The Latest from Boing Boing

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• There's more energy in wasted food than there is in the Gulf of Mexico
• Tesla Comix!
• DefCon in photos
• Brian May: Queen guitarist, stereo photography nerd, amateur astrophysicist
• Is FTC investigating Apple over "anti-Adobe" activity? FOIA denial suggests so.
• Pencils!
• Five Ways the Drug War Hurts Kids: A Conversation with Neill Franklin of LEAP
• Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mosquitoes perished utterly
• The anthropology of coffee
• Kanye West tweets as New Yorker cartoons
• Infographic: The History of Search
• Best. Wedding photo. Ever.
• Ghosts of WWII: Sergey Larenkov's Photoshopped historic photos blend past with present
• Mr. Bartender: a battery-operated mechanical toy from the early '60s
• Fun with twisted toruses (or tori, if you must)
• Snail homing instinct confirmed by science
• Scott Albrecht's typographical fine art
• Knitted brain
• Where space shuttles may retire
• Shark attack videos
• Floods near border of North and South Korea carry live land mines
• The underground maze of Rochester
• Man in trouble for sewing up his own wound
• Wheat flour a "new" carrier of E. coli (watch out for that raw cookie dough)
• BlackBerry Torch announced
• Iran's supreme leader: music should not be "promoted or taught" in Iran
• For a Minor Reflection: "A Moll" (trippy video for Icelandic band)
• Popville: popup book cleverly and delightfully illustrates the growth of a town
• How stoning works in Iran
• Inception ripped off a Scrooge McDuck comic

There's more energy in wasted food than there is in the Gulf of Mexico Posted: 03 Aug 2010 08:50 PM PDT Recently, while doing some research on the carbon footprint of food, I ran across some studies that reported Americans ate, on average, 3774 calories of food each day. Something about that smelled funny to me. Sure, Americans eat a lot. But 3774 calories a day? I have family members who subsist almost solely off fried meat and various sorts of potatoes and I'm not convinced that even they hit that number on a regular basis. When I took my questions to the researchers, I found out that my hunch was correct. Americans aren't, technically, eating an average of 3774 calories per day. This figure is calculated by looking at food produced, divided by the number of Americans. It assumes we're eating all that, but, in reality, according to environmental scientist Gidon Eshel we really only eat about 2800 calories per day. That whopping 3774 includes both what we eat—and what we waste. And what we waste—not just at home, but from the farm field, to the grocery store, to our Tupperware containers full of moldy leftovers—is a big deal. We use a lot of energy producing, transporting, processing, storing and cooking food we don't eat. About 2150 trillion kilojoules worth a year, according to a recent study. That's more kilojoules than the United States could produce in biofuels. And it's more than we already produce in all the oil and gas extracted annually from the Gulf of Mexico. Reducing that waste requires both changes in the way we eat at home, and systematic changes that address waste at every part of the food cycle. Right now, I've talked to a lot of researchers who can identify the problem, but don't have a lot of suggestions for concrete solutions. I'm sure they're out there, though, and I'll report back as I track them down. Image: Some rights reserved by Flickr user Nutloaf

Tesla Comix! Posted: 03 Aug 2010 08:07 PM PDT As Germans love David Hasselhoff, so do young science nerds love Nikola Tesla. Why? My personal theory is that the alchemy involves one part "rooting for the underdog" and two parts "promise of ray guns". Either way, it's hard to argue with a cultural trend that brings us the likes of The Five Fists of Science, wherein Tesla and Mark Twain battle equally historical villains, (Mark Twain is to journalism nerds as Nikola Tesla is to science nerds. Discuss.) and Hark! A Vagrant, a fabulous Web comic from whence we get the above teaser clip. Via the Submitterator, this list of comics featuring Nikola Tesla will ensure you get your fix. Thanks, Dr. Pretto!

DefCon in photos Posted: 03 Aug 2010 06:14 PM PDT Dave Bullock shot a photo gallery for Wired News at the recent DefCon hacker conference in Las Vegas. Above: the official DefCon badge, second from left, was one of a number of electronic neckwear gizmos offered. "Limited-edition breathalyzer badges (left) from the Null Space Labs hacker space in Los Angeles were given to some attendees. The 303 hacking crew from Colorado gave out badges to their members (second from right), and the Ninja Networks gave out badges for their exclusive party (right)." [Submitterator / from Dave Bullock]

Brian May: Queen guitarist, stereo photography nerd, amateur astrophysicist Posted: 03 Aug 2010 06:15 PM PDT So much to groove on in this Fresh Air radio interview with Queen guitarist Brian May (and photo slideshow). Apart from being a rock legend, he's into antique stereographs, interplanetary dust, and writing books on the history of the universe. The interview also explains how he used audio science to design the famous "stomp stomp clap" section of "We Will Rock You." He constructed the stomps based on a series of distances based on prime numbers, to make it sound like thousands of people were making that noise. [Submitterator / from kvh]

Is FTC investigating Apple over "anti-Adobe" activity? FOIA denial suggests so. Posted: 03 Aug 2010 05:44 PM PDT Ryan Singel at Wired News submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for Federal Trade Commission records related to a purported complaint by Adobe against Apple for banning iPhone developers from using its authoring tools to make iPhone apps. The FTC rejected Wired.com's request, because doing so "could be reasonably expected" to interfere with its "law enforcement" duties. That's the closest thing to a confirmation yet that regulators are probing for antitrust violations.

Pencils! Posted: 03 Aug 2010 05:39 PM PDT Herman Miller's Lifework blog today turns the company's impeccable eye to a design object most of us take for granted: The lowly pencil. Blogger Brian Greene highlights five models, from the Mirado Black Warrior (probably the closest pencil in the bunch to the iconic, schoolbus-yellow Ticonderoga #2) to the exotic mechanical Kuru Toga, which "has a tiny clutch mechanism built into the point, and as you write, the pressure from writing and then lifting the pencil off the paper engages the clutch mechanism that rotates the lead for you. This auto-rotating mechanism not only ensures a constantly sharp point, but it also results in far fewer broken points." The rarest is probably the Eberhard Faber Blackwing (out of production, but available on eBay and elsewhere at prices approaching $40 per). The most delicious is certainly the $1.20 Smencil, which is fabricated from newspaper and scented with essences of root beer, watermelon, cinnamon and black cherry -- although Greene, who also blogs at OfficeSupplyGeek, does request that readers don't chew pencils, because "I don't want to get sued." Fair enough. (Illustration by Jordan Awan for Lifework.)

Five Ways the Drug War Hurts Kids: A Conversation with Neill Franklin of LEAP Posted: 03 Aug 2010 05:29 PM PDT Ted Balaker of ReasonTV interviewed Neill Franklin, the Executive Director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. Commentators like Bill O'Reilly claim that ending the drug war would lead to more children being abused by drug-addicted parents. But 33-year law enforcement veteran Neill Franklin sees it differently. "These drugs in an illegal environment are more accessible to our kids," says Franklin, who serves as Executive Director Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, "because we leave complete control, regulation, and standards up to the criminals." Reason.tv's Ted Balaker sat down with Franklin to discuss how battling drug dealers in Baltimore turned him against the war on drugs and why ending prohibition would improve safety for children, as well as the rest of us. Five Ways the Drug War Hurts Kids: A Conversation with Neill Franklin of LEAP

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree, if mosquitoes perished utterly Posted: 03 Aug 2010 05:28 PM PDT Nature on role of mosquitoes in larger ecological context: "You know, when you think about it, we could probably live without them just fine."

The anthropology of coffee Posted: 03 Aug 2010 05:23 PM PDT In 1991, coffee-drinking seemed to be on its way out in the United States. From a peak consumption of 3.2 cups per day per person on average in 1962, coffee consumption was down to measly 1.75 cups. There were good reasons for this: Nobody liked the cheap, nasty sludge generally available and the entire experience reeked of Grandma. Enter advertising giant Ogilvy and Mather, working for Maxwell House. Their suggestion: Segment the product by quality, value and personal image—ideas that all ended up leading to the thriving coffee market of today. Just when we thought we were out, they sucked us back in. (Meanwhile, the parallel rise of coffee and decline of tobacco could be a sociology thesis, in and of itself.) That little insight is part of a three-part series on the anthropology of coffee on the blog Anthropology in Practice. The first part looks at how coffee became a necessary part of our morning existence. The second delves into the history of the coffee bean in human culture. And the third examines the social role of coffee in creating a culture of productivity. Image courtesy Flickr user jphilipg, via CC

Kanye West tweets as New Yorker cartoons Posted: 03 Aug 2010 07:20 PM PDT Über-ostentatious and fabulously future-forward rap icon Kanye West joined Twitter last week, to much fanfare. His early 140s were—how shall we say—boldly unmodest, and unabashedly self- (and brand-) conscious. At left, a Versace cereal bowl which was the subject of one early missive. They soon became the stuff of parody: Aziz Ansari, Mat Honan, and Budget Kanye West tweeted some real gut-busters in those first few awkward days. Even stodgy old WSJ has an opinion. But #kanyenewyorkertweets rules them all. Here's the full Twitpic archive. Looks like most of these, certainly the best ones, are by Paul and Storm. Everyone's a little awkward when they first join Twitter, and I commend him for writing his own material (many celebrities of his stature might hand over the task to, say, an assistant, or some Swedish girls). Kanye, if you're reading this, we love you (and I think your blog is really great). Also, Gray Goose! #ITSAPROCESS. Update: Mr. West becomes cognizant of this meme.

Infographic: The History of Search Posted: 03 Aug 2010 03:52 PM PDT "Information artist" Jess Bachman has done it again: he's designed a "History of Search" chart that shows how search became a $20 billion business over the past two decades. Above, a small snip. The chart is broken down more or less by company (the defunct and swallowed-up also-rans get a cluster all their own). Coincidentally, another website published a "history of search" infographic today. I'm partial to Mr. Bachman's myself, but interesting that the two unrelated efforts went up in the same 24 hours. Poster: 389 Years Ago (updated). Death and Taxes, the 2010 edition Glenn Beck's gold-investment scam/scheme: an explanatory ... Death and Taxes, the 2010 edition

Best. Wedding photo. Ever. Posted: 03 Aug 2010 03:31 PM PDT There's so much to love in this all-superhero cosplay wedding photo. But one to love above all others: Bananaman. Just look at him. (via Mark Yturralde)

Ghosts of WWII: Sergey Larenkov's Photoshopped historic photos blend past with present Posted: 03 Aug 2010 03:54 PM PDT Russian photographer (and Photoshopper) Sergey Larenkov merges WWII-era photos with contemporary shots of identical locations in Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Leningrad, and other European cities, to haunting effect. Many entries filled with images in sets organized by city at his livejournal. (via mymodernmet.com, via Todd Lappin). Update: Oops, Cory blogged this artist's work some 8 months ago, but I'll go ahead and leave mine up, since the livejournal includes new work, and this post points to an English-language explanation that wasn't available before.

Mr. Bartender: a battery-operated mechanical toy from the early '60s Posted: 03 Aug 2010 02:55 PM PDT Scott Underwood says: "My grandparents had this toy at their house since before I was born. This is a battery-operated mechanical toy from the early '60s. He shakes a drink, takes a gulp, then his face turns red, After a while, smoke comes out his ears -- you can see it after his last drink in this clip." I can't believe the ears still smoke after 50 years of service! Mr. Bartender

Fun with twisted toruses (or tori, if you must) Posted: 03 Aug 2010 02:45 PM PDT George Hart of Make: Online says, "A twisted torus is a donut which twists as it closes on itself." Besides making me hungry for a Krispy Kreme, this twisted torus makes me want to ask one of my MakerBot-owning pals to print out a bunch of parts so I can try to build one myself. How do you close the loop? [Above] is an elegant solution from the 16th century: a twisted torus in the Schloss Ambras Museum, assembled from seventy-six identical wood components. Each piece has a slot for the next to pass through and there is enough play in the slots for the chain to be twisted slightly before closing into a loop. It is a visual puzzle to figure out how the ring was closed. If you make many copies of the basic unit sketched below, you can try to solve the puzzle and assemble them into your own twisted torus. Math Monday: The twisted torus

Snail homing instinct confirmed by science Posted: 03 Aug 2010 01:55 PM PDT The Snails, parted from one another by the cruel hand of man, found themselves in distant lands. Beginning a long and perilous journey home, each tuned into the ancestral ley, the viae gastropoda, which despite its name is truly understood only by those of Clan Helix, Wanderers of the Gardens. Through the soils and grass thickets, the salt ridges and cyclopean escarpments left by the hated giants, each suffered much to return to their place of origin. But always there was the voice, the spatial awareness, guiding them even as it imparted fragmentary visions of unanswerable and terrible questions. Those who made it back had little to celebrate: they lay in grim, expectant silence, united again in their quest to destroy their nemesis. Traps set, radulae sharpened and shells rigged for war, they waited for Mrs. Coggins to appear at the back door, sluggo in her wizened hand, ready for the final battle. Snails 'have a homing instinct' [BBC] Previously. Previously. Photo: Shekynah

Scott Albrecht's typographical fine art Posted: 03 Aug 2010 01:49 PM PDT New York painter and graphic designer Scott Albrecht has a show of new work opening August 27 at San Francisco's Curiosity Shoppe. I wasn't familiar with Albrecht's work until now, but I find his fine art, typography, and woodworking to be very warm, rich, and modern. The show, titled "SOMETHINGMISTAKENFORNOTHING," runs until September 26. "The title of the show comes from a constant theme throughout the works, which deals with the idea of discardness within human interactions," he says. "There will be a bunch of new works as well as two prints, and a zine cataloging most of my more recent work." You can also see a nice selection of Albrecht's art on his personal site, Scott Five Alive (Thanks, Maléna Seldin!)

Knitted brain Posted: 03 Aug 2010 01:30 PM PDT If you can't have a brain in a jar, the next best thing may be a knitted brain in a frame. The beauty above is handmade by Emily of aKNITomy and available for sale at the Boing Boing Bazaar in the Makers Market. From the product page: These brains are hand knit in a wonderful 100% Peruvian wool, and then stitched into place atop a pad of felted wool roving (this gives them a 3D quality). The brain is sewn into place on top of a lovely hand knit background made from merino wool and kid mohair. Gorgeous. The piece is framed in a dark stained wood frame that measures 5″ × 7″ Knitted Brain

Where space shuttles may retire Posted: 03 Aug 2010 03:26 PM PDT When the Space Shuttle program ends, where will they retire? A slew of museums and NASA facilities are applying for the opportunity to house one of the vehicles for public display. The Discovery is headed for the Smithsonian, but NASA has delayed the decision on Atlantis and Endeavour. CollectSPACE put together a gallery of images showing how some of the 20 organizations would like to exhibit the shuttles if they, er, land one. Above: Tulsa, Oklahoma may not come to mind when thinking about space, but it is where the space shuttle's payload doors were assembled. The Tulsa Air and Space Museum plans to show off those doors by displaying the orbiter vertically. "How to display a retired space shuttle" (via Submitterator) UPDATE: Rob here. That one looks like a parking garage! Here's mine: Based on a photo by Laurenventriello

Shark attack videos Posted: 03 Aug 2010 11:42 AM PDT It's time again for Shark Week on Discovery Channel. For a taste, Discovery posted a collection of their "Top 10 Shark Attack Videos." From Jaws: What we are dealing with here is a perfect engine, an eating machine. It's really a miracle of evolution. All this machine does is swim and eat and make little sharks, and that's all. Top 10 Shark Attack Videos Photograph of jumping shark behind surfers Video: Octopus kills shark Parasite lives on shark eyeballs Shark/dismembered bodies cupcakes

Floods near border of North and South Korea carry live land mines Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:22 AM PDT Flooding along the river that sweeps from North Korea down to South Korea is carrying active land mines downstream. The phenomenon is blamed for the death of at least one South Korean citizen this week. Authorities are distributing pamphlets with photos of the North Korean mines, and warning villagers and vacationers to stay out of streams and beaches.

The underground maze of Rochester Posted: 03 Aug 2010 10:55 AM PDT There is an awesome subterranean tunnel network under Rochester, England, dating to World War 2. [Ianvisits, submitted by IanM]

Man in trouble for sewing up his own wound Posted: 03 Aug 2010 10:47 AM PDT A man in Sundsvall, Sweden with a gash in his leg got sick of waiting in the emergency room so he sewed up his own leg. Now that's the DIY spirit! The hospital reported him to the cops. From The Local: "They had set out a needle and thread and so I decided to take the matter into my hands," he said. But hospital staff were not as impressed by his initiative and have reported the man on suspicion of arbitrary conduct for having used hospital equipment without authorization. While Jonas admitted to the newspaper that he has no prior experience of sewing up himself he sought to play down the fuss that his handiwork has caused, arguing that "through the ages people have always sewn themselves up". "Jonas, 32, sewed up his own leg after ER wait"

Wheat flour a "new" carrier of E. coli (watch out for that raw cookie dough) Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:15 AM PDT This Food Safety News article revealed two things I did not know: First, that ordinary wheat flour became a "new" potential carrier of pathogens like E. coli and Salmonella last year, after Nestlé raw cookie dough was blamed for infecting 72 people in 30 states with O157:H7. And second? Some people enjoy eat raw frozen pizza. "We actually had somebody in the company who admitted to doing this," a ConAgra exec says. (via Consumers Union)

BlackBerry Torch announced Posted: 03 Aug 2010 10:10 AM PDT Following its dismal keyboard-less iClone, RIM's taken another stab at the touchscreen revolution with the BlackBerry Torch. Combining a full-on QWERTY keyboard, expansive capacitative touchscreen and a new version of its operating system, it hopes the new phone will reel in Apple and Android's technical advantages without alienating BlackBerry stalwarts. The new model is exclusive to AT&T and quite pretty, resembling the Palm Pre. The keyboard, writes Gizmodo's Matt Buchanan, is a "marvel." But the display is a last-gen 480x360. BlackBerry Torch Impressions: The BlackBerry, Weirdly Evolved [Giz]

Iran's supreme leader: music should not be "promoted or taught" in Iran Posted: 03 Aug 2010 10:01 AM PDT "Although music is halal, promoting and teaching it is not compatible with the highest values of the sacred regime of the Islamic Republic. It's better that our dear youth spend their valuable time in learning science and essential and useful skills and fill their time with sport and healthy recreations instead of music."—Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader of Iran. (Thumbnail: Getty Images via Guardian)

For a Minor Reflection: "A Moll" (trippy video for Icelandic band) Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:32 AM PDT Above, a dreamy, ambient music video for the Icelandic band For a Minor Reflection's song, "A Moll," on their new album "Höldum í átt að óreiðu." No, I don't know how to pronounce it. Directed, shot and edited by Lorenzo Fonda. They employed some very interesting techniques in shooting this, but I'm sworn to secrecy. Doesn't look like the new record is available in the US just yet, but their debut album is.

Popville: popup book cleverly and delightfully illustrates the growth of a town Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:22 AM PDT Popville is a sweet, slender little pop-up book that illustrates the growth of a town from a single farmhouse to a thriving city in a series of stylized scenes that build, one upon the next, through a window cut out of the center of the page, so that each development literally overlays the ones beneath. My toddler has fallen in love with the book and its additive scenes, and the grownups I've shown it to finds it equally fascinating. The cutaway in the book's center is a genuinely clever bit of business that creates a sense of time's passage, and the climax (with a pair of foldouts on the sides of the pages) is filled with little gracenotes, like the bits of string that form the electric cables. Click through below for some pix of my copy in action. Popville ABC3D: the best pop-up book in the world 20000 Leagues Under the Sea pop-up book -- the paper kraken wakes ... Mommy? Maurice Sendak's monstrous kids' pop-up book Working Pop-Up Lamp Book by Tekeshi Ishiguru Gadgets Pop-up working table-lamp in a book

How stoning works in Iran Posted: 03 Aug 2010 09:09 AM PDT "Stones must be of medium size, according to the penal code: Not so big that one or two could kill the person, but not so small that you would call it a pebble. In other words, about the size of a tangerine. The whole process takes less than an hour."—Slate, god bless 'em, explains stoning. Bonus points for a more grisly use of the word "stoner." (via Andrew Sullivan)

Inception ripped off a Scrooge McDuck comic Posted: 03 Aug 2010 10:02 AM PDT Many thanks to Videogum editor Gabriel Delahaye for having the balls to reveal the truth all others fear to blog: Christopher Nolan's Inception was nothing but a Scrooge McDuck ripoff. Read the full, original comic here: Uncle Scrooge in "The Dream of a Lifetime"

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