The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Video of hot elf women in sinister forest heralds arrival of Elfquest fan feature
- "Coming up next" on TLC
- Loren Coleman's Cryptozoology Museum in the Boston Globe
- Iman Al-Obeidi: "Every Day I Am Beaten" (NPR audio)
- Muppet master Jim Henson's early work
- Caped villains stab dogs
- Firehouse burns down
- Vintage NASA mission patches: LIFE photo gallery
- Southwest's "peeled plane" incident, and the true cost of cheap airline maintenance
- Optical illusion spiral table
- Hypothetical Development Organization's real estate fictions
- Limerick contest! Win a MACHINE OF DEATH limited edition hardcover
- Schwing vs. Putzmeister: Bastardring
- Gender-swap Justice League at WonderCon (Nerd pr0n!)
- Definition of Hell
- Yuri's Night art contest call for entries: Win a Zero-G flight on the Ilyushin 76!
- A critical look at the Google science fair
- Cretaceous Republic: California's state flag, circa 100 million years ago
- TV ad featuring Rube Goldberg-esque musical device
- Tettix's Finest Designs
- Scientists journey into an active volcano crater
- US Customs' domain-seizure program punishes the first amendment, leaves alleged pirates largely unscathed
- Panorama of quake damage in Rikuzen-Takada, Iwate, Japan
- Soft, pillowy mace
- Tricky sickie saved by Wiki
- Minecraft: the classroom edition
- Yemen conflict: "Can you hear me now? Good!" (photo)
- War and video: Some thoughts on the flood of graphic "conflict clips" online
- Shakespeare and fart sounds
- Choco-Thulhu
| Video of hot elf women in sinister forest heralds arrival of Elfquest fan feature Posted: 04 Apr 2011 05:52 PM PDT  Fans of classic indie comic Elfquest, tired of waiting on Warner Brothers to get cracking on the official movie, recently finished work on a "fan trailer" featuring some of the series' female characters. Shown off at Wondercon by creators Stephanie Thorpe and Paula Rhodes -- with the blessing of original authors Wendy and Richard Pini -- the live-action scene-setter captures the saga's weird combination of European and Native American folklore.  Elfquest, now available free online, was among the first indie comics to be sold in bookstores or to attract a significant female audience. It's also credited with hitting some transgressive notes back in the 70s: mixed-race relationships, genre-spanning stories, matter-of-fact violence, and a free-love lifestyle made apparent in events such as war orgies and bisexual goings-on in the night. See if you can guess, before watching it, which of these attributes the trailer somehow seems to suggest without really trying. ElfQuest: A Fan Imagining: Teaser Trailer [YouTube] Elfquestfantrailer.com [Official website via i09] |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 04:04 PM PDT TLC has such a fantastic line-up these days. My favorite shows: "Cake Whores," "Dr. Drew's Second Chance, Bad Odds," and, of course, "Hasty Home Surgery." Live, learn, indeed. (Thanks, Jason Tester!) |
| Loren Coleman's Cryptozoology Museum in the Boston Globe Posted: 04 Apr 2011 03:22 PM PDT   The Boston Globe toured my friend Loren Coleman's International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Maine. It's one of my favorite museums in the world which I've never had the opportunity to visit. From the Boston Globe: Coleman likes to start his tour for crypto-newbies with the display case of "Animals of Discovery.'' These are the legends that came true, like the giant squid of antiquity confirmed in 1865, according to a newspaper account. Or the mountain gorilla, which was so reclusive that it was not identified by European science until 1902. Coleman is taken with the okapi, a living fossil long reported by Pygmies in the Congo but not confirmed until 1901. Despite its stripes and vague resemblance to a zebra, the okapi is essentially a proto-giraffe. Even the popular giant panda was virtually unknown in the West until socialite Ruth Harkness brought one back from China in 1936..."Putting cryptozoology on display to the world"
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| Iman Al-Obeidi: "Every Day I Am Beaten" (NPR audio) Posted: 04 Apr 2011 03:56 PM PDT  Iman al-Obeidi burst into the Rixos hotel in Tripoli, Libya on March 26 to tell foreign journalists that she had been detained for two days after being arrested at a checkpoint, then raped by up to 15 men while in custody. A violent scene erupted at the hotel, authorities threw a blanket over her head and whisked her away, and requests by reporters to interview her or confirm her whereabouts have since been denied. But NPR has now reached al-Obeidi by phone. The story she tells is alarming. She says a doctor has confirmed that she "was raped violently," that the men who allegedly raped her have not been arrested, and that she cannot leave her home because every time she does, she is beaten by strangers. Iman al-Obeidi, who last month told reporters in Tripoli that she had been beaten and raped by men loyal to Moammar Gadhafi, tells NPR she is no longer in custody.Audio and transcript here (NPR.org, thanks Andy Carvin) Obeidi also spoke with CNN today, which says it will broadcast an interview with her tonight at 10 p.m. ET on AC360.
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| Muppet master Jim Henson's early work Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:48 PM PDT Network Awesome compiled some of Muppet-creator Jim Henson's delightfully dark early work, beginning with the infamous and violent Wilkins coffee commercials from 1957 (previously on BB) and going all the way to the 1970s. From Network Awesome: Henson did a lot of other product sponsorship, but he also created loosely instructional sales videos for IBM in 1966. This unexpected combination solidified the unique stylistic qualities that make Henson's work so venerable. And as made obvious in the range of products that he "sold," Henson was not expressing personal loyalty to these companies but using their business as a way to develop his artistic style, and even to make fun of the typical associations with television advertising in his comedy."Jim Henson Commercials and Early Works" |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:24 PM PDT Two men wearing ski masks and garbage bag capes stabbed a pair of cocker spaniels during what's believed to have been an attempted burglary in Stockport, England. The animals were treated for the injuries, possibly inflicted with a screwdriver. From the BBC News: The pets' owner discovered the masked man who had a bin liner tied around his shoulders stabbing the pets as she walked into her lounge."Caped intruder stabs cocker spaniels in Marple Bridge" |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:15 PM PDT The Houston County Fire Department's McKinnon station burned down last week. The cause is unknown and fortunately nobody was injured. Oddly, the article in the Stewart-Houston Times doesn't pay so much as a nod to the irony of a fire station catching fire. From The Stewart-Houston Times: "Houston County fire station burns down" (via Fortean Times) |
| Vintage NASA mission patches: LIFE photo gallery Posted: 04 Apr 2011 01:14 PM PDT  Space shuttle 'Endeavour' is scheduled to make its final flight on April 29; with this end of an era in mind, LIFE.com has published an image gallery that looks back at a "small but central element shared for decades by NASA missions: the patches worn on astronauts' flight suits." Often designed by crew members themselves; ranging from sleek and futuristic to florid, whimsical, beautiful, and downright homey; occasionally quite moving, the patches serve as emblems of each unique NASA adventure -- personalized tokens of the human drive to confront and understand the unknown.View the full gallery here. LIFE.com Deputy Editor Ben Cosgrove says, "I admit, the little apple beside teacher Christa McAuliffe's name on the 'Challenger' patch kind of got to me. |
| Southwest's "peeled plane" incident, and the true cost of cheap airline maintenance Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:57 PM PDT  TODAY I LEARNED: "metal fatigue" isn't what happens when you listen to your favorite Slayer album one too many times. (milesobrien.com)Related: Two PBS Frontline documentaries, "Flying Cheap," and "Flying Cheaper." (Photo: Southwest mechanics work on a Boeing 737 inside a hanger at the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix. REUTERS/Rick Scuteri) |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:51 PM PDT  Etsy seller ExoticTiles made this eye-watering optical illusion table out of hand-cut tiles. It's $500 plus your optometry and psychoanalyst bills. The effect is called a Café wall illusion. This table is made from hand-cut and hand-glazed trapezoidal tiles. It comprises four concentric circles (believe it or not!) around a central disc. The way the brain processes contrast information causes one to perceive the circles as narrowing. Each circle contradicts the ones beside it. Café Wall Illusion Table (Thanks, Kim!) |
| Hypothetical Development Organization's real estate fictions Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:24 PM PDT   (photo by Charles Franklin, rendering by Michael Doyle) Rob Walker, he of the NYT's Consumed column and also last year's profile of BB in Fast Company, is co-founder of a fascinating and provocative group in New Orleans called the Hypothetical Development Organization. According to Rob, the group "dreams up absurd uses for abandoned buildings" to create new urban fictions about the future built environment. They then create large real estate-style large signs advertising the re-imagined properties. I love their slogan: "You won't 'believe' our plans." The Organization has a gallery show of their artifacts, titled "Implausible Futures for Unpopular Places," opening April 7 at NOLA's Gallery Du Mois.Hypothetical Development Organization "Implausible Futures For Unpopular Places" at Gallery Du Mois" (Facebook) |
| Limerick contest! Win a MACHINE OF DEATH limited edition hardcover Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:16 PM PDT  Machine of Death is a collection of stories about people who know how they will die. The titular device can tell you, from just a tiny sample of your blood, how you'll step off the mortal coil. Infallible but often maddeningly cryptic, its readings inspire fear, hope, despair, elation, madness, love, and even -- sometimes -- giddy anticipation. This bestselling fiction collection, containing 34 stories about worlds in which the Machine is a reality, has just been released as a limited-edition, hand-numbered hardcover, packaged with an embroidered patch, a personalized and embossed Death Prediction Certificate, and one or more Death Prediction Cards. We've got a signed set to give away! All you have to do is post a limerick to our comments. Sex is so played out as a limerick subject: this one is all about death, destiny or impending doom. How are you going to die? What would your prediction read? Or -- dare we ask -- the prediction of a salty old wag from Nantucket? Our favorite will get the hardback set, and another winner will be picked at random. I'd say "good luck!", but what use is it in a determininstic universe? Previously: • Machine of Death Amazon campaign infuriates Glenn Beck • Machine of Death goes Creative Commons • How would you live if you knew you were going to die? |
| Schwing vs. Putzmeister: Bastardring Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:40 AM PDT We had a few yuks here over the weekend about news that giant liquid-spewing devices known as "Putzmeisters" were en route to squirt water all over Fukushima's hot core. A BB commenter pointed out that one of Putzmeister's biggest competitors is a company with the equally nyuk-nyuk name Schwing. So, Schwing and Putzmeister once had a legal battle over something called the Bastardring. (thanks, @smelendez). |
| Gender-swap Justice League at WonderCon (Nerd pr0n!) Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:33 AM PDT [Video Link] Boing Boing pal Mark Day shot the video above, and explains, Gender-swapping Justice League members Batma'am, Superma'am, Lady Green Lantern, Female Flash, PlasticGirl, PowerBoy and more (at 1:26) plus a vast assortment of other costumes and cosplay at WonderCon -- ComicCon's Bay Area baby brother. |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:27 AM PDT |
| Yuri's Night art contest call for entries: Win a Zero-G flight on the Ilyushin 76! Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:26 AM PDT  (Photo: I co-hosted one of the previous year's Yuri's Night events, in Houston. It was a blast. Plastered cosmonauts plastered me with Yuri Gagarin stick-on tattoos.)
The folks behind Yuri's Night, an annual global space party that celebrates peace through space exploration, are looking for your creative help to design an awesome new ad campaign to get people to care about space. Yuri's Night's Loretta Hidalgo-Whitesides invited me to be one of the judges and I happily accepted. This year's celebration is a special one: it marks 50 years since Yuri Gagarin became the first human to leave earth for space. Loretta says,
The Space Exploration Advertisement Competition will award a 4-day tour of Moscow, Russia, including a microgravity flight in an Ilyushin-76 aircraft, to an artist, designer or creative individual who creates a print ad which best captures the wonder of space and demonstrates the potential to best inspire the public. The winner will be judged by a celebrity panel of space notables, but entries will also be eligible for a fan-voted People's Choice Award with another exciting set of prizes.My co-judge is Ariel Waldman of Spacehack.org, about whom Pesco blogged recently. Contest details follow, along with word of two additional contests you can enter with even more totally awesome space prizes:
As we celebrate 50 years of human space exploration on Yuri's Night this April 12th, it is more important than ever to ensure that humankind continues to explore the final frontier. This ad could be a poster, magazine advertisement, postcard etc. that will inspire and empower people to go to space and create an inspiring future for humanity. Deadline: Submit your art on or before April 15th. Entries are accepted via Facebook: you just need to post the .jpg or equivalent to the Yuri's Night Facebook page before that date. You can view entries here. The entry with the most 'likes' gets a special People's Choice Award. The winning artist, as selected by judges (including me!), gets a free trip to Russia to the Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre where they'll experience floating weightless on the Ilyushin 76 Cosmonaut training aircraft. ( Image above: Aaron Muszalski, shot by Scott Beale, at Yuri's night 2007.)
Separately, the Yuri's Night folks are also offering a Russian Space Tour Sweepstakes, with a grand prize of a trip to view a Soyuz liftoff from the steppes of Kazakhstan from Baikonur. The deadline for this one is also April 15th.
And finally, there's the "Open Luna Video Contest," an open source competition to engage the public to create tribute videos for the 50th Anniversary of Human Spaceflight to share at Yuri's Night events around the world. The prize on that one is $500, and again, an April 15 deadline. Go to yurisnight.net/contests to sign up for the sweepstakes and to get more information on the ad contest. |
| A critical look at the Google science fair Posted: 03 Apr 2011 10:08 PM PDT What does Google get out of hosting a science fair? Some damn good marketing opportunities targeting smart young people who are learning how to incorporate Google products into the way they work. Does that invalidate the value of the science fair to the kids? I don't think so. But it does offer a valuable reminder/lesson: Work with companies when you want to, but be cognizant and critical of implicit marketing at the same time. (Via Josh Fouts) |
| Cretaceous Republic: California's state flag, circa 100 million years ago Posted: 04 Apr 2011 06:22 AM PDT  The Cretaceous Republic shirt is billed as "California's State Flag from 100 million years ago." Cretaceous Republic (via Super Punch) |
| TV ad featuring Rube Goldberg-esque musical device Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:34 PM PDT Yes, this is a commercial for a cell phone case. But it's a rather lovely commercial. (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!) |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 11:14 AM PDT  Judson "Tettix" Cowan describes Finest Designs, his new album of electronica, as a 'throwback' to his own earliest work. To those mostly familiar with game-influenced stuff like TKOEP and his fantastically savage remix of Igor Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, the surprise comes just a few seconds in, when Tettix's trademark staccato percussion and bleepery is joined by new wavey vocals not heard since Conformatigmatic. "It's a strong departure from my usual style," Cowan said. "I felt like I owed to myself to explore singing on another album. It was easy to get complacent making video-gamey stuff, because it's so easy to get attention on the internet with that sort of sound."In tracks like Simple Devices, Flicker and Finest Designs, there's a warmth and presence that often feels forced in modern electronica, but here it's well-blended with the hardness of the underlying sound. Though the lyrics (and their delivery) are languid and reverberant, that's not to say this is a downbeat LP: there's a lot of fun to be had in Fucking Robots (a collaboration with Dana Swanson) and Hothlanta, a driven techno-pop number that recalls everything good about the 1980s, from the Human League to shoot-em-up soundtracks by Chris Huelsbeck. "It's a scary thing, putting your voice into a song for everyone else to hear. It's always been much easier for me to put an instrumental in front of someone to listen than it has been a vocal song. Closer to the heart, perhaps? More personal?"" Cowan's process is likely familiar to people who create music without a large budget: his simple set-up is a Mac, a MIDI controller keyboard, and a mic connected via a firewire interface: "I work solely in software. I used to have a bunch of hardware -- a triton, a JP-8000, a Microwave XT - but I scrapped it all when I got Reason," a powerful music-making program by Propellerheads. Reason was recently joined by a companion app called Record, together creating a suite useful both for creating electronic music and recording real-world vocals and instruments to go with it. "For once, I could do everything in the same place, which made way for creativity," Cowan said. "Less hassle means that it's easier to dive right in. So I just plink around on the keyboard for a bit, building a synth that sounds nice, then sing along while I work out the melody. I program it all into the sequencer, then hop in the laundry closet and record some vocals." It usually takes him a night or two to write a song, but weeks to tweak and master it until he's happy with the results. Finest Designs, like Tettix's previous work, is free of charge to download and made available under a Creative Commons license. You can donate at Paypal at the Download page [Tettix.net] |
| Scientists journey into an active volcano crater Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:50 PM PDT  This is not a special-effects still from an upcoming movie. Instead, it's a photo taken at Nyiragongo Volcano in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. This is one of the most active volcanoes in the world, and National Geographic has the story of a team of Congolese seismologists who journeyed into Nyiragongo's crater to study the volcano's massive lava lake, and try to learn more about what's going on inside a mountain that could potentially kill thousands. This photo, taken by Carsten Peter, shows a scientist walking on cooled lava within the volcano's caldera. The red color comes from a reflection of the light off the nearby lava lake. There's lots more breath-taking photos on the National Geographic site. |
| Posted: 03 Apr 2011 10:38 PM PDT TorrentFreak's postmortem of the DHS's domain-seizure program ("Operation In Our Sites") in which the .com and .net dozens of allegedly infringing sites were seized without due process and with a great deal of sloppiness. Though the program was willing to toss out the first amendment and turn the US government into a business agent for entertainment companies, it was a near-total failure in removing its targetted sites: US Government's 'Pirate' Domain Seizures Failed Miserably |
| Panorama of quake damage in Rikuzen-Takada, Iwate, Japan Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:48 AM PDT The 360Cities panorama site has a hair-raising pano of the earthquake damage to Rikuzen-Takada in Japan's Iwate Prefecture -- a whole town reduced to flinders and rubble. |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:19 AM PDT  Matthew Borgatti's awesome, intimidating Pillow Mace was created for an upcoming NYC Pillow Fight Flash Mob. He's promised an Instructable for those wishing to make their own: "Surprisingly it took a good yard of cushion foam and two bags of poly-fill to do this one up right and get it nice and spherical. In other interesting news this may be the first dodecahedron I've ever constructed." Pillow Mace! (via Craft) |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 08:16 AM PDT Several papers in the UK are reporting that a 26-year-old man who was brushed off as "a neurotic" and a hypochondriac by at least 10 doctors over 12 years, ended up correctly diagnosing himself with a heart condition using Wikipedia. Reports one tabloid, "He finally found out he had postural orthostatic tachycardia after looking up the symptoms on the internet." Oh, if I only had a euro for every time I've done the same! But this appears to be the real deal.
He is now being treated by a specialist for the condition. Mr Green said he had visited his GP in 1999 and Worcester's Royal Hospital's accident and emergency unit in 2003 but the heart condition had not been diagnosed. Mirror, Sun, Worcester News. (Thanks, Andrea James!) |
| Minecraft: the classroom edition Posted: 03 Apr 2011 11:48 PM PDT  Here's a great profile of The Minecraft Teacher, AKA Joel Levin, who teaches a computer class at Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in Manhattan where he makes extensive use of Minecraft. He assigns complex team-tasks in Minecraft that blend open-ended exploration with problem-solving and cooperation. It's a really clever way of using games as a teaching tool: "From day one, the kids are all playing together in a single world," explained Levin. "They must share resources, take turns, work together, and, frankly, be nice to each other. This is usually the first time these kids have had to think about these concepts in a game, but it goes hand in hand with the big picture stuff they are learning in their homerooms. It's amazing to see how many real world issues get played out in the microcosm of the game. Kids have territorial disputes over where they are building. Kids have said mean things to each other within the game or have been destructive with each other's creations."Educational building blocks: how Minecraft is used in classrooms |
| Yemen conflict: "Can you hear me now? Good!" (photo) Posted: 04 Apr 2011 07:48 AM PDT  Supporters of Yemen's President Ali Abdullah Saleh stand on pillars during a rally to show their support, in Sanaa April 1, 2011. Embattled Saleh told a huge rally of supporters on Friday that he would sacrifice everything for his country, suggesting he has no plans to step down yet. (REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah) |
| War and video: Some thoughts on the flood of graphic "conflict clips" online Posted: 04 Apr 2011 12:18 PM PDT  (Bullet holes are seen on the windshield of a car used by insurgents after an attack at Camp Phoenix in Kabul. Ahmad Masood / Reuters) The Guardian invited me to write a quick opinion piece on the explosion of new sources of graphic online conflict videos, and what that sudden availability of explicit, violent material means for news coverage and for each of us as individual witnesses. Snip:I do believe that truth is a good thing. And to the extent that the flood of bloody videos pouring out of Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Libya and elsewhere right now document the truth, they are important. As commercial cable news networks (at least, in the US) evolve into something more like entertainment channels than the news outlets they began as, our access to these ugly streaming truths matters even more. Distant shots of missile drops are less likely to inspire empathy than a YouTube clip of a man in Libya whose lower jaw has just been blown off, who is still shouting for freedom. And yes, that video exists; the tireless Twitter chronicler Andy Carvin at NPR (@acarvin) tweeted it last week, along with many other videos like it. (I don't know how he does it; I could not keep up his tolerance or his pace.) "Atrocity Exhibition" (Guardian "Comment is Free" blog, thanks Matt Seaton) Related: At the Atlantic, Alexis Madrigal has a piece up gathering thoughts on this topic from others around the web today. |
| Posted: 03 Apr 2011 09:53 PM PDT |
| Posted: 04 Apr 2011 06:43 AM PDT Here's an April Fool's disappointment for you: these Easter-ready Choco-Thulhu statuettes are a cruel hoax, and cannot be used to prettify your springtime carb-binge: Choco-Thulhu (via Super Punch) |
According to Houston County Fire Chief David Hardin, one of trucks was a 2,000-gallon tanker bought by the county for $20,000 last year, and the other was a 1972 utility vehicle that was in good working condition...
It wasn't hard for the affected sites to continue their operations. Since their servers had not been touched physically it was a simple matter to change a few settings to make the sites available to the public again under a new domain, something achieved in a few minutes. This is exactly what most of the streaming and file-sharing related sites have done. 
Easter is just around the corner, and we all need to load up on anti-oxidants, especially the non-euclidean kind. So, I am taking pre-orders on dark chocolate Cthulhus. 8-1/4" high, 3/8" thick. It's the same design as the resin statues, just tastier and not as good for fighting cavities: | You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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