Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

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Delightful paleo-gadgets of 1959

Posted: 31 Aug 2010 12:09 AM PDT


From the November, 1959 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, a delightful foursome of new inventions, including a wristwatch/tape measure; a vibrating car-seat; a two-seat personal gyro-glider and a revolutionary paper boiler-suit: "ROLL this strikingly unusual Swiss-made jeweled-lever wristwatch on any standard scale map and you can measure the distance in miles or kilometers. As you roll the watch along the map's highway, the mileage is recorded and seen through an aperture on the face of the dial. The watch is designed for the world traveler, sportsmen or even for the week-end driver who likes to keep track of the distance he travels. Bauble is scheduled for export to the United States sometime within the next year."

NOW SEE THIS! (Nov, 1959)



Free, open course for online journos

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:43 PM PDT

Phillip from Mozilla sez,
Mozilla, Hacks/Hackers, Medill School at Northwestern University, and The Media Consortium are collaborating to run a free online course for journalists and programmers on the Peer-to-peer University platform. This is an experimental six-week course exploring the ways that technology is changing news production and how professional journalists & programmers can work together to innovate around these changes. Here's the tentative course outline:

+ The fundamentals of journalism and coding
+ Project management
+ Edit it. Fork it. The art of collaboration and journalism
+ Big Ugly Datasets For Thumb-Fingered Journalists
+ Maps. Maps. Everywhere
+ Data journalism and government

Open Journalism & the Open Web (Thanks, Phillip!)



Victorian "rather sinister" artificial arm and hand

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:27 PM PDT


This Victorian artificial arm and hand is part of the London Science Museum's collection: "Made from steel and brass, this unusual prosthetic arm articulates in a number of ways. The elbow joint can be moved by releasing a spring, whereas the top joint of the wrist allows a degree of rotation and an up-and-down motion. The fingers can also curl up and straighten out. The leather upper arm piece is used to fix the prosthesis to the remaining upper arm. The rather sinister appearance of the hand suggests the wearer may have disguised it with a glove."

Artificial right arm, Europe, 1850-1910 (Thanks, Mista J, via Submitterator!)



Custom Batman and Robin sneakers

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:20 PM PDT


Daniel Reese's Batman and Robin custom-painted sneakers are damned cool -- I'm especially partial to the Robins. There's a large selection of custom kicks at Brassmonki.com, on a wide variety of pop culture themes.

Batman & Robin *BUY NOW* (via Geekologie)



Super Mario cardies

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:08 PM PDT

Others weigh in on new Blackwing pencil

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 05:52 PM PDT

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Photo by Michael Leddy

I'm not the only person to have received a pre-production version of the Blackwing pencil made by California Cedar. So did several other Faber Eberhard Blackwing 602 enthusiasts, and many of them have already commented about them on their blogs.

Michael Leddy of Orange Crate Art said, "Writing with the new Blackwing is a pleasure," but believes (as I do) "the visual appeal of this pencil is likely to be as important to potential customers as the quality of the lead."

Sean of The Blackwing Pages (yes, an entire blog devoted to the Blackwing 602) said the lead is "incredibly smooth, and certainly worthy of the 'Blackwing' name," and that the pencil's distinctive ferrule "is an improvement on the old design insofar how it is attached to the pencil; it feels very solid." As to the white eraser, he is "on the fence ... it may be too much of a departure" from the original (and admittedly lousy) pink eraser.

For a good introduction to the original Blackwing 602, read Pencil Talk's article. Don't miss the photos of Eberhard Faber's other pencils (near the bottom of the article) with their achingly beautiful typefaces and colors.

Exclusive free BB event in Los Angeles: screening of Catfish documentary (NO MORE TIX)

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 04:54 PM PDT

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UPDATE: ALL 250 SEATS ARE TAKEN. SEE YOU THERE! BE SURE TO COME EARLY TO GET A SEAT AS HAVING A TICKET IS NOT A GUARANTEE OF ADMISSION.

Hey Los Angeles Boing Boing readers! You are invited to a free and exclusive screening for the documentary Catfish, which was a sensation at Sundance. I saw it last month and was enthralled. It also has generated plenty of controversy, so the audience Q&A with the producer, director after the screening ought to be interesting!

In late 2007, filmmakers Ariel Schulman and Henry Joost sensed a story unfolding as they began to film the life of Ariel's brother, Nev. They had no idea that their project would lead to the most exhilarating and unsettling months of their lives. A reality thriller that is a shocking product of our times, Catfish is a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue.

It's screening at the Landmark Theatre on Pico (link below has details) After the screening, I will moderate a Q&A panel with the Catfish filmmakers Ariel Schulman, Henry Joost and Nev Schulman, who will share their experience of making the film and will answer questions about the events that transpired within the movie.

I recommend that you don't watch the trailer if you can help it. It's better to watch Catfish with no idea of what it's about.

Seats are limited! NO MORE SEATS! Reserve tickets here.

Your cremated ashes made into vinyl records

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:25 AM PDT

Vinylrecordddddd Via the Submitterator, I'm informed that Rest In Vinyl offers to press your cremated remains into vinyl records with your choice of audio. The price is £2000 for 30 discs. Custom artwork, backing tracks, and "bespook" music is extra. Vinyl records made from cremated ashes

Excerpt from Mashed Up: Configurable Culture

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:11 AM PDT

Aram Sinnreich sez, "Truthdig.com just published an excerpt from my new book, Mashed Up: Music, Technology & the Rise of Configurable Culture. The book is about how the legal, ethical and aesthetic battles over mash-up culture and sample-based music prefigure larger arguments over the shape of society in the networked age. It also argues that some of the answers that DJs have found might point the way towards a new social structure for the 21st century. This particular excerpt is about the blurring line between 'artist' and 'audience,' and the legal and political implications of the newly gray area in between."
The biggest myth of all is the Romantic notion that artists somehow create their work uniquely and from scratch, that paintings and sculptures and songs emerge fully-formed from their fertile minds like Athena sprang from Zeus. Running a close second is the myth that only a handful of us possess the raw talent - or the genius - to be an artist. According to this myth, the vast majority of us may be able to appreciate art to some degree, but we will never have what it takes to make it. The third myth is that an artist's success (posthumous though it may be) is proof positive of his worthiness, that the marketplace for art and music functions as some kind of aesthetic meritocracy.

Of course, these myths fly in the face of our everyday experience. We know rationally that Picasso's cubism looks a lot like Braque's, and that Michael Jackson sounds a lot like James Brown at 45 RPM. We doodle and sing and dance our way through our days, improvising and embellishing the mundane aspects of our existence with countless unheralded acts of creativity. And we all know that American Idol and its ilk are total B.S. (very entertaining B.S., of course!). Each of us can number among our acquaintance wonderful singers, dancers, painters or writers whose creations rival or outstrip those of their famous counterparts, just as each of us knows at least one beauty who puts the faces on the covers of glossy magazines to shame.

I've admired Aram's work since we taught together at USC. I've read part of a prepub of this book (it's adapted from Aram's PhD thesis) and it's fascinating stuff.

'Mashed Up: Music, Technology, and the Rise of Configurable Culture' (Truthdig)

Mashed Up: Music, Technology & the Rise of Configurable Culture (Amazon) (Thanks, Aram!)



Another severed foot found on Vancouver/Washington coast

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:10 AM PDT

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Vintage plastic foot charms, via The Girl Can't Help It

Yet another human foot was found on a beach along the coastal waterway near Vancouver, BC and Washington state. This is the ninth mystery foot to turn up in the region in three years. From the Vancouver Sun:
The detached right foot — likely belonging to a woman or child, based on the size — washed up on Whidbey Island Friday just before 11:30 a.m., according to Det. Ed Wallace of the Island County Sheriff's office.

Because of the island's position in the Strait of Georgia, it's not unusual for bodies, torsos, legs and arms to wash ashore, he said.

"Ninth human foot found washed up on West Coast"

Previous severed foot action on BB...

US government opens Fredric "Seduction of the Innocent" Wertham's files

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 09:16 PM PDT

The Library of Congress has just opened up 222 boxes' worth of files and papers on Fredric Wertham, the scaremonger whose book Seduction of the Innocent led to widespread bans, burnings and censorship of American comic books. Wertham wasn't just a nutcase pro-censorship crusader: he was also (paradoxically), a civil rights pioneer who worked for racially integrated education in America (he also appeared in defense of Ethel Rosenberg, later executed for spying for the USSR).
Among the items in the Library's col­lection of Wertham's papers is a selection of comics he deemed offensive, with notations he wrote inside.

His copy of "Kid Colt, Outlaw" (1967) includes a note that of the 111 pictures, 69 were scenes of violence. An issue of "Justice League of America" (1966) includes markings calling attention to the sounds of violence like "thudd," "whapp" and "poww."

In addition, Wertham's papers include patient drawings and his analy­sis of those sketches. He writes of a young patient: "This case demonstrates the confusion created by comic books between fan­tasy and reality ... cruelty in children's play especially directed against girls."

Wertham testified six times under oath on the harmfulness of comic books, including provid­ing testimony before the Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. Though the committee's final report did not blame comics for crime, it recom­mended that the comics industry tone down its content voluntarily, thus resulting in the Comics Code Authority.

Papers of Comic-Book 'Villain' Open at Library (via /.)



Sink made out of recycled tires

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 10:42 AM PDT


Minarc's RUBBISH sink is made out of recycled tires -- it just won an award from Architect Magazine: "The rubber from the tires is melted down and cleansed of debris, and the tiny inherent metal fibers that give a tire its road resistance are then formed into a sheet. This sheet is stretched over a base frame--made of wood, metal, or any other material out of which bathroom furniture can be fashioned--and anchored down by the drain collar. This creates a shallow-sloped surface for water to be siphoned away, but not a clunky profile; in fact, the material used is so minimal that, the manufacturer claims, the sinks use less than one pound of rubber. Two options are available, the most basic being the 1/8-inch-thick sheet of rubber adhered directly to the cabinet underneath. The other is a framed option, in which the sheet of rubber is sandwiched between two sheets of aluminum around the edges. The firm is in the process of developing two standard sizes for commercial distribution: a single sink at 36 inches wide and a double basin measuring 5 feet across."

Award: RUBBiSH (Recycled Rubber Sinks) (via Core 77)



Pirate Bay t-shirts

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:03 AM PDT

Media Catalog Product Cache 1 Image 495X 9Df78Eab33525D08D6E5Fb8D27136E95 F I File 1 18 Support the Pirate Bay by purchasing this excellent Kopimi/Piratbyrån t-shirt. Bytelove sells them for $22 and donates all the profits to Piratbyrån the Pirate Bay. Pirate Bay t-shirts

Neglected organisms haiku

Posted: 27 Aug 2010 08:39 AM PDT

A couple years ago The Science Creative Quarterly started asking for phylogenetic haiku: or poetry of the 5-7-5 form that focused on a specific organism. We actually have hundreds of submissions, but haven't had a chance to sit down and present them all as a single collection (one day, we'll get to this, one day).

Anyway, it's quite striking how in haiku land, it's the "un-cute" that gets the most representation. This is awesome to me, as usually in the world of media, it's the cute and cuddly that tends to win the limelight (dolphins, pandas, baby seals, anyone?).

So in an effort to continue this trend, why not an open thread where you have a chance to compose a haiku on an organism you're pretty sure has never had the privilege of being set to poetry. The goal here, of course, is that if you google your organism's name as well as the keyword "haiku," it will be this post that will sit on the number one spot.

Anyway, I'll start:

Look! Bryozoa!
Like the Borg, but cellular.
Small, strange, and pretty.

Question: How long would your Ph.D. have taken if everything worked?

Posted: 27 Aug 2010 08:35 AM PDT

When I meet other scientist types, this can be one of the most interesting questions to throw out there.

We can use mine as an example. I did my grad studies in Microbiology and Immunology, but basically I was doing biochemistry type work (cancer research with a lot of molecular stuff). It took me just over five years to finish this sucker which is pretty typical in North America. Of course, when I take a critical look at my thesis and calculate: "What if this thesis literally shows all of my work, because everything I did, worked? What if I had magic fingers throughout my research and never had a failed experiment!?"

Using this rubric, I calculate that my Ph.D. in biochemistry/molecular biology type work could've taken about, DUM-DUM-DUM...

Dnghub Wp-Content Uploads 2010 08 6Months

Note that this figure also includes the 3 months needed to write the damn thesis itself! This means that technically my thesis is reflective of only 3 months of successful experiments: or as I like to think of it -- four and a half years of failed experiments!

This, of course, is how the scientific method works. It's slow, very slow. Most of the time, your marvelous ideas and experiments don't work out, and even if they do, there's almost always someone smarter than you telling you what's wrong with it. Even though it may not seem like it (especially when you read the headlines in newspapers and watch the stories on televisions), the reality is that scientists go about their discoveries in very very gradual increments.

Those doing the science know this already, but sometimes, I get the impression that this reality is lost to other folks. I'm assuming others in research have experienced this, but a classic example, are the many bright high school students coming to a lab, outlining a brilliant science fair project, and then telling you that they only have 6 weeks to do it, and oh-by-the-way "I can only come in after school on mondays, wednesdays, and thursdays!" Of course, this is when you tell them, that the experiments they're suggesting might actually take the better part of a decade, and probably a few dollars here and there.

Anyway, I'm also curious to see what other numbers people will come up with and especially in other fields, science or otherwise. So ask yourself: How long would your Ph.D. have taken if everything worked?



Back To School Art Competition: De-CGI something and win prizes from HP/AMD

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 11:07 AM PDT

41CR2wDeBCL._SL500_AA300_.jpgHP has offered three splendid "Back To School" machines to give away to Boing Boing readers: First prize is an HP dv6 15.6" laptop with an AMD Phenom Quad Core Processor Second prize is an HPE Elite 210f desktop computer with an AMD Phenom Quad Core processor. Third prize is an HP 2509 monitor. The competition theme is De-CGI. Take something that is characteristically computerized and render it with natural media. For example, the pixelated layout of an old-school video game represented as bottletops, or a mandelbrot fractal drawn with crayons. Be imaginative! You retain the copyright in your entries. Only legal residents of the U.S. aged 18 and above, who notify us in the comments thread below of their entry, can win the prizes. Read the contest rules. You've got until midnight next Monday to get your entries in!

Toronto's improv singing puppet busker

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 07:18 AM PDT

Last week in Toronto, I happened upon a delightful busker hidden inside a puppet theater that advertised "Improv Song on Demand." As Alice and I stood before it, a puppet emerged and offered us a song. Alice asked for a song about Star Trek and got this gem:

Then I asked for a song about busking with puppets while improvising music. What followed was sheer genius. Unfortunately, I was sheer stupid, and managed to press the wrong button on my camera, so no video exists. For an encore, I asked for a song about Bill C-32, Canada's forthcoming copyright bill, which the puppeteer handily knocked off:

Some googling today brought up more info on the performer: Alexander Winfield is a puppeteer who took up busking as an alternative to crappy part time jobs.



Homebrew 1/10 scale Cray-1 supercomputer

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 07:01 AM PDT


Chris Fenton has knocked together a "1/10-scale, binary-compatible, cycle-accurate Cray-1" as part of an ongoing "computational necromancy" project: "What's the point of owning a Cray-1 if it doesn't *look* like a Cray-1?? Unfortunately, the square-shaped FPGA board isn't conducive to actually making it the traditional "C" shape, but I think it turned out pretty cool anyway. My friend Pat was nice enough to let me use his CNC milling machine to cut out the base pieces (and help with assembly). It's a combination of MDF, balsa wood and pine. There was also a healthy dose of blood, sweat and tears (and gorilla glue) involved."

Homebrew Cray-1A (Thanks, Chris, via Submitterator)



Pirate Bay documentary raising money on Kickstarter

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 06:54 AM PDT

The Pirate Bay - Away From Keyboard is a documentary on the founding of The Pirate Bay raising money on Kickstarter. I kicked in some money after hearing about it from Peter "brokep" Sunde. The filmmakers have been shooting for two years and are looking for $25,000 to finish the film (they're over $22K as I type this): "This campaign starts exactly one month before the Court of Appeal hearings start in The Pirate Bay trial in Stockholm, Sweden. In 2009 the founders of The Pirate Bay were convicted to 1 year in jail and to pay damages of around 4 million dollars for having 'assisted in making copyrighted content available'. The precedent in the Pirate Bay case will have consequences for the future of the internet. We will cover the upcoming trial closely."

TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay - Away From Keyboard (Thanks, Cowicide, via Submitterator!)



Wendy's Country Market: hidden foodie's delight in the Thousand Islands

Posted: 30 Aug 2010 06:48 AM PDT


One of the high points of my vacation was a stop in at Wendy's Country Market, off a dirt road north of Kingston, Ontario, in Morton (off highway 15). Wendy is apparently something of a legend among local foodies and farmers alike: known as a place where farmers get a much better deal than they would ever see from the big wholesalers, and, as a consequence, where some of Ontario's best produce ends up (much of it grown in Wendy's own farm). Wendy supplies some of the best restaurants in the province, and also operates a mobile market that drives around the region, selling ultra-fresh meat, produce, and prepared foods.

Everything I tried at Wendy's was incredible (oh, the cheese!), but top marks go to the "campfire ice cream," which has actual flecks of fire-burned marshmellow skin in it, and tastes like nothing you've ever tried before. I could seriously eat ten pots of this stuff. Wendy tells me that the ice-cream is made by Slickers in Bloomfield, Prince Edward County, Ontario, which sounds like it's worth a visit on its own.

If you're a Torontonian, Ottawan, or Kingstonian driving through the Thousand Islands region this Labour Day, stop in at Wendy's. You won't regret it. Also: save some campfire ice-cream for the rest of us, OK?

Wendy's (Thanks, Jennifer and David!)



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