative to normal, aka "front," hugs. As we all know, face to face embraces run the horrific risk of a clothed crotch graze. The Christian Side-Hug (or the CSH, as the kids call it) rids us of sin, as the only below the belt contact will be some good old-fashioned hip on hip action.
The Side-Hug: Youth Group Puts Down Sinful "Front-Hugs" With Rap

Huglight

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:25 AM PST

gray & blue HUGlight.jpg Of the many booklights I've tried, this one ($15 at Amazon) is the best. With four LED lights, two on the end of each flexible stalk, the clincher is that it's never clutter. It can be molded into a bedside lamp, hung around the neck for weightless book reading, wrapped around the wrist for plumbing jobs, and so on. Some suggested configurations: "The Charmed Snake", "The Helix," and "The Pistol." I understand that the official term for the configuration depicted in the PR photo is "The Screamer."

Quote For The Day

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:08 AM PST

"There is a reason you don't have Mexican beer cartels planting fields of hops in the California forests," - Bruce Merken, Marijuana Policy Project. (via Andrew Sullivan)

Diamond optical illusion

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 09:02 AM PST


Antonio at Fogonazos writes about this interesting optical illusion. The four rows of diamonds appear to be colored with different shades of gray, but all the diamonds are identical. In fact, the diamonds aren't solid gray, they are tinted with a gradient (lighter on the top, darker on the bottom).

Diamond optical illusion

HOWTO roll your own pumpkin pie spices

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 08:11 AM PST

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Boing Boing pal Blackhound believes that Thanksgiving pumpkin pie is serious business, and he offers a photo-tutorial on how to prepare spices for said pie for maximum deliciousness.

Pie, like most of the food I make, I like to make from scratch. Call me a slow foodie, call me obsessive compulsive, just don't call me late for pie! So here, days before Thanksgiving, I start my meal preparations not with brining a turkey (a practice I frown upon, btw), but with the most basic of ingredients for that most essential of dishes: the pumpkin pie spices, (1) cinnamon, (2) ginger, (3) nutmeg, and (4) allspice.

But is grinding your own spices actually better?

Spoiler: Yes! Otherwise, this blog post would consist of the HOWTO instructions, "buy boxed spice-dust at grocery store. open container. shake. repeat."

PUMPKIN PIE SPICES, OR HOW TO ROLL YOUR OWN. Includes advice on tools and portions and where to find spices in the raw.

Obama on Skynet

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 08:33 AM PST

Quote of the day: "As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything." --Barack Obama, speaking to Washington D.C. schoolkids on Monday as part of his science education initiative. (Thanks, Aaron Ginoza!)

What's Your Christmas Card List Got to Do With the Development of the Human Brain?

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:16 AM PST

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It is safe to say that our primate ancestors and the early humans they begot never picked out sparkly snowflake paper, wrote up a missive about Og and Jane's many achievements in the last cycle and handed out copies to all their friends, relations and hunt/gather coworkers.

But, according to anthropologist Robin Dunbar, Ph.D., the social relationships that were forged during the dawn of humanity still influence everything from Christmas card lists to Facebook networks. I saw Dunbar lecture at the 2008 Nobel Conference in Minnesota, and called him recently to find out more. Dunbar, head of the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Oxford, says the size of the human neocortex puts a limit on the size of our social networks--a limit that can be seen in examples throughout history.

The discovery has its origin in studies that compared the size of non-human primate social groups with the animals' brain size. The idea is that larger social networks are good things: Offering physical protection against enemies, shared strength and ingenuity to accomplish difficult tasks and a safety net in case you, personally, don't hunt or gather up enough food. But managing those networks takes brain power. If you don't have enough, your clique can't ever get very big.

But say you're the one guy primate with a slightly larger brain and, thus, slightly bigger social network. You'd have a better chance of surviving adverse conditions. And, you'd have a better chance of meeting women who'd be interested in your monkey butt. The fact that a larger brain means a larger social network was probably one of the evolutionary pressures that turned humans into the big-brained species we are today, Dunbar said.

In the early 1990s, Dunbar applied the ratio between primate brain size and social network size to modern humans. By his calculations, 150 people is about the largest social network each human can maintain. You might know more folks than that, but the 150 will be the ones you really have an important relationship with--the ones you really care about.

And this is where things get kind of freaky. To verify his idea, Dunbar started looking at the size of documented social networks throughout human history. He found 150-person groups all over the place: It's the size of traditional villages in England prior to the Industrial Revolution; the size of religious communities; and the size of basic military units. And then there's the Christmas card lists.

Christmas cards are a big deal here in the UK, more than in America," he says. "It's expensive and so you think carefully about who you want to send your cards to. We found that the average list is typically about 150 people. There might be fewer households than that, but if you add up the people each household represents, you get 150."

In fact, the 150 limit is so pervasive that if you have a large, close-knit, extended family, you'll likely have fewer non-relative friends, Dunbar said. One way or another, he found that the size of a person's network balances out to be, roughly, Dunbar's Number.

The other really interesting thing: Dunbar's Number seems to also represent the invention of the "friend". Recently, Dunbar and his colleagues started looking at the brain size and social networks outside of the primate realm. They found that, in non-primates, large brain size is correlated with species that form groups of just two--monogamous pair-bonds that mate for life. Anyone who's married can tell you that maintaining a relationship takes a lot of brain power. But why, then, do we see a different pattern in how primates use that power compared to these other animals?

What we think primates have done is that, early on in evolutionary history, they've taken the same machinery that builds pair-bond relationships and used it to create friendships," Dunbar said. "The machinery is there to allow you to build these deep relationships and it's simply a question of who and how many you apply that to.

Watch Robin Dunbar's presentation from the 2008 Nobel Conference

Image courtesy Flickr user tiswango, via CC

Previously:


Void Watch

Posted: 25 Nov 2009 07:12 AM PST

V02GO-View.jpg Something about Watchismo's latest timepiece makes me want a gold iMac. The steel edition also goes great with Deloreans.
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