The Latest from Boing Boing

---

• Just look at this awesome Korean banana-ripening facility.
• Nominate articles for the next Best Technology Writing
• My Cousin Adam (The Late Paul Cotton)
• Germany pays to fix Microsoft users' computers
• Fibonacci sequence rings
• Airmile hackers use mileage credit-cards to buy $1 coins that they use to pay the CC bills
• Stooper supports a family by cashing in erroneously discarded betting slips
• Photos of Ethiopia's vanishing tribes
• Winter 2009 issue of h+ magazine available for download
• Rachel Maddow eviscerates "Coming Out Straight" author embraced by Uganda's "kill the gays" squad
• John Lennon tribute: "War is Over!" crowd-sourced translations
• The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon
• World's tiniest orchid
• Rock and roll and the occult
• We got that b-roll
• Water Bears rock out
• Wikileaks and the 9/11 intercepts: Julian Assange interviewed by John Moe
• Bow hunting for carp
• Hulk smash puny placebo effect!
• Catch Yayoi Kusama's latest exhibit in Italy
• Streaming doesn't exist
• Phantom Barber of Pascagoula
• Boy likens murder of younger brother to wanting a hamburger
• Salt sculptures by Motoi Yamamoto
• Japanese subway etiquette poster campaign
• Coffee consumption associated with reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer
• Farm family put under surveillance for selling raw milk
• Judge orders makeup artist to cover suspected killer's swastika tattoos
• Stop-motion journey up Yonge Street
• The dumbest thing I heard anyone say in 2009

Just look at this awesome Korean banana-ripening facility. Posted: 09 Dec 2009 01:41 AM PST Just look at it. Advanced Ripening Technologies Previously: 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

Nominate articles for the next Best Technology Writing Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:51 PM PST Julian Dibbell sez, "I am following in the footsteps of Clive Thompson and Stevens Levy and Johnson as guest editor of the next volume of 'The Best of Technology Writing,' the annual collection published by Yale University Press. So it is now officially my job to be desperately on the prowl for the most excellent pieces of tech journalism published in 2009, and by published, I mean whatever the hell it is we mean by published just now. Online essays? Blog posts? World of Warcraft forum rants? I'll take 'em. I should tell you, I guess, that the selection is officially limited to pieces of 5000 words or less, and that I am especially eager for nominations in the traditionally underrepresented non-digital categories (green tech! bio tech! astro tech!), but who am I kidding? Right now I am just plain slutty for great tech writing of whatever type or provenance. Did you write it? I want it. Did your BFF/spouse/probation officer write it? I want it. Did I write it? Awkward, but OK, let's talk." This is a fantastic series, BTW. Buy the whole set and keep 'em by the toilet for a series of short and thought-provoking reads. The Best of Technology Writing Nominations (Thanks, Julian!) Previously: Best Blog Posts of 2008? - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Nominate articles for "Year's Best Tech Writing" Julian Dibbell on virtual economics transcript - Boing Boing Play Money: memoir of a year selling game-gold - Boing Boing Virtual money economics author to sell book for virtual money ... My Tiny Life: classic book about online games, now free - Boing Boing Ultima's economic indicators - Boing Boing

My Cousin Adam (The Late Paul Cotton) Posted: 08 Dec 2009 02:47 PM PST Guestblogger Paul Spinrad is a freelance writer/editor, and is Projects Editor for MAKE magazine. He is the author of The VJ Book and The Re/Search Guide to Bodily Fluids, and was an early contributor to bOING bOING when it was an online zine. He lives in San Francisco.  I have a living cousin who was an early conceptual and performance artist, and I think his work is wonderful. His given name is Paul Cotton, but now he goes by Adam, or "Adam (The Late Paul Cotton)." Cotton studied sculpture at UC Berkeley in the 1960's, and for his final thesis project he submitted his own naked body, framed (in a sense) by numerous paper pathways leading into the exhibit room from the halls and walkways outside. Since then, his work has always been about the body and presence, and also laden with puns, mythology and religion, and plays between high and low culture. His communiques are called "Art Link-Letters" for the way they link the reader to art, and link art of the body to the world of letters. His "Zippily Boo-Duh" costume persona has wings on his feet to invoke Hermes, who bridges different worlds: stasis and revolution, the dead past and the eternal present, the Alphabet and the Goddess. Like many others during the Sixties, Cotton was inspired by Norman O. Brown, whose books called for breaking free of the past and ending repression. But while others merely discussed Brown, my cousin enacted two performances wherein he entered Brown's classroom lectures at UC Santa Cruz. In the traditional sense, he did this uninvited, but in another sense, he was invited by everything that Brown stood for in his writing. You can see Adam's video documentation of his second attempt, "The Second Norman Invasion," here: Part 1, 9:18 (includes long title sequence) / Part 2, 8:51. My cousin has given much creative thought to his relationship to Norman O. Brown. Indeed, a letter that he wrote to Brown back in 1969 was exhibited earlier this year at the Berkeley Art Museum, in a show drawn from their permanent collection called Galaxy: A Hundred Or So Stars Visible to the Naked Eye" (With a subtitle like that, I would have titled it "Small Star Cluster," but that's just me.) My cousin sees his work (and therefore himself), as the embodiment of Brown's ideas, and his "Norman Invasion" performances apply multiple metaphors to the relationship between the two, including bride and groom, and Jesus Christ and John the Baptist. But Brown himself, faced with this costumed classroom invader, didn't know my cousin from Adam. Brown did not seem to recognize my cousin as a cosmic bride, an epic fulfillment of Brown's ideas, or even a sweet and thoughtful artist presenting (present-ing) him with the ultimate gift, himself, and thereby inviting him to experience the liberation that he advocated throughout his writing. Instead, Brown just ran out of the classroom. And so Brown became not N.O. but NO! Brown-- the archetypal father figure rejecting his son, telling him that his time has not yet come. Years later, my cousin attended an appearance by Brown at Cody's Books in Berkeley, and Brown said, "I cannot personally live my vision." I don't think it's good for people to interrupt classrooms and I certainly understand Brown's reaction. But I also think this is all such a fascinating body of work on many levels, loaded with great attention to detail. It makes me sad that Brown didn't embrace my cousin's offering and know how disappointed my cousin must have felt-- but in terms of good theater, I think it couldn't be any other way. As performance art, it goes deeper and is more daring, more emotionally risky, than any other piece I'm aware of (not that I'm too up on the scene). The whole Norman O. Brown thing is something that my cousin still cares deeply about, decades later, and it strikes me as so human-- sad, beautiful, funny, tragic, hopeful, etc. He isn't just being clever with it, and he doesn't want to move on from it all just for the sake of following what's happening with the art world or retaining public attention. He still wants to talk about these art actions, and rightly so. I don't think the message underneath them is any less relevant now than it was back in the hippie days. Unrelated to Norman O. Brown, but also interesting, here is a 1971 radio interview with Cotton about his experience being physically beaten at the Esalen Institute for having removed his clothing on the premises. Also, my cousin's sculpture "Random House Converter/Trance-Former," which consists of a series of frames that invite the viewer to step through, was exhibited last year in Paul McCarthy's "Low Life Slow Life" show at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts in San Francisco. The piece is also slated for inclusion in a Spring 2011 show called "State of Mind," covering California conceptual and performance art from the 60's and 70's, co-organized by the UC Berkeley Art Museum / Pacific Film Archive and the Orange County Museum of Art. I mention these two things with a sense of advocating for my cousin's continued relevance!

Germany pays to fix Microsoft users' computers Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:27 PM PST The German government has allocated a secret budget to fund call-centers to help Windows users whose PCs are infected with malware. Microsoft's support costs are thus being borne at taxpayer expense. I can understand why a government would want to create anti-malware programs. After all, malware's costs could easily exceed the cost of this program (think of the social cost of identity theft). But the state could intervene in other ways. For example, it could establish penalties for software vendors whose users have their identities stolen, where those vendors don't offer this kind of service, forcing companies to internalize the cost of the security vulnerabilities they're responsible for. Yes, it's not clean-cut (who's responsible for the recent SSL bug -- the OS vendors? The free software project?) and how it would apply to a free software project like GNU/Linux is unclear. But surely there's a more equitable solution than simply offloading the expense of cleaning up software vendors' messes on the taxpayer. This approach raises a number of concerns. First, it leaves the software manufacturers out of the equation. Therefore, there will be little incentive to write secure code, as the cost of additional support will be passed (at least partly) to the government. Second, it also discourages the users from switching to more secure products. Both aspects can be interpreted as a direct subsidy for Microsoft. The timing of the initiative could also not be better: last week Microsoft's Internet Explorer, the attack vector number one, lost its leadership in Germany to rival Firefox. Additionally, the plan establishes questionable practices for IT security. Malware infections are seen as something inevitable, which is definitely not the case. Microsoft to Get Malware Bailout in Germany (via /.) (Image: Screenshot Test, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from yahnyinlondon's photostream) Previously: Hosted malware allows n00bs to hack along with the leet - Boing Boing German Bavarian gov't caught buying malware to intercept Skype ... Malware gets a EULA - Boing Boing Malware bots as papercraft - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Sony's malware uninstaller leaves your computer ... Could official Beijing 2008 Olympics screensavers contain malware ... Killing BadWare via a Community - Boing Boing Anti-copying malware installs itself with dozens of games - Boing ...

Fibonacci sequence rings Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:18 PM PST Etsy seller Holmescraft's "Fibonacci" rings have beads in a 1, 1, 2, 3 sequence of great mathematical pleasing-ness. I want to see the matching chainmail that goes up to several thousand digits in the Fibonacci sequence! holmescraft's shop (via Neatorama) Previously: Fibonacci MIDI - Boing Boing Mathematics of botanical beauty - Boing Boing

Airmile hackers use mileage credit-cards to buy $1 coins that they use to pay the CC bills Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:13 PM PST Airmile hackers figured out that they could buy dollar coins (free shipping!) from the US Mint, using credit cards that gave them airmiles for purchases. Then they took the dollar coins straight to the bank and deposited them, paying off the credit card bills before any interest was incurred. The only cost was gas for the bank-runs. The Mint has tried to put a stop to it. I love hanging out in airmile hacker forums -- these folks are insane. My favorite is the British Airways "Lisbon Loop." BA wants to court continental passengers, so trips overseas that originate from continental Europe are much cheaper. BA flight hackers claim that they buy a BA ticket that goes Lisbon-London-NYC-London-Lisbon, and a one-way cheap EasyJet ticket to Lisbon so they can board it. On the way home, they just get off in London, saving a bundle (you can't skip the Lisbon-London leg, or BA will cancel your tickets). Another exploit for BA's desire to woo continental passengers is for Brits to register a PO Box in France and use that as their address for the BA frequent flier club. People who live in continental Europe level up to perks much faster than people in live in Britain. For the cost of an annual PO Box, you can save thousands of pounds on getting into the lounge and getting free massages, meals, etc. One FlyerTalker, identified by his online moniker, Mr. Pickles, claims to have bought $800,000 in coins. He posted pictures of the loot on FlyerTalk. He says his largest single deposit was $70,000 in $1 coins. He used several banks and numerous credit cards. He earned enough miles to put him over two million total at AMR Corp.'s American Airlines, giving him lifetime platinum-elite status -- early availability of upgrades for life and other perks on American and its partners around the world. He also pumped miles into his account at UAL Corp.'s United Airlines and points into his Starwood Preferred Guest program account. Miles for Nothing: How the Government Helped Frequent Fliers Make a Mint (via Kottke) (Image: Dollar Coins "In God We Trust", a Creative Commons Attribution photo from cometstarmoon's photostream) Previously: Pudding guy turns $3k into 1.2MM airmiles and gets tax receipt to ... Mileage Runners hack air travel for maximum miles - Boing Boing Boing Boing: More Air Miles in circulation than dollars Cheap air travel via bulk cheese purchasing - Boing Boing US frequent flier programs deliver less and less - Boing Boing British Airways adds a "fly next to your children" fee - Boing Boing Air Canada: for $35, we'll let you talk to customer-service reps ... Another five-year-old on the no-fly list: meet Sam Adams - Boing Boing

Stooper supports a family by cashing in erroneously discarded betting slips Posted: 08 Dec 2009 09:59 PM PST Jesus Leonardo is the king of the "stoopers" -- people who pick up discarded betting slips at racetracks and betting parlors and double-check them to see if they're actually winners. He makes about $45,000 a year at it, working 10 hours a day, and declares his "winnings" to the IRS. Mr. Leonardo, who is married with two teenagers, is hardly living on the fringes. He said that stooping brings him $100 to $300 a day, and more than $45,000 a year. Last month, he cashed in a winning ticket from bets made on races at Santa Anita Park in Arcadia, Calif., for $8,040. His largest purse came in 2006, when he received $9,500 from a Pick 4 wager (choosing the winners of four consecutive races) at Retama Park Race Track in Selma, Tex. It is all taxable income. "I file my winnings with the I.R.S. every year," Mr. Leonardo said in his thick Dominican accent... Over time, Mr. Leonardo devised a plan to increase his winnings. He enlisted two friends to pick up the trash at four other OTB parlors around the city and take it to him for $25 per bag. By the time Mr. Leonardo boards his train, he is carrying 2,000 to 7,000 discarded tickets. At home, two other friends help him bundle the tickets in stacks of 300, which Mr. Leonardo places in a red satchel. He heads back to New York in the morning and spends hours in front of a ticket machine, scanning each ticket. If anyone else needs the machine, he moves aside. Picking (Up) Winners Without Placing a Bet (via Kottke) (Image: OTB and me, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from swanksalot's photostream) Previously: Papercraft horse-race - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Man wins person-v-horse race for first time in 25 years

Photos of Ethiopia's vanishing tribes Posted: 08 Dec 2009 09:04 PM PST LIFE has a photo gallery of Brent Stirton's photos of tribal groups in Ethiopia's Omo River Valley. Brent Stirton is a senior staff photographer for Getty Images and a LIFE.com contributor who routinely spends nine months of the year on assignment, all over the world, covering everything from narco-wars in Afghanistan to "fog harvesting" in Nepal. In 2007, Stirton spent two weeks in Ethiopia's Omo River Valley, documenting tribal groups that still live largely as they have for centuries. "This is a woman of the Mursi tribe, wearing boar's tusks, which traditionally would be considered men's decoration. The Mursi women are famous for their clay lip plates, a symbol of beauty. A woman would literally have a little hand bag with three or four of them featuring different designs. Sort of their own version of Prada." Ethiopia's Vanishing Tribes

Winter 2009 issue of h+ magazine available for download Posted: 08 Dec 2009 08:05 PM PST The latest issue of R.U. Sirius' posthuman magazine, h+, is ready for downloading. The Winter 2009 Issue of h+ Magazine features The Ray Kurzweil Interview, CAPRICA: Birth of the Cylons, DIY Transhumanism, The Chinese Singularity, and more. I'm excited to read the article about self tracking. h+ Winter 2009

Rachel Maddow eviscerates "Coming Out Straight" author embraced by Uganda's "kill the gays" squad Posted: 08 Dec 2009 07:59 PM PST Rachel Maddow tears "Coming Out Straight" author Richard Cohen a new one. Cohen's work is cited as inspirational by authorities in Uganda who propose killing gay people. "You have blood on your hands," she says. Can I get an amen? Related: Rick Warren, silent enabler.

John Lennon tribute: "War is Over!" crowd-sourced translations Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:42 PM PST Today, December 8, marks the anniversary of the death of John Lennon. In tribute, Yoko Ono and the Imagine Peace team are crowd-sourcing translations of the famous John & Yoko "WAR IS OVER!" poster for people to print and share over the holiday season as cards or posters. Simon from Imagine Peace says, If any Boing Boing readers would like to contribute and don't see their language included, then please ask them to send us a translation so we can make a poster for their language. If they could format it like this (below), that would be most helpful: WAR IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT Happy Christmas from John & Yoko Yoko Ono also invites tributes and memories here. After the jump, video with John and Yoko: WAR IS OVER (if you want it).

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon Posted: 08 Dec 2009 05:13 PM PST Victim, screaming frantically into phone: "911? 911? This is gonna sound crazy, but -- he has a spoon, he's attacking me with a spoon... and it HURTS LIKE HELL! Help!" The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon. (Thanks, Bobby C!)

World's tiniest orchid Posted: 08 Dec 2009 04:30 PM PST At only 2 millimeters across, this is the world's smallest orchid. EcoMinga ecologist Lou Jost collected a different plant in Ecuador and later found this tiny orchid hidden in the roots. From National Geographic: The newfound orchid, part of the Platystele genus, hasn't yet had the type of scientific review that would lead to its official designation as a new species. But, Jost said, orchid expert Carl Luer, a researcher affiliated with the Missouri Botanical Garden, agrees that the plant is a unique species. The bloom has, for now, no name. "It's just sitting here with lots of others that need to be described," Jost said. "These forests are just filled with new things." "World's Smallest Orchid Discovered (By Accident)" Previously: SWAT team raids orchid grower for fudging import paperwork - Boing ...

Rock and roll and the occult Posted: 08 Dec 2009 04:09 PM PST In 1976, David Bowie famously told us that "Rock has always been the devil's music." I enjoy hearing about the real or rumored occult influences on rock and roll, and famous musicians' interests in the "dark arts." Gary Lachman's "Turn Off Your Mind" and Erik Davis's book on Led Zeppelin IV are fun reads on the subject. Greg Taylor, who edits the terrific Daily Grail site, wrote his own engaging essay on the roots of "Occult Rock," from Robert Johnson and the Rolling Stones to Led Zeppelin, Bowie, and Tool. The piece, titled "Occult Rock," appeared in the second volume of Greg's journal of weirdness, Darklore. From Greg's essay, now readable online: There is no doubting... that The Thin White Duke (Bowie) was consumed by occult ideas during the '70s. He was said to have been interested in scrying with crystal balls, and experimented in contacting the Spirit World via an Ouija Board. He later warned a journalist against ever using one: "Don't… It can mess you up, especially if you're taking drugs." (Peter) Koenig documents further gossip surrounding Bowie's alleged descent into occult madness: Rumor has it that Bowie kept his hair and fingernail clippings in the fridge of Michael Lippman's home where he was living then, so they could not fall into the hands of those he thought wished to put spells on him. Bowie constructed an altar in the living room and he graced the walls with various magick symbols which he handpainted. Candles burned around the clock, he regularly performed banishing rituals, and he protected his friends by drawing sigils on their hands. The seventeen-year-old Cameron Crowe allegedly found a stirred-up Bowie burning black candles against an aborted magical ritual during the LA period. Eventually Crowe published several narratives in Rolling Stone and Playboy of Bowie drawing black magick symbols, seeing disembodied beings, thinking he was the Messiah, keeping bottles of his urine in the fridge… Occult themes can also be found in Bowie's music: his 1971 song "Quicksand" begins with the lines "I'm closer to the Golden Dawn, Immersed in Crowley's uniform, of imagery". On Station to Station (1976) he references the Kabbalah in the title track with the line "one magical movement from Kether to Malkuth", talks of "flashing no colour" (part of the Eastern occult Tattva system), and also makes a sly tip of the hat to Aleister Crowley's book of pornographic poems White Stains in the very last line of the song. The album's art (at least on the CD version) also includes a picture of Bowie sketching the Kabbalistic Tree of Life on the floor. "Occult Rock" Previously: Erik Davis on Led Zeppelin IV - Boing Boing

We got that b-roll Posted: 08 Dec 2009 02:38 PM PST Do you need shots of ordinary people doing things? They got that b-roll. A short film by Dylan Osborn, written by Sergio Cilli. Full credits here. (Thanks, Matt West!)

Water Bears rock out Posted: 08 Dec 2009 02:31 PM PST Water Bears are some of nature's most durable microscopic creatures, capable of surviving almost anywhere, including the vast reaches of space. They are also extremely cute and have inspired a song by the band, Ekoostik Hookah. Previously: Water bears survive open space - Boing Boing (Thanks, Robin Kolnicki!)

Wikileaks and the 9/11 intercepts: Julian Assange interviewed by John Moe Posted: 08 Dec 2009 02:24 PM PST On the Public Radio program "Future Tense," John Moe interviews Julian Assange of Wikileaks about the 9/11 intercepts blogged previously on Boing Boing. "Interesting discussion on the right to privacy vs. the responsibility of transparency," says John. And Julian says, "There is a tradeoff between the integrity and value of the historic record and the reform that can come out of exposure and some individuals' privacy rights."

Bow hunting for carp Posted: 08 Dec 2009 01:54 PM PST What do you do when faced with the threat of an invasive fish species capable of eating 40% of its own weight in a day, weighing up to 60 pounds, and giving grown men concussions by flying into their heads? Naturally, you crank up the Bon Jovi and declare it open season. Asian carp are fast-breeding, fast-eating monsters that quickly starve out native species. There are rivers in Illinois where the fish population is now 90% Asian carp. Bow hunting the suckers was simply a natural evolutionary step. In fact, the town of Bath, Illinois has an annual Redneck Fishing Tournament every year where participants attempt to catch Asian carp using anything BUT traditional fishing equipment. All that aside, Asian carp really are serious business. Last week, fear of a carp-decimated Great Lakes prompted authorities to spend$3 million to poison the Chicago River so maintenance could be done on a $9 million electrified net that keeps the carp out of Lake Michigan. For a slightly more sober look at the threat of Asian carp (quotes about the fish smacking people in the head, and shots of a documentary host beating one carp with a stick keep things from getting too stuffy) I recommend watching the Asian Carp Invasion videos at AsianCarp.org.

Hulk smash puny placebo effect! Posted: 08 Dec 2009 12:40 PM PST Women who thought they were getting a dose of testosterone behaved more aggressively and selfishly--whether or not they'd really been given the hormone. Women who got testosterone and didn't know it were actually more altruistic. The researchers suspect macho testosterone lore created a "license to misbehave" in the women who thought they were under its influence.

Catch Yayoi Kusama's latest exhibit in Italy Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:52 AM PST If you're in Milan anytime between now and February 14, 2010, I highly recommend that you check out octogenarian avant-garde artist Yayoi Kusama's exhibit at the Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea. Kusama lives in a mental hospital in Tokyo, but she's still a prolific producer of art filled with dots and repetitions; in a biographical documentary titled I Love Me, she claims that drawing is the only thing that makes her feel normal. Previously: Profiles of two Japanese artists Japanese cell phones designed by artist Yayoi Kusama

Streaming doesn't exist Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:40 AM PST My latest Guardian column, "Streaming will never stop downloading," argues against the idea that streaming can "solve the copyright problem" because "no copies are made." This is technically untrue, and the more we pretend it isn't, the worse it will get for us. First of all, while streaming music from Last.fm is a great way to listen to music you haven't discovered yet, there's no reason to believe that people will lose the urge to collect music. Indeed, the record industry seems to have forgotten the lesson of 70 years' worth of radio: people who hear songs they like often go on to acquire those songs for their personal collections. It's amazing to hear record industry executives deny that this will be the case, especially given that this was the dominant sales strategy for their industry for most of a century. Collecting is easier than it has ever been: you can store more music in less space and organise it more readily than ever before. People will go on using streaming services, of course. They may even pay for them. But people will also go on downloading. Streaming won't decrease downloading. If streaming is successful - that is, if it succeeds in making music more important to more people - then downloading will increase too. With that increase will come a concomitant increase in Big Content's attacks on the privacy and due process rights of internet users, which, these days, is pretty much everyone. If you want to solve the "downloading problem" you can't do it by waving your hands and declaring that a totally speculative, historically unprecedented shift in user behaviour - less downloading - will spontaneously arise through the good offices of Last.fm. Streaming will never stop downloading

Phantom Barber of Pascagoula Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:47 AM PST Pascagoula, Mississippi is a favorite Fortean town, where the lore involves a mermaid, a "singing" river, mysterious abductions, and, my favorite, a Phantom Barber that terrorized residents in 1942. He apparently broke into ten homes and snipped the hair of sleeping women. Police eventually charged a 57-year-old German chemist but he was never convicted. And according to a feature on the strange case in Fortean Times, evidence suggests he may not have been the culprit. From Fortean Times: According to one newspaper, a pattern had established itself: the Phantom Barber only struck on Mondays and Fridays at midnight - breaking this habit only once - and gained entry by slitting the window screens: "Thus, on the Friday following the Monday when he had raided the convent of Our Lady of Vict­ories, he struck again, this time at the home of David G Peattie on one of the town's principal residential streets. Mrs Peattie was in the hospital at the time, a Mrs Walter Henshaw and her husband being on hand to look after the 6-year-old Peattie twins, David and Carol, a girl. Hearing a noise in the children's room late at night, Mrs Henshaw woke her husband and together they went to investigate. At first glance all seemed as usual; both children were sound asleep. "Then Mrs Henshaw noticed the print of a man's bare foot etched in sand on the white counterpane of the vacant bed by the window. Awakened, Carol sat bolt upright, feeling for the blond locks that ordinarily swept her shoulders. "Why - why!" she stutt­ered, looking dazedly around her. "Where's my hair?" "The Phantom Barber of Pascagoula"

Boy likens murder of younger brother to wanting a hamburger Posted: 08 Dec 2009 11:31 AM PST When asked why he strangled his little brother to death, 17-year old Andrew Conley of Rising Sun, Indiana said: "Like, I had to. It's like when people have something like when they're hungry and there's a hamburger sitting there and they knew they had to have it."

Salt sculptures by Motoi Yamamoto Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:44 AM PST Japanese artist Motoi Yamamoto sculpts with salt. Hi-Fructose interviewed Yamamoto about his incredibly-intricate, yet temporary, installations. From Hi-Fructose: Salt seems to possess a close relation with human life beyond time and space. Moreover, especially in Japan, it is indispensable in the death culture. After my sister's death, what I began to do in order to accept this reality was examine how death was dealt with in the present social realm. I posed several related themes for myself such as brain death or terminal medical care and picked related materials accordingly. I then came to choose salt as a material for my work. This was when I started to focus on death customs in Japan. In the beginning, I was interested in the fact that salt is used in funerals or in its subtle transparency. But gradually I came to a point where the salt in my work might have been a part of some creature and supported their lives. Now I believe that salt enfolds the ﾒmemory of livesﾓ. I have thus had a special feeling since I started using it as a material. Video after the jump.

Japanese subway etiquette poster campaign Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:47 AM PST I like the art and colors of these Japanese subway posters that remind people to be considerate of others. However, I think it is fun to watch people apply makeup in public. It's like watching someone paint, which I enjoy. Japanese subway etiquette poster campaign Technorati Tags: poster

Coffee consumption associated with reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer Posted: 08 Dec 2009 10:02 AM PST Good news for me: According to a Harvard Medical School study, "men who drank the most coffee had a 60 percent lower risk of aggressive prostate cancer than men who did not drink any coffee." Kathryn M. Wilson, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Channing Laboratory, says the caffeine in coffee doesn't pay a role in reducing the risk of prostate cancer. Instead, coffee's "many biologically active compounds, like antioxidants and minerals," could be responsible. Using the Health Professionals' Follow-Up Study, the researchers documented the regular and decaffeinated coffee intake of nearly 50,000 men every four years from 1986 to 2006; 4,975 of these men developed prostate cancer over that time. They also examined the cross-sectional association between coffee consumption and levels of circulating hormones in blood samples collected from a subset of men in the cohort. "Very few lifestyle factors have been consistently associated with prostate cancer risk, especially with risk of aggressive disease, so it would be very exciting if this association is confirmed in other studies," said Wilson. "Our results do suggest there is no reason to stop drinking coffee out of any concern about prostate cancer." Coffee consumption associated with reduced risk of advanced prostate cancer Technorati Tags: health, coffee

Farm family put under surveillance for selling raw milk Posted: 08 Dec 2009 09:56 AM PST Rogier van Bakel reports that a Missouri farm family "was put under surveillance, then prosecuted, for selling raw milk from its own cow, Misty." From Naturalnews.com: ...the bovine mother's milk, unpasteurized, unprocessed, non-homogenized and wholly pure, natural and innocent. The stuff America was raised on. The stuff your parents fed you when you were a kid, if your family was lucky enough to have a cow. In Missouri today, selling such a natural product is now apparently a criminal act. What's next? A ban on farm-fresh eggs because the Dept. of Health doesn't control their quality? Farm family put under surveillance for selling raw milk Technorati Tags: food

Judge orders makeup artist to cover suspected killer's swastika tattoos Posted: 08 Dec 2009 09:53 AM PST A judge has ordered the state of Florida to hire a makeup artist to cover the tattoos of a white supremacist on trial for stabbing a teenager to death. His lawyer argued in a pretrial motion that the tattoos, which Ditullio acquired after his arrest, could prejudice a jury. The judge agreed but ruled that any tattoos Ditullio had before his arrest should not be covered. I've always had pleasant conversations with makeup artists who have powdered my face before I've appeared on TV. I wonder if the makeup artist and this fellow engage in a bit of cheerful banter each morning as she/he covers up the large swastika on his neck? Makeup hides neo-Nazi's swastika in Florida court

Stop-motion journey up Yonge Street Posted: 08 Dec 2009 09:39 AM PST Atiev and D.J. Pataeve walked the a long length of Ontario's Yonge Street, that originates at Lake Ontario and stretches all the way up to the Arctic Circle (depending on how you define the street), taking stop motion images all the way. It's a really lovely bit of video. Stopping to Take in Yonge Street (Thanks, Jonny!)

The dumbest thing I heard anyone say in 2009 Posted: 08 Dec 2009 07:39 AM PST As the year draws to a close, I find myself turning back to 2009 and to the highlights and lowlights of the year. For instance, the dumbest thing I heard anyone say all year: at the Battle of Ideas in London, I sat in on a panel on whether unlimited economic growth was plausible or desirable. On the pro side there was a man who argued: 1. The Bible gives man dominion over all the beasts and land and so forth 2. The world's per-capita GDP works out to about GBP5,000, which means that if we stop growing now and then redistribute things fairly, every human being will have to live on a mere £5 grand a year. Hardly a day goes by that I am not freshly amazed by how dumb this presentation was. First of all, for a Biblical literalist, this guy was in serious trouble. He was working on a Saturday! He was wearing polycotton blends! He was clean-shaven! Talk about cherry-picking your scripture. As to 2., man, how innumerate can you get? You don't find out what the average standard of living is by adding up all the world's GDP and dividing by 6.7 billion -- unless you adjust for relative purchasing power (five thousand pounds goes a lot further in Burkina Faso than it does in Knightsbridge) all you get is a totally meaningless number. I'm sure there were dumber things said this year, but this was the stupidest utterance that took place in my hearing, by a wide margin.

You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.	Email delivery powered by Google
Google Inc., 20 West Kinzie, Chicago IL USA 60610