Thursday, February 18, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Foil impressioning: lock-picking technique that uses the lock to form a new key

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 04:47 AM PST

Here's a fascinating post on "foil impressioning" -- a simple lockpicking technique that uses the lock itself to fashion a working key out of soft aluminium tape. You just stick a key loaded with this stuff into a lock and wiggle it around in a special way and the lock opens itself.

Just brand new on the market is a kit that uses a clever technique to also open dimple locks that have a serious profile (and are not one solid square piece of metal). The kit was brought to my attention when visiting Israel with Jord Knaap and Han Fey last week. A local locksmith called Raf (well known from the UK bumpkey forum) invited us to his shop and proudly showed me this tool and technique. The way the tool works is that you first take some aluminum foil and make a 'U shaped' form (using the special tool to do so) and make small incisions on pre-determined positions. Next thing you do is put the foil over a special blank that already has the profile of your target lock. The clever thing about this tool is that the 'U shaped foil tube' is wrapped around some sort of needle, and the foil can not be pushed in when entering the lock! Once the key is inserted, the needle is taken out from the back of the tool, and the pins are now resting on the foil. Because of the cuts in the foil, each pin will stand on it's own 'island' of foil, and when it is pushed in will not disturb the neighboring pin! I have played around with it a little, and the design is really very clever and works fast and reliable!

Advanced foil impressioning (Thanks, Bruce!)
Previously:


HOWTO choose a barber

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 02:42 AM PST

From Rules of Thumb (which doesn't seem to have permalinks?): "Between two barbers in a shop, choose the one with the worst haircut. They cut each other's hair. Submitted by: George Cameron, Wilmington, NC, USA"

Copyright Kremlinology: understanding the secret copyright treaty

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 02:04 AM PST

My latest Internet Evolution column, "Copyright Undercover: ACTA & the Web," talks about the absurd tea-leaf-reading exercise that we have to engage in to figure out what's actually happening with negotiations for a far-reaching, secret copyright treaty that could change the face of the web, privacy, creativity, competition, and commerce.
As the seventh round of secret negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) concluded last month in Guadalajara, Mexico, the radio silence on the negotiations was near-total. Like the Kremlinologists of the Soviet Union, we're left trying to interpret the clues that leaked out from beneath the closed door.

Here's what we know: The idea that major copyright treaties should be negotiated in secret is losing traction around the world. Legislators from all the ACTA negotiating countries are demanding that this process be opened up to the press, activist groups, and the public.

In response, trade reps are making the bizarre claim that none of the treaty language will result in major changes to their countries' laws, only the other countries will have to change. (Since all these countries have irreconcilably different copyright systems, someone is lying. My money is on all of them.)

Finally, we have some idea of how ACTA's masters view public participation: During the bland "public meeting" held before the negotiations got underway, an activist was thrown out for tweeting an account of the assurances being mouthed by those on the podium. As she was led away, she was booed by the lobbyists who are able to participate in the treaty from which mere citizens are excluded.

This issue is an embarrassment for all concerned, a naked bit of crony-capitalism that has so much more at stake than mere copyright. It needs to stop. Read on for how it came to this, and what you can do to stop it.

Copyright Undercover: ACTA & the Web
Previously:


Kids' MMOs are huge, not dominated by media giants

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 04:38 AM PST


Reflecting on the VentureBeat report on big media companies' massively multiplayer online games for kids at the NYC Toy Fair, veteran game designer and entrepreneur Raph Koster points out that "kids worlds and media-driven worlds are probably more important than most all the AAA MMOs released 2007 to today. Whether that's a good thing... exercise for the reader."

Where's kids MMOs are at

Previously:


Vintage bike-pennant ad

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 01:57 AM PST


Holy moly did I ever want one of these pole-and-pennant jobs for my bike when I was about seven. You know what? Looking at this ad, I still want one. It has the desiderata current.

7Up Bicycle Pole n' Pennant Offer

Previously:


Exploded images of everyday objects

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 01:53 AM PST

Artist Adam Voorhes has created a series of exploded images of everyday objects, including an Etch-a-Sketch, a handgun, a frog, and a rotary phone (my favorite, pictured here. Man, that thing is a tank).

Exploded (via Neatorama)

Previously:


Alice in Wonderland tourist board poster

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 01:46 AM PST

My day was made much more pleasant by this Wonderland tourist board poster, created by Mr Bluebird on DeviantArt. Bravo!

Wonderland by *Mr-Bluebird (via Super Punch)

Previously:


Stormtrooper action-figure in vintage Japanese Super Shogun style

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 01:40 AM PST

Here's a new Star Wars Stormtrooper toy that has been executed as a loving recreation of the classic Japanese Super Shogun toys, complete with rocket punch fist:
The Star Wars Stormtrooper Super Shogun stands a whopping 24 inches tall, and includes all of the features that you expect from an authentic Jumbo: free rotating wheels on the bottom of his feet, and a spring-loaded Rocket Punch firing fist!

Utilizing the same techniques implemented by Japanese toy manufacturers in the 1970s, the Super Shogun is constructed from durable, blow-molded polyethylene with a painted vinyl helmet. The figure is articulated at the neck and shoulders, and includes a removable, highly-detailed BlasTech E-11 laser blaster. The blaster even features a posable stock that unfolds from below the barrel. Collectors of both Japanese and Star Wars memorabilia are sure to be impressed with the care taken to fuse the disparate concepts into a new unique entity.

Super Shogun StormTrooper (Thanks, Francesco!)
Previously:


Australian copyright society blows more than it gives to artists: lavish salaries and junkets to Barbados

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 03:20 AM PST

The Copyright Agency Limited, an Australian copyright collecting society (an organization that collects money on behalf of authors for use of their copyrighted works) is spending more than half the money they collect than they give to authors on their own salaries and expenses. The Chief Executive is paying himself AU$350,000 a year out of the money that he is meant to serve as trustee for. They've also paid for staff junkets to China and Barbados out of the sums. All told, the staff are spending AU$9.4 million a year, and giving the creators whom they are meant to serve AU$9.1 million per year.
Among the highest paid at CAL was its chief executive Jim Alexander, who earned more than $350,000 last year, while another senior staff member earned between $250,000 and $299,000, another between $200,000 and 249,000, and five others between $150,000 and $199,000. A further 21 staff earned between $100,000 and $149,000.

In addition, the agency spent more than $300,000 on travel for its top executives, including a trip for its three senior executives to an International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organisations conference in Barbados, and a trip for four employees and board members to the Beijing Writers Festival...

In response to questions put to the agency by The Australian, CAL defended the proportion of its budget spent on salaries. "While licensing revenue grows, the complexity of CAL's business continues to require investment in systems and process improvements to achieve operational efficiencies and, in particular, to integrate with new international standards," Mr Alexander said. "Appointing and retaining key managerial staff to lead CAL through these system change projects is integral to its efficiency."

Copyright staff get more than they give to authors and artists (Thanks, Dr Matthew Rimmer!)
Previously:


School used student laptop webcams to spy on them at school and home

Posted: 18 Feb 2010 02:18 AM PST

According to the filings in Blake J Robbins v Lower Merion School District (PA) et al, the laptops issued to high-school students in the well-heeled Philly suburb have webcams that can be covertly activated by the schools' administrators, who have used this facility to spy on students and even their families. The issue came to light when the Robbins's child was disciplined for "improper behavior in his home" and the Vice Principal used a photo taken by the webcam as evidence. The suit is a class action, brought on behalf of all students issued with these machines.

If true, these allegations are about as creepy as they come. I don't know about you, but I often have the laptop in the room while I'm getting dressed, having private discussions with my family, and so on. The idea that a school district would not only spy on its students' clickstreams and emails (bad enough), but also use these machines as AV bugs is purely horrifying.

Schools are in an absolute panic about kids divulging too much online, worried about pedos and marketers and embarrassing photos that will haunt you when you run for office or apply for a job in 10 years. They tell kids to treat their personal details as though they were precious.

But when schools take that personal information, indiscriminately invading privacy (and, of course, punishing students who use proxies and other privacy tools to avoid official surveillance), they send a much more powerful message: your privacy is worthless and you shouldn't try to protect it.

Robbins v. Lower Merion School District (PDF) (Thanks, Roland!)

(Image: IMG_6395, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from bionicteaching's photostream)

Previously:


A lesson in laser safety from the Salk Institute

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 11:13 PM PST

salkinstitutelaser.jpg

I'm in San Diego through Monday, attending the American Association for the Advancement of Science conference. This pic comes direct from the lab tours I went on Wednesday afternoon. Starting Thursday, I'll be updating you with highlights from this annual gathering of the world's largest general scientific society. Or, at least, the highlights I get to see. One of the wonderful/frustrating things about AAAS is that there always seems to be at least three lectures I'd love to hear running simultaneously. Together, we'll learn some cool stuff this week—and still only scratch the surface.

Vampire attractiveness chart

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 07:55 PM PST

Count Duckula. Attractiveness: alluring [citation required]

Letters from the Fab Academy

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 03:05 PM PST

201002171501
Press-fit linear bearings in Jonathan Ward's MTM A-Z milling machine (demoed by Noah Bedford, left) and a press-fit pinch roller from the Fluxamacutter DIY vinyl cutter (right).

Make: Online editor-in-chief Gareth Branwyn says:

As part of our coverage of 3D printing, laser-cutting, CNC routing, and other forms of desktop fabbing -- to coincide with the new "Your Desktop Factory" issue of MAKE -- we're thrilled to welcome guest contributor Shawn Wallace. Shawn is a member of AS220, the Providence, Rhode Island community arts space. From there, he weekly plugs into the global, distributed learning collaborative known as the Fab Academy. Students from all over the world meet every other week via video conferencing to learn about various fabbing technologies. It's part of the Fab Network, out of the Center for Bits and Atoms.
Letters from the Fab Academy, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Constructivist theater posters by Akimov

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 02:46 PM PST

2696 4331377187 2A3A747B83 B 4018 4331391613 24D370Ff8C B
Over at Ephemera Assemblyman, Diana Jou posted lovely Russian theater posters by Constructivist artist, director, and stage designer Nikolay Pavlovich Akimov. The scans are from a 1963 book titled Teatralʹnyĭ plakat N. Akimova. "Nikolay Pavlovich Akimov Theatre Posters"

Previously:


Jordan Crane's art prints

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 02:31 PM PST

Screen Shot 2010-02-17 At 2.24.50 Pm

Artist and cartoonist Jordan Crane has an appealing color palette. I've been reading his comics for years, and I've also bought some of his gorgeous hand-pulled silkscreen color prints. Jordan recently joined the Boing Boing Bazaar and is selling his prints there, like this one, titled "Someday You're Gonna."

Makers Market: Jordan Crane

The Introvert's Corner blog: "We Gotta Fight for our Right Not to Party"

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 02:22 PM PST

As a semi-introvert, I was happy to discover Sophia Dembling's Introvert's Corner blog.
A woman who read one of my essays on introversion said that when she explained her introversion to her family, her brother said, "We didn't know you were an introvert. We thought you were just a bitch."
The Introvert's Corner: How to live a quiet life in a noisy world

Slate: Food expiration dates are often worse than useless

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 02:14 PM PST

Expiration-Date1

I enjoyed Nadia Arumugam's article in Slate about the bogosity of food expiration dates. I eat "expired" food all the time, trusting my nose and my eyes to let me know when food has gone bad. In fact, I find aged food to be tastier than fresh food. Give me a bowl of sauerkraut teeming with bacteria over a fresh green salad any day.

Expiration dates are intended to inspire confidence, but they only invest us with a false sense of security. The reality is that the onus lies with consumers to judge and maintain the freshness and edibility of their food--by checking for offensive slime, rank smells, and off colors. Perhaps, then, we should do away with dates altogether and have packages equipped with more instructive guidance on properly storing foods, and on detecting spoilage. Better yet, we should focus our efforts on what really matters to our health--not spoilage bacteria, which are fairly docile, but their malevolent counterparts: disease-causing pathogens like salmonella and Listeria, which infect the food we eat not because it's old but as a result of unsanitary conditions at factories or elsewhere along the supply chain. A new system that could somehow prevent the next E. coli outbreak would be far more useful to consumers than a fairly arbitrary set of labels that merely (try to) guarantee taste.
Ignore Expiration Dates"Best by," "Sell by," and all those other labels mean very little.

Study: Lack of morning light keeping teenagers up at night

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 01:42 PM PST

201002171335 Zoe Caira wears a personal light-measuring device, called a Daysimeter, to monitor her rest and activity patterns and the amount of circadian light -- short-wavelength (blue) light -- reaching her eyes. Credit: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute recently conducted a field study to learn the effects of morning light on teenagers' sleep cycles. They concluded that a lack of exposure to early morning light can result in a 30-minute delay in the onset of sleep.

"If you remove blue light in the morning, it delays the onset of melatonin, the hormone that indicates to the body when it's nighttime," explains Dr. Figueiro. "Our study shows melatonin onset was delayed by about 6 minutes each day the teens were restricted from blue light. Sleep onset typically occurs about 2 hours after melatonin onset."

The study findings should have significant implications for school design. "Delivering daylight in schools may be a simple, non-pharmacological treatment for students to help them increase sleep duration," concludes Dr. Figueiro.

The new research has applications for more than 3 million shift workers and Alzheimer's patients who suffer from lack of a regular sleep pattern.

Studies have shown that this lack of synchronization between a shift worker's rest and activity and light/dark patterns leads to a much higher risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes, seasonal depression and cancer over decades.

Lack of morning light keeping teenagers up at night

TED: augmented-reality maps

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 01:25 PM PST


Blaise Aguera y Arcas, the architect of Bing Maps, gave a neat demo of an augmented-reality map at TED2010. Flickr photos are integrated into street level views, which can result in interesting "time travel" historical views. He also shows how live videos can be added into the maps as well.

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos augmented-reality maps

Proud shoppers buy watches, contented shoppers buy housewares

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 01:02 PM PST

Proud shoppers buy watches, contented shoppers buy housewares: this according to a new Journal of Consumer Research paper. "If a retailer is selling products that allow the consumer to 'show off' to other people, this retailer may want to induce feelings of pride through store atmospherics or advertising. In contrast, a retailer selling primarily home furnishings might want to try to induce feelings of contentment." ,

Hands-on with three shirt-pocket gadgets

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 12:20 PM PST

newjawbones.jpg Aliph's Jawbone Icon is much like its last in-ear bluetooth headset, but now comes with 'dialing apps' and a set of amusing voices to tell you about incoming calls and what-have-you. The new designs are welcome, but not as nice as the Jawbone Earcandy, to my eye--vivid colors are gone in pursuit of a jewelry-like look.

They're also short and chubbier, though about the same size overall. The quality was good when tested (paired with an iPhone) and it's a little cheaper than the other models, at $100. Amazon link

technocellpowerpak.JPGThe Technocell PowerPak is a matchbox-sized battery that serves as an emergency backup for your gear. It worked well in testing--it's small enough to be portable, but big enough to actually get serious juice from--and comes with many adapter tips. The fold-out plug prongs make it easy and convenient to power up. I kept forgetting to charge it, however, so if you get something like this, be sure to keep it in the car or your front hallway so that you actually have it with you when you need it. $33. Product Page - Amazon link


rogue2-gn-550x240.jpg

ICON's Rogue might be just another LED flashlight, but it is pretty. Made from greebled aluminum and finished with a metallic paint job, it resembles a minimalist hipster light saber. It didn't seem quite as bright as dowdier models from Energizer, and can't stand on its end - surprisingly annoying in a blackout. A standard off-half-full button sequence would be better than it being at half-brightness every second time you turn it on. There's also a tiny AA-size edition, but both models are a little too pricey at $50 and $38, respectively. Amazon link

Endangered species condoms

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 12:28 PM PST

BiolDiv_CB_Polar_Bear.jpg

To portray the message that rapid human population growth is pushing other animals out of the habitats and causing specie extinction, the Tucson, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity has created a series of condom wrappers featuring an endangered animal and catchy slogans like "Wrap with care... save the polar bear" and "Hump smarter... save the snail darter."

Endangered species condoms (via @elizgettelman)

One inch equals $30,000 in online dating world

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 11:41 AM PST

A Duke University study analyzed data from 22,000 online daters and found that "women put a premium on income and height when deciding which men to contact."
For example, the study showed a 5-foot-9-inch man needs to make $30,000 more than a 5-foot-10-inch one to be as successful in the dating pool.
From Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance

Three Tesla employees reported dead in Palo Alto plane crash

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 06:57 PM PST

Jalopnik is reporting that the three people who died in a Palo Alto plane crash this morning were Tesla employees.

Mardi Gras 2010: girl in "Creole Wild West Indians" parade

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 11:31 AM PST

mardigrascreole.jpg

Photo by Mar Doré (galleriamardore.com). A girl participating in the "Creole Wild West Indians" parade Mardi Gras, New Orleans, Louisiana, 2010. More on the tradition, and more about the photographer (And full disclosure: she also happens to be a family member - XJ).

Remaindered Nero LiquidTVs not a great deal

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 10:55 AM PST

BBG guest reviewer Reed Savory follows up on his coverage of Nero's LiquidTV, a promising DVR product that's reached the end of its road.
I just wanted to get the word out that Nero has given-up on the product and formally discontinued it on December 30, 2009.

While there was clearly a lot of promise in the product, and the idea of having a fully-functional TiVo running on a PC was fantastic for those of us who love the TiVo user interface and functionality, the product never actually reached the point of actually being "a fully-functional TiVo running on a PC", even after multiple updates past the concerns I raised in my original review.

And that would be the sad end of the story, except Nero apparently decided to cut their losses and ran a special on the product during the month of December 2009, selling the product for $39.95 including the one-year $99 annual TiVo subscription fee, without telling anyone they would be discontinuing the product, and apparently blew-out everything they had in inventory. So there's going to be a lot of unhappy customers once people start realizing there aren't going to be any more updates to the product.

A lot of websites (including Amazon) still have the Nero LiquidTV in-stock, so buyer beware if you get tempted into purchasing a copy at this stage.

In terms of what to replace this with, at this point I have to go back to my original recommendation from the December 2008 review - if you want to be able to share video on your PC with your TiVo DVR, look at the pyTiVo open-source app, and use TiVo Desktop for playback of videos from your TiVo on your PC.

Horizons, an optical illusion sculpture in New Zealand

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 10:46 AM PST

Anthony Ausgang's MGMT album art

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 11:58 AM PST

Mgmt Cover Nologo
In hipster history, the 1990s saw a resurgence in kitschy countercultural pastimes like swing dancing, tattoo culture, and tiki/retro lounge. At the same time, an underground art movement associated with those outre interests and born in Southern California was also catapulted into view. Fueled by the Internet, a worldwide audience emerged for art that could have otherwise stayed firmly ensconced in the murky shadows of the art world and underground culture. This new art scene was tongue-in-cheekily referred to as "Lowbrow," and it championed a sense of working class ethics and the festishization of nostalgia and countercultural imagery in a cartoony, fun manner. Anthony Ausgang is celebrated as a pioneer of Lowbrow. His tripped-out, surrealistic narratives feature cartoon characters in exaggeratedly provocative situations. Today on Boing Boing, Ausgang debuts his newest painting, an album cover for psych-rock duo MGMT's new record Congratulations, to be released on April 13 on Columbia. Ausgang's next solo show is in November at Santa Monica's CoproGallery. Last weekend, I spoke with Ausgang about Lowbrow, Pop Surrealism, and the MGMT connection.


99 Nght Of The Hunter



"Night of the Hunter" (acrylic on canvas)




Anderson: You are one of the original "Lowbrow" guys and have watched the whole arc of this movement. What are your thoughts on how the scene has evolved?

Ausgang: Lowbrow Art was originally based on a wide assortment of aesthetic insurgencies, like the surf and hotrod subculture. Many of those cultural influences are now outdated and have been replaced by more recent stimulations. For example, the major influence that Saturday morning cartoons had on Lowbrow has been replaced by the new youth culture's video and computer games. There were also certain orphaned subcultures that were initially attracted to Lowbrow as a good place to enter the Fine Art world. As time passed some of these subcultures, like Graffiti, moved away from the Lowbrow and became their own art movements.


09 The Great Escape



"The Great Escape" (acrylic on canvas)




You were just in Rome for a big Pop Surrealist exhibition called "Apocalypse Wow." What was your impression of the art scene there?



The Pop Surrealism art scene in Rome was firmly based on the Graffiti aesthetic and there was plenty of that in the streets. The cars of the subway trains were almost all completely bombed with huge pieces and even Roman ruins had been hit up. I asked one "aerosol artist" if he had a felt any hesitation the first time he wrote on a wall that was 2500 years old. He said that the ruins had been there over 2000 years and his spray paint would only be there for about 70 so he didn't feel any remorse. But most interesting thing I heard was from BO 130 who said that most kids were sick of the adoration of ancient ruins and wanted to see new, contemporary art.

Are there any new artists or scene that's currently inspiring you?


Lowbrow and Pop Surrealism are art movements firmly based on recognizable imagery and comprehendible narratives. I think that certain aspects of abstract art are going to begin influencing this dogma and there will be a new type of aesthetic brinksmanship as artists skirt the edge between abstract and representational art.


How did you get hooked up with MGMT?


I met Andrew and Ben from MGMT through the experimental musician Sonic Boom of Spacemen 3 and Spectrum, for whom I had done album cover art in the past. MGMT was recording "Congratulations" at a mansion in Malibu so I went there a couple of times to hang out and watch the process unfold. Not being a musician I was occasionally left to my own devices so I would sit around and draw on pieces of paper then leave them there when I went home. I got along well with the band and gave them copies of my book, Vacation From Reality. Later, Josh Cheuse, the art director from Sony, contacted me once the recording was finished. The most important thing was that MGMT wanted the "look" of my style of painting and gave me only a few points that I had to hit. Naturally the process took some time but they were always cool with the criticisms. A lot of people who commission a painting only know what they don't want; fortunately MGMT knew what they wanted and let me do it my way.

Freak Parade: Thomas Woodruff's circus sideshow art

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 09:38 AM PST

Artist Thomas Woodruff's "Freak Parade" is a series of creepily beautiful illustrations from a notional circus; each picture connects to the next one, and they've been collected in a book, too. The originals are touring the US, and are presently in Milwaukee at the Haggerty Museum of Art in Marquette University.

THOMAS WOODRUFF'S FREAK PARADE (Thanks, Anne!)

Previously:


45 Years of 43-Man Squamish

Posted: 17 Feb 2010 09:44 AM PST

squamish team 2_ smaller.jpg Watching the nearly incomprehensible (for me anyway) Olympic men's short course team speed skating event on the television prompted me to do research that and find out it's the forty fifth anniversary of the invention of 43-Man Squamish.

For (mostly) men of a certain age, 43-Man Squamish is a favorite game. Back in the day, I played both Shallow Brooder and Half Frummert, something of a rarity. Invented by Tom Koch of Mad Magazine, I heard Squamish was under consideration as a Olympic sport, but lost out to Mass Start Biathlon and Air Rifle.

It's not as well known in the USA as in some parts of the world, so some Boing Boing readers are possibly only marginally familiar with it. Squamish is a full-contact, sometimes dangerous game played on a five sided field (the Flutney) by players using a long forked stick (the frullip) to smack around a special ball (the pritz.) More squamish rules and details are available here.

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