The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Kadrey's SANDMAN SLIM: a hard-boiled revenge novel from Hell
- Hello Stormtrooper
- Neutrally buoyant balloon
- What your dad had instead of email scammers
- Awesome CSS IS AWESOME mug
- Plastic box-latches are surprisingly cool
- Jeff Bezos's Kindle apology: please tell us what the Kindle can do
- Artist takes $190,000 out of bank because they won't give him a mortgage
- Rushkoff comedy sketch for Colbert
- IKEA sends breastfeeder to the toilets
- Race and book covers: why is there a white girl on the cover of this book about a black girl?
- Michel Gondry et fils, rapping about Green Hornet
- Abortion clinic escort's blog
- Cigarette lighter video-camera
- Monkey suspected in garden store heist
- Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading
- Bezos apologizes for Kindle 1984 memory hole blunder
- Holy Vending Machine
- Comic-Con: splendid excuse for cosplay-themed pinups
- The Five Faces of Comic-Con
- Mexican melodrama spoof "Uso Justo"
- Two-year-old has a pack a day habit
- Diana Eng: Catching satellites on ham radio
- Massive dance-number wedding entrance
- Slap on the wrist for cop who assaulted paramedic
- Readings on ambivalent parenting
- Tip to encourage dinner party guests to dispose of olive pits
- Museum Boerhaave photos from Morbid Anatomy
- Land mine "donated" to Good Will
- Improbable Video Games
| Kadrey's SANDMAN SLIM: a hard-boiled revenge novel from Hell Posted: 24 Jul 2009 04:38 AM PDT  Richard Kadrey's new novel Sandman Slim is the most hard-boiled piece of supernatural fiction I've ever had the pleasure of reading. William Gibson says it's a "deeply amusing, dirty-ass masterpiece" and that's just right. Eleven years ago, James Stark was banished to hell by his circle of magic buddies, betrayed by his supposed friends for the crime of being a better magician than them. For eleven years, he's suffered hell's torments as Azazel's mortal slave, first made to fight in the pits and then turned into an assassin. And now he's escaped hell by stabbing himself in the heart with a key that opens every lock, and he's returned to Los Angeles to seek his vengeance on the magicians who betrayed him. He hunts them across a demon-infested Los Angeles, dishing out and receiving relentless, graphic violence, determined to take his revenge and then die and leave the Earth behind forever. In another writer's hands, this might be just another of those gonzo-funny books about demons and magic and so forth, an over-the-top, ironic novel that eschews horror for yuks. But Kadrey's Stark is hard-boiled -- not just self-conscious and wise-cracking, but bereft of hope, burning with anger, without any of that self-reflexive, cutesy stuff that writers put in when they're worried about sounding like a poseur. Kadrey's not worried. In the way that Lovecraft's best work is totally unapologetic about the horrors of hell, in the way that Chandler is totally unapologetic about his antiheroes who inhabit a world without redemption or light, Kadrey's Stark is in a living hell, and he hurts, and he will make other people hurt, and he will not stop. That's not to say that there's no wit in Sandman Slim -- there's plenty of that, but it's the gritty, whiskey-fuelled Tom Waits kind of wit that laughs like it has throat cancer and then spits something wet on the floor after it's done. This is a tightly plotted revenge story that grabbed me by the throat and didn't let go. The characters are fascinating and even likable, and the gun-stuff and the magic-stuff and the demonology-stuff all feel like they're from someone who knows what he's talking about, all confident and energetic and fresh and angry. I loved this book and all its screwed-up people. Previously:
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| Posted: 24 Jul 2009 02:25 AM PDT  This Hello Kitty Stormtrooper fig-mod was spotted at this year's ComicCon. Huzzah! I want to see an entire platoon of life-sized cosplayers in this getup. Hello Kitty Pink Stormtrooper (Thanks, David!) Previously:
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| Posted: 24 Jul 2009 12:25 AM PDT Martin sez, "During a recent stay at our cottage in norther Wisconsin, I awoke to find this balloon hovering above a futon in the corner of the room. It was eerie. I didn't know what was going on for a second or two. There was no air movement, even though all the windows to the cottage were open. Perfect neutral buoyancy!" The video is awesomely David Lynchian -- something about the cottage decor. Hovering Balloon (Thanks, Martin!) | |||||||||||
| What your dad had instead of email scammers Posted: 24 Jul 2009 12:54 AM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. Yet again I've dragged out some little ad from a 1977 Popular Science; I just can't help myself. This one is especially good:  So, here we have President Malcom J. Roebuck telling me, with a look of dead-eyed seriousness, that I can make $25 to $100 per hour by making and selling "metal pin-back badges" made with his $35 button crimper doohickey. Let's use his own figures here and break down exactly what it would take in the "profitable badge and button business" to make this $25 to $100/hour. So, to even hit his low end, I need to sell 10 of these an hour, every hour. That's assuming I'm only selling the expensive "photo" buttons and have zero expenses-- say, I stole the machine and am just punching images from discarded newspapers and ATM receipts. Roebuck, please. I can't even imagine the convoluted chain of events that would have to happen for you to hit the $100/hour number, but I bet it would involve a stadium full of people, and you and your button-making machine being the only source for an antidote for something. So, $100/hr in 1977 dollars, selling cheap-ass pins you make on the crappy little crimper you bought from this crook. I'd really love to see the "fully illustrated money making plans" he offers as well. I bet they have tips like "Make sure everyone you know buys several buttons, every day, forever! It's THAT EASY!"   | |||||||||||
| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:32 PM PDT  The CSS IS AWESOME mug is awesome -- until it makes you snarf coffee out your nostrils all over your keyboard. | |||||||||||
| Plastic box-latches are surprisingly cool Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:30 PM PDT On the IDSA Materials and Processes blog, a fascinating look at a one-piece plastic latch designed to close large cardboard boxes, like the ones giant TVs come in. What's That?: Plastic Cardboard Box Latch   | |||||||||||
| Jeff Bezos's Kindle apology: please tell us what the Kindle can do Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:27 PM PDT As Mark posted yesterday, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos has extended a really heartfelt apology for Amazon's ham-fisted remote deletion of Orwell's 1984 from Kindles last week. The company offering the book for sale through Amazon didn't have the US rights (but US copyright law doesn't say anything about Amazon chasing down customers and taking unlicensed books back from them if it makes a mistake like this). I believe Jeff is sincere. I think he's a good guy, and I think that Amazon, is, generally, the best etailer around, with incredibly customer-friendly terms of sale and service for physical goods. Amazon is my first choice for everything from hard drives to CDs to electronics to small furniture items. But when it comes to digital delivery, the picture is very different. Amazon won't even tell publishers, writers, or readers what kinds of mischief the Kindle can do -- in the months since its release, we've learned that Amazon will shut off your Kindle account for returning physical purchases if it doesn't think you're sincere; we've learned that Amazon can remotely delete files from your Kindle; we've learned that Amazon has a secret deal with some publishers to limit the number of times you can download Kindle books; we've learned that Amazon can selectively switch off features on books after you buy them, such as the text-to-speech feature. And what's more, we've learned this all the hard way, because it bit customers on the ass. Further, Amazon won't say what else is lurking in the Kindle. Specifically, they won't say: * Whether the Kindle EULA or other terms forbid moving Kindle's "DRM-free" books to competing devices * Whether there is a patent or other encumbrance that would make it illegal to build a competing device that can read or convert the "DRM-free" files * What after-purchase control Amazon can exercise on "DRM-free" files: can they be remotely deleted? Can they have features revoked? This is basic stuff: if you're going to sell a product, you should tell the purchaser what she's getting. It's not a radical proposition, and the fact that Amazon, with its stellar, customer-oriented real-goods business won't disclose these basic facts shocks me silly. I want to love the Kindle. It's my kind of gizmo. If Amazon comes clean about what it can and can't do, and offers a way to sell and buy books without any of this control stuff, I'll be their biggest cheerleader. In the last year, my Boing Boing book reviews sold 25,000 (real) books through Amazon -- given half a chance, I'd start reviewing DRM-free ebooks here, too. This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.An Apology from Amazon (via Make) Previously:
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| Artist takes $190,000 out of bank because they won't give him a mortgage Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:11 PM PDT Roger Griffiths, a successful artist is Mapua, New Zealand, lost it when Westpac, the bank he'd been with for 25 years, declined to give him a NZ$80,000 (7,466,385.08 North Korean Won)mortgage because, as an artist, he doesn't have a regular income. He does, however, have a ton of property, a gallery show in NYC, and NZ$190,000 (301.471664g of platinum or 81,051.56 Burmese Khat) on deposit with Westpac. Which he promptly withdrew. In twenties. And then he deposited it with his local, community-oriented credit union, the Nelson Building Society. As Griffiths points out, Westpac is happy to lend to cigar-chomping loony industrialists like Lane Walker Rudkin Industries, who took Westpac for NZ$110,000,000 (10,860,852,632.40 Nigerian Nairas) in bad loans. $190,000 withdrawn in $20 bills (via Consumerist) (Image: MARTIN DE RUYTER/ The Nelson Mail) | |||||||||||
| Rushkoff comedy sketch for Colbert Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:04 PM PDT
Our pal Doug Rushkoff was a guest on the Colbert Report last week. Doug was talking about his new book Life Inc., the story of how corporatism has spread into all aspects of our life. The producers also made a terrific green room comedy sketch with Doug too. I LOL'd.   | |||||||||||
| IKEA sends breastfeeder to the toilets Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:02 PM PDT So much for the much-vaunted Swedish progressivism: the IKEA store in Redhook, New York, sent Sarah Miller to the toilets to breastfeed her baby, then, when she gave up on waiting for the toilets to be free and tried to leave the store, the same security guards who'd banished her to the shitter held her up again to check her receipts. On Wednesday I was in Ikea Redhook in the middle of breastfeeding, fully covered, when I was told I had to stop doing "that" and go to the nearby family bathroom. The Ikea employee and security guards were extremely rude to us. I was hustled off to the bathroom and then had to wait because someone else was using it. I was humiliated, my daughter was upset from being interrupted in the middle of her feed. When eventually I gave up and headed for the car to finish feeding, the security guards who had seen the entire event insisted on checking my receipts. I'm putting together a formal complaint to IKEA. I was wondering if this has happened to anyone else?IKEA Redhook breastfeeding incident (via Consumerist)   | |||||||||||
| Race and book covers: why is there a white girl on the cover of this book about a black girl? Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:59 PM PDT YA author Justine Larbalestier has gone public with her disappointment over her US publisher Bloomsbury's cover art for her forthcoming novel Liar. Specifically, Justine is upset that the cover shows a white girl, and the book is about a black girl. She took this up strenuously with her publisher but was overruled. It's a rare author who gets final say in her cover, many don't get any say at all. I'm generally OK with this, since I figure the point of the cover is to convey to the reader, "this is this sort of book, and if you like this sort, you'll like this." And I figure that cover designers and art-directors who do hundreds of covers a year know, in a much more fine-grained way, what the psychology of covers is. It helps that Irene Gallo, Tor's art director who oversaw the covers of all my Tor books, is terrific, loves my work, and always does a good job, and that HarperCollins in the UK have also been kicking all kinds of ass on this score. But Justine's right about this one, because, as she says, Ain't That a Shame (from Justine's blog) | |||||||||||
| Michel Gondry et fils, rapping about Green Hornet Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:50 PM PDT Kevin sends in this video of Michel "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and son at ComicCon, rapping about the Green Hornet, noting, "Probably the weirdest thing I've ever seen in covering Comic-Con." | |||||||||||
| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:48 PM PDT Darren sez, "Often the best blogs give you access into a world you otherwise would never see, or even think about. This blog is written by somebody who escorts women into an abortion clinic, through a gauntlet of tens or hundreds of protesters. This photo shows how they surround the women to protect them." I used to do this at the Morgentaler Clinic in Toronto some weekends -- my mother Roz was an early and prominent pro-Choice activist, and we were involved in the movement as a family from my early childhood. The hateful, violent protests at the clinic (which culminated with its bombing in 1992) were some of the most intimidating scenes I've ever been in. Everysaturdaymorning's Blog (Thanks, Darren!)   | |||||||||||
| Cigarette lighter video-camera Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:42 PM PDT  Brando's new spy-lighter looks like a disposable cigarette lighter and shoots 4G worth of 640x480 video. When I was in China last year, I saw a ton of variations on this, including video cameras hidden in fat ball-point pens, etc. Stuff like this just makes you realize how pointless those bans on photography in stores are. A Fake Generic Lighter Spy Camera Camcorder (via Red Ferret) | |||||||||||
| Monkey suspected in garden store heist Posted: 23 Jul 2009 06:55 PM PDT Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her now defunct Stay Free! magazine. A monkey is the prime suspect in a garden store burglary that recently took place in Richardson, Texas. The monkey was caught on surveillance video maneuvering through the shop, Plants and Planters. Owners of said shop have deduced that the monkey was trained by a human (since monkeys in the wild don't steal flower pots) to collect the goods and hand them over the fence. As of this writing, the monkey--and his or her owner--remains on the loose.
Link (via Monkeys in the News) | |||||||||||
| Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading Posted: 23 Jul 2009 05:04 PM PDT  Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading, is an enjoyable reflection on young adult books from the 1960s-1980s, written by Jezebel columnist Lizzie Skurnick (who is a young adult novelist herself, having written several Sweet Valley High novels). Skurnik (and her friends) re-read a bunch of the books they cherished as adolescents and wrote funny and touching essays about them. I read quite a few of the books in here myself (I Am the Cheese, Go Ask Alice, My Darling, My Hamburger, The Clan of the Cave Bear) and the essays brought back a flood of forgotten memories. And now I'm interested in reading a bunch of the books I missed out on the first time around, like The Great Brain and A Day No Pigs Would Die | |||||||||||
| Bezos apologizes for Kindle 1984 memory hole blunder Posted: 23 Jul 2009 04:09 PM PDT Posted today on the Kindle Community page at Amazon.com: This is an apology for the way we previously handled illegally sold copies of 1984 and other novels on Kindle. Our "solution" to the problem was stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles. It is wholly self-inflicted, and we deserve the criticism we've received. We will use the scar tissue from this painful mistake to help make better decisions going forward, ones that match our mission.Sounds sincere. Of course, now Amazon needs to walk the walk. Previously:
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| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 03:05 PM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. I'm not sure what I like more, that you can get a miniature Bible or a set of Rosaries for 50¢, or that this is owned by a company called "Impulse Amusements". You know, for when you find it impulsively amusing to have the blood of Christ wash away your sins.  Plus, my ichthyologist's brother's friend's horse's roomate's cousin swears he once got a piece of the True Cross in one of these.  | |||||||||||
| Comic-Con: splendid excuse for cosplay-themed pinups Posted: 23 Jul 2009 02:32 PM PDT  Suicide Girls, who were among the first advertisers ever on Boing Boing way back in the day, have released a Comic-Con themed photoset of bangin' babes in cosplay getup. Yes, yes, it's blatant booth-bait and link-bait, but these really are fun photos (vampy but work-safe, no bewbs).  | |||||||||||
| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 02:19 PM PDT  What the look at left says, according to a Comic-Con facial analysis essay at trueslant.com: "How am I going to get from the Burn Notice panel discussion, which ends at 3:30 p.m. and features my man Bruce Campbell, to the can't-miss Q+A with James Cameron about Avatar, which starts at 3 p.m.? Without a time machine, I mean? Sheer force of will, that's how. But hell, it would be pretty cool if I had a time machine." (thanks, coates)  | |||||||||||
| Mexican melodrama spoof "Uso Justo" Posted: 23 Jul 2009 02:20 PM PDT Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her now defunct Stay Free! magazine. Several years ago, when I put together the Illegal Art Exhibit, Craig Baldwin turned me on to "Uso Justo," a short film by Coleman Miller, and it was always one of my favorites in the show. Miller took a vintage Mexican melodrama and, by writing his own subtitles, turned it into an experimental film that it itself a sort of meta-commentary on experimental film. A terribly funny one at that. Vimeo and Blip TV have the full thing. As far as I know, a higher res version is available only via Mr. Miller himself.   | |||||||||||
| Two-year-old has a pack a day habit Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:54 PM PDT According to Bizarre magazine, this two-year-old from China is said to smoke a pack a day. His father first gave him fags at the age of 18 months to help cope with pain from a hernia.Two-year-old has a pack a day habit (Via Dangerous Minds)   | |||||||||||
| Diana Eng: Catching satellites on ham radio Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:48 PM PDT  Diana Eng, our all-time favorite contestant on Project Runway, is writing a series of how-to articles for Make Online about HAM radio, which is one of her passions. My favorite ham activity is making contacts via satellites. Not only is there the romantic notion of sending messages into outer space, but you have to trace the orbit of the satellite with your antenna while tuning the radio, to compensate for the Doppler effect.Catching satellites on ham radio   | |||||||||||
| Massive dance-number wedding entrance Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:27 PM PDT This St Paul, MN wedding party had way too much fun choreographing a massive dance-number entrance. Be sure to watch until the bride appears, at least! JK Wedding Entrance Dance (Thanks, Fipi Lele!) | |||||||||||
| Slap on the wrist for cop who assaulted paramedic Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:20 PM PDT Update to the story about the Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper who was more interested in choking a paramedic than he was in the condition of the patient in the ambulance. Trooper Daniel Martin was suspended for five days and ordered to "anger assessment." From J.D. Tuccille's Civil Liberties Examiner site: Slap on the wrist for cop who assaulted paramedic   | |||||||||||
| Readings on ambivalent parenting Posted: 23 Jul 2009 01:35 PM PDT Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her now defunct Stay Free! magazine. You could burn most every guide to parenting babies and the world would suffer no great loss, but, as the mother of a one-year-old, I feel compelled to endorse a few standout pieces of writing that have helped me survive babycare. First, Jeff Vogel's diary of raising his daughter Cordelia, as an infant, then toddler.
Second: this bit of fiction by the late, great postmodern writer Donald Barthelme:
Finally, Tom Scocca's "Underparenting" column at theawl.com is excellent. (via Daniel Radosh, Daddytypes)   | |||||||||||
| Tip to encourage dinner party guests to dispose of olive pits Posted: 23 Jul 2009 12:57 PM PDT  Place an olive pit in the discard dish before the guest arrive. | |||||||||||
| Museum Boerhaave photos from Morbid Anatomy Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:56 AM PDT  Over at Morbid Anatomy, Joanna just posted her lovely photos of the Museum Boerhaave in Leiden, NL. It's the country's National Museum of the History of Science and Medicine, and houses a legendary permanent collection of curiosities dating back several centuries. Above: Bernardus Siegfried Albinus Case in anatomy hall. All preparations by Albinus, Circa 1730. "The Magnificent Collection of the Museum Boerhaave, Leiden"   | |||||||||||
| Land mine "donated" to Good Will Posted: 23 Jul 2009 11:14 AM PDT Someone put a land mine in a Goodwill donation box at an Arvada, Colorado strip mall. A bomb squad dealt with the mine; it's unknown whether it was live or not. According to the Associated Press, the package, a "rectangular, olive-green box with the words 'Front Toward Enemy'" worried Goodwill workers when they saw it. "Land mine left in Goodwill donation box" UPDATE: In the comments, folks have correctly identified the device as a Claymore Antipersonnel Mine. Previously:
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| Posted: 23 Jul 2009 10:15 AM PDT Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with a common-law wife, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap. I gave an arcade game-making lecture at Machine Project while ago, and as a joke I made some images of what I thought were wildly unlikely video game subjects:  And then, a few weeks later, I saw this:  Wow. Grey's Anatomy, the video game? That would be like if there was a Trapper John, MD video game back in the 80s. Maybe it's because I haven't really watched that show, but it's hard to wrap my head around how something like this would work. Do you shake the Wiimote to... have relationship problems? Push the B button to trigger self-doubt about your abilities as a doctor?   | |||||||||||
It's passed though a hole that goes through two walls of corrugated (the top and the bottom) and then the two locking surfaces are pushed inward, hooking onto the backside of the inside of the carton. The latch is locked in place with a snap, which can be opened by squeezing... 
"They can lose $110 million with LWR but turn down a normal customer who has never missed a loan payment," he said. "If they don't have the trust in me after 25 years, there's a problem for Westpac." 
This cover did not happen in isolation. 
We do this because clients of the clinic are often met at their cars by protesters. Between 2 and 5 protesters will follow/chase a client from their car parked in the public lot across the street to the private property line; talking at them, handing out literature, attempting to steer clients into the fake clinic down the block, shouting misinformation, slowing their pace, blocking the door and impeding clients any way they can. 
"Anger assessment" is that greatest of meaningless institutional butt-coverings. It allows organizational higher-ups to tell the lawyers that they're doing something without actually doing something. It's nonsense. 
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