The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Arthur C. Clark's 2001 Newspad
• An effective hipster RPG concept
• Ustream, live webvideo streaming service, gets $75 million from SoftBank of Japan
• Glorious comb ad
• AT-AT raceday
• World of Fedcraft: SAIC buys virtual world company
• ATM skimmers: man, these things are scary
• Hearing aid you wear on your tooth
• Stanford Hospital's pneumatic tube wonderland
• Math for adults: the subtle wonder of numbers and Sesame Street
• Afrikaans rap-rave: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]"
• First Bill Waterson interview in 15 years
• EFF's 20th birthday party, DNA Lounge, San Francisco, Feb 10
• Awesome card flourishes
• Hey, does that guy have an iPad?
• MAKE Volume 21: Desktop Manufacturing
• Why does time fly?
• The Pentagon addresses energy and climate
• A simple case of miraculous conception
• Bob Thompson's "The Sound of Speed" LP re-issue
• iPad kool-aid victim goes on the offensive
• Weed growing inside toilet pipe
• Giant squid invade Southern California
• Dragon cutlery
• Sex as cause of carpal tunnel syndrome
• New episode of Liam Lynch's surreal "Lynchland" video podcast is out
• Drew Friedman's Kippy Spagenbusch print
• New Colony Six perform on Kiddie A-Go-Go in 1967
• Funny lamebook post
• Augmented reality idea to make transparent walls

Arthur C. Clark's 2001 Newspad Posted: 02 Feb 2010 05:03 AM PST Steven Sande of TUAW remembers a passage from 2001: A Space Odyssey: When he tired of official reports and memoranda and minutes, he would plug his foolscap-sized Newspad into the ship's information circuit and scan the latest reports from Earth. One by one he would conjure up the world's major electronic papers ... Switching to the display unit's short-term memory, he would hold the front page while he quickly searched the headlines and noted the items that interested him. ... the postage-stamp-sized rectangle would expand until it neatly filled the screen and he could read it with comfort. When he had finished, he would flash back to the complete page and select a new subject for detailed examination. Floyd sometimes wondered if the Newspad, and the fantastic technology behind it, was the last word in man's quest for perfect communications. Here he was, far out in space, speeding away from Earth at thousands of miles an hour, yet in a few milliseconds he could see the headlines of any newspaper he pleased. (That very word "newspaper," of course, was an anachronistic hangover into the age of electronics.) The text was updated automatically on every hour; even if one read only the English versions, one could spend an entire lifetime doing nothing but absorbing the ever-changing flow of information from the news satellites. It was hard to imagine how the system could be improved or made more convenient. But sooner or later, Floyd guessed, it would pass away, to be replaced by something as unimaginable as the Newspad itself would have been to Caxton or Gutenberg. There's actually a history of stories which tie a current gadget to this particular device. Three years ago, it was Sony's Reader graced with the comparison. In 2001 itself, however, Transmeta-powered Tablet PCs got the buzz. Now, of course, it's Apple's turn. Photo: News Research Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 Newspad finally arrives, nine years late [TUAW]

An effective hipster RPG concept Posted: 02 Feb 2010 04:01 AM PST Forget Mass Effect. Try Mass Affect, the hipster RPG. [Gamer Melodico via @leighalexander]

Ustream, live webvideo streaming service, gets $75 million from SoftBank of Japan Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:47 PM PST The live web video streaming service Ustream, which we have used before (with pleasing results) for Boing Boing Video live events, is announcing a $75 million investment from SoftBank of Japan. Announcement, and More. (via Eddie Codel)

Glorious comb ad Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:39 PM PST The lost art of comb-advertising. Seriously, when was the last time you saw an ad for a comb, let alone one this compelling? The Age of Hair is the Era for Ace Previously: Plastic Knife Hidden in Comb - Boing Boing Tangle Tamer -- wonderful product - Boing Boing Uncombable Hair Syndrome - Boing Boing Amusing Shanghai beauty products - Boing Boing

AT-AT raceday Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:36 PM PST Artist Franco Brambilla is selling this sweet AT-AT race-day painting ("AT-AT Lido Cup") as a post-card on Zazzle. At At Lido Cup! Postcard (via Superpunch) Previously: AT-AT anatomy tee - Boing Boing Secret lives of AT-ATs - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Star Wars AT-AT stroller mod Painting of kid riding an AT-AT - Boing Boing AT-AT homebrew Hallowe'en costume - Boing Boing

World of Fedcraft: SAIC buys virtual world company Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:32 PM PST Spooky, secretive, titanic US military contractor SAIC has bought out Forterra, a company that makes virtual worlds for government agencies. I sat on a panel at an SAIC event on games and public diplomacy a few years back that turned out to be filled with CIA and other spooks who wanted to know if Al Qaeda was recruiting in World of Warcraft. Wonder what they're going to do with World of Fedcraft? This is a significant move. Forterra, while not as expansive as Second Life commercially, focused on a very specific virtual worlds niche: Closed virtual world platforms for government. So much of government, because of the attendant needs of a bureaucracy to create a sense control around information, requires closed technology systems in order to function and to create a sense of security around their many classified research and training exercises. Forterra offered that. (Second Life now offers this through their Second Life Enterprise client, focused mainly in businesses.) SAIC Acquires Virtual World Company, Forterra Inc Previously: Profile of SAIC -- former internet domain monopoly is the ... FBI to build $1Bn biometrics database - Boing Boing Teaching journalism with virtual worlds - Boing Boing Virtual worlds increasingly generated by software, not made by ... Mudflation: inflation in virtual worlds - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Tour operator for virtual worlds

ATM skimmers: man, these things are scary Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:28 PM PST Brian Krebs continues to scare the pants off of me with his ongoing series on sophisticated ATM skimmers (devices that capture your card number, working with a hidden camera to catch your PIN). His slideshow of next-gen skimmers has me convinced that there's no way I'd notice a skimmer on an ATM that I was using: "According to Doten, the U.S. Secret Service estimates that annual losses from ATM fraud totaled about $1 billion in 2008, or about $350,000 each day. Card skimming, where the fraudster affixes a bogus card reader on top of the real reader, accounts for more than 80 percent of ATM fraud, Doten said." ATM Skimmers, Part II Previously: ATM card skimmer in real life -- Boing Boing Gadgets ATM skimmer -- could you spot it in the wild?

Hearing aid you wear on your tooth Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:18 PM PST Here's a new (unreleased) hearing aid that you wear over a back molar. It uses a wireless mic behind your ear to transmit sound to the tooth-unit, which then retransmits the sound through bone conduction -- without having to drill pins into your skull or surgically embed hardware, which is then hard to upgrade when the field advances. SoundBite detects noise using a microphone placed in the ear connected to a transmitter in a behind-the-ear (BTE) device. The BTE transmits to an in-the-mouth (ITM) device that sends small sound waves through the jaw to the cochlea. There is no surgery needed, and both the BTE and ITM are easily removed to be charged inductively. Sonitus Medical is still preparing the SoundBite for eventual FDA trials for single sided, and (eventually) other forms of deafness. New Hearing Aid Uses Your Tooth To Transmit Sound (via JWZ) Previously: Open source banjo man getting hearing implants - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Jamais Cascio on his new hearing aids Solar hearing aids for use in sub-Saharan Africa - Boing Boing Musician requests truly badass bone conduction hearing aid Boing Boing Boing Boing: Hearing aid museum

Stanford Hospital's pneumatic tube wonderland Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:12 PM PST Stanford Hospital's four miles of pneumatic pipes are used to deliver documents and samples, with 124 stations and 29 blowers: In four miles of tubing laced behind walls from basement to rooftop, the pneumatic tube system shuttles foot-long containers carrying everything from blood to medication. In a hospital the size of Stanford, where a quarter-mile's distance might separate a tissue specimen from its destination lab, making good time means better medicine... Its architecture is a sophisticated design of switching points, waiting areas, sending and receiving points. It hosts 124 stations (every nursing unit has its own); 141 transfer units, 99 inter-zone connectors and 29 blowers. To help alert employees to the arrival of containers, the system has more than three dozen different combinations of chiming tones... Depending on the diameter of a tube, cylinders can reach speeds of up to 25 feet per second, about 18 miles per hour, far faster than any human could ever manage. Gone with the wind: Tubes are whisking samples across hospital (via Medgadget) Previously: Pneumatic tube-based postal systems of the late 19th century - Boing Boing New York's steampunk pneumatic subway - Boing Boing 1917 Beekman Street Subway collapse - Boing Boing

Math for adults: the subtle wonder of numbers and Sesame Street Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:04 PM PST In this fascinating opening instalment to a new series on math for adults, the New York Times's Steven Strogatz uses a Sesame Street sketch to begin unpicking the subtle wonder of numbers: The best introduction to numbers I've ever seen -- the clearest and funniest explanation of what they are and why we need them -- appears in a "Sesame Street" video called "123 Count With Me." Humphrey, an amiable but dim-witted fellow with pink fur and a green nose, is working the lunch shift at The Furry Arms hotel, when he takes a call from a room full of penguins. Humphrey listens carefully and then calls out their order to the kitchen: "Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish, fish." This prompts Ernie to enlighten him about the virtues of the number six. Children learn from this that numbers are wonderful shortcuts. Instead of saying the word "fish" exactly as many times as there are penguins, Humphrey could use the more powerful concept of "six." A further subtlety is that numbers (and all mathematical ideas, for that matter) have lives of their own. We can't control them. Even though they exist in our minds, once we decide what we mean by them we have no say in how they behave. They obey certain laws and have certain properties, personalities, and ways of combining with one another, and there's nothing we can do about it except watch and try to understand. In that sense they are eerily reminiscent of atoms and stars, the things of this world, which are likewise subject to laws beyond our control ... except that those things exist outside our heads. From Fish to Infinity (via Kottke) Previously: 3D-printed math and science sculptures Boing Boing Möbius Bagel: interlocking, endless, doughy rings of math Boing Boing March is math holiday month, today is square root day! - Boing Boing Game-guilds can be modelled using the math of street gangs Boing Boing Wolfram Alpha answers Christmas wishes of world's high school ... Starbucks sweepstakes requires Canadians to answer math question ...

Afrikaans rap-rave: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]" Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:34 PM PST Video above: Die Antwoord, "Zef Side [Beat Boy]." The band's website is here, and they're on Facebook. Via Sophisticated Funk via Clayton Cubitt, who's pals with the shooter Natasja. Bonus link: "Look In The Mirror, You Can See It's You / You Got Two Nice Boobs And A Penis Too." After the jump: Die Antwoord - ‘Enter The Ninja’ featuring a hype-man/DJ with Progeria.

First Bill Waterson interview in 15 years Posted: 01 Feb 2010 09:57 PM PST Chris sez, "Bill Waterson, creator of the timeless comic classic Calvin & Hobbes, looks back on the strip with no regrets in his first interview in 15 years. Short, but definitely worth reading." By the end of 10 years, I'd said pretty much everything I had come there to say. It's always better to leave the party early. If I had rolled along with the strip's popularity and repeated myself for another five, 10 or 20 years, the people now "grieving" for "Calvin and Hobbes" would be wishing me dead and cursing newspapers for running tedious, ancient strips like mine instead of acquiring fresher, livelier talent. And I'd be agreeing with them. I think some of the reason "Calvin and Hobbes" still finds an audience today is because I chose not to run the wheels off it. I've never regretted stopping when I did. Bill Watterson, creator of beloved 'Calvin and Hobbes' comic strip looks back with no regrets (Thanks, Chris!) (Image: Hobbes and Calvin, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from walknboston's photostream) Previously: Boing Boing: Interview with Bill "Calvin and Hobbes" Watterson's mom Will there be a Calvin and Hobbes movie? - Boing Boing Calvin and Hobbes slipcased complete collection coming - Boing Boing Real-snow versions of Calvin and Hobbes's gory snowmen - Boing Boing Early Bill Watterson rarities - Boing Boing

EFF's 20th birthday party, DNA Lounge, San Francisco, Feb 10 Posted: 01 Feb 2010 09:52 PM PST The Electronic Frontier Foundation is turning 20 (!), and they're throwing a hell of a birthday party in San Francisco on Feb 10: Join the celebration of EFF's 20th year defending your digital rights! Our birthday fundraiser on February 10th will be hosted by beloved TV geek Adam Savage at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, where he will celebrate EFF's two decades as only he can, with the help of many EFF legends and luminaries! DJs Adrian & the Mysterious D, the duo that founded the seminal, globe-trotting mashup party "Bootie," will get people moving with their genre-mashing blend of tracks, with guest DJs dropping sets throughout the evening. Doors open at 8 p.m. We'll be asking for a $30 donation at the door to fund our work defending your digital freedom. WHAT: EFF's 20th Birthday Fundraiser with Adam Savage and Surprise Special Guests! WHEN: Wednesday February 10, 2010, Doors open at 8 pm, Asking for a $30 donation WHERE: DNA Lounge, 375 Eleventh Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 Please RSVP to events@eff.org. This is an all ages event. EFF's 20th Birthday with Adam Savage and Friends

Awesome card flourishes Posted: 01 Feb 2010 09:51 PM PST PeaceLove sez, "Dan and Dave (the Buck Twins), who pretty much single-handedly created the current craze for extreme card flourishes, have teamed up with clothing design firm English Laundry. They know how to make card flourishes cool, as this spot demonstrates." English Laundry + Dan and Dave // MAGIC (Thanks, PeaceLove!) Previously: Keith Barry's "brain magic" on TED Talks Boing Boing Nature Neuroscience article on neurological basis for magic, co ... Procedural-code-as-magic trilogy goes Creative Commons - Boing Boing How to Cheat at Everything - Boing Boing

Hey, does that guy have an iPad? Posted: 01 Feb 2010 07:33 PM PST "Hey, does that guy have an iPad?"

MAKE Volume 21: Desktop Manufacturing Posted: 01 Feb 2010 04:08 PM PST MAKE Volume 21 shows you a variety of ways to get started with 3D manufacturing at home, including - CNC kits, object scanning, & more. Plus, you can read all about the Makerbot Cupcake CNC and its origins in our cover story. Not only that, MAKE 21 also includes step-by-step instructions for building your own: - Reaction Timer - Padded Swords - Magic Photo Cube - ESP Tester - Gourd Lanterns - Geared Candleholder - Snow Gun & tons more! Subscribe to Make and get 5 issues for $29.95. Current subscribers can check out the digital edition here.

Why does time fly? Posted: 01 Feb 2010 02:19 PM PST Why does time seem to move faster the older you get? NPR's All Things Considered tackles some of the theories behind this phenomenon, which is reported all over the world, regardless of culture. One plus: A Duke researcher says things slow down again once you hit your 60s and 70s. (Via, Mocost)

The Pentagon addresses energy and climate Posted: 01 Feb 2010 02:08 PM PST The Pentagon's Quadrennial Defense Review includes a focus on the national security concerns that go along with both climate change, and energy use. Highlights include efforts to convert the nontactical vehicle fleet away from gasoline-dependence, and a Navy plan to deploy a carrier strike group running on biofuels and nuclear power by 2016.

A simple case of miraculous conception Posted: 01 Feb 2010 01:46 PM PST Never bring your uterus to a knife fight. I think that's how the old adage goes, or perhaps, how it should go. NCBI ROFL reports on the strange story of a woman with no vagina, who nevertheless managed to end up "with child", apparently thanks to giving a blow job, followed by receiving a stab wound. Trust me, you'll want to read the full summary. The case report is real and comes from a 1988 issue of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Image courtesy Flickr user 3Neus, via CC

Bob Thompson's "The Sound of Speed" LP re-issue Posted: 01 Feb 2010 01:19 PM PST In 2005 I wrote about Bob Thompson's The Sound of Speed, "an album entirely based on the noises of modern transportation." The LP is available once again as a vinyl re-issue from Sundazed Music. An orchestral tribute to wheels, wings, and whirly-birds, Bob Thompson's 1960 "concept" LP rhapsodizes about the technology of human transport, from Vespa scooters to Le Mans racers, from tricycles to rocket ships. Each vehicular vignette is book-ended by authentic sound effects, with vivid stereo motion. The Sound of Speed is an overlooked gem from a bygone era of orchestral elegance. It has been mastered in wide-angle stereo and pressed on 180 gram vinyl in the year composer/arranger Bob Thompson turns 85. Bob Thompson: The Sound of Speed LP

iPad kool-aid victim goes on the offensive Posted: 01 Feb 2010 01:25 PM PST Dismissing Apple's iPad is understandable. Given its simplicity and evident shortcomings, it's easy to see why the tech elite might have little use for it. But the volume and insistence of the wrath, the sheer bloody outrage, is remarkable for a product only a few people have even used. What, exactly, do we have to fear from the prospect of a high-quality, non-user-servicable computing appliance? Heeere's Joel: The iPad isn't a threat to anything except the success of inferior products. And if anything's dystopian about the future it portends, it's an American copyright system that's been out of whack since 1996. Titled "iPad Snivelers: Put Up or Shut Up", his is an angry rant, but of great value in it is the distinction between the right to hack and the value of attacking products whose design makes hacking difficult. Like those he criticizes, however, Johnson doesn't quite address the other issue that makes it all so murky: Apple's near-total control of its mobile software ecosystem, and the brewing battle between it and Amazon over ebook publishing. To me, the answer seems paradoxical. We have everything to fear from computers like the iPad, because it marginalizes computer tinkering as a hobby and threatens to turn it into an ivory-tower discipline like heart surgery or architecture. But there's also nothing to fear, because hacking is a way of thinking and if low-end computers finally become unserviceable black boxes, there's plenty of other things to hack. That's why Joel's final point is the best one: it's far more important that we attack bad laws like the DMCA than the hacker-averse product design it engenders. Also, if you hate the iPad's limitations, Dell's Mini 5 might be the droid you're looking for. Check it out. "iPad Snivelers: Put Up or Shut Up" [Gizmodo]

Weed growing inside toilet pipe Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:39 AM PST An individual posting to the forums on HouseRepairTalk.com reports recurring problems with a strange and motivated plant that takes root under their toilet and grows into the drain pipe. From the forum: Over the past few months, the toilet would drain slowly. We plunged, we snaked, we blew out the clean-out drain with a blow bag - everything. We called a plumber, who used an auger to go down the drain and pulled out some large clumps of gunk... and also told us to replace our wax ring - that it might be old. The toilet flushed for about 24 hours, but when it began to slow again, we went and got the wax ring replacement. Upon removing the toilet to replace the wax ring, there it was AGAIN! This time - more than twice as long! "The Potty Weed - HELP!!" (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Giant squid invade Southern California Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:28 AM PST Some 400 giant squid have shown up along the Orange County coast in Southern California since Friday. Some are as large as 4 feet long, and 60 pounds. The photo of the guy who's just killed one makes me sad.

Dragon cutlery Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:38 AM PST This wicked set of dragon flatware is up for auction on eBay right now. The listing describes the set to be in the "Hollywood Regency" style but I don't know how old it is. Still, a Buy It Now price of $220 for 8 place settings and serving utensils isn't bad! "Hollywood Regency Gold Dragon Sea Serpent Flatware 8 ps" (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

Sex as cause of carpal tunnel syndrome Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:08 AM PST A new paper in Medical Hypotheses journal posits that carpal tunnel syndrome can be caused by sexual intercourse. From the abstract: It is proposed that carpal tunnel syndrome can develop during sexual intercourse when the hands become repeatedly extended while under pressure from the weight of the upper body. Of the eight risk factors associated with non-occupational carpal tunnel syndrome, age, marital status, pregnancy and use of hormonal agents can be explained by changes in the frequency of sexual intercourse. On the other hand, obesity, macromastia and large chest circumference can be explained by the increased pressure imposed on the wrists by the heavier upper body associated with such conditions. The bilaterality of carpal tunnel syndrome can be explained by the fact that both hands are needed to support the upper body during sexual intercourse. A parallel decrease in the frequency of sexual intercourse and the incidence of carpal tunnel syndrome between the sixth and the seventh decades of life suggests a possible cause and effect relationship between sexual intercourse and carpal tunnel syndrome. "The role of sexual intercourse in the etiology of carpal tunnel syndrome." (via NCBI ROFL)

New episode of Liam Lynch's surreal "Lynchland" video podcast is out Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:12 AM PST Oh, happy download day! Liam Lynch, the one-man-band boy genius behind the surreal "Lynchland" video podcast, has just released a new episode. This one is sci-fi themed, and includes cameos by Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz (who has a new DVD out today). Watch: Lynchland Episode 23, and more goodies here at lynchland.net.

Drew Friedman's Kippy Spagenbusch print Posted: 01 Feb 2010 11:00 AM PST Drew Freidman commemorates Kippy Spagenbusch in a new print for sale. According to Irwin Chusid, Kippy Spagenbusch was the archetypal showbiz schlemiel. His resumé is the envy of lesser losers: back-stabbing agent, relentless self-promoter, cheap-suit haranguer, failed philanderer, wombat breeder, unapologetic skinflint. His own lawyer once described him as "a man of nugatory intelligence and much unpleasantness." Columnist Walter Winchell deemed Kippy "a nervous ugly man, swollen with petty tyranny." Broadway Moe Weingarten, interviewed about Kippy in 1970, asserted, "This guy's running out of barrels to scrape the bottom of." And Steve Allen wasn't joking when he said, "Kippy's hair is real. It's the head that's fake." Drew Friedman's Kippy Spagenbusch fine art print

New Colony Six perform on Kiddie A-Go-Go in 1967 Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:52 AM PST Here's New Colony Six performing "I Lie Awake" for dancing youngsters on the Chicago TV Show Kiddie A-Go-Go in 1967. I love that theme song at the end better than New Colony Six's song, which was kind of draggy. (Here's more of it.) (Via Bedazzled!)

Funny lamebook post Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:13 AM PST Lamebook is a log of funny facebook exchanges. I especially liked this one.

Augmented reality idea to make transparent walls Posted: 01 Feb 2010 10:06 AM PST From New Scientist: "An augmented reality system that makes walls transparent could prevent road accidents." Augmented reality system lets you see through walls

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