The Latest from Boing Boing

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• NYC: For the Win tour-stops
• Debt-crisis explained through tearful laughter
• September 2008 crash cost $108K per US household
• Happy Towel Day! Don't forget your towel!
• Motorcycle sidecar that turns into a canoe
• No persons are to enter into this void
• HOWTO bake a no-mess chocolate cake in five minutes
• Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and friends launch The Mongoliad: a shared universe that could only live on the Web
• School laptop spy software 'exploitable from anywhere'
• Is the robotic X-37B a tool for spacewar, or a surveillance drone?
• Antarctica's "bleeding" glacier
• Nigiri-shaped donuts
• What Disney Princesses teach girls
• The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield: vaccines/autism controversy retold in online comic
• Plushie cumsprite
• Crackling Rosie played on a guitar made of smart phones
• She Demons
• Schneier at the airport
• Mark Dery reviews Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals
• Frazil ice: Fascinating forest hazard
• The Lobster and The Liver: The Unique World of Jim Woodring trailer
• 8-year-old Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show
• What is this unusual musical instrument?
• NASA: Phoenix Mars Lander won't phone home, photos reveal damage, the party's over (snif)
• People on poppers
• Metblogs isn't dead, long live Metblogs! Help keep a globally-local indie blog network alive
• US govt's bioweapon and animal disease R&D island up for sale
• Peter Watts discusses his arrest at US border
• Frog jump in super slow motion
• Hand shadow puppets

NYC: For the Win tour-stops Posted: 25 May 2010 04:28 AM PDT Hey, New York! I'm in town for the next-to-last stop of my book-tour for my new YA novel For the Win, and I'll be at: * Books of Wonder, May 26, 6-8PM * powerhouse Books, May 27, 7:30PM * McNally Jackson, May 28, 7PM The tour ends on June 4 in Toronto, with a stop at the Merril Collection -- can't wait to see you! (full schedule) Reminder: There are plenty of libraries, schools, halfway houses and shelters hoping you'll donate a book to them.

Debt-crisis explained through tearful laughter Posted: 25 May 2010 03:38 AM PDT Australia's brilliant political satire team of Clarke and Dawe do a great job here in exposing the fundamental and terrifying ridiculousness of the Euro debt-crisis and the world's teetering economic state. Clarke and Dawe: Lending merry-go-round (via O'Reilly Radar) IMF: one-in-four chance of global recession caused by US debt ... Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase ... Where money comes from: fractional reserve and debts Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America ... The Crisis of Credit Visualized by Jonathan Jarvis Financial Crisis: Who is going to bail out the euro? Leveraging and deleveraging explained

September 2008 crash cost $108K per US household Posted: 25 May 2010 03:14 AM PDT The Pew Trust has done the math and it turns out the the economic crash of 2008 incurred about $108,000 per US household in costs and stock and house-price losses: U.S. households lost on average nearly $5,800 in income due to reduced economic growth during the acute stage of the financial crisis from September 2008 through the end of 2009.[1] Costs to the federal government due to its interventions to mitigate the financial crisis amounted to $2,050, on average, for each U.S. household. Also, the combined peak loss from declining stock and home values totaled nearly $100,000, on average per U.S. household, during the July 2008 to March 2009 period. This analysis highlights the importance of reducing the onset and severity of future financial crises, and the value of market reforms to achieve this goal. The Impact of the September 2008 Economic Collapse (via The Consumerist) Bailout costs more than Marshall Plan, Louisiana Purchase ... Track where US gov bailout trillions went with augmented reality ... GM bailout will never pay off How's this for "bailout transparency?" MAD on the bailout: Smells Like Greed Spirit Hank Paulson's bailout 419 letter Infographic: all US one-time expenditures vs the bailout Bail In or Bail Out?

Happy Towel Day! Don't forget your towel! Posted: 25 May 2010 03:05 AM PDT Happy Towel Day, Douglas Adams fans! "On the 25th of May, carry a towel. Where? Everywhere! Proudly show the world you've observed Towel Day and upload a picture to Flickr, tagging it with 'towelday' or make a YouTube video." Today is Towel Day. Don't forget your towel! Flickr photos YouTube videos (Image: Thumbs Up, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from spyndle's photostream) Tomorrow is Towel Day, for Douglas Adams Zaphod Beeblebrox-inspired teddy bears from Douglas Adams fan-club ... The Wearable Towel Fan podcast of Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency

Motorcycle sidecar that turns into a canoe Posted: 25 May 2010 02:58 AM PDT All the more reason to mourn the passing of the motorcyle sidecar: some of them could turn into canoes, at least according to this June, 1934 article in Modern Mechanix: "A MOTORCYCLE side car which doubles as a canoe on trips to the beach or river bank has recently made its appearance in Germany. The car is fitted with small metal pontoons which keep it upright in the water. Future models will be fitted with rudders, completing the transformation from side car to a navigable boat. " Side Car Serves as Boat (Jun, 1934) Ural-T, entry-level Russian sidecar motorcycle HOWTO make a rolling LCD projector Motorcycle hearses

No persons are to enter into this void Posted: 25 May 2010 02:55 AM PDT Spotted by China Mieville, and let this be a warning to you.

HOWTO bake a no-mess chocolate cake in five minutes Posted: 25 May 2010 02:53 AM PDT Instructables user scoochmaroo's recipe for five-minute chocolate scratch-cake (made in a microwave) looks like it would be deadly, molten, and delicious. 5-minute Chocolate Cake AT-AT wedding cake Jabba the Cake Dragon made of cake Polyhedral dice cake R2D2 cake Cthulhu cake!

Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and friends launch The Mongoliad: a shared universe that could only live on the Web Posted: 25 May 2010 02:49 AM PDT Neal Stephenson, Greg Bear and several very talented friends (including one of the neatest hackers I know and somene whom I'm reliably assured could lay claim to the title of "World's Greatest Swordsman") have announced their new project: an online interactive fiction thinggum called The Mongoliad. The Mongoliad will consist of a series of linked stories written by different writers, a Wikipedia-style concordance, and "an ongoing stream of nontextual, para-narrative, and extra-narrative stuff which we think brings the story to life in ways that are pleasingly unique, and which can't be done in any single medium." What's more, you, the reader, will be explicitly encouraged to improve and extend the Mongoliad canon with your own fiction and supplementary fan media. There have been a few very good shared worlds online, from the venerable alt.cyberpunk.chatsubo to the contemporary Shadow Unit. But it really looks like the Mongoliad folks are looking to push the boat out here, taking things further than anyone before, and doing so in a way that is inherently web-like, impossible to translate to paper. I saw a demo of the Mongoliad over dinner the other night and it was some very exciting media. There's not much for public consumption as yet, but I'll keep you updated. The Mongoliad Neal Stephenson lecture on whether genres matter anymore Interface: Neal Stephenson's underappreciated masterpiece - Boing ... Neal Stephenson's new novel, Anathem: sneak peek at glossary ... Ask Neal Stephenson questions about Anathem Neal Stephenson's System of the World concludes the Baroque ... Spooky, wonderful music CD in Neal Stephenson's new novel - Boing ... Neal Stephenson: Why Star Wars doesn't suck Neal Stephenson's researcher teaching "Research for Writers ...

School laptop spy software 'exploitable from anywhere' Posted: 24 May 2010 10:45 PM PDT Remember the school laptops set up to allow staff to spy on the kids at home? It turns out that the spy software used, Absolute Manage, has hard-coded crypto keys. This means that if you hack one client, you've hacked them all. [Freedom to Tinker]

Is the robotic X-37B a tool for spacewar, or a surveillance drone? Posted: 24 May 2010 08:17 PM PDT Boeing's X-37B is the unmanned successor to the space shuttle which began a stealthy debut mission last month. Is it a tool for space warcraft, or part of an American surveillance program? Amateur skywatchers have captured early glimpses, and plotted its orbit. Officials are maintaining silence on the craft's mission, but consensus in the press so far seems to be that it is an orbital spy vehicle. More in the New York Times. (image: Artist's rendering from NASA/Boeing Phantom Works, 1999)

Antarctica's "bleeding" glacier Posted: 24 May 2010 08:04 PM PDT Like a secular version of one of those crazy weeping Virgin Mary statues, Taylor Glacier in Antarctica* has been known for the blood-like liquid that pours from it since the "Blood Falls" was discovered in 1911. The eerie waterfall cascades into one of Antarctica's dry valleys—snowless, barren wastes where almost nothing lives. (I wrote about the dry valleys for a BoingBoing feature last month.) Aunt Flow—as I've just decided to call the Falls—gets its color from the dietary habits of microbes, which live in ancient seawater trapped beneath the glacier. They draw their energy from iron deposits leeched from the rocks the slowly moving glacier grinds to dust—leaving the water streaked rust red. Even more awesome: This is one of the few places on Earth exobiologists can easily study the kind of extreme life—creatures that survive and thrive in incredibly cold, sunlight-free environments—that might also live on other planets. *In between this and the frazil ice post, can you tell we got up above 90 F today in Minneapolis? And that I don't have air conditioning?

Nigiri-shaped donuts Posted: 24 May 2010 08:02 PM PDT Jacques sez, "Here's something I saw in Bangkok last week that wasn't engulfed in flames. Some Thai Mister Donut restaurants are selling nigiri-shaped donuts. They call it 'sushido.' Each donut nigiri piece sells for 10 baht, which is 32 cents or so." Sushido (Thanks, Jacques!) MRI scans of sushi HOWTO make candy sushi Mackerel economics in prison Dough-Nu-Matic Automatic Doughnut Machine Gadgets Patriotic donut holes and cakes commemorating 9/11 Video: rapper dressed like a jelly donut kicking ass Screengrab from donut sleeper cell training video surfaces - Boing ... BBQ Donut is a boat with a grill, not nature's perfect snack ... Donut duel in Seattle

What Disney Princesses teach girls Posted: 24 May 2010 08:23 PM PDT Source unknown. RELATED: What Disney Princes teach men about attracting women. Update: Origin and/or related images in a 2009 post at contexts.org.

The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield: vaccines/autism controversy retold in online comic Posted: 24 May 2010 07:45 PM PDT The Facts In The Case Of Dr. Andrew Wakefield: A fifteen page story about the MMR vaccination controversy. Fantastic little piece of new media science writing, and a great place to point any parenting-aged friends who've been infected with the "any and all vaccines are bad for children" conspiracy theory virus. (via Tara)

Plushie cumsprite Posted: 24 May 2010 07:00 PM PDT Fans of Oglaf will be delighted by this plushie cumsprite, created by fan ~gamef0x at DeviantArt.

Crackling Rosie played on a guitar made of smart phones Posted: 24 May 2010 07:03 PM PDT In case you haven't seen this already, it's a video of a guy playing Neil Diamond's Crackling Rosie on a Phoneguitar, or a guitar made out of five smart phones and battery-powered speakers. Steffest via Makezine

She Demons Posted: 24 May 2010 04:56 PM PDT Amy Crehore found this cultural gem -- a clip from the 1958 movie She Demons. I love the title font. She Demons

Schneier at the airport Posted: 24 May 2010 04:34 PM PDT Security expert and sharp TSA critic Bruce Schneier clears security at an airport: TSA Officer: A beloved name from the blogosphere. Me: And I always thought that I slipped through these lines anonymously. TSA Officer: Don't worry. No one will notice. This isn't the sort of job that rewards competence, you know. Scene from an Airport (Image: Patrick Smith) Schneier: Fix US airport security by making TSA more transparent ... Bruce Schneier's TSA logo redesign contest Bruce Schneier interviews TSA head Kip Hawley Schneier TSA movie plot contest results TSA forces travelling policeman to remove his disabled four-year ... TSA proud of confiscating non-dangerous items

Mark Dery reviews Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals Posted: 24 May 2010 04:06 PM PDT In True/Slant, Mark Dery finds Gordon Grice's new book, Deadly Kingdom: The Book of Dangerous Animals, "endlessly entertaining." Sandra Herold, the 71-one-year-old widow who lived alone with Travis the Chimp, believed he "couldn't have been more my son than if I gave birth to him." Travis enjoyed honorary Homo sapiens status at home, where he  "lived like a human, eating steak and drinking wine" and sleeping (and bathing!) with his female owner, and in his hometown of Stamford, Connecticut ("he was small and cute and friendly," a local cop remembered, "he'd wave at you")…until the day he ran amok, gnawing Charla Nash's face to an eyeless, noseless pulp. Experts quoted in media coverage wondered if Lyme disease or a dose of Xanax had triggered Travis's rampage. According to Grice, such explanations turn a blind eye on the answer hidden in plain sight: although we insist on viewing chimpanzees as midgets in fur suits, wearing nature's mask to mock us, they are, in fact, wild animals. They may star in commercials, eat ice cream, and use the toilet, as Herold's "son" did, but male chimps like Travis are born to battle their way to the top of dominance hierarchies, five times as strong as a man ("one captive chimp weighing about 160 pounds lifted an 1,800-pound object," Grice notes), with impressive canines designed to break bone and flense meat. Travis's attack, says Grice, was perfectly "normal behavior for a captive primate." Again, the key word here is captive. Forced into close encounters of the human kind, let alone cohabitation, animals can behave unnaturally. When Animals Attack!: On Gordon Grice's Deadly Kingdom

Frazil ice: Fascinating forest hazard Posted: 24 May 2010 04:01 PM PDT Frazil ice looks like patches of snow, nestled among the trees. But it's actually a Slushee-esque mixture of ice crystals that form in bitterly cold waters—like the kind that run through Yosemite National Park in early spring. Watching this video, you can see how frazil ice can appear to be just your average slushy creek water, and, the next minute, turns into what looks like solid (if snowy) ground. And then the ground moves. If you're thinking that it's potentially dangerous, you'd be right. In the video, park rangers talk about the risk of falling through frazil ice into frigid water deeper than your head. (Thanks, Ferris Jabr)

The Lobster and The Liver: The Unique World of Jim Woodring trailer Posted: 24 May 2010 03:42 PM PDT I can't wait for this documentary about cartoonist Jim Woodring. When is it coming out? The Lobster and the Liver' is a documentary about the Seattle cartoonist Jim Woodring. We chart his journey as a child experiencing terrifying hallucinations, through his troubled youth as a prankster and alcoholic, and examine his current status as a master craftsman and seeker of spiritual truth. As well as displaying his incredibly surreal artwork, we also interview his family and friends and some notable cartoonists, including Peter Bagge, Ellen Forney, and Jim Blanchard.

8-year-old Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show Posted: 24 May 2010 02:26 PM PDT I met 8-year-old Sylvia and her parents at Maker Faire this weekend. She handed me a cute business card with robots she drew on it. The card had a URL for her Super-Awesome Maker Show, and I watched episode 1. It's super awesome! Sylvia's Super-Awesome Maker Show: Episode 01, Drawdio

What is this unusual musical instrument? Posted: 24 May 2010 02:08 PM PDT Walt says: I am trying to identify an unusual instrument. I didn't get a picture but I have made a sketch. I'd appreciate anything you might tell me. The body is all wood. It is definitely old. Can you help Walt?

NASA: Phoenix Mars Lander won't phone home, photos reveal damage, the party's over (snif) Posted: 24 May 2010 12:55 PM PDT Sad news out of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab today: Phoenix Mars Lander has ended operations after repeated attempts to contact the spacecraft were unsuccessful. A new image transmitted by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter shows signs of severe ice damage to the lander's solar panels. "The Phoenix spacecraft succeeded in its investigations and exceeded its planned lifetime," said Fuk Li, manager of the Mars Exploration Program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Although its work is finished, analysis of information from Phoenix's science activities will continue for some time to come." Above, two images of the Phoenix Mars lander taken from Martian orbit in 2008 (L) and 2010 (R). "The 2008 lander image shows two relatively blue spots on either side corresponding to the spacecraft's clean circular solar panels. In the 2010 image scientists see a dark shadow that could be the lander body and eastern solar panel, but no shadow from the western solar panel." (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona)

People on poppers Posted: 24 May 2010 02:29 PM PDT Photographer Ruth Bayer took a series of portraits of people while they were high on poppers. Of course, poppers refer to alkyl nitrites sold as room deodorizer or video head cleaner but used recreationally as a club drug or sex enhancer. Bayers published a book of the photos. From an interview with Dazed Digital, where you can see some of the portraits: DD: What do you think is interesting about the visual effect of the drug? Ruth Bayer: It makes people look very sexy – a lot of it is to do with the dilated eyes and increased sensual awareness the chemical causes.   DD: Which are your favourite portraits? Ruth Bayer: Most have a twinkle in the eye – it seems like there's an unspoken invitation from the sitter to share the experience, or at least convey it to the viewer. The eyes become incredibly expressive – very odd. Not everyone looks like they were having a good time, but I can assure you they did! Poppers Pictures

Metblogs isn't dead, long live Metblogs! Help keep a globally-local indie blog network alive Posted: 24 May 2010 12:41 PM PDT Seven years ago, I introduced two internet-pals who were brewing similar ideas about a worldwide network of local indie blogs—Sean Bonner and Jason DeFillippo—and those pals ended up building something called Metblogs. In the course of my Boing Boing posts since then, I've linked to items on Metblog member sites from L.A. to Karachi to Paris to Rio de Janeiro to Mumbai to Dubai, many more times than I can recall. Like many other online publishers, Metblogs suffered greatly during 2008 and 2009, when the online ad market bottomed out. On Friday, word circulated that an eleventh-hour partnership deal to save the network had fallen through, and that the lights would soon go out. Well, Monday's here, and with it, hope that what has become an important network for locally-focused "citizen journalism" will survive. Sean emails: We received a huge outpouring of support, comments and e-mails from people saying they didn't want to see Metblogs die and how could they help, including some companies. We're working out details to keep the sites online right now, no specifics yet but we are extremely optimistic something will work out. Here's an update post from Sean. And here's a post by Metblogs contributor Shane Nickerson about what happened, and why it matters that the network stay alive. Most importantly, here's a link where people who want to help with the transition can donate cash to help them keep the lights on for now. As soon as I hit "publish," I'm gonna click over and kick some fuel their way for all the great work they've done over the past 7 years. I encourage you to do the same. (Image: 2003 photograph of Metblogs founders Sean Bonner, L, and Jason DeFillippo, R, in Los Angeles Times profile)

US govt's bioweapon and animal disease R&D island up for sale Posted: 24 May 2010 12:13 PM PDT For more than 50 years, Plum Island, off the eastern end of Long Island's North Fork coast, has been home to the US government's Animal Disease Center. The government is opening a new National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility in Kansas, and so the lovely little island is up for sale. On the island, scientists have studied a variety of hardcore pathogens, from anthrax to foot-and-mouth disease. It was also ground zero for biological weapons testing and development during the Cold War, leading to much intrigue, conspiracies, and fiction set there. Now, environmental groups hope to turn Plum Island into a nature preserve. From the Associated Press: Several speakers at the hearing also said they preferred the island be retained as a nature preserve, including a representative of the Audubon Society, who urged a thorough study of the bird population... Besides the laboratory, the island is home to a defunct U.S. Army base and a charming little lighthouse that looks out onto Long Island Sound. And, as fictional FBI Agent Clarice Starling told "Silence of the Lambs" villain Hannibal Lecter: "There's a very, very nice beach...." Gary DePersia, a top real estate broker in the Hamptons on Long Island's south fork, said the possibilities for the island are nearly unlimited. "It could make an awesome resort, with condos and room for a golf course," DePersia said. Lab's move begins to lift mystery around NY island Corpse with "very long fingers" on beach

Peter Watts discusses his arrest at US border Posted: 24 May 2010 11:43 AM PDT Tony from the StarShipSofa podcast sez, "Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer talks openly to Sofanauts host Tony C. Smith about his arrest by US border guards, being maced, imprisoned, punched in the face and his feelings towards the people that did this. This is a very candid and open testament of what happened on that day and the days proceeding it."

Frog jump in super slow motion Posted: 24 May 2010 11:37 AM PDT Brown University researchers used a special high-speed videocamera capable of recording 500 frames per second to capture the majestic leap of bull frogs. Viewing the video in super slow motion enabled them to study how frogs can jump more than ten times their length. From NatGeo: Lead researcher Manny Azizi says a conclusion from the study is the frogs' muscles have tremendous passive flexibility, unlike mammals, whose muscles are mostly 'stiff.' The frogs generate a 'ton' of mechanical energy during their jumps. Azizi says the frogs are in some ways, "cheating the limits of what muscles alone should be capable of doing." The frog first stretches most of its hindlimb muscles while in a crouching position, making the muscles longer so they can produce much more force. That force is what propels them into the air. Super Slo-Mo Frog Video Reveals Jumping Secrets Previously: Newly-discovered frog with funny long nose Knitted frog dissection Frog eats Christmas light, gets illuminated

Hand shadow puppets Posted: 24 May 2010 11:45 AM PDT A delightful array of hand shadow puppets at the French blog Agence Eureka. "Allumettes, ombres chinoises" UPDATE: I initially missed that one of the forms on the linked-to page, as a commenter pointed out, is racist.

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