Tuesday, February 16, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Adolf Hitler makes a Hitler YouTube parody video

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 03:30 AM PST

TSA forces travelling policeman to remove his disabled four-year-old son's leg-braces

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 02:59 AM PST

Philadelphia TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room. When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation."
Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk...

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.

The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.

"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "

Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.

No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

Daniel Rubin: Another case of TSA overkill (via Digg)

(Image: Rhys Gibson, Bruce Schneier/TSA Logo Contest Finalists)

Previously:


Sleuthing uncovers the mystery of Kingston MicroSD cards' crappy QA

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 02:47 AM PST

When Bunnie Huang was in South China overseeing production on his versatile ChumbyOne device, he discovered a major quality issue with Kingston's MicroSD cards. At first, he assumed that he'd gotten a counterfeit batch, but further investigation proved them to be legit. Kingston wasn't willing to give Bunnie any details on its QA process, so Bunnie did some amazing engineer-sleuthing on Kingston and its competitors' MicroSD, and wrote up the results in a damning report that is one of the most fascinating accounts of everyday engineering I can remember reading. Bunnie Huang wrote the book on reverse engineering, literally, so he isn't afraid to start dissolving memory cards' encapsulant with acetone, or start comparing /sys entries to get comparative reads on the the electronic card ID data records. Posts like this make me want to be like Bunnie when I grow up.

Furthermore, the manufacturer's ID is 0×41 (ASCII 'A'), which I don't recognize (supposedly the SD group assigns all the MIDs but I don't see a public list of them anywhere). The OEMID is also 0×3432, which is suspiciously ASCII '42′ (one more than the hex value for the manufacturer ID). These hex/ascii confusions are possible signs that someone who didn't appreciate the meaning of these fields was running a ghost shift making these cards.

Armed with this evidence, we confronted Kingston -- both the distributor in China as well as the US sales rep. First, we wanted to know if these were real cards, and second, if they were real cards, why were the serialization codes irregular? After some time, the Kingston guys came back to us and swore these cards were authentic, not fakes, but at least they reversed their position on not offering an exchange on the cards -- they took back the programmed cards and exchanged them for new ones, no further questions asked.

However, they never answered as to why their card ID numbers were irregular. While I know chumby is a small fry customer compared to the Nokias of the world, I think it's still important that they answer basic questions about their quality control process even to the small fry. I had an issue once with an old version of a Quintic part being accidentally shipped to me, and once I could prove the issue to them, I received world-class customer service from Quintic, a full explanation, and an immediate and full exchange of the parts at their cost. That was exemplary service, and I commend and strongly recommend Quintic for it. Kingston, on the other hand, did not set an example to follow.

On MicroSD Card Problems
Previously:


Stills from 1962 Tony Curtis screwball comedy set in Disneyland

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:44 PM PST


Al sends in, "40 stills from 40 Pounds of Trouble, showing a 1962 Disneyland in Panavision and Eastman color. Yes, you could fish at Tom Sawyer's Island. No, you couldn't commandeer a motorboat back across the river."

Disneyland stills from 40 Pounds of Trouble - MiceAge.com (Thanks, Al!)

Previously:


Picocon: London's one-day, delightful sf convention, Feb 27

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:39 PM PST

David sez, "Picocon 33 is the 27th annual one-day convention run by Imperial College's Science Fiction and Fantasy society, and will run in a fortnight's time on Febrary 27th in South Kensington, London. Guests of honour this year are authors Alastair Reynolds, Amanda Hemingway and Jaine Fenn, who will be engaging in talks, panels and silly games -- and hopefully standing well back during the Destruction of Dodgy Merchandise using liquid nitrogen and a really big hammer. Add in all-day LAN gaming, sellers proffering books and costumes, provisions from the Union bar and the themed quiz in the evening, it'll prove be a grand day out. Come along!"

I was a Guest of Honour at Picocon in 2008 and had a whale of a time -- there was duelling with fish, a two-headed Beeblebear, sledgehammering of liquid nitrogen-soaked toys, and that was just for starters!

Picocon (Thanks, David!)

Disneyland Grad Night '67: golden-age ad

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:32 PM PST


I've always wanted to go to a Grad Night at Disneyland: what's not to like? An all-night lock-in at Disneyland with all your friends! And since Grad Night is one of the more fatal Disneyland events (a teen was squashed by the monorail while climbing it to avoid the booze-checks at the gate, and others have drowned after hiding out with their booze on Tom Sawyer Island during the day and attempting to swim, drunk, to the shore after the event started), there's even the frisson of danger. But now that I've seen this magnificent Grad Night '67 ad, I want to go back in time and attend that one.

Grad night at Disneyland (via Super Punch)

Previously:


Robot factory builds robots with robots: "Now this feels like 2010!"

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:29 PM PST

Bunnie "Chumby" Huang waxes rhapsodic about FANUC, a Fuji Corporation spin-out that builds automated robot factories. Bunnie consistently is one of the most interesting commentators on manufacturing I know, and when he's excited ("FANUC may have the biggest robot sex operation in the world. Get your geek-voyeurism on and watch unabashed robot-on-robot-making-other-robot action in the video below.") I'm excited.

FANUC

Previously:


Feb 16 is the BBS's 32nd birthday

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:18 PM PST

On this day in 1978, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first-ever dial-up BBS, in Chicago. They got the idea while trapped inside during a blizzard, and published it in Byte magazine.

It was several decades before the hardware or the network caught up to Christensen and Suess' imaginations, but all the basic seeds of today's online communities were in place when the two launched the first bulletin board, dubbed CBBS for computerized bulletin board system. The two developers announced their creation to the world in the November 1978 issue of Byte magazine.

The article created a stir among hobbyists and hackers, and it wasn't long before others begin building clones of CBBS. By the mid-1980s, BBSs supported an active community with no less than three magazines devoted to covering the latest in the proto-online world.

Feb. 16, 1978: Bulletin Board Goes Electronic

(Image: Penguin Pete)

Previously:


Bacon in a can for victory!

Posted: 16 Feb 2010 01:33 AM PST

Fixing US copyright law with the US Copyright Reform Act

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:11 PM PST

Public Knowledge has proposed a US Copyright Reform Act that will rebalance US copyright so that it continues to offer rules of the road for regulating various players in copyright industries (writers, programmers, publishers, painters, distributors) but carve out all the stuff we do on the Internet that involves incidental copying, from retrieving health-care information to IMing with our distant families, as well as strengthening fair use and rebalancing the DMCA.
1) strengthen fair use, including reforming outrageously high statutory damages, which deter innovation and creativity; 2) reform the DMCA to permit circumvention of digital locks for lawful purposes; 3) update the limitations and exceptions to copyright protection to better conform with how digital technologies work; 4) provide recourse for people and companies who are recklessly accused of copyright infringement and who are recklessly sent improper DMCA take-down notices; and 5) streamline arcane music licensing laws to encourage new and better business models for selling music.
Public Knowledge Proposes New Copyright Reform Act (via Resource Shelf)

(Image: Large copyright graffiti sign on cream colored wall, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Horia Varlan's photostream)

Previously:


Jake Shimabukuro at TED2010

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 08:18 PM PST


Here's my brief TED interview with the warm and wonderful ukulele virtuoso, Jake Shimabukuro. He plays a beautiful Eddie Kamae song at the end of the video.  

Jake Shimabukuro at TED 2010

Previously:


Naomi Klein: "Haiti is a Creditor, Not a Debtor"

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 07:36 PM PST

"Our debt to Haiti stems from four main sources: slavery, the US occupation, dictatorship and climate change. These claims are not fantastical, nor are they merely rhetorical. They rest on multiple violations of legal norms and agreements."—Naomi Klein, in The Nation (via @shockozulu)

Say it with bug cakes: "I larvae you."

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 07:19 PM PST

bugcake.jpg

Image: beetle and larva-shaped cakes from Japan's Komatsu Honten bakery. Photo by Hiroko Yoda. More about these sweets at CNNgo.com. And here's another neat item by Hiroko about monsters that go door-to-door terrifying children. (thanks, Matt Alt).

Table shaped like a dog

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 06:30 PM PST

Animal002.jpg I'm digging this children's room table, inspired by a dog. Creator Quentin de Coster came up with the design by asking a bunch of five year olds what shape they related to the most. (via Designboom)

Hine's felt camera cases in the Boing Boing Bazaar

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 04:38 PM PST

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For many months I've enjoyed looking at the felt camera and phone cases made by Hine Mizushima. She's an illustrator, slow crafter, doll maker, and puppet stop-motion animation video artist living in Vancouver. So I was thrilled when she accepted my invitation to sell her creations in the Boing Boing Bazaar at Makers Market. Each of her cases is a one-of-a-kind work of art and I have a feeling she is going to be very backlogged with orders after more people discover her work!

Check out this video she directed for They Might Be Giants!

Hine's shop on Makers Market

Videos on bus capture disaster when driver falls asleep

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 04:39 PM PST

WiFi school bus is one quiet and peaceful ride

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 03:43 PM PST

"It's made a big difference. Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around."—J. J. Johnson, the driver of a WiFi-enabled Arizona school bus. Internet access has transformed a "boisterous bus ride" into a study hall on wheels, and officials say behavioral problems are greatly reduced.

Obscura Day, March 20: visits to wondrous, curious, and esoteric places

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 03:37 PM PST

Wp-Content Uploads 2009 2009-2Feb-G-Cans G-Cans-7008

Hi everyone! Pleased to be back on Boing Boing again. Last time I was here with Dylan Thuras we announced the launch of the Atlas Obscura, a user-generated compendium of the world's "wondrous, curious, and esoteric" places.

Dylan and I are excited to let everyone know about the upcoming real-world manifestation of the Atlas: International Obscura Day, taking place on Saturday, March 20th, 2010. More than just cataloging the world's curious, uncelebrated spots, we want to encourage folks to actually go out and explore them. That's what we're going to be doing en masse, all over the world, on March 20th.

So far we've seeded Obscura Day with events in almost 40 cities and towns around the world. We're getting access to private collections and museum back rooms, exploring hidden treasures, and leading expeditions to places that aren't normally open to the public.

We hope to have Obscura Day happenings taking place in dozens more cities on every continent. But we can't do it alone. Please consider volunteering to help organize an Obscura Day event in your own hometown. If you want to get involved, email us at info@atlasobscura.com and we'll help you make it happen.

Why are we doing this, you ask? Well, because we think it will be a lot of fun. We love these sorts of places, and we think they deserve to be celebrated. We believe you don't have to go to the Grand Canyon to experience wonder, or to the Smithsonian to indulge your sense of curiosity. These experiences are all around us, if you only know where to look. Consider us UNESCO's weird little brother, on a mission to celebrate and hopefully help preserve the world's lesser-known "wondrous, curious, and esoteric" spots.

Here are a few of the Obscura Day events we're especially excited about:


- A back-room tour of the Mutter Museum with Joanna Ebenstein of Morbid Anatomy.


- An expedition led by BldgBlog's Geoff Manaugh to explore California City, a haunting unbuilt town in the Mojave desert that was planned to be the third biggest city in California.


- Michael John Grist is leading a tour of the Tokyo G-Cans, the world's largest underwater drainage system (image top).



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- Steve Erenberg (aka Radio Guy) is opening up his private collection of gorgeous scientific instruments in Westchester County (image above).


- Thomas Bolton is leading a walking tour in London of the lost River Fleet.


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- Loren Coleman is giving a personal tour of his International Cryptozoology Museum in Maine (image above).


- Leander Robinson is leading a tour of one of the world's largest pneumatic tube systems at the Stanford Medical Center (recently featured on Boing Boing).


- Near Sydney, Australia, we're going to explore the incredible Newnes Glow Worm Tunnel.

- In Portland, we're going to be at the only undergraduate-run nuclear reactor in the world.


- At the Niagara Falls Science Museum, Nick Dalacu is going to be reproducing classic, historic science experiments with his collection of antique scientific instruments.


The good/bad news is that many of these events are filling up almost as fast as we announce them. The good/good news is that there is almost no limit to the number of these we can organize, with your help.

If you're interested in organizing an Obscura Day tour or event, or even just have a suggestion about a place that would make an awesome Obscura Day venue, e-mail us at info@atlasobscura.com, and our team will help you make it happen.



Obscura-Day Banner-1

Clockwork Fagin: young adult steampunk story podcast

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 02:02 PM PST

I've just started podcasting a new short story, "Clockwork Fagin," which is to be published in Kelly Link and Gavin Grant's anthology of young adult steampunk for Candlewick Press. The story is about a group of children who are put in a home after being caught in the machineries of the information revolution, who kill their cruel master and replace him with a clockwork automaton. It runs to about 12,500 and I'll probably read it in four or five weekly installments.

Clockwork Fagin, Part 1

MP3 Link

Podcast feed

(Image: Dodger introduces Oliver to Fagin by Cruikshank (detail) Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain)

Previously:


How the "scissor bucket" (a rigged carny game) works

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 01:10 PM PST

Sucker-Bucket

Every once in a while I get an angry email from someone who stumbles across this old Boing Boing post about the scissor bucket carny game. The emailer tells me that carny games aren't rigged and that the games are purely skill-based. When I reply with photos from MAKE that show the fraudulent gimmick inside the scissor bucket, they sometimes write back again with a foul-mouthed diatribe about how I ought to be ashamed of myself for revealing the secrets of carnivals. (The emails died down somewhat after I updated my post with photos of the hidden gimmick).

Here's the article, from MAKE Vol. 13 (our magic tricks issue) which was published a couple of years ago. You can still buy a copy from makezine.com.

(I was reminded of this when Matthew Gryczan, author of a cool book called Carnival Secrets, got in touch with me about an how-to for Make he is writing. It's not a carnival game, but it is something really nifty involving a gyroscope.)

Scissor bucket carnival game exposed in MAKE

Phillip Toledano: "A New Kind of Beauty" (portraits of "extreme" plastic surgery)

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 02:37 PM PST

toledano.jpg

Above: Tiana. More photos from Phillip Toledano's portrait series of people who have undergone "extreme plastic surgery" on the photographer's website. Toledano asks, "Is beauty informed by contemporary culture? By history? Or is it defined by the surgeon's hand? Can we identify physical trends that vary from decade to decade, or is beauty timeless?" He's on Twitter. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin, via Refinery29)

Milktoast Nation?

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 02:37 PM PST

pic_salsons_big-milk-toast_Medium.jpg Great to be back on BoingBoing! Thanks for having me.

Six months ago, my book Absinthe and Flamethrowers, Projects and Ruminations on the Art of Living Dangerously hit the bookstores and it's been a great ride since then. The book, 1/3 polemic on the risks of risk taking (those being the ruminations) and 2/3 DIY instructions (the projects) on making everything from making rockets and gunpowder to using a bullwhip, hit some sort of collective nerve. Featured in the New York Times, Popular Mechanics, Wired, and the London Daily Telegraph, I was inundated with emails from kindred spirits, who after reading Absinthe and Flamethrowers want to share with me their own rationale and experiences in the Art of Living Dangerously.

Some of the stories retold sometimes makes it seem our world is in danger, not of becoming too dangerous but of becoming too safe. My friend, Minnesota based Jack Gordon wrote an essay which won the Economist/Shell Writing Prize a few years ago, in regard to the role of the media in this issue which is a pretty interesting take on the issue:

For two decades and counting, we citizens of the land of the free and the home of the brave have happily traded freedom for every scrap of bogus safety dangled before us. Indeed, we have devoted prodigious energy to inventing threats that demand the sacrifice of liberty, privacy and even basic human dignity.

Blowing threats out of proportion is, of course, the stock in trade of TV news, whether the menace in question is a summer rainstorm or the distressing stains revealed when an investigative reporter shines ultraviolet light on a freshly laundered bed sheet at an upscale hotel. But television reflects its viewers' attitudes as well as shaping them, and clearly there exists a very large audience receptive to the never-ending theme: Life is meant, ever and always, to be safe--and you're not safe.

Gordon's full essay is here.

Adios, Aspergers!

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 12:46 PM PST

Snip from New York Times op-ed by Roy Richard Grinker: "The American Psychiatric Association, with its release (...) of proposed revisions to its authoritative Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, is recommending that Asperger's be dropped." (thanks, Antinous)

Debut EP from Hannah-Rei (aka Rocky from Rocky and Balls)

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 12:33 PM PST

Guestblogger: William Gurstelle!

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 12:05 PM PST

Bill Gurstelle-And-Flamethrower

Please welcome the return of William Gurstelle as a guest blogger to Boing Boing!

Hello Boing Boing readers, my name is William Gurstelle, and I'm very happy to be here guest blogging again. I write about science, technology, and DIY culture. My stuff has been on the pages of Wired, The Atlantic, and Popular Science, and I am a contributing editor at Make magazine.  My best known books are Backyard Ballistics and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers.

I do own a flamethrower and a medieval siege weapon named Ludgar. I used to scare my neighbors, but no they're more or less used to me. If you've got experience on making similar things, I always love to hear about them. Drop me a line using the form at www.williamgurstelle.com.

Taking apart a 1977 Blip game

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 11:14 AM PST

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The Evil Mad Scientists took apart a Blip game, a 1977 Pong knock-off. The manufacturer called it a "digital game," but was made at a time when it was cheaper to make a wind-up mechanical device that copied digital electronics than it was to make with real electronics. The only electronic thing in it is the LED.

What makes Blip tick?

Show Indie Game Devs You Care with the Indie Love Bundle

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 02:46 PM PST

Still an essential trick in the indie developer's promotional kit, six studios have banded together to create a similarly essential Indie Love Bundle, offering their wares on deep, deep discount for a limited time (through the end of the week). For $20, you'll get Amanita's point and click Machinarium (which you might remember from our previous sketchbook gallery), Broken Rules' rotatable platformer And Yet It Moves, Cipher Prime's audio-visually integrated puzzler Auditorium, Citeremis' action RPG side scroller Aztaka, Hemisphere's absorbing action game Osmos, and Omni Systems' serene strategy game Eufloria (previously seen here). I'm including the extended trailers for each below, in the off chance that you're not already convinced, which you basically should be. The Indie ♥ Bundle
Previously:

And Yet It Moves

Auditorium

Aztaka

Eufloria

Machinarium

Osmos

Peter Diamandis makes the case for private space: WSJ op-ed

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:05 AM PST

"Government agencies have dominated space exploration for three decades. But in a new plan unveiled in President Barack Obama's 2011 budget earlier this month, a new player has taken center stage: American capitalism and entrepreneurship. The plan lays the foundation for the future Google, Cisco and Apple of space to be born, drive job creation and open the cosmos for the rest of us."—Peter Diamandis in the WSJ today.

High School teacher creates neat presentation of the things he did in 2009

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 10:06 AM PST


Dan Meyer, a high school teacher in Santa Cruz, kept of record of his activities in 2009, such as cell phone use, beer consumption, movie watching, sleep, and so on, and made an entertaining movie from the compiled statistics.

Dan Meyer's 2009 Annual Report (Via The Quantified Self)

Soul Train 1973 line dance clip: antidote to Monday

Posted: 15 Feb 2010 01:21 PM PST

rerunth.jpg If this video does not make you measurably happier than before you clicked "play," your heart is a cold, dead wasteland. Update: some commenters believe that the heavy-set fellow in the dashing sweater vest around 1:08 is Fred "Rerun" Berry, who did indeed dance on Soul Train around this time.

Soul Train Line Dance to The O'Jays "Love Train". Episode #047, 1973.

(thanks, Clayton Cubitt, and more such links here)
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