The Latest from Boing Boing

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• 1962 oil company ad boasts about ability to melt glaciers
• Ordering an ice cream cone in Istanbul is super annoying
• S is for Stone: a guest-dispatch from Kashmir
• Scott Pilgrim and Shonen Manga
• Boing Boing snaps from Outside Lands fest in SF
• When Juggalos Attack: Tila Tequila's jugs spark a juggalo riot
• Sound Mixer Hell

1962 oil company ad boasts about ability to melt glaciers Posted: 15 Aug 2010 10:04 PM PDT EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER! This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies- if converted into heat- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation's growing needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature's resources to become America's Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms- to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the "Happy Motoring" sign is the World's First Choice! Gasoline ad from 1962 melting glaciers (Via Sociological Images)

Ordering an ice cream cone in Istanbul is super annoying Posted: 15 Aug 2010 02:03 PM PDT This Japanese guy visiting Istanbul, Turkey just wanted an ice cream cone. You'd think that would be a simple request. Poor guy. [Video Link]

S is for Stone: a guest-dispatch from Kashmir Posted: 15 Aug 2010 03:49 PM PDT In the West, India is masked in the dull gauze of invention. It is that "spiritual" place; the land of Gandhi, where movies are made about lovers who never kiss. India is also the country that has killed 50 or more Kashmiris in the past sixty days. Young men mostly, almost all of whom were of such age that they'd only been kissed by their mothers. Kashmir is only a part of India much as Tibet is a part of China. It is occupied by a substantial military force. Yet outside of Central Asia, policy wonks, and overseas Kashmiris, little of this is known. The West has never been particularly interested in the developing world; even less so when it is a Muslim state. But stone by stone, this is changing. A new generation has emerged in Kashmir to force a political evolution. They were raised with occupation and beatings and cell phones and the Internet. They never knew what it was like, before, and they don't care. These guys are happy to write history with their blood. They are Generation S. and they were born after 1989. 1989 marked the year that India began flooding Kashmir with Indian troops and security forces, this in response to a series of terrorist actions. The terrorists, or freedom fighters - depending on where you buy your newspapers - were mostly of Pakistani provenance. Kashmiri militants were also involved. Over time the violence was contained. Brutally contained. Indian forces would routinely descend on Kashmiri villages and round up as many young men as they could find. The youths would be savagely beaten and accused of being terrorist sympathizers. Many were shot, others taken into custody and eventually disappeared. And there were countless alleged rapes; one such incident is particularly chilling. If terrorism is the use of violence and intimidation to achieve political aims, then the Indian army is a paradigmatic example of that term. Generation S. was born into this environment. Everyone knows someone who has been beaten or humiliated by the security forces. It's easy to find families whose homes have been ransacked by the military and relieved of valuables. And there is a special rage reserved for the murder of children. In early August, press reports suggest that nine year old Sameer Ahmad Rah was beaten to death by paramilitaries from India's Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). According to his father, the boy was on his way to visit his uncle's house about 100 metres from his family home. Neighbours said they saw CRPF men grab Sameer and beat him without provocation. One officer allegedly pushed his lathi [iron-bound bamboo stick] into the boy's mouth. CRPF spokesmen have denied the story and said the boy was trampled in a stampede. No one's buying it. The stone pelters, as they are known, are becoming more defiant by the day. Whether they are foolhardy or fearless is immaterial: they won't be intimidated. To stop now would be to dishonour the dead. Occasionally, Delhi tries to float the notion that Generation S. are tools of Pakistan, stones for hire, if you will, in the service of Islamabad. Put demotically, that's a load of bollocks. Anyone who has spent any time on the ground in Kashmir knows that this is a spontaneous national uprising. Since partition, India and Pakistan have been playing soccer with Kashmir. Generation S. just got tired of being kicked around. The one thing that every Kashmiri generation agrees on is that the Indian army must leave the cities. If they need to stay in Indian controlled Kashmir at all then they would best be deployed on the frontier. After that consensus becomes more uneven. The majority prefers independence, but ultimately would rather entertain a sovereignty solution with India than merge with Pakistan according to recent polling data. [1] However, that creates another problem. You'd have to get the pols involved. South Asia's political classes have more in common with organized prostitution than public service. Graft and corruption are practiced on a scale that is best described as Homeric. Pakistan' president, Asif Ali Zardari, is openly referred to as Mr. Ten Percent. I have even heard it quipped that India's first political family, the Gandhis, would convert to Islam en masse if they were offered equity in Mecca. And while Kashmir's own dynastic upstart, Omar Abdullah, has not been caught with his fingers in the till, he has suffered the ultimate cultural humiliation, by a former police officer no less. As much as Generation S. rails against the CRPF and the organons of oppression, they do not hold the political process in high esteem. If I had a rupee for every time I've heard, "Those bastards are only playing politics", I could buy the Taj Mahal. But the stones continue to fly. Generation S. will try to dislodge the Indian army from its murderous perch. After that they'll become more vocal about who they want to represent their interests. [1] Link. The report requires "membership". Its findings are referred to extensively in the Indian press.

Scott Pilgrim and Shonen Manga Posted: 15 Aug 2010 02:01 PM PDT Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly from the release party for Scott Pilgrim's Finest Hour in Los Angeles There's a recent interview with Bryan Lee O'Malley over at About.com: Manga where the Scott Pilgrim creator talks about the influence of shonen (boy's) manga on his comic series. I guess the concept of fighting the ex-boyfriends, and the structure of this story, one of the things that inspired this was the book, Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga (by Koji Aihara and Kentaro Takekuma). Me and Chris (Butcher, manager of The Beguiling), we both LOVED that book. I was just getting started as a cartoonist. I read the chapter about shonen manga in that book, and thought, 'Wow, this is great.' It wasn't like I had read a whole lot of shonen manga before then. (Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga) described the structure of shonen manga plots kind of like it's a shish-kebab, where there's meatball, meatball, meatball on a stick, with each meatball representing a fight; that's how it explained what shonen manga really is. (laughs) So that just kind of stuck in my head. " I like that O'Malley took something that's a parody of the conventions of a genre and turned it into a distinct work. Friday night, I went to see Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and wondered if it would pick up on the shonen manga/anime elements. It did. I'm not going to say anything that might spoil the film, just pay careful attention to the battle scenes, then watch a few of the big action-oriented animes, like Bleach or Dragon Ball Z, and you'll notice the similarities. What I noticed is that even the way the actors project their voices during the evil ex battles is similar to the voiceovers in English-language dubs. Link: Interview with Bryan Lee O'Malley

Boing Boing snaps from Outside Lands fest in SF Posted: 15 Aug 2010 01:41 PM PDT Our Dean Putney caught this shot of Julian Casablancas of the Strokes performing at the Outside Lands festival this weekend. Go check Dean's Flickr set, which also includes on-stage snaps of Grateful Dead godfathers Phil Lesh and Bob Weir (now Furthur), and Tokyo Police Club.

When Juggalos Attack: Tila Tequila's jugs spark a juggalo riot Posted: 15 Aug 2010 09:33 AM PDT CNN reports that Tila Tequila, star of MySpace and reality television, suffered facial cuts after being pelted with rocks and liquor bottles during her performance at "Gathering of the Juggalos" in rural Illinois. A witness said the crowd of about 2,000 was hostile toward Tequila. "She took her top off and they got really violent," he said. The witness asked not to be identified, "so that he does not anger the juggalos." [Submitterator, thanks Cowicide]

Sound Mixer Hell Posted: 15 Aug 2010 09:06 AM PDT Revenge of the sound professional! This video is packed with all the clichés currently spewed by clueless producers, which sound even more ridiculous through a character-to-voice translator. For more tips on how not to be clueless about audio, there's also this classic sound tutorial from acceptable.tv featuring Channel 101 superstars Dan Harmon, Justin Roilland and Jack Black: Filmmaking Sound Tutorial [flixya.com]

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