The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Motorcycle with camera on it crashes into truck (rider OK)
• Have fun in a capsized ship at Machine Project in Los Angeles, 9/5/2010
• Historic artifact for a holiday weekend
• Sailing the Northwest Passage at night
• A glut of acorns, or a bad case of The Plague?
• The Venn Diagram of cardigans
• Just look at this awesome banana skateboard.
• Craigslist's "adult services" section blocked after human trafficking/prostitution controversy
• Demon children want you to eat
• Whiskey from diabetics' urine
• From the BB Archives: Charting The Frozen Continent
• Zombies get "red light camera" tickets, too
• Teach your children to smoke ad
• Abusive parenting brought on by bad coffee: vintage Sanka ad
• Sweet little steampunk automaton

Motorcycle with camera on it crashes into truck (rider OK) Posted: 04 Sep 2010 10:57 PM PDT It looks like fun until the last two seconds, and then it becomes nightmarish. (Via Arbroath)

Have fun in a capsized ship at Machine Project in Los Angeles, 9/5/2010 Posted: 04 Sep 2010 04:43 PM PDT Mark Allen of Machine Project in Los Angeles says: For a period of five weeks Josh Beckman's Sea Nymph will be host to a whole series of nautical-themed events, performances, lectures, and workshops, as well as an opera by and for dogs. Inside the capsized hull of the ship there will also be a crystal cave. Join us at Machine for the opening on September 5th from 5-10pm, where you can gaze upon the wreckage with accompanying performances by Clay Chaplin, Ambient Force 3000, Ecce, OK Music, Chris Kallmyer, and Colin Woodford. Josh Beckman's Sea Nymph: A shipwrecked boat inside Machine

Historic artifact for a holiday weekend Posted: 04 Sep 2010 04:24 PM PDT This is the world's first frozen margarita machine, invented and built by Mariano Martinez in 1971 from parts of a soft-serve ice cream maker. His inspiration: A 7-11 Slurpee. Today, it resides in the collection of the National Museum of American History, where a museum director once called it a, "classic example of the American entrepreneurial spirit." Smithsonian: Top 10 Inventions from the Collections of the National Museum of American History

Sailing the Northwest Passage at night Posted: 04 Sep 2010 04:14 PM PDT Polar explorer Børge Ousland (How'd you like to have that as your job title?) is on a sailboat making its way through the Arctic Ocean. This has never been an easy place for boats, and this video gives you a good idea of why. The captain of Ousland's boat explains the hazards of this area a little more in-depth, while simultaneously making an important point—thanks to warming trends, traversing the Northwest Passage isn't has hard as it used to be. It is obvious that the conditions met by the early explorers such as Vitus Bering, Fridtjof Nansen, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and Roald Amundsen no longer exists. We passed through in a few weeks, while our predecessors were forced to overwinter once or even twice. Still, it is not an easy passage for any kind of boat or vessel. There is still ice, although not to the extent there used to be, but plenty to make conditions unpredictable for ships. In addition many of the seas you have to pass are very shallow. In the East Siberian Sea, the shipping lane is located 50 nautical miles off the coast, in order for there to be sufficient depth for bigger ships. Lights, buoys and nautical markings are scarce. You can follow Ousland's progress on his blog. Today, he reached American waters and changed his underpants, and we learn that changing your underpants on special occasions is a fine, old Norwegian tradition. To which I can only say, "Good." Via Climate Progress

A glut of acorns, or a bad case of The Plague? Posted: 04 Sep 2010 03:47 PM PDT What would you make of medieval historical records that prominently note the occurrence of large crops of acorns? It's a bit of a weird departure from the kinds of things these records normally care about, i.e. battles and the deaths of famous people. In fact, the people keeping these records didn't even eat acorns, and other, more useful, crops aren't mentioned at all. But, sometimes, an acorn might be more than just an acorn, according to a 2003 paper by classicist David Woods. That's because the Latin word for "little nut" and the word sometimes used to describe the swollen lymph nodes caused by the Capital-P Plague are one and the same. The Latin term glandularius is the root of our word for gland; etymologically, glandula means 'little nuts' because this is what they felt like when palpated. There is at least one other example of a plague record using glandulara as a descriptor. In c. 660 the Burgundian 'Chronicle of Fredegar' describes the 599 plague of Marseilles as a cladis glanduaria. So "a spark of leprosy and an unheard of abundance of nuts", becomes the far more logical, "we've had some issues with leprosy and The Plague this year". Contagions: Plague among the nuts Image via Wikipedia user Twid, under CC

The Venn Diagram of cardigans Posted: 04 Sep 2010 01:34 PM PDT The Venn diagram of cardigans. (via Information is Beautiful)

Just look at this awesome banana skateboard. Posted: 04 Sep 2010 01:15 PM PDT Just look at it. Hack Job/Brian Tellock (via Neatorama) Previously: Just look at this awesome banana Viking helmet. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome slow-moving performance artist whose face has been covered with exploding bananas. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome EU banana curvature regulation. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome anti-banana-ripening bag. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome Korean banana-ripening facility. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeler. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeling simulator. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana slicer. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana saver clip. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana bunker. Boing Boing HOWTO disassemble a banana - Boing Boing Robber uses banana as "gun" - Boing Boing Hemant "The Friendly Atheist" Mehta Interviews Ray "The Banana Man ... Peeling bananas from the other end is easier - Boing Boing Forlorn bananas of London - Boing Boing 11 students suspended for banana prank - Boing Boing

Craigslist's "adult services" section blocked after human trafficking/prostitution controversy Posted: 04 Sep 2010 01:21 PM PDT From today's New York Times: Craigslist, the popular classifieds Web site, has blocked access to its "adult services" section and replaced the link with a black label with the word "censored." Bizarre CNN op-ed accuses Craiglist of profiting from child sex ...

Demon children want you to eat Posted: 04 Sep 2010 01:10 PM PDT A pair of vintage ads featuring demonic children shilling comestibles: Stokely's Green Beans, 1953 and Swift Meats, 1957 -- both part of an engrossing kid-themed Vintage Ads contest.

Whiskey from diabetics' urine Posted: 04 Sep 2010 10:40 AM PDT Gilpin Family whisky is a new single malt whisky made from the urine of diabetics. Creator James Gilpin doesn't sell the stuff, but rather gives away bottles as a public health statement. From the product page: Sugar heavy urine excreted by diabetic patients is now being utilized for the fermentation of high-end single malt whisky for export. The Whisky market is growing faster then any other alcoholic beverage worldwide. With a prevalent genetic weakness being exposed in the northern hemisphere leading to a sharp rise in type two diabetes, economists have found a new exportable commodity to exploit and are keen to capitalize on this resource quickly. Large amounts of sugar are excreted on a daily basis by type-two diabetic patients especially amongst the upper end of our aging population. As a result of this diabetic patients toilets often have unusual scale build up in the basin due and rapid mould growths as the sugar put into the system acts as nutrients for mould and bacteria growth. Is it plausible to suggest that we start utilizing our water purification systems in order to harvest the biological resources that our elderly already process in abundance? Gilpin Family Whiskey from urine (JamesGilpin.com) "Whizky, world's first bio whisky aged with granny whiz" (The Independent, thanks Carlo Longino!)

From the BB Archives: Charting The Frozen Continent Posted: 04 Sep 2010 10:44 AM PDT As summer draws to close, I suggest a trip to Antarctica in this lovely Boing Boing special feature from our archives, Maggie Koerth-Baker's "Charting The Frozen Continent." When you get there, be sure to also scroll right to explore the photos! An excerpt: "Oh, it's 32 and sunny here," says Claire Porter, a University of Minnesota graduate student working on the ostensibly frozen continent. "We spent the whole day outside hiking and playing around." Antarctica, as it turns out, defies all sorts of expectations. Far from a blank, white canvas, the bottom of the world is a beautiful place, full of breathtaking peaks and stark, rock-strewn valleys studded with cerulean lakes. But the things that make Antarctica so fascinating—and such an important center for scientific research—also make it a difficult place to work. Porter is part of a team of scientists whose job is to make other scientists' jobs easier. "Charting the Frozen Continent" For more Boing Boing features, click here!

Zombies get "red light camera" tickets, too Posted: 04 Sep 2010 09:11 AM PDT Video artist and viral genius Joe Sabia, whose work we've featured before on Boing Boing Video and the Virgin America in-flight Boing Boing TV channel, shares word of a project he just completed for the energy drink company behind Zombie Blood Energy Potion. "Red Light Fright was highly experimental, highly speculative, and the results were hilarious," Joe says. "We basically loaded an intersection with zombies, intentionally blew a right light, and received a ticket in the mail with a ton of photos showing branded zombies in action. No arrests, no manhunts for us (we hope). just good, safe clean fun." Did the zombies really get the parking tickets? Are they real zombies? Are they real parking tickets? He won't tell me. Either way, a clever viral marketing stunt on what I'm told was a very low budget. REDLIGHTFRIGHT.COM

Teach your children to smoke ad Posted: 04 Sep 2010 06:18 AM PDT Parenting advice from another era: give your squalling children a pipe to smoke! Right up there with "Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes." Smoke Duke of Durham

Abusive parenting brought on by bad coffee: vintage Sanka ad Posted: 04 Sep 2010 06:13 AM PDT Sanka: because your old man beats you when he's got the jitters. Has his old man been hitting the coffee again?

Sweet little steampunk automaton Posted: 04 Sep 2010 06:13 AM PDT Kamill1 sez, "My first attempt at an automata, I think it turned out pretty well! Super fun build. A little wink to Jake Von Slatt, sitting down to play the pipe organ. Huzzah!" Steampunk Automata "Orchestra Von Slatt", Completed Friday, Sep 3 2010 (Thanks, kamill1, via Submitterator!) Wooden automata -- hand-crank animations Pirate theater automata built from Legos* Twisted-wire junk-sculpture automata from Zimbabwe Hand-cranked undersea automata made from twisted wire -- no welds ... Automata for sale -- papercraft, DIY and wooden Video: The Trons, homebrew automata band Gadgets

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