Thursday, August 12, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Mark Ryden's new art book, and signing Thursday in San Francisco!

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:44 PM PDT

Wp-Content Uploads 2010 07 Hvmj Snowyak072610
Last Gasp has just published an 11" x 14" hardcover book presenting the paintings and drawings from Pop Surrealist master Mark Ryden's incredible Snow Yak Show. The exhibition, held in Tokyo last year, featured exquisite snow, fur, and ice-drenched paintings depicting a winter weirdland of yaks, Yetis, nudes, and, er, Abe Lincoln. If you're in San Francisco tomorrow evening (Thursday, August 12), you can ask Mark to personally sign your copy at the SFMOMA from 6:30 to 8:30pm!

Mark Ryden at the SFMOMA

Mark Ryden's Snow Yak Show book (Amazon)

Also still available, the excellent and inexpensive Snow Yak Show Microportfolio Postcard Set I blogged about earlier this year.



"Please make me a painting of Lady Gaga devouring a unicorn carcass"

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 05:13 PM PDT

Artist Rose Briccetti created this work for Regretsy, an Etsy metablog, as a commissioned work. The creative brief from Helen Killer, demanded "Lady Gaga in one of her bizarre outfits hunched over a unicorn carcass, blood all around her mouth." Go check out the full-sized image at Regretsy, along with the story of how it came to be.

[via BB Submitterator, thanks Eric Harley! ]

World's "most prolific" bank card broker busted in France, says U.S.: but his promo cartoon lives on

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 04:23 PM PDT

This Department of Justice press release reports the arrest in France of an alleged old-timer in the international "carding" community. US Secret Service agents contacted him over ICQ, and arranged to buy more than 70 credit card numbers from him. He will soon be extradited to America.

Snip from Kim Zetter's related story at Wired News:

Vladislav Anatolievich Horohorin, 27, aka BadB, holds dual-citizenship in Ukraine and Israel and was one of the earliest members of CarderPlanet, a first of its kind Russian-language carding forum that was launched around 2002 by a group of East Europeans. CarderPlanet was shuttered in 2004, and BadB had more recently been selling his stolen goods at carder.su and on his own websites, dumps.name and badb.biz, where he promoted his product in lighthearted Flash cartoons like the one above.

Authorities say the network created by Horohorin and other CarderPlanet veterans is linked to "nearly every major intrusion of financial information reported to the international law enforcement community."

Above, BadB's animated calling card. He faces up to 10 years in prison if convicted of access-device fraud and two years if found guilty of aggravated identity theft. Read the full Wired News item here: Alleged Carder 'BadB' Busted in France. Related reports: Reuters, AP, Bloomberg.

Alabama woman inordinately excited over sister's televised arrest

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 04:14 PM PDT

Breaking an Edwardian-era steam-powered land speed record

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 03:45 PM PDT

Popular Mechanics contributor Jeff Wise goes behind the scenes with the British Steam Car Challenge, which spent ten years and millions of dollars to break a speed record set in 1906. (Big day for 1906 here at Boing Boing, no?)

Jet Blue responds to Epic Bail / angry flight attendant fiasco with Office Space reference

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 03:22 PM PDT

I've been wondering how JetBlue would respond to l'affaire Steven Slater. As public relations goes, this is reasonably genius. "While we can't discuss the details of what is an ongoing investigation, plenty of others have already formed opinions on the matter. Like, the entire Internet." Bonus points for the Office Space reference and YouTube link.

When Cosplay Gets Remixed: Shogun Vader

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:32 PM PDT

ALA-27-thumb-550x367.jpg Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly, Anime L.A. 2010 Earlier this year, I wrote about a cosplay spotted at Anime LA known as Shogun Vader. It's probably my favorite cosplay. I like that Alexander Lam, the guy behind the Vader mask, reinterpreted the costume by highlighting some of the early influences on the film series. The idea of remixing seems to be integral to the culture surrounding fandom conventions. Anime cons typically have AMV contests, where people re-edit animes to fit a particular piece of music. Then there's fan art, fiction, films and other activities that revolve around reworking characters and stories you love into something new. The one aspect of fan culture where we don't see as much remixing is cosplay. More often, it seems like the goal is to recreate the character with as much attention to the source design as possible. However, when you see someone who uses a character as a launchpad to create an alternate version that is both well-researched and quite detailed, cosplay becomes even more exciting. Link: Shogun Vader (LA Weekly)

Music video uses stock video footage with great results

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:37 PM PDT

Ratatat - Drugs from More Soon on Vimeo.


Made with stock footage from the Getty Images archives. Fun! (Via Today and Tomorrow)

Those naughty Barrison Sisters

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:25 PM PDT

Sqhhjb P3Kk Tggh Rlxs3I Aaaaaaaamoo K Libn84J9G S1600 Barrison+Pussy "[E]ach sister was wearing underwear of their own manufacture that had a live kitten secured over the crotch." The Barrison Sisters



Sock Monkey Human Centipede

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:23 PM PDT

Submitterated by Boing Boing reader gretagretchen.

Randy Regier's new spaceship sculpture: Silverfish

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:19 PM PDT

Nupenny Silverfish 05
Silverfish, by Randy Regier. Mixed media, steel, plexiglass, cast-plastic, and aluminum, automotive basecoat-clearcoat finish, decals are inkjet on paper. Dimensions: 39" L x 10" H x 14" W.

When Randy sent me these images of his stunning model, he wrote:

Ray Bradbury's 1949 story "Kaleidoscope" begins:

"The first concussion cut the rocket up the side with a giant can opener. The men were thrown into space like a dozen wriggling silverfish."

The bulk of the story takes place in roughly an hour as the ejected crew of twelve men spin off in different trajectories toward their imminent deaths -- the Sun, the Moon, re-entry into Earth's atmosphere and one man into a passing meteorite shower. All they have left in their lives is radio contact via their headsets, and roughly one hour of connection to come clean with one another about their lives and relationships. And they attempt to do so -- there is anger, terror, accusations, philosophical musings and grief. But as they approach their individual ends and loss of contact with each other a desire for peace and forgiveness creeps into their last words and goodbyes.

Hollis is the last man we are with, he is alone and plummeting toward Earth, these are his final thoughts:

But there's no one here but myself, and how can you do good all alone? You can't. Tomorrow night I'll hit Earth's atmosphere...When I hit the atmosphere, I'll burn like a meteor. I wonder...if anyone will see me?

The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. "Look Mom, look! A falling star!"

The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois.

"Make a wish," said his mother. "Make a wish."

Nupenny Silverfish 01

More photos after the jump.

Nupenny Silverfish 03


Nupenny Silverfish 04


Nupenny Silverfish 02

Venezuelan Stencil Graffiti (photo gallery)

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 02:05 PM PDT

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Frequent traveler and photobuff Ron Brinkmann just returned from Venezuela, where local stencil graffiti caught his attention. Here's a Flickr set of some of the works he spotted. It lacks the space alien-ness of some of the stuff I've found in Los Angeles, but it's still very cool.

Aurora Borealis Sad Kitten Cupcake Moonscape

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 03:24 PM PDT

['shopped by Xeni Jardin / click for grande ]

Interview with zombie books author Max Brooks

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 12:31 PM PDT

Wp-Content Uploads 2010 01 Zombie-Survival-Guide Matt Staggs says: "Two of my favorite things, Reddit.com and zombies, combine into one awesome event: a user-generated interview with Max Brooks," who is the author of two great zombie books: The Zombie Survival Guide: Complete Protection from the Living Dead, and World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War.

Brooks will answer the ten best questions submitted on August 17, 2010.

Crowdsourced interview with Max Brooks at reddit.com (Submitterated by Matt Staggs)



Detroit velodrome reclaimed by lawnmower-wielding urban bike activists

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 12:08 PM PDT

A group of urban activists known as The Mower Gang have cleared the half-mile Detroit Velodrome track of weeds, beer cans, and other trash that kept bicycles away for decades. "It's really not about getting some 45-year-old guy a better place to ride his bike," said the Mower Gang's founder. "It's more about getting 10-, 12-, 13-year-old kids a better place to spend an afternoon." (freep.com, via Mr. Jalopy)

Landlord-compliant "wallpaper" from recycled toy bubble capsules

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 12:00 PM PDT

This is brilliant! Wall covering crafted from those little vending machine plastic bubble capsules toys are sold in:

One Saturday, B and I went to the always-wonderful East Bay Depot for Creative Reuse for some possible visual inspiration. Wandering amid aisles of castaway curiosities and recycled objects, we found three boxes filled with hundreds of discarded brightly-colored plastic toy capsules, the kind you'd see in 25-cent vending machines, clear orbs with tiny trinkets inside. They were too much fun to pass up. We bought the entire lot of them, and brought them home. Each of the capsules had holes drilled through the top and bottom, like a giant bead. We hit on the idea of stringing them together as a wall hanging, using heavyweight fishing line and hanging them in rows from the top of the picture moulding in the living room. I ordered a economy-size box of picture hangers from a framing supply store, and the project was ready to go.
(Totally landlord-compliant) bubbly wall art made from recycled toy capsules
(erikaceous.org, photo courtesy erikaceous / via Ethan Persoff)

Expensive cleavers are a waste of money

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 11:34 AM PDT

cleaverzrkewl.jpg

I love many things about chef J.Kenji Lopez-Alt, not least his fantastic name, but today I'm enamored of his take on the cleaver. A cleaver is both metaphorically and literally a blunt instrument, he writes at Serious Eats:

...avoid expensive Japanese or German cleavers, period. If they sell it at Williams-Sonoma, you don't want it. A cleaver is meant to be only for the toughest of the tough jobs, and will get beat up. It doesn't require the razor sharp edge-maintaining abilities of expensive German or Japanese steel, so there's no sense in paying over-the-odds prices for one when cheaper models are just as serviceable.
There's more, and it's all a breath of fresh air. I particularly like Lopez-Alt's brisk shredding of the $160 Shen Kun Onion Meat Cleaver, which he figures costs about $145 too much: Please. Unless you need a simultaneously pretty and menacing tool to perform ritual sacrifices with, it has no business anywhere near a real kitchen. His final recommendation is the very unsexy General Purpose Cleaver Knife with Wood Handle from Dexter-Russell. At $40 it's more than twice as pricey as Lopez-Alt's all-time favorite cleaver, which he picked up for $15 at a restaurant supply store in Boston. But the Dexter-Russell will do the job, he writes, and more -- it will deliver "a lifetime of joyful chicken-hacking."

EFF's take on Verizon and Google's Net Neutrality Proposal

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 11:30 AM PDT

Cindy Cohn at the EFF has published an extensive—but easy-to-read—analysis of the positives and negatives in Google and Verizon's 'net neutrality proposal. No, it's not "hot girl quits via whiteboard," but Cindy manages to break down an inherently unsexy issue in language that makes sense for civilians. Also? Unlike HOPA, this story will affect your life, and that of your family, your community, the world around you, for a long time to come. Go have a read.

PayPal freezes assets of Burning Man artists, builders

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 12:49 PM PDT

The SF Bay Guardian reports that "PayPal has frozen the account of the Flux Foundation - a large crew of Bay Area artists and burners headed to the Black Rock Desert this week to build the most ambitious Temple in Burning Man's 25-year history." At issue: tens of thousands of dollars from summer fundraising drives held to supplement a Black Rock City LLC art grant that "didn't come close to meeting the project's $180,000 budget." PayPal won't release the dough 'til the IRS finalizes or confirms the group's nonprofit status. [ submitterated by techbuzz ] // Update: funds released.

Correction to "1906: vintage color photos of Europe"

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 10:39 AM PDT

1906-2.jpeg

Dear Rob:
There was a problem with one of the photos you posted. I fixed it. You're welcome.
-Sean

Huge hand-drawn panorama of London, 1845

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 10:32 AM PDT

Via the BB Submitterator, Boing Boing reader IanM shares this "Very large drawing made in 1845 of London, UK from a vantage point just above the River Thames - possibly from a balloon?"

Link:

Huge Panorama of London in 1845 (ianvisits.co.uk)

Offered in a "Google Maps" style presentation (shown at left), and a Flickr set includes very large-sized scans like this (4500+ pixels wide) so you can get close to all the crazy detail. Ian explains more on the origins:

An original document is quite rare and when one comes up for sale, they usually go for prices that would deplete my wallet. Fortunately, a reprint made for the newspaper's 150th anniversary tends to be more affordable, and I recently acquired a copy - which has been annotated with additional explanatory text. The scanned copy is huge (6GB) - sadly too huge for my feeble computer to cope with, but I have managed after some pleading with the laptop to deploy a moderate sized version.

The drawing itself is presented as two separate drawings, and I have joined them together in the middle to form a single long strip. Enjoy!



Video profile of "World's First Cyborg" Kevin Warwick

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 10:29 AM PDT

Motherboard TV (Vice) has a video interview up with Kevin Warwick, a Professor of Cybernetics at Reading University, who in 1998 became "the world's first cyborg." We've blogged about him before here on Boing Boing. Warwick had a radio frequency ID implanted in his arm.

As a result, he can turn on lights by snapping his fingers; once he let his wife's brain waves take control of his body (she's also cybernetic). This isn't just for fun: Warwick is certain that without upgrading, humans will someday fall behind the advances of the robots they're building - or worse. "Someday we'll switch on that machine, and we won't be able to switch it off."
[ via BB Submitterator ]



iPad dock in the shape of an old television

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:53 AM PDT

tv_3.jpg This enchanting retro iPad dock was created by Jonas Damon of Frog design. "A product's form used to be dictated by its mechanical function," writes Damon. "Products had distinctive shapes largely because the composition of the internal components mandated a certain form. But, as mechanics are being replaced by microchips, these constraints are disappearing. Designers have more opportunity with form now ; ergonomics and expression no longer need compromising." Does it bear pointing out that this creative freedom is only available so long as you make the gadget larger and more unwieldy than it normally is? Or that such ingenuity is relatively easy to implement as a dock, where the functionality doesn't extend to interaction with the machine being housed. If the TV had similarly old-fashioned controls, for example, which controlled the iPad, a more profound connection would exist between mechanical function and creative opportunity: consider DS-Labs's physical oldschool knobs for iPad. iPad as Retro TV [Frog Design]



R. Crumb's weirdest drug trip

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:44 AM PDT

Files Crumboncrumb Type

Over on his website, Robert Crumb has been writing about significant events in his life. Recently he wrote about a long-lasting "weird psychedelic drug" he had taken in the 1960s, and the effects it had on his art.

A whole new thing was emerging in my drawings, a sort of harkening back, a calling up for what G. Legman had called the "Horror-Squinky" forces lurking in American comics of the 1940s. I had no control over it, the whole time I was in this fuzzy state of mind; the separation, the barrier betwixt the conscious and the subconscious was broken open somehow. A grotesque kaleidoscope, a tawdry carnival of disassociated images kept sputtering to the surface... especially if I was sitting and staring, which I often did. It was difficult to function in this condition, I was certifiably crazy, I sat staring on the couch at Marty's apartment, or on long aimless bus rides around Chicago. These jerky animated cartoons in my mind were not beautiful, poetic or spiritual, they were like an out-of-tune player piano that you couldn't shut off... pretty disturbing... this strange interlude ended as abruptly as it had begun in the next time I took a powerful dose of LSD in April '66. My mind suddenly cleared. The fuzziness was gone, the fog lifted. It was a great relief... a weird drug, that was. But what the heck -- "minds are made to be blown."

And what a boon to my art! It was during that fuzzy period that I recorded in my sketchbook all the main characters I would be using in my comics for the next ten years; Mr. Natural, Flakey Foont, Schuman The Human, The Snoid, Eggs Ackley, The Vulture Demoness, Shabno The Shoe-Horn Dog, this one, that one... which is interesting. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, like a religious vision that changes someone's life, but in my case it was the psychotoic manifestation of some grimy part of America's collective unconscious.

Crumb on LSD, the creation of his most famous characters, and his move to San Francisco in 1967



Unwritten 2: pulse-pounding graphic novel shows the grim and selfish ways that people use stories

Posted: 02 Aug 2010 11:23 AM PDT

One of the strongest graphic novel debuts I read in 2010 was the first collection of The Unwritten, a story that peeks into the secret life of narrative and the blood and teeth lurking beneath our fantasies and fairy tales.

Now, The Unwritten Vol. 2: Inside Man, author Mike Carey and illustrator Peter Gross continue to work their magic, in a fast paced adventure story that delves more explicitly into the ways that humans manipulate story to their own ends.

Tom Taylor is the namesake of Tommy Taylor, a globally beloved fantasy character in the mold of Harry Potter from a series of books written by his father, who mysteriously disappeared years before. A Z-list celebrity, Tom ekes out a meager living signing copies of his father's books at conventions until a grad student publicly challenges him with evidence that he is an impostor (news to Tom!).

A pariah, Tom flees angry mobs of disillusioned fans, finally coming to the very castle where Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, where a group of famous (and insufferable) writers have gathered. Then, amid revelations about an ancient conspiracy of story and storytelling (encompassing Twain and Kipling), the writers are murdered in most grisly fashion, leaving Tom to take the blame.

Book 2 picks up with Tom in jail in France, the subject of worldwide resentment and hate, in a prison built on the site memorialized in the ballad of Sir Roland's famous rout by the Saracens. Now all the stories are coming together: the ancient ballads, the Tommy Taylor novels, the gossip blogs that follow Taylor's every move -- and now Tom is in more danger than ever.

If you like Willingham's Fables and the way that an adventure story can explore story itself, The Unwritten continues to satisfy. Highly recommended.

The Unwritten Vol. 2: Inside Man



Video of a massive storm approaching a beach in Finland

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:15 AM PDT


"This video is from the HS.fi news website in Finland and was uploaded today on August 9, 2010. This is Hietaniemi Beach near Helsinki."

Did we give up orgies for beer?

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 09:22 AM PDT

Here's Joel Johnson at gadget blog Gizmodo: "In Sex at Dawn, Christopher Ryan and Cacilda Jethá [argue] we gave up sexual novelty for agriculture." In other words, for beer. "As a lover of both booze and sex alike, it's the most troubling existential question I've ever faced: Would I give up easy access to booze to have easy access to more sexual partners?"

Tom the Dancing Bug: One Day on a Desert Island

Posted: 10 Aug 2010 10:17 PM PDT

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Just look at the color of this watch

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:58 AM PDT

vestalwatch.jpg Watchismo is offering these banana-yellow calculator watches, whose nerd appeal is entirely obvious from the photograph, for $30 each. What, no databank?

Anti-terror ad ordered off the air

Posted: 11 Aug 2010 08:24 AM PDT

British advertising regulators have banned a creepy police ad that asked people to report untalkative, cash-using neighbors to authorities as potential terrorists. You can listen to the a different ad from the same series here. [BBC]
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