The Latest from Boing Boing

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• The Elements for iPad: Hands-on review
• Time lapse of Mark Ryden's Incarnation painting
• Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review
• Miami Medical: New CBS drama premieres this Friday, April 2
• The sex lives of Victorian ladies: More fun than you might have thought
• Emergency safety for planet Earth
• Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross working on "Atlas Shrugged" sequel
• One to watch: new details on Superbrothers' iPhone adventure Sword & Sworcery EP
• Noel Kerns, light painter
• Architectural hen house
• Area 51 vets speak
• Robot folds laundry
• Gray's Shapes
• Congressman concerned about Guam capsizing
• Google, Topeka formally trade names

The Elements for iPad: Hands-on review Posted: 02 Apr 2010 01:19 AM PDT My initial hands-on review of the iPad for Boing Boing mentioned The Elements, one of a handful of apps built specifically for iPad available for review prior to Saturday's public launch. After spending some quality time with the app, I can say The Elements is my favorite at this very early stage. We've covered previous iterations of Theodore Gray's gorgeous periodic table series before -- books, posters, puzzles, but it's as if all of that was a sketch, and this app the real intended execution of his project. The Elements transforms a familiar scientific reference into a dazzling, living book that delights the eye and tickles the neurons. It really does hint at the possibilities promised by Apple for iPad: a device that makes it possible to merge book, game, entertainment, reference app, internet search, and who knows what else in a new and pleasingly hands-on way. After the jump, many more screengrabs, and a video of the device playing Tom Lehrer's Elements Song, an awesome little geek easter egg accessible from within the Elements for iPad. Video links (Boing Boing Video / YouTube): The Elements for iPad: The Elements Song iPad: The Elements, a first look from Boing Boing The app will sell for $13.99, and was developed for Touchpress by John Cromie of Skylark Associates in Ireland, with some coding also by Gray. Nick Mann, who took most of the rotation photographs, using Canon cameras and lenses (Gray says they shot so many stills in the course of developing the project's image base, more than a quarter million, they wore out several sets of shutters). The basic idea is this: view the entire periodic table on launch. Select an element, see some data, and a "movie" of a representation of that element. Advance to a second page, and see touch-spinnable icons of more real-world representations of that element. Select one of those, and you get a detail view which can also be presented in 3D, viewable with glasses sold separately (at $4.95). Each element's detail view allows you to connect to Wolfram Alpha for live data: for instance, look up the current price of gold, or scan the thermodynamic properties of antimony. The connection speed on that feature feels a little pokey in this early edition. The app was developed in great haste, without much lead time provided by Apple. Given the speed involved in development, the end result really is impressive: stable, fast, and a joy to meander around in. Gray imagines other forms of interaction with elements for future editions, but there's plenty to work with even in version 1.0.1. Previously: Apple's iPad is a touch of genius Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review Photographic Periodic Table of Elements Cards, Puzzles ... BB Video: The Flaming Bacon Lance of Death, from Theo Gray's book ... The Periodic Coffee Table Gadgets BB Video + PopSci: Frozen on Video - Theo Gray Lovely Steampunk-esque Science Teaching Instruments.

Time lapse of Mark Ryden's Incarnation painting Posted: 01 Apr 2010 11:25 PM PDT I'm interested in finding out the different ways people create art, and this four-minute time lapse of Mark Ryden painting Incarnation is fascinating.

Marvel Comics for iPad: Hands-on Review Posted: 02 Apr 2010 01:16 AM PDT Video and screengrabs in this post: a first hands-on experience of the free Marvel Comics app for iPad, produced with Comixology (who produced a popular iPhone app). Word is that more than 500 titles will be available through the application at time of launch on Saturday. The pre-launch copy of the application I'm testing shows many titles offered at $1.99, and a number of selections also available for free. All the Marvel classics are here: Avengers, X-Men, Hulk, Spider Man, IronMan, Captain America, and a number of newer titles. User interface details of note: the ability to finger-flip through, page by page; scrollable bar of thumbs for all pages at the bottom of the page view, so you can skip ahead easily; double-click to zoom into an individual frame and finger-flip forward to advance frame by frame instead of page by page. First impression: I like it. Scrolling is intuitive, brisk, and elegant. I'm amazed at how smooth. The store interface makes sense to anyone familiar with iTunes and App store. Flipping and reading, one luminous full-color page at a time, I do not miss paper. When zooming deeper into single frames, to scroll frame-by-frame, transitions (with "animated" option selected) feel almost cinematic— but sometimes zoomed-in art is not as crisp and high-res as I'd like (it varies by title). Unless I'm missing something, no way to view two pages at a time, as you might with a paper comic. I didn't miss that detail, but others might. And some comics were designed and drawn by the artist with that view option in mind. I'll be interested to see how the app and the content available for it evolve. Video walkthrough link. (YouTube / Boing Boing Video) More screenshots taken from a review unit in hand, after the jump, with page-by-page browsing from an Iron Man title written by Warren Ellis. Previously: Apple's iPad is a touch of genius The Elements for iPad: Hands-on review

Miami Medical: New CBS drama premieres this Friday, April 2 Posted: 01 Apr 2010 08:58 PM PDT I don't usually watch medical dramas, but my friends Craig and Liz are writers on a new show for CBS called Miami Medical, so Carla and I were able to watch a few episodes in advance. It's a compelling, gory, intense, hour-long drama about a team of trauma facility surgeons in -- you guessed it -- Miami. (It's based on Ryder Trauma at Jackson Memorial Hospital.) After three episodes we are hooked. Trauma facilities are different than emergency rooms. If you're injured and about to die, you want to be taken to a trauma center, which is staffed by surgeons ready to save your life. Emergency rooms don't have surgeons, they have doctors who evaluate patients and decide whether or not to send them to a surgeon. When a big accident happens in a city -- a fire, an explosion, a train wreck -- things can get crazy very quickly in a trauma center, and Miami Medical throws you in the middle of the frantic life-or-death atmosphere. I'm not a doctor and I've fortunately never been in a trauma center, but Craig tells me the creators of the show went to great lengths to make sure the procedures, jargon, and equipment are accurate. All the instrumentation is real -- in fact, the consulting surgeon, Dr. Zach Lutsky, has even used the equipment in a few instances to examine cast and crew members. Daily Kos interviewed the show's co-creator, Jeffrey Lieber, who provided a list of some of the nasty accidents viewers can look forward to in the premiere season: "an alligator attack, a  man falling through a ceiling, a gunman in the break room, a man with a pole through his torso, medical care analogized into a common deli sandwich, a loving daughter... who isn't really, a man rolled into the trauma suite with 8,000 dollars strapped to his chest, and an in-hospital stabbing and a 'Do Not Resuscitate' notice tattooed to the middle of someone's chest." Lana Parrilla (2nd from left in above photo), who was in the weirdly compelling one-season flop Swingtown, is the standout actor in the show. The first episode of Miami Medical airs this Friday, April 2 on CBS at 10PM ET/9PM CT.

The sex lives of Victorian ladies: More fun than you might have thought Posted: 01 Apr 2010 03:00 PM PDT Historians at Stanford have uncovered the earliest known survey of sexual behavior. Similar in style to the more-famous Kinsey Reports, the survey began in 1892 and focused exclusively on women. While more than half of the subjects said they'd known nothing about sex before marriage—about what you'd expect thanks to Victorian stereotypes—almost all of them seemed to be making up for lost time, both actively desiring and enjoying sex, even those who thought they probably oughtn't.

Emergency safety for planet Earth Posted: 01 Apr 2010 02:45 PM PDT What should we do in case of climate emergency? Science writer Eli Kintisch, a colleague of mine and a swell guy, has written a book about the controversy and science surrounding geoengineering—the increasingly less-fringe idea of using technology to manipulate away the effects of climate change. He's put together a clever, little Flash-based guide that explains some of the basics of geoengineering in the style of an airplane safety instruction card. I'm trying, and sadly failing, to come up with a witty joke about returning tables to the upright, locked position. But don't let my shame stop you from checking this out. Eli's book, Hack the Planet, comes out on Earth Day. I just started reading an advance copy, and, so far, it's every bit as fascinating as I'd hoped.

Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross working on "Atlas Shrugged" sequel Posted: 01 Apr 2010 03:06 PM PDT Boing Boing's own Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross are working on a sequel to "Atlas Shrugged," reports Locus on the day April 1, 2010. (via Instapundit)

One to watch: new details on Superbrothers' iPhone adventure Sword & Sworcery EP Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:39 PM PDT It gave me goosebumps. That's about the highest compliment I can pay the upcoming iPhone adventure game Sword & Sworcery EP, and just about all you need to know for now. They were significant, too, for not just being the goosebumps of that media moment where all elements suddenly align -- where pixel and music work in perfect concert -- but for the kind you get when a game anticipates your demands and provides you with an answer to a question you hadn't even asked yet. There's a sense in which the EP is being created just for me: not quite that literally, but it is the collective brainchild of designer Craig 'Superbrothers' Adams (who you'll remember from his just-featured Less Talk, More Rock speech), indie studio Capy (also featured here for their gorgeous Critter Crunch revamp and their Clash of Heroes handheld masterstroke), and musician Jim Guthrie, a long-time favorite both for his golden, harmonic pop solo work and his own collaborative output as Human Highway. I managed to get my hands on Sworcery as soon as humanly possible -- before the Game Developers Conference started proper, and away from the chaotic bustle of this year's crowded Indie Games Fest pavilion. It was a wise and fortuitous choice -- playing alone on a late night Mission district rooftop -- because Sworcery's magic demands quiet and careful attention to properly cast its spell. True to his own words in that Boing Boing feature, the game is about unspoken dialogue between itself and the player: responding to your own curiosity and whispering questions rather than shouting demands. Case in point: just watch that video at top, where a single non-reflected mark in its waters practically evokes more mystery and wonder than most scripted turns-of-events in the majority of the triple-A fantasies the games industry has given us in the past few years. And while the main adventure mode showcased at top is all serenity now, Superbrothers promises higher intensity drama to follow, showcased via a combat mode against the game's Grizzled Boor -- an antagonist that pays slight homage to Another World's dark beast in subtly leading you deeper into its world while never necessarily proving himself not exactly a threat. Should you decide to take on the Boor, you're presented with this minigame above where here, too, Superbrothers takes their "less talk" mantra to heart, telegraphing your opponent's intentions with visual cues, in loving and open tribute to NES classic Punch-Out!! (see especially that 'stunned' star that appears overhead). These two modes were as many secrets as Superbrothers was willing to publicly disclose in the GDC demo, but with months yet left in its development, there's hints of much deeper layers of involvement ahead -- onion peeled layers that Adams has been drip-feeding though ultra-vague hints through his "teletex bulletin" email updates over the past several months. But this is one I can give away here: if you scroll back through the artwork Adams has released to date, one design element should stand out against the rest -- that razor sharp crescent moon hanging behind his otherwise signature field of muted pixels. Add that to the release schedule of those teletex updates (February 14th and 28th, March 15th and 29th...) and it should start to snap into focus: your adventure through its world will modify itself based on the phases of moon in the real world. Exactly what shape this will take is another secret Superbrothers won't fully divulge, but there are hints that certain rare mushrooms which pepper the game's landscape will only come out under certain circumstances. All this adds up to an intricate ecology that rewards multiple playthroughs, rather than a linear and static adventure meant to be experienced once and set aside, and a landscape dotted with people worth meeting and vistas worth traversing. Prior to GDC it was perhaps my most anticipated game of the event (as I might've hinted at myself with my iPad-feature-topping-image): coming away, it might just be my most anticipated game of the year. Previously: Less Talk, More Rock: a manifesto by indie game dev Superbrothers ... What do Indie Gaming's All-Stars think of Apple's iPad? "Dot Matrix Revolution", a pixel art history of computing - Boing ... The 1console future: Toronto designer Superbrothers goes games ... One shot: a peek beyond the peak of SUPERBROTHERS' Alpinist DESIGN REBOOT HD: Braid dev's "games as cheap drugs" lecture ...

Noel Kerns, light painter Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:48 PM PDT Noel Kerns is a Dallas photographer who risks life and limb finding derelict structures, crawling inside, illuminating them with small gelled lights and photographing them. The images that result have a stillness that says something about decay and the passage of time, but (thanks to the long exposures he often uses) a hint of life in the streaking contrails of stars and headlights flashing past on nearby interstates. They're unsettling, and very beautiful. (Flickr)

Architectural hen house Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:01 PM PDT Frederik Roijé designed this stately and elegant "architectural hen house to breed and retreat." Breed Retreat (Thanks, Greg Long!) Previously: How to build a backyard chicken coop Eglu Cube: Urban Chicken Coop Gadgets Automatic chicken coop door Article about backyard chicken owners Gallery of chicken coops

Area 51 vets speak Posted: 01 Apr 2010 11:58 AM PDT Roadrunners Internationale is a group of individuals who in the 1960s and 1970s worked at Area 51, the "secret" military facility in Nevada that is ground zero for some conspiracy theorists, UFO "believers," and black budget aircraft trainspotters. According to these Area 51 vets, there are no UFOs or extraterrestrials at Area 51. But then, they would say that. From The Seattle Times (GFDL photo by Flickr user x51): (James) Noce remembers always getting paid in cash, signing a phony name to the receipt, during his several years of working security at the site. It was, in CIA parlance, "a black project." Noce says he has no paperwork showing that he worked at Area 51 for the CIA. He says that was common. Others who got checks say they came from various companies, including Pan American World Airways... Noce and (Roadrunners founder TD) Barnes say they never saw anything connected to UFOs. Barnes believes the Air Force and the "Agency" didn't mind the stories about alien spacecraft. They helped cover up the secret planes that were being tested. On one occasion, he remembers, when the first jets were being tested at what Muroc Army Air Field, later renamed Edwards Air Force Base, a test pilot put on a gorilla mask and flew upside down beside a private pilot. "Well, when this guy went back, telling reporters, 'I saw a plane that didn't have a propeller and being flown by a monkey,' well, they laughed at this guy -- and it got where the guys would see [test pilots] and they didn't dare report it because everybody'd laugh at them," says Barnes. "Area 51 vets break silence: Sorry, but no space aliens or UFOs" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) Previously: Area 51 has a new name OXCART: The Real Secret of Area 51 Gadgets Area 51 "mission" excuse Area 51 flight simulator Factchecking the latest hype-cloud surrounding Area 51

Robot folds laundry Posted: 01 Apr 2010 09:21 PM PDT UC Berkeley Ph.D. student Jeremy Maitin-Shepard, working with Prof. Pieter Abbeel, has developed software that enables a robot to fold towels. From the abstract to their scientific paper: The robot begins by picking up a randomly dropped towel from a table, goes through a sequence of vision-based re-grasps and manipulations-- partially in the air, partially on the table--and finally stacks the folded towel in a target location. The reliability and robustness of our algorithm enables for the first time a robot with general purpose manipulators to reliably and fully-autonomously fold previously unseen towels, demonstrating success on all 50 out of 50 single-towel trials as well as on a pile of 5 towels. "Cloth Grasp Point Detection based on Multiple-View Geometric Cues with Application to Robotic Towel Folding" (Thanks, Ken Goldberg!)

Gray's Shapes Posted: 01 Apr 2010 09:55 AM PDT What we make is the measure of man. Gray's Shapes, a Boing Boing special feature.

Congressman concerned about Guam capsizing Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:14 PM PDT If Guam had too many people on it, could it tip over? Congressman Hank Johnson (D-GA) is concerned about that. Seriously. (Thanks, COOP!)

Google, Topeka formally trade names Posted: 01 Apr 2010 12:33 PM PDT Meet your new search engine. We didn't reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka's municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains. For 150 years, its fortuitous location at the confluence of the Kansas River and the Oregon Trail has made the city formerly known as Topeka a key jumping-off point to the new world of the West, just as for 150 months the company formerly known as Google has been a key jumping-off point to the new world of the web. When in 1858 a crucial bridge built across the Kansas River was destroyed by flooding mere months later, it was promptly rebuilt -- and we too are accustomed to releasing 2.0 versions of software after stormy feedback on our 'beta' releases. And just as the town's nickname is "Top City," and the word "topeka" itself derives from a term used by the Kansa and Ioway tribes to refer to "a good place to dig for potatoes," we'd like to think that our website is one of the web's top places to dig for information. Also, Googlers are henceforth to be known as Topekans. Employees of Topeka who were originally from Kansas, be prepared for long, confusing conversations with your parents. No word on how this will affect stock holders. But if things go poorly, and you end up owning a hunk of the Sunflower State, the Konza Prairie is lovely this time of year. Just saying. Sadly for Google, Kansas, this still doesn't mean they won the broadband. Finally, we want to be clear that this initiative is a one-shot deal that will have no bearing on which municipalities are chosen to participate in our experimental ultra-high-speed broadband project, to which Google, Kansas has been just one of many communities to apply. Thanks to my good friend and fellow Kansan James Bont for waking me up with this exciting news!

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