Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Theory and practice of queue design

Posted: 11 Dec 2010 01:44 AM PST

Passport to Dreams's FoxxFur continues to write the most fascinating, erudite, insightful material about dark ride and theme-park design I've ever read; her latest post is about the new queue area for the Pooh ride at Walt Disney World, used as a jumping-off point for a fascinating essay on the theory and practice of queue design:
Disney's main innovation and departure in 1955 was to replace the traditional "back wall" with, in fact, no wall and a beautifully designed manufactured landscape. Trompe l'oeil becomes terrain, the "scenic switchback". The earliest example of this may be the Jungle Cruise, but I think the most beautiful one is the Matterhorn Bobsleds, which is an exciting, fascinating wait in line by virtue of... yodeling music and manufactered rocks.

But for all that, honestly, we don't think of Disney's best queues as being plain switchbacks, even if they secretly are. If we cut the roof off the Florida Pirates of the Caribbean queue and look in, we'll see that the switchbacks are unpredictable because they wrap behind walls and around scenes, they're actually pretty much just like what still graces the front of Snow White's Scary Adventures (see below). Even the beautifully linear Space Mountain and Indiana Jones Adventure queues eventually reach switchback areas, just not immediately or obviously. These queues, the "secret switchbacks", are a later innovation on the part of Disney and are what is generally thought of as the "themed queue", atmospheric treks which set up some component of place or atmosphere, indicators of an advanced state of themed design. In the context of Disney-designed attractions, this mode was more or less invented for the Florida Pirates of the Caribbean, although Disney did not always use it for every attraction. Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, for example, is more or less a simple "scenic switchback" queue, at least in the original design of the attraction (built in Florida in 1979).

The Third Queue
 


Prints of Rick Lieder's WITH A LITTLE HELP cover

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 11:00 PM PST

Rick Lieder, one of the four talented artists who produced covers for my new DIY short story collection With a Little Help, is selling prints of his cover-art, which illustrates the story "The Right Book," (which Neil Gaiman narrates on the audiobook edition).

With a Little Help by Cory Doctorow

 


Autotuned Bernie Sanders Epic #FiliBernie Remix

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:33 PM PST

Elaborate cardboard Gundam cosplayer

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:11 PM PST

British schoolboy's amazing speech on social justice

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:08 PM PST

In this video, a fifteen-year-old British student (I think the announcer calls him "Berkeley," but it could be "Rodney" or something else) gives and rousing, articulate call-to-arms for social justice, solidarity, and social justice. This young man is one of the best speakers I've heard, and I salute his passion and his integrity:

They can't stop us demonstrating, they can't stop us fighting back, and how ever much they try to imprison us in the streets of London, those are our streets. We will always be there to demonstrate, we will always be there to fight... We are no longer that generation that doesn't care, we are no longer that generation to sit back and take whatever they give us. We are now the generation at the heart of the fight back.

15-Year-Old Protester Goes Off On British Establishment (VIDEO) (Thanks, Glyn, via Submitterator!)

 


Legal analysis of the problems of superherodom

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 10:02 PM PST

Ryan Davidson and James Daily are lawyers and comic-book geeks, and they write the absolutely charming Law and the Multiverse blog, which involves intricate, hilarious analysis of the legalities of superheroes and supervillains, and considers appropriate policy responses to the social problems created by supers.

A delightful example: Superpowers and the Second Amendment:

First, many superpowers could be considered 'concealed weapons.' Before the Human Torch shouts 'flame on!' and activates his power, he appears to be an ordinary person. Could the government require a kind of Scarlet Letter to identify those with concealed superpowers? I think the answer is a qualified yes. I do not think the Constitution would tolerate requiring innately superpowered individuals to identify themselves continuously. That would seem to violate the constitutional right to privacy and the limited right to anonymity. Furthermore, simply keeping concealed weapons is allowed (e.g., a hidden gunsafe in a home). The real objection is to concealed weapons borne on the person in public.

Thus I believe the calculus changes when a superhero sets out to bear his or her powers against others in public (e.g. goes out to fight crime). Luckily, many superheroes already identify themselves with costumes or visible displays of power (e.g. Superman, the Human Torch). Beyond that, most states offer concealed carry permits to the public, usually after a thorough background check and safety & marksmanship training. It may well be that the Constitution requires that if a state will grant a concealed carry permit for a firearm then it must do the same for an otherwise lawful superpower.

(Thanks, Bruce!)
 


NC teen stowaway breaches US airport security, hides in plane wheel well, dies, falls in Boston

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 05:14 PM PST

The mangled body of a 16-year-old boy from North Carolina mysteriously dropped from the sky down to a Boston suburb last month. Authorities now believe the teen breached airport security, and managed to hide himself inside the wheel well of a US Airways Boeing 737. He is believed to have then fallen to his death as the plane lowered its landing gear on approach to Boston's Logan Airport.
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The corpse of Delvonte Tisdale, 16, was found in a quiet neighborhood in Milton, Mass., Nov. 15, below a flight path to Logan.

"It appears more likely than not that Mr. Tisdale was able to breach airport security and hide in the wheel well of a commercial jet airliner without being detected by airport security," Norfolk County District Attorney William R. Keating said at a news conference Friday afternoon.

Mr. Keating said he alerted federal authorities and the Charlotte Airport that the teenager was able to breach airport security and get onto the plane. While the case is a tragedy, Mr. Keating said, it also underscores fears that someone with malicious intention could do the same thing.

At the risk of pointing out what is very much apparent: all the TSA's invasive body-scanning and crotch-groping failed to prevent this. What if this kid was a suicide bomber stowaway, strapped with explosives? How did this happen?


From a report by a Charlotte, NC news station:

Police found a note on the body which appears to be a school "hall pass" with the "Delvonte Tisdale A Lunch" written on it, along with a signature and the date 10/19/2010.


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Body Fell From Plane, Authorities Say (NYT)


Related: Delvonte Tisdale's death is a tragedy that raises questions about security, DA says (Boston Globe)


Report: 'Nearly certain' teen stowed away on US Airways jet (Charlotte Observer)

DA: NC teen's body found in Milton likely fell from plane (WHDH)

North Carolina kin baffled by theory teen fell from plane (Boston Herald)



N.C. school grapples with teen's death (Boston Globe)

More sumac, please

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 03:20 PM PST

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God, I love food blogs. I love all sorts of food blogs, from the hip and sensible to the bizarrely specific. But I think the one I love most is Serious Eats, with its luscious, almost pornographic closeups of brisket and apple cake and Mac & Cheese Carbonara. I love its enthusiastic coverage of coffee and burgers. And I love the way it occasionally does what it did yesterday -- break down the exact appeal of an obscure ingredient in a fashion that makes you want to drive to the obscure-ingredients quarter of town and spend the afternoon hunting it down. The ingredient is sumac, which blogger Max Falkowitz calls "the saving grace for the unapologetically lazy cook, a Swiss army knife of finishing touches." (Tell me that wouldn't make a lazy cook, or an energetic one, want to read more.) His sensuous descriptions of the spice (" ...it's much more complex than lemon, reminiscent of perfectly ripe raspberries and tomatoes, with a pleasing bitterness that lingers just a second after swallowing") practically make me salivate, and this is the thing: I have never to my knowledge tasted sumac. If that isn't good food writing I don't know what is. Falkowitz's lovely essay on the spice reminds me of the story Bruce Springsteen told about Chuck Berry in Taylor Hackford's Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll. Springsteen recalls the first time he heard Berry's "Nadine," with its description of "a coffee-colored Cadillac," and tells Hackford: "I'd never seen a coffee-colored Cadillac." But after hearing Berry, Springsteen says, "I knew exactly what one looked like." (Photo by Robyn Lee for Serious Eats.)

Baby names

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 03:02 PM PST

betternameslive.jpgCharles Vestal and Matt Sorrell have compiled a book full of better baby names than those currently available to parents: "Many opt to give their child a middle name, as an alternative, or family remembrance. We feel every newborn should have, at a minimum, three spare names, in case of emergency or flight of fancy." [via Waxy] Vestal and Sorrell's suggesions include Quorange, Rudge, and the presidential-sounding Xamabama. To which I add three suggestions of my own: Puppies, Venger and Spack.

Joy Division "Transmission"

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 02:37 PM PST


Currently on tour in the US, Joy Division/New Order bassist Peter Hook and his band The Light are performing Joy Division's classic 1979 debut album "Unknown Pleasures" in its entirety. Unfortunately, tonight's show in San Francisco is sold out or I'd be there. Instead, I will dance, dance, dance to the YouTube.

Profile of a teenage penpal to famous killers

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 04:06 PM PST

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Samantha Spiegel, 19, is a San Francisco art student and penpal to famous serial killers and murderers. According to Spiegel, she was formerly engaged to John Mark Karr, who falsely confessed to killing JonBenét Ramsey. But they've split. Now she's into Richard Allen Davis who murdered Polly Klaas. Of course, Spiegel wouldn't be a real killer groupie if she didn't have a letter from Manson. She wrote him but is still waiting on a reply. SF Weekly has Spiegel's sad story. From SF Weekly (photo by Spiegel's roommate Pamela):
Samantha appears to be the quintessential modern killer groupie -- a hybrid of a media-obsessed attention junkie and a vulnerable young woman sincerely attracted to twisted, violent men.

She craves attention from famous killers, from her friends and relatives, from the world. She wants to be our cherry bomb, and in attaching herself to Karr, then landing on The Today Show, she has figured out a way to do that.

But according to her, all that is secondary. "Getting attention is not my intention," she says. "It's just what comes with what I'm interested in." She has other psychological needs that are seemingly a product of her upbringing and background...

Expressing her admiration isn't the only way she has tried to compel murderers to write her. She routinely visits web forums like Write-a-Murderer, where she has learned how to find out the location and identification numbers of prisoners she intends to contact, as well as what subjects to bring up and what ones to avoid.

She also took a trip to Union Square, where she purchased a handmade floral stationery set. On its delicate paper, she composed more than a dozen letters to Richard Ramirez, Richard Allen Davis, Charles Manson, and several members of the Manson Family. She finished each off with a spritz of Narciso Rodriguez perfume. "They should have pretty stationery," she says. "I save it especially for them."

Samantha took to checking her mailbox promptly at 3 p.m. She knew that eventually the day would come when a famous prisoner would write back, and it didn't take long. On that warm September afternoon, not even a week after she had mailed her initial batch of letters, she reached into the mailbox and retrieved a correspondence from San Quentin inmate Richard Allen Davis.

"Killer Groupie Samantha Spiegel"

And video of Spiegel's Today Show appearance after the jump.




National Geographic: Ten weirdest animals of 2010

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 01:56 PM PST

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The tube-nosed fruit bat, AKA "Yoda Bat," is one of the ten weirdest newly discovered animals of the year, according to National Geographic's editors. Others include the T. Rex leech, sneezing snub-nosed monkey, and the pink handfish. "Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: Editors' Picks" (Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!)

Product Music: music to shop by

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 01:17 PM PST

In 2006, WFMU posted a free downloadable MP3 album of "industrial songs." I think "The New Generation," originally produced for Squibb Pharmaceuticals, would be an excellent anthem for the Anonymous movement.
product-music-wfmu.jpgRegular WFMU listeners will be no doubt familiar with the concept of "industrial musicals", where a company promotes themselves or their products with a single, a full album, or in extreme cases a full-blown musical production. The album Product Music: Vol 1 is a collection of memorable examples of the industrial song. Because if you're not buying a company's product, perhaps a few listens to their new dance tune will change your mind!

The songs range from mellow dance tunes ("The Frito Twist") to manic dance tunes ("Dance The Slurp", with its frenzied cries of "SLURP SLURP!!!") to haunting ballads (the somewhat disturbing "My Bathroom Is A Private Kind of Place", one of three tunes in the compilation from American Standard's classic industrial musical The Bathrooms Are Coming!).

Product Music: music to shop by (MP3)

Bathroom design challenge

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 11:43 AM PST


Architecture project clearinghouse and community Architzer is challenging architects to make over "New York's worst bathroom." Now, I bet Rickshaw Dumplings founder Kenny Lao's bathroom is far from the "worst" in NYC, but it will be fun to see what creative designers do with the tiny space. The winner gets $5,000 and get their design built. "Kenny's Bathroom Competition" (Thanks, Ari Pescovitz)

The Seven Planets

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:18 AM PST

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Back in the good old days everyone knew how many planets there were, then scientists came along and screwed everything up. How could something that was always a planet suddenly not be one? It made no sense. Chaos ensued, people protested, and scientists were thrown in prison.

I'm not making up that prison part, either.

It was dangerous being one of the first scientists to go against the traditional view of what was and was not a planet. But, regardless of the danger, 467 years ago, Copernicus stood firm. "The Sun and the Moon are not planets", he declared. Two of the seven known planets gone like that.

The other five known planets were doing fine though, it's just that they now orbited the Sun instead of spinning around the fixed Earth. Those five -- Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn - remained. But in perhaps the biggest change to the word "planet" in human history, the Earth under our feet was declared to be on par with those other five. Galileo - defending these ideas with observations of the actual night skies through his newly acquired telescope - was imprisoned by the church.

Those seven initial planets - the "wanderers" from which the original Greek word came - are still out there and still part of our every day experience. The names of the seven days of the week come from the original seven planets. Sunday is obvious. Monday pretty easy. Satur[n]day? Check. The others are a bit obscure from old English and Latin, but they're all there.

Before artificial lights, I suspect that most people had seen most of the seven planets. These days? Almost no one.

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From now until the full moon I'm going to try to get you all of them but one (pesky Mars is on the other side of the Sun right now; sorry).

First, the easy one. Step outside. Look up. See that big yellow glowing thing in the sky? It's the Sun. Ancient planet number one.

You've already done planet number two, too, if you've been following along, as that is the moon. The moon tonight is continuing its journey westward. If you noted where it was right at sunset yesterday you will see that it has moved a substantial amount higher by today's sunset. Moonset is, of course, almost an hour later today than yesterday, and the sliver is growing while the earthshine.

Planet three - Mercury - is the hardest one of them all. So hard, in fact, that only a tiny fraction of humanity alive today has ever seen it. Mercury is currently not in the easiest place to see, but we're going to try, for the sake of the planets.

First, remember that Mercury is the closest to the sun. It travels in a circle (mostly) around the sun at a distance of about 40 sun diameters. It's hard to really look closely enough at the sun to get a good feel for its diameter except right when it is setting. But when it's setting, measure the sun's diameter (for me it's about the width of a pinky; you could measure the moon instead: they look, coincidentally, about the same size). Now estimate about 40 diameters and draw a mental circle around the Sun. Mercury is in there somewhere. Always. We just need to find it.

Now, early Decemeber 2010, Mercury is sticking out to the east of the sun. That is, after the sun sets, Mercury will still be up. But remember, it will never be further than that circle you drew, so, as you can see, it will set very quickly after the sun sets. You need to work fast.

Go outside right as the sun has set and look west. Bring binoculars if you have them, but if you don't know need to worry. You will need, however, a very low horizon. Hills, houses, or trees are possibly enough to consign you back to the vast majority of people who have never seen Mercury. (Do you live right on the ocean in California? You're in good shape. But if you live right on the ocean in California you probably don't need me telling you that.) Look low to the southwest. Really low. Like maybe only a few hand widths up from the true horizon. From my house, a low Mercury in the southwest looks much like airplanes taking off and landing from LAX, except that Mercury doesn't move. Airplanes, if they know what's good for them, do. Even for me, knowing what I'm looking for, it's not always obvious. Whenever I think I have Mercury I always have to line it up with a tree or a bush and watch for 20 or 30 seconds and see if really is it.

Don't worry about stars or anything else in the sky. If you are looking only a few handwidths up and you do see something and it doesn't move, you have found it. It's too far away and too small to see much of anything, but if you did bring your binoculars out now is a good time to use them (and then don't forget to tour the moon, later).

If your weather is bad or your horizon is high, don't fear. You have about a week to keep looking before Mercury's orbit carries it too close to the sun to see. If will emerge in a month of so on the other side of the sun, but, then, you won't be able to see it at sunset. You'll have to wake up before dawn.

And no one wants to do that (except for you, dear reader, when you are going to want to do that next week to see Venus and Saturn at the end of our tour; so get your beauty rest now).



(Images courtesy Wikipedia)

Music Apps Killed the MP3 Star

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:17 AM PST


[Video Link]

The Hollywood life cycle has become familiar: it starts as a movie, continues as a comic, and then proceeds to app stage.

This is where Inception, the summer's popcorn brain-twirler from director Christopher Nolan, currently is at, having arrived in the iTunes Store today as an app.

But what's great is that the app isn't everyday brand-emblazoned cookie-cutter smartphone fodder.

What it is is a beautifully crafted remix of the great reactive audio app, RjDj. And it's free.

Nolan and Inception score composer Hans Zimmer worked with software producer Michael Breidenbrüker, of RjDj parent company Reality Jockey (Breidenbrüker was also one of the founders of Last.fm), to develop a version of the company's flagship software that channels the dream-like aesthetic and logic of the film.

RjDj is a reactive app, which means it takes signals from the real/physical world and processes them in real time. In the case of RjDj (along with its iPad sibling, Rj Voyager), this is a combination of familiar iOS tactile maneuvers, like touching the screen or shaking the device, and the senses-warping experience of hearing sounds around you transformed. Audio enters through your microphone, and then emerges ever so slightly augmented via your headphones.

True to the originating film, the Inception app takes your surrounding sonic world -- background noise, your voice, etc. -- and alters it, lending an echoing depth, mixing in familiar music from the film (including the "Dream Is Collapsing" theme that features former Smiths guitarist Johnny Marr), and so forth. There are various distinct stages that fit together like pieces of a puzzle that need to be solved by the player. Each stage is a dream with its own rules and its own sonic properties.

All of this is presented less as a sound app than as a dream app, an app intended to not just simulate the dream experience but to stimulate it (while RjDj is listed in the iTunes store's Music app category, the Inception app is filed under Games).

Zimmer, who is one of the most prominent and prolific Hollywood film composers (Gladiator, The Dark Knight), provides in a brief promotional video a passionate and pithy manifesto for the reactive-music movement: "The thing I've been searching for, that I've been working on forever now, is a way to get beyond recorded music, to get beyond you just download a piece of music and it just ... it's just always the same."

When Zimmer says he's been searching for this for forever, he isn't kidding. In many ways, the RjDj/Inception remodeling of music consumption can trace its roots back to a 1979 hit by his one-time band, the Buggles: "Video Killed the Radio Star."


If Tuesday was a big day for sound art, Wednesday was a big one for reactive sound.

Get the Inception app (for free) at this iTunes Store Link. It runs on the iPad, the iPhone, and the iPod Touch (the latter second generation and up).

The RjDj app is supported by a thriving community of programmers who produce original "scenes" that you can use to filter and process your world. Some scenes are free, others are for sale within RjDj. (Hey, it's a store, within an app, from within the iTunes store -- it's like Inception! OK, enough of that.) Learn how to develop original RjDj scenes here.

Wikileaks: Espionage charges against Assange said to be "imminent"

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:26 AM PST

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Lawyers for Julian Assange expect the United States to file spying charges against the Wikileaks frontman soon.

"Our position of course is that we don't believe it applies to Mr. Assange and that in any event he's entitled to First Amendment protection as publisher of Wikileaks and any prosecution under the Espionage Act would in my view be unconstitutional and puts at risk all media organizations in the U.S.," said attorney Jennifer Robinson.

ABC News: Assange Lawyers Prepare for U.S. Spying Indictment

Photos of pro-Wikileaks, pro-Assange protesters in Pakistan

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 08:28 AM PST

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I know they've arrested some Dutch teen in connection with the "Operation Payback" attacks on Wikileaks' censors, but guys, I think we've found the true face of Anonymous.

People shout slogans as they burn a US flag during a protest against the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, in Multan, Pakistan, 09 December 2010. Assange is wanted in Sweden to face allegations of sexual crimes, he has been arrested in Britain and was refused bail by a court in London but vowed to fight extradition to Sweden. EPA/MK CHAUDHRY
Via Monsters and Critics. Gotta love that "JEWS AGENDA" there on the left, too.

Related: "Several leading Pakistani newspapers have acknowledged that they were hoaxed, after publishing reports based on fake WikiLeaks cables that contained crude anti-India propaganda."

And, protesters in Hong Kong are repurposing the TIME cover in an interesting way.

Boing Boing Exclusive: Wikileaks drops major bombshell*

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 07:59 AM PST

I hope we don't get sent to Guantánamo for conspiring with Wikileaks to reveal this über-top-top-top secret cable. You'd better read this right now. (* You're welcome.)

SantaCon 2010: Santas Gone Wild

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 07:23 AM PST

Live-blogging Wikileaks

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 07:01 AM PST

For the past 13 days or so, Greg Mitchell at the Nation has been live-blogging the Wikileaks saga, which then became the rape charges and arrest saga, which then became the here are some more cables saga, which then became the Anonymous DDOSing the entire internet saga. He's at it again today.

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