The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Child-in-the-road illusion to deter speeding
• Just look at this awesome banana boat.
• Coming to Germany, Amsterdam for Little Brother/Makers tour
• Roombots: autonomous, mobile, evolutionary self-assembling furniture
• Smell like a Swiss Army Knife
• What size type would you need to reach the Moon from the Earth with a single instance of the word "Helvetica?"
• Creepiest vintage kid ad? Deep South Peanut Pie
• Swedish cops' attempt to build database of shoe-treads snarled in copyright law
• Amelia Beamer and Mark van Name at SF in SF reading series, Sept 11
• Sweet vacuum-cleaner assemblage sculpture clock
• Jonathan Coulton, Wil Wheaton comedy interviews at PAX
• Pentagon attempting to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of Afghan war memoir
• Wikileaks to soon release massive new cache of military documents
• Allen Dale June, original Navajo Code Talker and code developer, dies at 91
• Japan National Rifle Team member tries to win prizes at cork gun booth
• City of Toronto's e-waste program's TV commercial
• Panda Loves to Party
• TSA warning poster upsets aircraft photographers
• The Google Instant Alphabet
• Scary speech by gentleman with a "masters degree in communication"
• Sad Don Draper
• Carriers close down Android
• Photo gallery of vintage Soviet arcade machines
• Tour of a sub-100 sqft house
• Bizarre animation shorts by artist Joe Seigenthaler
• TSA forces pregnant traveller into full-body scanner
• Police detonate suspicious toy pony
• Morpheus meets the Dude
• SPECIAL FEATURE: That Sinking Feeling: spooky new photos of the Titanic
• Massive collection of animated gifs as 10-minute video: "Cache Rules Everything Around Me"

Child-in-the-road illusion to deter speeding Posted: 09 Sep 2010 09:27 PM PDT A Canadian safety awareness group put a 45-foot decal of a little girl on a West Vancouver intersection. Apparently when you approach it, it creates an optical illusion of a real 3D figure. The effect is similar to the fake speed bumps I posted about in 2008. The organization behind the child-in-the-road sticker, Preventagble, is examining how it impacts driving behavior and also, seemingly with success, creating a buzz about road safety in the area. From CNN: The group, which uses guerrilla marketing in campaigns focusing on preventable injuries, developed the image with the support of the BCAA Traffic Safety Foundation, the District of West Vancouver, School District #45 West Vancouver, and the West Vancouver Police. With the help of a Youtube video that shows how it appears to an approaching driver, the illusion has sparked intense debate in British Columbia and outside Canada, with some claiming it could lead drivers to swerve or break abruptly in a school zone.  But Preventable says a detailed risk assessment was undertaken to address such concerns.  Before drivers approach the image, they pass a "School Zone" sign, crosswalk, an extended curb and a sign by Preventable that reads, "You're probably not expecting kids to run out on the road."  "3D illusion in street tries to change drivers' attitudes"

Just look at this awesome banana boat. Posted: 09 Sep 2010 09:18 PM PDT Just look at it. Banana Boat. Wood, string and banana. 2010 (Jacob Dahlstrup Jensen, Denmark) (Thanks, Austin!) Previously: Just look at this awesome banana skateboard. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana Viking helmet. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome slow-moving performance artist whose face has been covered with exploding bananas. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome EU banana curvature regulation. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome anti-banana-ripening bag. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome Korean banana-ripening facility. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeler. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeling simulator. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana slicer. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana saver clip. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana bunker. Boing Boing HOWTO disassemble a banana - Boing Boing Robber uses banana as "gun" - Boing Boing Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta Interviews Ray "The Banana Man ... Peeling bananas from the other end is easier - Boing Boing Forlorn bananas of London - Boing Boing 11 students suspended for banana prank - Boing Boing

Coming to Germany, Amsterdam for Little Brother/Makers tour Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:28 PM PDT Hey, Germans! Next Monday, I leave for a ten-day tour of Deutschland with the German edition of Little Brother. At my urging, my publisher Rowohlt has set an insane pace so that I get to as many places as possible. I'm coming to Hamburg, Braunschweig, Köln, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Erding and Göttingen. I wrap up with two days in Amsterdam, where I'm appearing at Picnic and doing an event for the Bits of Freedom activist group, in honor of the launch for the Dutch edition of Makers. Can't wait to see you! German tour schedule

Roombots: autonomous, mobile, evolutionary self-assembling furniture Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:22 PM PDT Roombots are autonomous, roving furniture segments that cruise around your house, looking for each other and spontaneously organizing themselves into furnishings that evolve based on how you use them. It's a project from the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne. This project intends to design and control modular robots, called Roombots, to be used as building blocks for furniture that moves, self-assembles, self-reconfigures, and self-repairs. Modular robots are robots made of multiple simple robotic modules that can attach and detach (Wikipedia: Self-Reconfiguring Modular Robotics). Connectors between units allow the creation of arbitrary and changing structures depending on the task to be solved. Compared to "monolithic" robots, modular robots offer higher versatility and robustness against failure, as well as the possibility of self-reconfiguration. The type of scenario that we envision for the Rolex Learning Center is a group of Roombots that autonomously connect to each other to form different types of furniture, e.g. stools, chairs, sofas and tables, depending on user requirements. This furniture will change shape over time (e.g. a stool becoming a chair, a set of chairs becoming a sofa) as well as move using actuated joints to different locations depending on the users needs. When not needed, the group of modules can create a static structure such as a wall or a box. Roombots: Modular robotics for adaptive and self-organizing furniture (via Beyond the Beyond) Long-exposure photo of Roomba coverage Concept for swarming "display blocks" What happens to junk left behind in foreclosed homes?

Smell like a Swiss Army Knife Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:13 PM PDT Want to smell like a Swiss Army Knife? Lucky for you, Victorinox has introduced a line of fragrances, sold with a little caribiner for your active scented lifestyle. (via Beyond the Beyond)

What size type would you need to reach the Moon from the Earth with a single instance of the word "Helvetica?" Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:12 PM PDT Following up on Ben Terret's calculations on the number of unkerned 100pt pieces of normal cut Helvetica it would take to stretch to the Moon (2,826,206,643.42), Jason Kottke has calculated the type-size necessary to reach the moon with a single instance of the word Helvetica (282.6 billion points -- "the 'h' would be 44,600 miles tall, roughly 5.6 times as tall as the Earth"). Helvetica! In! Space! Why not go back to the moon? Fly around the moon for $100 million NASA: Robonauts on Moon By 2013 Infographic shows how high Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo will ...

Creepiest vintage kid ad? Deep South Peanut Pie Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:05 PM PDT Where to start with this old Karo Corn Syrup ad touting "Deep South Peanut Pie?" Between the creepy, naked (!) kid with the bowler hat over his (?) privates (!), the ornate type used for "Deep South Peanut Pie" (and the attendant innuendo!) and the glistening image of the pie itself, it is a kind of perfect marvel of a bygone era of radically different aesthetics. I mean, this once was used to sell a product! Deep South Peanut Pie

Swedish cops' attempt to build database of shoe-treads snarled in copyright law Posted: 09 Sep 2010 08:05 PM PDT Sweden, home of The Pirate Bay and birthplace of The Pirate Party, has a funny relationship with copyright (not least because of all the US pressure on the country's parliament to pass copyright laws that give advantage to American entertainment giants). Here's the latest weirdness: the Swedish cops are trying to assemble a database of what kinds of prints are made by which brands of shoes, using images harvested from the Web. But Swedish copyright law prohibits this: The police claim that the law lets them ignore copyright in solving crimes, but an intellectual property professor quoted in the article notes that such an exemption only applies in the direct police investigation of a specific crime -- not for the sake of building up a general database. The professor suggests that this appears to be a clear violation of Swedish copyright laws. Are Swedish Police Violating Copyright Law In Creating Shoe Database? (via /.) (Image: 26 miles of rock and roll, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from koadmunkee's photostream) FBI and MPAA train Swedish copyright cops MPAA's PirateBay letter to Swedish Sec'ty of State What do ISPs charge the law to spy on you? RIAA, MPAA and US Chamber of Commerce declare war on blind and ... Three false copyright accusations and we'll cut off your Internet ...

Amelia Beamer and Mark van Name at SF in SF reading series, Sept 11 Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:57 PM PDT San Franciscans: the latest installment of the excellent, free science fiction reading series SF in SF is coming this Saturday, Sept 11, featuring Amelia Beamer and Mark Van Name. Free to attend, highly recommended.

Sweet vacuum-cleaner assemblage sculpture clock Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:55 PM PDT Here's an archival thing of beauty from steampunk assemblage clock-sculptor Roger Wood of Klockwerks, who notes: "All I've been creating lately are clock-on-wheels so I'm showing one of my favourites from a few years ago."

Jonathan Coulton, Wil Wheaton comedy interviews at PAX Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:54 PM PDT Here's Yeshmin, a YouTube character whose schtick is somewhere between Yakov Smirnov and Andy Kauffman, wandering the halls of the Penny Arcade Expo (PAX: a nerdgasmic gamer/culture convention run by the Penny Arcade webcomic), chatting with the likes of Wil Wheaton and Jonathan Coulton. Funny stuff! Yeshmin Goes to PAX (with Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Coulton & Paul and Storm) (Thanks, Greg!) Wil Wheaton vs. Authors' Guild vs. Kindle Wil Wheaton teaches his son to slay dragons Wil Wheaton (and his GTA obsession) profiled in GEEK. Wil Wheaton reads Peter and Max, a Fables novel Wil Wheaton: So, ASCAP to *license* podcasts? Readers respond ... Fall TV Shows/Wil Wheaton TV Geek troubador Jonathan Coulton profiled in NYTs Video for Jonathan Coulton's "Future Soon" -- Gadgets ... Unreleased Jonathan Coulton album on a limited edition USB stick ... Ukulele covers of Jonathan Coulton's "Still Alive" from Portal ... Jonathan Coulton on Writing Portal's End Theme Gadgets Video: Jonathan Coulton at SXSWi Gadgets Free Frontalot/JoCo single: "Diseases of Yore:"

Pentagon attempting to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of Afghan war memoir Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:34 PM PDT The New York Times reports that US Department of Defense officials are "negotiating to buy and destroy all 10,000 copies of the first printing of an Afghan war memoir" from St. Martin's Press, which they claim includes intelligence secrets. But those objections came a bit late: "Several dozen copies of the unexpurgated 299-page book had already been sent out to potential reviewers, and some copies found their way to online booksellers. The New York Times was able to buy a copy online late last week." Streisand Effect, here we come.

Wikileaks to soon release massive new cache of military documents Posted: 09 Sep 2010 07:22 PM PDT Newsweek reports that Wikileaks will soon publish what is believed to be an extremely large cache of war documents, constituting the biggest military leak of all time. The exact number of documents and the nature of their contents have not been revealed, but the material may include what imprisoned Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning is believed to have passed along to WikiLeaks earlier this year. From the Newsweek article: A London-based journalism nonprofit is working with the WikiLeaks Web site and TV and print media in several countries on programs and stories based on what is described as massive cache of classified U.S. military field reports related to the Iraq War. Iain Overton, editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, tells Declassified that his organization has teamed up with media organizations--including major television networks and one or more American media outlets--in an unspecified number of countries to produce a set of documentaries and stories based on the cache of Iraq War documents in the possession of WikiLeaks. As happened with a similar WikiLeaks collection of tens of thousands of U.S. military field reports on the Afghan war, the unidentified media organizations involved with the London group in the Iraq documents project will all be releasing their stories on the same day, which Overton says would be several weeks from now. He declined to identify any of the media organizations participating in the project. Through its Twitter account, Wikileaks today issued a "no comment" on reports that the documents were related to Iraq. The last large leak publication by Wikileaks contained material related to the war in Afghanistan. Read the full Newsweek piece here, and Wired News has more.

Allen Dale June, original Navajo Code Talker and code developer, dies at 91 Posted: 09 Sep 2010 05:24 PM PDT Allen Dale June, one of the 29 original Navajo Code Talkers who encrypted American military communications during World War II using principles of indigenous language, died Wednesday night in Prescott, Arizona, at age 91. The Code Talkers took part in every assault the Marines conducted in the Pacific from 1942 to 1945. They sent thousands of messages without error on Japanese troop movements, battlefield tactics and other communications critical to the war's ultimate outcome. Several hundred Navajos served as Code Talkers during the war, but a group of 29 that included June developed the code based on their native language. Their role in the war wasn't declassified until 1968. One of original Navajo Code Talkers dies in Arizona (azcentral.com)

Japan National Rifle Team member tries to win prizes at cork gun booth Posted: 09 Sep 2010 04:25 PM PDT When I was in Kyoto, I watched people waste their money at a cork gun game. Nobody was able to knock over the prizes. The corks were so lightweight that they harmlessly bounced off the boxes of candy and packs of cigarettes set up on the racks. (Also, quite of few of the people seemed to be half-drunk, which didn't help their aim.) So, I thought this story from Fuji TV was interesting. The network hired Mamika Tsuruoka of the Japan National Rifle Team to give a cork gun game a try. From Japan Probe: After 62 shots, she has claimed 49 of the 50 prizes. The total cost of her ammo was 2,480 yen (40 yen per cork). The total cost of the prizes won was 3,940 yen. However, the remaining prize is a large box that cannot easily be knocked down. Single shots are too weak to move the box, so she gets her friends to help her fire volleys at the target. This tactic works, and after 9 volleys it falls to the ground. Unfortunately, that used a lot of corks, so the total price of knocking over all 50 targets ends up at 5,360 yen. The actual price of the prizes totaled to 4,535 yen, so the festival booth guy made a profit of 825 yen. Here's the video:

City of Toronto's e-waste program's TV commercial Posted: 09 Sep 2010 04:04 PM PDT (Video link) This TV commercial for the City of Toronto's e-waste program is funny. (Via thedailywh.at)

Panda Loves to Party Posted: 09 Sep 2010 03:50 PM PDT pandalovestoparty.tumblr.com: a tumblog devoted solely to photographs of pandas enjoying themselves at parties. (via BB Submitterator, thanks Unicorn Breath)

TSA warning poster upsets aircraft photographers Posted: 09 Sep 2010 02:59 PM PDT Via the BB Submitterator, reader Keith Irwin writes, Carlos Miller reports that there's a new TSA poster which seems to suggest that people who photograph airplanes are suspicious. The TSA blog has responded saying that 1) the poster isn't new and 2) the pictures on the poster just show general things which happen around airports and are not meant to cast photographers as terrorists. That their current group of posters includes pictures of a stewardess and a maintenance person probably backs up their story. Just in case, though, I fixed it to help us be alert of the real threat which photographers pose. TSA publishes new posters depicting photographers as terrorists

The Google Instant Alphabet Posted: 09 Sep 2010 03:02 PM PDT In a Boing Boing comment thread around the launch of Google's new "Google Instant" search feature, BB reader Robert compiled a little alphabet ditty based on what typing in each letter of the alphabet yields in the way of suggestions. The results vary by country, and it seems also by state or region, and other more personal factors: say, cookies stored for your prior Google searches. Robert is in the USA. Enjoy. A is for Amazon, to get all your books. B is for Bank of America, which holds all your crooks. C is for Craigslist, no services adult. D is for Dictionary, to define your result. E is for eBay, to spend all your cash. F is for Facebook, web pages like trash. G is for Gmail, world domination ambition. H is for Hotmail, Gmail's competition. I is for Ikea, for a lamp named Bljampäjese. J is for Johns Hopkins, where they cure your disease. K is for Kohl's, a store that's old-school. L is for Lowe's, to buy your tool. M is for MapQuest, for the place you go to. N is for Netflix, to add to your queue. O is for Orioles, a Baltimore obsession. P is for Pandora, an audio digression. Q is for QVC, for goods without esteem. R is for Ravens, another Baltimore team. S is for Sears, appliances and more. T is for Target, a Wal-Mart like store. U is for USPS, where mail you submit. V is for Verizon, Steve Jobs should use it. W is for Weather, for forests in flames. X is for Xbox, a console for games. Y is for Yahoo, a home page for Chrome. Z is for Zillow, to value your home. (Image: a page from the children's French-language alphabet book "Grand Alphabet Amusant," by E. Morel, ~1890; from Bibliodyssey) Google launches "Google Instant" Instant Elements: Tom Lehrer's "Elements Song," with Google ...

Scary speech by gentleman with a "masters degree in communication" Posted: 09 Sep 2010 02:49 PM PDT Ohio councilman Phil Davison screams and shoots eye daggers at the people he hopes will vote for him to be Stark County Treasurer. The best part is the way he frequently pauses his artificial anger to read his script. The college that gave him a "masters degree in communication" ought to be stripped of its accreditation. Scary Stump Speech of the Day

Sad Don Draper Posted: 09 Sep 2010 02:30 PM PDT saddondraper.tumblr.com: What does this mean? Don Draper all the way across the sky. Oh my god. It's so intense. (Meme provenance: A defining scene in this Mad Men episode + Sad Keanu)

Carriers close down Android Posted: 09 Sep 2010 01:53 PM PDT MG Siegler hates on the carriers for ruining Android. The problem is not Android itself, of course, but changes made by the phone companies, whose interest in its open nature does not extend to leaving it that way for customers. Robert Scoble, meanwhile, reports that a Google executive admitted to him that the lesson of the Nexus One is that the carriers are in control.

Photo gallery of vintage Soviet arcade machines Posted: 09 Sep 2010 01:31 PM PDT Connal Hughes and Anjel Van Slyke's photos of a 1980s-era Soviet arcade machine reveal that even light-hearted recreation was a grim affair behind the iron curtain. Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines (Thanks, Rachel!)

Tour of a sub-100 sqft house Posted: 09 Sep 2010 01:33 PM PDT Here's Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Houses taking you on a tour of his clever, 100-square-foot house, which reminds me of a wooden, super-luxury first-class plane-seat on the flagship airline of some oil-soaked, cash-infused land. Living in the Smallest House in the World (Thanks, Pddro, via Submitterator!) Tiny house sculpture Design for nine-square-feet house Tiny themed prefab houses To Do This Summer: Build a Tiny House Gadgets Tiny houses -- slideshow Terrific 180-square-foot shack houses family of four plus dog ... HOWTO make rim-perching adorable tiny gingerbread houses for your ... Spite Houses, built to piss off the neighbors

Bizarre animation shorts by artist Joe Seigenthaler Posted: 09 Sep 2010 11:07 AM PDT I'm happy that Amy Crehore alerted me to the macabre animation of artist Joe Seigenthaler. See more of Seigenthaler's work after the jump.

TSA forces pregnant traveller into full-body scanner Posted: 09 Sep 2010 10:54 AM PDT Mary, a pregnant Consumerist reader, says that TSA screeners at O'Hare forced her to use a full-body scanner, refusing her repeated requests for a full-body pat-down.

Police detonate suspicious toy pony Posted: 09 Sep 2010 10:36 AM PDT From the Orlando Sentinel: A "suspicious" toy pony was blown up after it was found abandoned in the middle of a cul-de-sac near an Orange County elementary school this morning. The FurReal pony, an expensive, life-like toy, was investigated as a possible explosive device after someone called Orange County deputies to report it. A robot inspected the toy before a pack of explosives was placed near the stuffed animal and detonated. For some reason Orlando and Cincinnati are mother lodes of wonderful stories. (Via Cynical-C)

Morpheus meets the Dude Posted: 09 Sep 2010 10:18 AM PDT (Video link) Well-made mashup of The Matrix and The Big Lebowski. (Via Blame it on the Voices)

SPECIAL FEATURE: That Sinking Feeling: spooky new photos of the Titanic Posted: 09 Sep 2010 10:34 AM PDT A new expedition to the Titanic offers a fresh view of the deteriorating shipwreck, photographed 4 kilometers down by unmanned submarines operated by RMS Titanic Inc. and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. Read the rest

Massive collection of animated gifs as 10-minute video: "Cache Rules Everything Around Me" Posted: 09 Sep 2010 09:53 AM PDT Video Link. Evan Roth of Graffiti Research Lab, F.A.T. assembled his entire animated gif collection to play in ten minutes, set to "Night Ripper" by Girl Talk. The resulting video is titled "Cache Rules Everything Around Me." (via Evan Roth)

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