The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Monkey rides a goat
• When two carrots love each other very much...
• Ancient Baby Bjorns responsible for evolution of human brain says archaeologist
• Danish makers aim to DIY a person into space
• 'A Film Unfinished': Nazi propaganda meta-documentary
• Of Mosques and Men: a new Liberty Street message
• The Albino Murders
• Defend Yourself Against High-Pressure Persuaders
• "Hardcore vaping" electronic cigarette video review is full of both nicotine and LOL
• Longshot Magazine's treasure map: follow it and win $750
• Gallery of big JPEG stills from "2001: A Space Odyssey"
• Hummingbirds: Up close and personal
• The return of the Blackwing pencil
• Photos from NYC subways in the 1980s
• Weight loss elixir -- water
• Hanko stamp with anti-fraud mechanism
• Dick Cavett on the Ground Zero Mosque
• Fan replica of Fallout Plasma Rifle
• Funny cake decorating flub
• Middle-aged woman, unaware of video camera, drops cat into trash can
• Purebred's amazingly surreal photo narratives
• Twaggies: funny Tweet comix
• Voting machine hacked to run Pac-man
• Cee-Lo's "F**K YOU."
• India: E-Voting researcher Hari Prasad arrested
• "All y'all dumb motherf***ers don't even know my opinion on shit."
• Website automatically crafts convincing social media strategies on the fly
• The Top 50 music videos of the 1990s
• Have we reached peak helium?
• Anime Themes Recreated with Household Items

Monkey rides a goat Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:29 PM PDT Pleasant dreams!

When two carrots love each other very much... Posted: 23 Aug 2010 09:58 PM PDT This NSFW photo brought to you by Liz McLellan, aka "hyperlocavore." (via @Ethicurean.)

Ancient Baby Bjorns responsible for evolution of human brain says archaeologist Posted: 23 Aug 2010 09:49 PM PDT Technology shaped the evolution of our big brains, not the other way around, says archaeologist Timothy Taylor. In an interview on Gizmodo he explains his evidence that technology came before big brains, and why tools were so important to our ancestors' development. Two words, people: Baby slings. (Via pushmonk on Submitterator)

Danish makers aim to DIY a person into space Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:48 PM PDT When it launches for a sub-orbital jaunt into the heavens on Aug. 31, the Danish-built HEAT1X-TYCHO BRAHE will carry a crash-test dummy. Eventually, though, the team behind the rocket—all volunteers, and led by Something Awful forum members—hope to put an in-real-life person inside. "Eventually", in this case, means 4-to-10 years. But, frankly, this project has already achieved amazing levels of awesomeness. Using money from donations and corporate sponsorships, the group, called Copenhagen Suborbitals, has already built a floating launch pad in the Baltic Sea and a submarine (for towing materials to said floating launchpad). Then there's these fabulous quotes they keep giving the Danish press. God bless Google Translate. "There can roughly be three things: We can get a crash, we can fly supersonic or we can not shoot because of weather. If it becomes a crash, we hope it becomes a spectacular crash," said [team co-leader] Peter Madsen. Madsen, there, by the way, is also apparently the guy who, if all goes well, will one day become the first Dane in space. "Our mission is the smallest space mission, you can make - just straight up and say I've been in space," said Peter Madsen, who more than happy to take the chance. "I always say we must all die. I think many would be ready to take the risk of getting into space, "he said. It probably helps his confidence that partner Kristian von Bengtson has a degree in aerospace science. I just noticed that this was recommended on Submitterator as well. I didn't find it there, but I'll give shout-outs to Chesterfield, anyway. Wired Science: Danish Volunteers Build Manned Spacecraft Politiken: Danes will fire rocket from Bornholm in about 10 days (Translated) Official Web site of Copenhagen Suborbitals—including lots of good test videos, photographs and documentation Copenhagen Suborbitals shooting for human in space

'A Film Unfinished': Nazi propaganda meta-documentary Posted: 23 Aug 2010 06:47 PM PDT On the Submitterator, tcd004 points us to Israeli director Yael Hersonski's "A Film Unfinished." It's about found footage from a Nazi documentary rough cut, produced by the Goebbels Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. Goebbels had a two-fold urgency to his work: short-term use as war propaganda, but also long-term use as historical propaganda of a race of people he thought would soon be extinct. He sent crews out to film extensively before the Warsaw ghetto and others were liquidated. The vast majority of this footage was lost, and the footage in question was found in an East German archive in 1954. Hersonski discovered through first-hand reports that alleged documentary scenes were heavily staged: hand-picking people for crowd scenes, and "casting" subjects who represented archetypes. One apparent goal of the film was to juxtapose archetypical wealthy Jews with impoverished and dying Jews in the street, to make them look parasitic, even of their own people. Hersonski told PBS News Hour: "I think that my hope is that in a way the viewer's perception of footage of edited imagery [changes] -- not only from the Holocaust, but the Holocaust as a case study." Goebbels was that most unfortunate of souls, the hack visionary. He totally got it as far as using propaganda, but didn't have the abilities to create it himself. The Eternal Jew was completely ham-handed by today's standards (yet effective then), but he also got the best and brightest to work for him (Leni Reifenstahl's Olympia, etc.). From this came some highly sophisticated and innovative uses of film as a medium. One of the best documentaries on this topic is The Wonderful, Horrible Life of Leni Riefenstahl, one of my top ten all-time documentaries about film. Hitler thought that Jews would be eradicated in his lifetime, and he wanted all of this footage for a museum for the next generation. The plan was to put it all into an "exotic museum of an extinct race," tentatively based in Josefov, the Jewish Quarter of Prague. The controversial ratings folks at MPAA gave "A Film Unfinished" an R rating, so it will probably not be seen by young people most in need of seeing it. In a world of "reality" television, the manipulation of reality has gotten completely pervasive, and the ethics of it are rarely discussed. Says Hersonski, "I think that this film, unlike others that used this sort of footage, really discuss the ethical meaning of the use of this footage, and therefore it has also an educational value. But this is their decision and that's how it's going to be." Conversation: Director Yael Hersonski Puts New Lens on 'A Film Unfinished' [pbs.org] A Film Unfinished website [afilmunfinished.com]

Of Mosques and Men: a new Liberty Street message Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:00 PM PDT [photo: Glen E. Friedman, click for larger size.] Earlier this morning Glen E Friedman got a call from pal Russell Simmons asking for help on a new project to send a message about the current Ground Zero Mosque hullabaloo. Glen and Russell collaborated similarly some years back on what is now known as The Liberty Street Protest [more photos, and previous BB coverage here & here]—massive antiwar signs housed in the windows of Russell's apartment, which is literally across the street from Ground Zero. This new visual protest today occupies those very same windows. It addresses all who believe that the First Amendment and freedom of religion applies only to them. [photo: Glen E. Friedman, click for larger size.] Russell called Glen, Glen saw me on IM, he pinged me and we started brainstorming . I whipped up some files, and we sent them off to the printer within an hour. A few hours later, this was done. We wanted to send a clear message about everyone living together in the same place, and felt the multi-denominational COEXIST message was a perfect to express that. We followed that up with a few other tidbits; reminders that seemed to fit the circumstances. [photo: Glen E. Friedman, click for larger size.] This is up now and clearly visible from anywhere around Ground Zero, but probably best from Church looking towards Liberty Street. If you happen to be around the area, check it out. UPDATE: Glen just made a post on his own blog about this as well with a bit more of his thoughts on the issue. Anti-Defamation League joins bigots in opposing Manhattan mosque ... The "30 Mosques" guys visit "The Ground Zero Mosque" Dick Cavett on the Ground Zero Mosque China Mieville wants your designs opposing the anti-mosque folks ... Fareed Zakaria returns ADL award as protest over Ground Zero ...

The Albino Murders Posted: 23 Aug 2010 05:02 PM PDT Photo © Bruno Broomfield, courtesy National Geographic In the photograph above, 6-month old Jennifer, an albino girl, plays with beads outside her home in Tanzania. This African country has the world's largest proportion of albinos, but discrimination and violence against this population run high: in the past 20 months, 57 people with albinism have been hunted and their bodies butchered for parts used in ceremonies. More at this National Geographic online feature, which includes video: Albino Murders. A related documentary will air Tuesday night on the National Geographic channel, at 10pm. [Via BB Submitterator, thanks minjaeormes]

Defend Yourself Against High-Pressure Persuaders Posted: 23 Aug 2010 04:53 PM PDT Over at Credit.com I reviewed one of my favorite books, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, by Robert B. Cialdini. How is it that door-to-door salespeople, marketers, car dealers, politicians, strangers, con artists, and cult leaders are able to persuade people to do things that they wouldn't ordinarily do? That's the question Robert B. Cialdini asked himself after falling victim to a huckster's influence one time too many. But instead of shrugging his shoulders, this professor of psychology decided to study the phenomenon and find out if there is a set of common techniques used to convince people to hand over their money or time against their better judgment. And he discovered that indeed there was, and wrote a book about it called Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion. The book covers the six methods used to influence people to do things that aren't necessarily in their best interest. Read the rest of my review here

"Hardcore vaping" electronic cigarette video review is full of both nicotine and LOL Posted: 23 Aug 2010 05:36 PM PDT Please don't tell anyone that this is, in fact, a completely fake "e-liquid" review for the electronic cigarette/vaping community created by prolific video-lulz creator Liam Lynch. It would be better for the internet if everyone believes it's real. RavenVapes5v510 does yet another e-liquid review for a rare Mega-level nicotine RY4 by Vapor Station. RavenVapes5v510 is a hardcore, experienced vaper that resides in Los Angeles, California. He has been vaping for 7 years and reviews a wide range of vaping liquids, devices and accessories. RavenVapes5v510 in no way cares about your comments or discussing/debating his opinions. Video Link. Between you and I only, RavenVapes5v510 is Liam Lynch.

Longshot Magazine's treasure map: follow it and win $750 Posted: 23 Aug 2010 04:41 PM PDT Over the weekend, the staff of Longshot Magazine (previously known as 48 Hour Magazine) hid $750 somewhere in San Francisco. Now they've revealed four clues on their web site — including this treasure map by Wendy MacNaughton — to help you find it. If you locate it, the cash is yours. So what are you waiting for? The Great Longshot Treasure Hunt 48 Hour Magazine is almost finished 48 Hour Magazine gets cease and desist letter from CBS - Buy your copy of 48 Hour Magazine

Gallery of big JPEG stills from "2001: A Space Odyssey" Posted: 23 Aug 2010 05:03 PM PDT Tara McGinley at Dangerous Minds spotted this terrific gallery of nice large images from 2001: A Space Odyssey. "High-resolution" is an awfully subjective term, and I'm not sure if these qualify... but let's just say I've never run across such an extensive collection of reasonably large JPEGs from the film, all in one place. Super sweet. This one's my favorite, note the proto-FaceTime!

Hummingbirds: Up close and personal Posted: 23 Aug 2010 03:16 PM PDT It takes a filming speed of 200-to-500 frames per second to capture the fast-moving world of the hummingbird at a level where we can really see what's going on. So what are hummingbirds up to? Videographers for a Nature documentary caught hummingbirds foraging for insects, bonking each other on the head in order to get access to a tasty flower, and living happily in high mountains where they hop along the ground to feed off plants growing close to the soil. Filmmaker Ann Prum explains the nifty technical nitty gritty behind making a movie about hummingbirds and how new ways of observing the birds are teaching us new things about their lives. Via mentalfloss

The return of the Blackwing pencil Posted: 23 Aug 2010 03:07 PM PDT In 2007 I reported that Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602 pencils were selling for $30 each on eBay. The manufacturer stopped making them in 1998 (the retail price at that time was 50 cents). Since then, the price has gone up to about $40 per unsharpened pencil. Here's a good article about the history of the Blackwing and why it was discontinued (in short, it was because of low demand and high machinery-repair costs). I recently learned that the Blackwing, with its distinctive blocky ferrule, is coming back. On August 5, 2010, California Cedar Products Company acquired the Blackwing trademark. A few minutes ago I received an email from California Cedar addressed to me and a dozen other people, which read, in part: Here at California Cedar Products Company, we are all extremely excited about the re-release of Blackwing pencil. In order to show our appreciation for the biggest Blackwing fanatics, we would like to send pre-production, never been seen, Blackwing pencils to a select group of people... We would like for you to try out the pencils and comment on various aspects of the new product. I'm very curious to find out how well the California Cedar Blackwing 602 performs against my Eberhard Faber Blackwing (a gift from Mr. Jalopy that I use sparingly). California Cedar is the same company that makes the excellent Palomino pencil, so I have high hopes that the new Blackwing will live up to the slogan that was stamped in gold foil on the original: "Half the Pressure, Twice the Speed." I'll keep you posted. Review of $35 Blackwing 602 pencil Beloved Blackwing pencils sell for $20 each Can any pencil replace the Blackwing 602? Pencils! Props of Mad Men

Photos from NYC subways in the 1980s Posted: 23 Aug 2010 03:03 PM PDT As a Midwesterner who didn't get a chance to fall in love with New York City subways until 2002, it's fascinating to take a trip back to the system's not-so-glory days, courtesy a collection of 1980s-era photos on Sean Kernick's 2 4 Flinching blog. I've seen historical photos of the NYC subways before, but, somehow, the other picture collections seem to skip over this period in the subway's past. What I love best about these images—taken by photographers Bruce Davidson, John F. Conn, Jamel Shabazz and Martha Cooper—is the fact that they are documenting a full world. Sure, on these graffiti-covered and trash-strewn subways, guns got pointed at heads and white yuppies looked terrified. But this was also a system that took little girls to the beach, and suit-wearing men and women to the office. The photos give you an unflinching sense of what these systems were like at a time when the city had basically left them to rot, but without creating a caricature that distracts from the humanity of the people involved (even the ones who contributed to the rotting). Good stuff. 2 4 Flinching: Subway, lifeblood Photo taken by Martha Cooper.

Weight loss elixir -- water Posted: 23 Aug 2010 01:22 PM PDT "An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing? Scientists today reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds. The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is ordinary water."

Hanko stamp with anti-fraud mechanism Posted: 23 Aug 2010 01:13 PM PDT In Japan, contracts are signed using a hanko, an engraved stamp. (I bought one for the name "Mark" just for fun when I was in Japan. We also bought one for my daughter's karate teacher and he loves it, and now uses it on the certificates his gives his sudents. You can order a hanko online.) Japan Sugoi writes that Mitsubishi Pencil has announced a hanko with built-in fraud protection: Non Japanese people usually sign legal contracts or other important documents in ink, but Japanese traditionally prefer an engraved stamp called a hanko. One concern though, is that the stamped signature, usually the owner's name, can be easily forged. Mitsubishi Pencil's Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko stamp ダイヤルバンク印 alleviates the risk of fraud by adding a two-digit dial that creates a series of marks around the printed name, making it difficult for an unauthorized person to copy someone's stamp. It also wards against theft by requiring a code to be entered before use. I'm not sure how people can tell whether or not a correct combination was used, though. perhaps a Japanese reader can explain. Mitsubishi Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko Stamp

Dick Cavett on the Ground Zero Mosque Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:08 AM PDT "What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldn't have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people -- notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history -- would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?"—American television icon Dick Cavett, in the New York Times.

Fan replica of Fallout Plasma Rifle Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:52 PM PDT In celebration of the imminent release of the game Fallout: New Vegas, Ryan Palser made a replica of the A3-21 Plasma Rifle from Fallout 3. As Ryan says, "It is one of the only weapons still manufactured after the great war." He's posted a fascinating series of build photos over at Flickr. A3-21 Plasma Rifle

Funny cake decorating flub Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:32 PM PDT Look at this: they misspelled "capitalize!" (Via Cake Wrecks)

Middle-aged woman, unaware of video camera, drops cat into trash can Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:35 PM PDT A middle-aged woman throws a cat into a trash can. It happened near the Sacred Heart School in Coventry. Too bad for her there was a camera pointed at her. She will be identified, maybe with the help of a Boing Boing reader! The cat lived. Daily Mail: So who is the middle-aged woman who stopped to stroke the cat.... before cruelly dumping kitty in the litter? (Via Cynical-C)

Purebred's amazingly surreal photo narratives Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:53 PM PDT Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Stacey Ransom and Jason Mitchell, proprietors of Purebred, an intensely creative still and motion production company in San Francisco. As made apparent to me by their absolutely marvelous portfolio, my phantasmagoric dreams and nightmares somehow play out behind their studio doors. Magnificently strange, luminous, and fantastic... I can hardly imagine the shots that aren't meant for the public's eye. Purebred still + motion production (Thanks, Ozlo!)

Twaggies: funny Tweet comix Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:30 AM PDT BB quizmaster David Israel and artist Kiersten Essenpreis have a delightful new project, Twaggies, where they create comic panels for odd, funny, or downright random Tweets from various folks. You can also buy t-shirts of all the Twaggies. Twaggies

Voting machine hacked to run Pac-man Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:11 PM PDT Over at the Submitterator, lbigbadbob points us to this video of a Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen DRE voting machine hacked to, er, play Pac-man. This was done without breaking any of the tamper-evident seals. Nice work, J. Alex Halderman, University of Michigan, and Ariel J. Feldman, Princeton University! From the project page: How did you reprogram the machine? The original election software used the psOS+ embedded operating system. We reformatted the memory card to boot DOS instead. (Update: Yes, it can also run Linux.) Challenges included remembering how to write a config.sys file and getting software to run without logical block addressing or a math coprocessor. The entire process took three afternoons. Why PAC-MAN? In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the iconic arcade game, we reprogrammed the AVC Edge to run Pac-Man. It uses MAME to emulate the original hardware. (We own the electronics from a real Pac-Man machine.) We could have reprogrammed it to steal votes, but that's been done before, and Pac-Man is more fun! PAC-MAN on the Sequoia AVC-Edge DRE voting machine

Cee-Lo's "F**K YOU." Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:48 AM PDT I'm a few days behind the viral bell curve on this one—I have a good excuse, I was overseas in a not-very-connected place! Many of you may have been slouching in the late days of August, too, and missed this phenomenal new video from Cee-Lo Green taking the 'tubes by storm. Watch it now. It's brilliant, the song, the execution, and the sans-serif video styling. Just phenomenal. Simplicity is everything. Those of you not familiar with Cee-Lo's stage name (his mom knows him as Thomas DeCarlo Callaway) may find the sound familiar: he's the voice of Gnarls Barkley. Update: Observant BB commenter fhamilton notes that the font in this video appears to be "Knockout" by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. (via @seanbonner, @Zadi )

India: E-Voting researcher Hari Prasad arrested Posted: 23 Aug 2010 11:03 AM PDT J. Alex Halderman writes, "About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India's electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are "tamperproof," but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn a little over 24 hours ago, when my coauthor Hari Prasad was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source." More here.

"All y'all dumb motherf***ers don't even know my opinion on shit." Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:57 AM PDT At an all-white anti-mosque rally this week, a New York City resident passing by who happened to be black, and not a Muslim, wore the wrong hat— and was harassed and quite nearly assaulted by an assortment of "dumb motherf***ers." This is America, folks. [YouTube video link, via Balloon Juice] Anti-Defamation League joins bigots in opposing Manhattan mosque ... The "30 Mosques" guys visit "The Ground Zero Mosque" China Mieville wants your designs opposing the anti-mosque folks ... Fareed Zakaria returns ADL award as protest over Ground Zero ...

Website automatically crafts convincing social media strategies on the fly Posted: 23 Aug 2010 10:58 AM PDT "Making up social media strategies so you don't have to." [via Justin Newton]

The Top 50 music videos of the 1990s Posted: 23 Aug 2010 12:17 PM PDT Cibo Matto, "Sugar Water" (1996), directed by Michel Gondry. Pitchfork's terrific list of the top 50 music videos of the 1990s.

Have we reached peak helium? Posted: 23 Aug 2010 09:55 AM PDT Photo by Crystl, via Flickr (CC, some rights reserved) Physicist Robert Richardson from Cornell University is warning against plans implemented via the Helium Privatization Act to sell off our National Helium Reserve by 2013. Although cryogenic applications in magnetic resonance imaging, semiconductor processing and basic research consume the largest portion of the helium market presently, this light, inert gas has many other uses. NASA uses it in the pressurizing and purging of its rocket engines while civilian industries use approximately 13 million scm annually in various welding applications. By the time one accounts for helium's role in atmospheric control and leak detection as well as its obvious use as a lifting gas, it is clear that the industry is an important part of the U.S. economy. Helium is a non-renewable material here on earth. About 80% of global reserves are in the American Southwest, created as a by-product of refining natural gas. Dr. Richardson recommends raising prices drastically, so a helium balloon would run around $100, to reflect the value of the gas inside. World helium reserves are running out, Nobel laureate claims [telegraph.co.uk]

Anime Themes Recreated with Household Items Posted: 23 Aug 2010 09:43 AM PDT A few days ago, Japanator posted this fun tribute to K-On!!, where a group of musicians recreate the opening and closing theme of the anime with household items. It looks like the video stems from Nico Nico Douga. K-On!! is the second season popular anime about a group of high school girls who form a band (the first season is known as K-On!). The show has been getting a good amount of buzz in within the U.S. anime fandom for a while now and, at this year's Otakon, Bandai announced that it would be releasing an English dub of the first season.

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