Friday, October 1, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Lego wedding ring

Posted: 01 Oct 2010 02:36 AM PDT

3D printing with glow-in-the-dark plastic

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:32 PM PDT

Makerbot Industries celebrates the advent of glow-in-the-dark 3D printer goop with a roundup of the "Top 10 Things to Print with Glow-In-The-Dark Plastic."

3.  Arc reactor prop with led light by dugdug22

This isn't printable - yet.  When someone creates a printable version, I'm all over that.

2.  Smart Bra Clips by 2ROBOTGUY

This just makes sense.

1.  Skull Throwie by Orion

A skull that you are supposed to throw.  That uses LED's and magnets.  What could be better?  Maybe if it glowed in the dark.

Top 10 Things to Print with Glow-In-The-Dark Plastic



Welcome to Bordertown: the first Borderlands book in decades!

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:58 PM PDT

Growing up, some of my absolute favorite books were the Borderlands anthologies -- shared-world stories set in a ficton in which the realm of faerie has returned to Earth, in a city called Bordertown where elves and humans mixed freely and magic and technology worked erratically. These were the precursor of today's urban fantasy, and they were brilliant, bohemian escapist literature that has stood up to many re-readings over the years.

So I was incredibly excited when Holly Black and Ellen Kushner invited me to contribute a story to Welcome to Bordertown, the first Borderlands book in decades. This is a young adult volume, and I wrote a story for it called "Shannon's Law," about Bordertown's first hacker, who decides to use TCP over Carrier Pigeon to route a packet through the Border and break the information singularity that divides the two realities.

Now Holly and Ellen have published the full table of contents to Welcome, which will be out next May 24, from Random House. I've read most of these stories, and let me tell you, you're in for a treat.

Introduction - Terri Windling
Introduction - Holly Black
Bordertown Basics (Letter from the Diggers)
Welcome to Bordertown - Terri Windling & Ellen Kushner
Shannon's Law - Cory Doctorow
Cruel Sister (poem) - Patricia A. McKillip
Voice Like a Hole - Catherynne M. Valente
Stairs in Her Hair (song*) - Amal El-Mohtar
Incunabulum - Emma Bull
Run Back to the Border (song) - Steven Brust
Prince of Thirteen Days - Alaya Dawn Johnson
The Sages of Elsewhere - Will Shetterly
Soulja Grrrl: A Long Line Rap (song) - Jane Yolen
Crossings - Janni Lee Simner
Fair Trade (Comic) - Sara Ryan & Dylan Meconis
Lullabye: Night Song for a Halfie (song) - Jane Yolen
Our Stars, Our Selves - Tim Pratt
Elf Blood - Annette Curtis Klause
The Wall (poem) - Delia Sherman
Ours is the Prettiest - Nalo Hopkinson
We Do Not Come in Peace - Christopher Barzak
A Borderland Jump-Rope Rhyme (poem) - Jane Yolen
The Rowan Gentleman - Cassandra Clare & Holly Black
The Song of the Song (song) - Neil Gaiman
A Tangle of Green Men - Charles de Lint
WELCOME TO BORDERTOWN Table of Contents



It Gets Better: video postcards to isolated queer kids from happy queer adults

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:12 PM PDT

The It Gets Better project is a series of video postcards from happy, well-adjusted GBLTG adults to isolated queer teens who think that they're they only "different" people in the world. No matter what your sexuality, these are damned heartwarming -- and "it gets better" is a great message for kids everywhere, queer, straight, or undecided.

SF Says: It Gets Better (via Making Light)



Abseiling into an active volcano

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:07 PM PDT

Mike sez, "Lava lakes are extremely rare, extremely beautiful and obviously extremely hot. One of the most spectacular is in the crater of Marum volcano on Vanuatu in the South Pacific. You'd either have to be extremely brave or extremely crazy to try abseiling down towards one..."

Abseiling Towards a Lava Lake - Extreme Video From Marum Volcano, Ambrym, Vanuatu!



Why carrion beetles shlep a heaving carpet of mites around on their backs

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 11:05 PM PDT

Here's a fascinating and squicky insight into the marvellous symbiosis between carrion beetles and the mites that live on them, courtesy of Greg Laden:

From the carrion beetle's perspective, there is a strong possibility that there are already fly larva (maggots) on the carcass eating it when it arrives to lay its eggs, or soon after. This situation is probably made worse by the fact that house flies are quick and seem to be able to travel long distances, while beetles are slower and travel less far than flies in a given period of time. The only way carrion beetles will ever be able to raise their young in this scenario is to do a better job of accessing or using the mouse carcass than the fly does, so any variation that arises in carrion beetles that facilitates this will be strongly selected for.

This is known as the life/lunch dichotomy. In the competition for the use of the meaty carcass of a dead mouse, if the fly loses out it gives up the equivalent of lunch ... there are still other opportunities, in this case, poop, for it's young to eat. The carrion beetle, however, may be giving up its life (or the life of its offspring, really) because mouse carcasses are very rare, so if the one carcass it manages to locate is eaten up by fly maggots, it's offspring will not survive.

This is where the mites come in.

The carrion beetle pays a huge cost carrying the mites around wherever it goes, because they are heavy and affect its ability to move and fly. But otherwise, the mites do nothing .... they just hang on for the ride, waiting for the beetle to locate a dead mouse. Then, when the beetle does located a dead mouse, the mites do not eat it. Rather, they eat the maggots, the fly eggs, and larva of anything that is not a carrion beetle. They clean the carcass of the potential competitors of the carrion beetle's larva.

Strange insect encounter: Carrion Beetle with Mites



Why don't we kill each other as much as we used to?

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:45 PM PDT

Proof of things you already suspected: Human society is not more violent today than in the past. Quite the opposite, in fact. (At least, as measured by statistics based on Western European historical records.) Vaughn Bell of MindHacks turned up this fascinating story from 2003, in which sociologists and historians debate what, exactly, caused the precipitous drop off in the European murder rate that happened over the course of the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Theories include "The Rise of Courtly Manners" and "The Establishment of the Modern State".

Ode to an intestinal worm

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:34 PM PDT

Did a little girl in the 19th century vomit up an 87-inch intestinal worm? Or, is funky doctor handwriting misleading everyone, and the worm was only a measly 8 1/2 inches long? This may well be the best debate ever.

Webcam brings Northern Lights to living rooms everywhere

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:28 PM PDT

auroramax_wallpaper.jpg

Photographs of the aurora borealis can't really convey what it's like to be sitting in the woods, staring at a black, perfectly normal sky and suddenly begin to see quivering green tracers slither across it. The photos are proof that we're not just all tripping balls up here in the northerly latitudes, but if what you really want is the experience—or something resembling it—the Canadian Space Agency can help.

Their AuroraMax Live project* turns a camera on the skies above Yellowknife, Northwest Territories and sends the resulting images direct to your portal on the Intertubes. Right now, I'm looking at it, and all I see is an inky, star-speckled night, ringed by a few trees. But, frankly, not seeing auroras on demand is part of the experience. If you want to improve your chances of catching them, try checking around midnight, Mountain Time, or you can read the aurora forecasts. (Live filming starts at 10:00 p.m., Mountain, and video from the previous night replays starting at 10:00 am.)

If you want to be a lousy cheater, there's also a sped up montage from the previous night that you can view on the AuroraMax Gallery page.

The webcam will be active for five years, centered around 2013, when the current 11-year cycle of sunspot activity is expected to reach it's peak.

Via Wired, and Submitterated by Jen

*Maybe this is my lack of sleep talking, but I find the loop of nighttime forest sounds that plays on the home page of this site really rather soothing. It's missing a loon, though.



Ecuador in chaos after apparent attempted military coup

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 07:51 PM PDT

In Ecuador, a state of emergency after police officers protesting plans to cut their benefits shut down airports and blocked roads. At least one person has been killed and six injured, when officers clashed with government supporters outside a hospital where the president was, in his words, "practically held captive." Al Jazeera reports that "In front of every police station there are tyres burning with smoke rising into the evening sky." (via Ned Sublette)

Espresso Splash Collar

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 04:02 PM PDT

espresso-collar1sm.jpg

A couple of years ago, I used a Dremel tool to grind off the twin spigots on my espresso maker's portafilter. (Here's how to make one.) The result is called a "naked portafilter" (also called a "bottomless portafilter" or "crotchless portafilter").

Why make a naked portafilter? Four reasons:

1. You can observe the changes in color of the liquid espresso as it comes out of the filter, which is useful for timing your shot.

2. The espresso looks beautiful as it comes out (see some photos here).

3. It will accept a "triple shot" filter basket.

4. It's a good way to learn how evenly you tamped your coffee grinds into the filter basket -- if you did a poor job, the espresso will come on in multiple streams.

I'm not a very good tamper, and often a tiny spray of espresso will squirt off to the side, hitting the counter, the machine, or me. It's a big mess. My friend Kent Barnes, also a naked portafilter enthusiast, suffered the same plight, but unlike me, he did something about it. He found a silicone cupcake liner that fits over the filter basket and cut a hole through it. Now the errant streams are reigned in, without losing the benefits of the bottomless portafilter.

espresso-collar2.jpg

Kent bought his silicone baking cups at Daiso (a Japanese "dollar" store chain), but any silicone cupcake liner with a top diameter of approximately 3-inches will do. You can trim off the top until you achieve the diameter needed to fit the filter basket.

Mark Frauenfelder
[Photos: Kent K. Barnes / kentkb]
Wilton Easy Flex Silicone 3-Inch Reusable Baking Cups, 12 count - $10
Available from Amazon
Manufactured by Wilton

Submit a tool! - Comment on this at Cool Tools.



1986 public access cable interview with Del Close, improv comedy "guru"

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 03:08 PM PDT

Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America sends this gem in, and explains:

Brian Stack is a friend of mine, and a writer on Conan (Conan fans would know him as one of the Slipnutz, or maybe as the Ghost Crooner, Artie Kendall). He's been writing for them for many years, but before that, he was in improviser in Chicago. When he was 19, he was an intern at a public access station, and he made this video report. The subject is Del Close, with whom Stack had just started his first class at the Improv Olympic. Close is known as the "guru" of improv — he's basically the guy who created modern improv comedy, which is, in turn, the source of all most all modern American comedy that doesn't come from standup. He was mentor to everyone from Bill Murray to Chris Farley to the Upright Citizens Brigade. The video is in black and white, because Brian accidentally set the camera to "monitor" mode, but it's a totally amazing time capsule and about 10 minutes of wisdom from the greatest guru of improvisation.
Video: Del Close, 1986. When you're done watching it, head on over to Boloney's for dinner!



IHOP vs. IHOP: International House of Pancakes sues International House of Prayer

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 03:09 PM PDT

The LA Weekly reports that The International House of Pancakes has filed a lawsuit against the International House of Prayer for trademark dilution and infringement. The Pancake purveyors have been using the initials since 1973. While their logos are different, their urls are perilously similar: IHOP dot-com belongs to the pancake people, and IHOP dot-org belongs to the religious group.

U.S. military pilots speak at The National Press Club: UFOs deactivated nukes

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 02:30 PM PDT


"Captain Salas graduated from the Air Force Academy and spent seven years in active duty from 1964 to 1971. He also held positions at Martin Marietta and Rockwell and spent 21 years at the FAA."

Caleb alerted me to the news that the "National Press Club hosted some retired military/FAA people who calmly stated that a UFO shut down their missile silo and they were told never to talk about it. Documents were declassified later. Other similar events turn out to be documented. The news was covered by Current's Intel Hub and The Telegraph UK story"

UPDATE: This following was emailed to me by a "long-time Boing Boing reader and current employee of the National Press Club" who wishes to remain anonymous:  

Just wanted to clarify a couple things about this UFO event you posted on:  

These guys just rented a room at the Press Club for their own purposes. Anyone can do this, and they frequently do -- everything from press conferences to bar mitzvahs to television shows to elaborate pranks by The Yes Men have been held here in recent months. The UFO guys just attach our name to their event in an effort to give themselves some credibility. The Disclosure Project (for instance) continues to call the event they held here in 2001 a "Press Club Event," which it was not.  

The Club's position on these things is related to its position on the First Amendment: Basically, that people can come here and say whatever they want, but the Club doesn't endorse (or condemn) them.  

Do with this info what you will... I just work here, and am not a spokesperson or anything, but wanted to at least give you this clarification. I will not discuss the fact that these "revelations" are nothing new... he was on Larry King a few years ago selling the same story.



The Photographer's Rights

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 12:10 PM PDT

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There is a reason I'm a landscape photographer; People drive me up a wall. My friend Ryan and I have a constant back-and-forth over how boring it is to photograph things that largely don't move vs. trying to capture that fleeting moment in street photography. This weekend Ryan gave me yet another reason to avoid people when carrying my camera -- as we've read on BB, street photographers are still being victimized and harassed. While many of us understand that photography is a right and only under certain circumstances can you be banned from taking a photo in public; surprisingly mall cops, petty bureaucrats and even our own police are constantly over-stepping boundaries and harassing photographers.

Ryan was harassed for using an antique camera in public. He blogged his story here. Someone thought he was taking upskirt photos from a long distance with a Twin Lens Reflex camera. Its pretty impossible. Shortly after sharing his story, Ryan flooded me with examples of other photographers being harassed in similar ways. Blake Andrews, a street shooting colleague of Ryan's, had a near identical experience (except it was children he was accused of inappropriately photographing.)

Anyhow, its wrong. Photographers have rights and if you love to take pictures you should know them. Bert Krages has prepared The Photographer's Rights page and offers a pdf to help you know what is ok to photograph (most everything,) what isn't, and what to do if someone wants to question you. The Photographer's Rights



They Live, Again

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 03:55 PM PDT

they-live-200x300.gif Softskull Press is launching a new series of books called Deep Focus, dedicated to taking some of today's wittiest writers and setting them loose on the cult film classics of the 70's and 80's.

So far, I've had the pleasure of reading galleys for the first two, Jonathan Lethem's deconstruction of John Carpenter's They Live, and Chris Sorrentino's homage to Death Wish. These are fun little books - little, meaning a hundred or so pages and in a tiny fits-in-your-back-pocket format suitable for reading anywhere at anytime. And they justify all the nights spent watching reruns of these films, never sure if we were allowed to like them as much as we do - even after we see through to their obvious faults. This book series considers such films "deliberate" B-movies.

I read Lethem's time-coded analysis of They Live on an airplane while I watched the film on my phone, for the perfect DIY mini-Criterion experience. Lethem is one of my favorite writers anyway, but experiencing him wax on about Nada and the ghouls was perhaps the highlight of my summer reading. Here he is on Shephard Fairey's original OBEY campaign, which began as a reaction to the "obey" signs revealed beneath ordinary advertisements when characters in the film wore "Hoffman glasses":

Fairey's interventions occupy the same uneasy middle ground as They Live itself: on the one hand, the termite arts of graffiti or of the deliberate B-Movie, marginal activities carrying a subversive potential past the sentries of high art. On the other, the gallery-ready postures of text-artists like Barbara Kruger and Jenny Holzer, or of the Cahiers table of "conscious" auteurs - Hitchcock being the supreme example - at which Carpenter may occasionally be granted a shakey seat. Too poisted and context-aware to be claimed as primitives, too crass and populist to be comfortably claimed for the high-art pantheon, Fairey and Carpenter both oscillate dismayingly in the void between.

Or, a bit later...

Kruger and Holzer's non-sequitor interventions briefly attained a gallant purity, but they'd always needed the gallery or museum context as a quarantine against recontamination. Their work degenerated anyway, refamiliarizing into po-mo moral rhetoric or reappropriated for fashion layouts. What makes Shepard Fairey's populist gesture insipid is is how self-evidently it awaited a product retrofit, a proceed-to-checkout button. When the OBEY t-shirt or CHANGE political campaign rolled out, no one, least of all the 'artworks' themselves, even hiccuped.



Mich Ass't. Attorney General cyberbullies gay student body president

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 02:31 PM PDT


Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell has become so fixated on a particular gay University of Michigan student that he runs a blog about the student called "Chris Armstrong Watch."

Roger Ebert writes:

Study Shirvell closely here [video abo. You may, as I do, see a prim, repressed, rigid fanatic. As Cooper pointedly asks, would you want this man representing you? Cooper refers to Shirvell representing a hypothetical gay person. I am straight, and I gotta tell you, I wouldn't even want to be on the same internet with him.
Michigan Assistant Attorney General Andrew Shirvell: A singularly peculiar Assistant Attorney General (Submitterated by Librarybio)



Football star's cereal has phone sex number on box

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 10:56 AM PDT

Cincinnati Bengals player Chad Ochocinco launched his own cereal earlier this month to much fanfare. But when a family dialed the 800 number printed on the box to reach the Feed The Children charity the athlete endorsed, they instead were greeted by a recording offering phone sex. Ooops. From WCPO.com:
 Albums I214 Hoboknj Ochocincos Tara Sand and her family, including her 9-year-old daughter, called 1-800-HELP-FTC on speakerphone.

"You do have to admit it is kind of funny. When we dialed it for the second time, I sat there and thought 'are you kidding me?' Nobody has found this yet?" said Sand.

Ochocinco helped launch the cereal on September 7. He autographed boxes for fans at the Kroger Store in Newport, Ky.

As of Thursday morning, the boxes were pulled from the shelves at Kroger grocery stores until the marketing company for the cereal can be reached and the misprint can be evaluated.

"Sex line misprint on Ochocinco's cereal" (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)



2013: Or, What to Do When the Apocalypse Doesn’t Arrive

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 10:01 AM PDT

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image from The Macho Response

What if you threw a cataclysm and nobody came? At EnlightenNext, Gary Lachman, founding bassist of Blondie and author of the excellent Turn Off Your Mind: The Mystic Sixties and the Dark Side of the Age of Aquarius and a new book Jung The Mystic, wrote a terrific essay about the history of millenarianism, apocalyptic anticipation, and Harmonic Convergers' wishful thinking. From Lachman's article, titled "2013: Or, What to Do When the Apocalypse Doesn't Arrive":

Growing up in the 1960s, through the media I was aware of the modern Brethren of the Free Spirit in places like Greenwich Village and Haight-Ashbury. I was also aware that something called the Age of Aquarius either was on its way or had already arrived (the jury is still out on this). Linked to this was the idea that the fabled lost continent of Atlantis-—which I read about in comic books and fantasy paperbacks—was due to surface sometime in 1969. Both were heralds of a coming golden age, when "peace will guide the planets and love will steer the stars." By the early seventies such anticipations had fizzled, but in 1974 they were briefly revived when comet Kohoutek sparked new interest in apocalyptic beliefs. A Christian group called the Children of God—who, incidentally, advocated "revolutionary lovemaking" (read: promiscuity)—distributed leaflets announcing doomsday for January of that year, which my friends and I read with interest. Predictably, Kohoutek fizzled as well. That same year, the science writers John Gribbin and Stephen Plagemann published The Jupiter Effect, a bestseller predicting the devastating results (earthquakes, tidal waves, etc.) of a curious alignment of the planets on one side of the sun. When the alignment took place and nothing happened, they wrote a second book, The Jupiter Effect Reconsidered, explaining what went wrong. Not surprisingly, this sequel didn't sell as well.

There were other millennial dates too. Remember the solar eclipse of 1999 and Y2K, the millennium bug? But the most significant millennial date so far in my lifetime surely was 1987, the year of the Harmonic Convergence—another planetary alignment—which was seen as the kickoff for the most anticipated apocalyptic event in recent years, the year 2012. For those unaware, proponents of 2012 argue that an ancient Mayan calendar—combined with permutations of the I Ching—predicts that tremendous changes will take place in that year and that, as one advocate expresses it, a "singularity," an event of unprecedented ontological character, will take place and, as the saying goes, transform life as we know it. Recalling Norman Cohn's criteria for millenarian belief, from everything I've heard about 2012, it fits the bill nicely.

"2013: Or, What to Do When the Apocalypse Doesn't Arrive" (Thanks, Greg Taylor!)



Mix Tape for Good Heads

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 03:38 PM PDT

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While mix tapes may no longer involve chromium dioxide passing over magnetic heads, there are still many heads who appreciate the music streams of others, and find them particularly useful when engaged in plant shamanics.

To this end, mixtape enthusiast and Arthur editor Jay Babcock has teamed up with recording engineer Bobby Tamkin to bring us Blackout, a fundraiser mix for the magazine with a "pay what thou wilt" link.

The tracks:
1. MOON DUO "Into the Trees" (from the Escape LP on Woodsist)
2. WHITE HILLS "Three Quarters" (from the White Hills LP on Thrill Jockey)
3. WHITE NOISE SOUND "Sunset" (from the White Noise Sound LP on Alive Naturalsound)
4. LORDS OF FALCONRY "Osiron" (from Lords of Falconry on Holy Mountain)
5. ENDLESS BOOGIE "Pack Your Bags" (from the Full House Head LP on No Quarter)
6. MASTERS OF REALITY "Johnny's Dream" (from the Pine/Cross'd Over LP)
7. MESSAGES "Tambura" (from the After Before LP on De Stijl)
8. ENUMCLAW "Harmonic Convergence" (from the Opening of the Dawn LP)

All available for preview at Arthurmag.



Aliens/ghosts in office windows

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 10:54 AM PDT

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Filed under pareidolia, this excellent photo taken by Esther Radican at her Texas office building. The bosses are watching, and condensing. "Focus on Texas: EEEEK!" (via Fortean Times)



Xeni speaking at Advertising Week in NYC today

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 08:55 AM PDT

New Yorkers! And those here for Advertising Week from parts beyond! I'll be speaking at the event at 4pm today, on a panel with folks from Quantcast, Pandora, and others.

An Alt Currency that even the IRS Could Love

Posted: 29 Sep 2010 03:35 PM PDT

How superfluid works from Nathan Solomon on Vimeo.


I've been researching alternative currency systems for the past decade or so, ever since I became convinced that a 21st Century economy simply can't be run on a 13th Century printing-press-era operating system. As most of us know, the centralized currency we use today is a legacy of the early Renaissance, when kings, threatened by the rise of a merchant middle class, made all peer-to-peer and local currencies illegal. Debt-based currencies helped monarchs centralize their power and the worth of their treasuries. And these currency systems worked particularly well as colonial empires expanded via their chartered corporations.

Nowadays, however, most of us have more value we wish to transact than there is cash out there to do it. (I personally blame the derivatives markets, which now are more predictive than derivative - their bets being placed before the so-called "real" markets have a chance to operate.) But whatever the cause, there are plenty of real people willing to work and exchange value; there's just not enough money available to do it.

I've been looking hard at many of the systems out there, from exchanges like LETS and TimeDollars to reputational currencies like Whuffie. The main obstacle - usually unacknowledged, but mostly just ignored - is the tax. And I think that's what sets Superfluid apart from the rest. They've got two sides - a "community" portal for people to do favors for one another in the way a LETS system might allow. And they've also got a commerce portal through which people can begin to sell merchandise or commercial services.

What makes Superfluid interesting for the Boing Boing community, I believe, is that its philosophy and methodology - as described in the video above - is so consonant with that of the programming community. It makes sense to me that a technology based in shared computing resources would be great for administrating the sharing of programming skills. And it also seems to me that the programming community is the more likely birthplace for a robust and legal p2p currency than the kinds of communities that have attempted to scale up their currencies in the past.

See what you think. I'll try to get the founders of Superfluid here to engage in the comments if people are interested.



Alternate zombie-novel dust jackets

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 07:51 AM PDT

Ben Tripp sez,
On October 26th, my first novel, Rise Again, comes out. It is about the zombie apocalypse, probably because I design theme parks for a living. I aimed high with the book, hoping to appeal not just to genre fans but general readers, too. So when Simon & Schuster chose a genuinely awful jacket design for the book, replete with shambling zombies and 'scary' font, I was wicked sad. A non-genre fan wouldn't touch the thing. It looks self-published. There was no fighting back -- jacket approval isn't in my contract, as was pointed out after my 400th objection.

"Two," said I, "can play at that game." So: on the official Rise Again website, happy mutants will find a set of free, downloadable alternate bad book covers to replace the original bad book cover. With these alternate covers, readers can enjoy the novel anywhere from church to classroom without fear of obloquy, if not violent death. So far, the publisher hasn't objected. Then again, this wasn't in the contract, either.

Dust Jackets - Alternate Book Covers | Free Download | Rise Again, a zombie novel by Ben Tripp

Rise Again on Amazon

(Thanks, Ben!)



Trying not to wake your partner

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 09:09 AM PDT

Enjoy this amusing soft drink ad from England.



My quest for the ultimate travel coffee setup

Posted: 30 Sep 2010 07:47 AM PDT

Hotel set up

I am a coffee snob. I offer no apologies for this. I really appreciate good coffee, and have zero tolerance for crappy coffee.

I also travel a lot. So when when traveling to places that don't tend to have great coffee at the ready, I've learned that bringing your own brewing setup is mandatory. Combine that with some strong technomadic leanings and the search for that ultimate travel coffee setup can become an obsession.

A recent trip to Japan, a place where designers and engineers are even more detail-focused than I am, provided an opportunity to refine my toolkit. I thought I'd share those improvements with you here, in case you're looking to build your own kit for on-the-go-get-up-and-go.

First, two details. When given the opportunity, I tend to drink espresso. Truly great espresso requires the sort of serious gear I have no intention of dragging around the globe with me. (yes I know about the Aeropress, I'm just not a big fan) So when traveling, I default to drip coffee and focus on the details to make each cup better than the last. Also, I want to note that the setup I've been using is bad ass and made many cups that shocked me with their sheer deliciousness. There's nothing wrong with the stuff I had, and you could just copy my old set up and never be disappointed. But I'm obsessed: I believe that all things, particularly coffee, can always be tweaked and improved.


Let's get the non-gear out of the way first, because it doesn't matter what kind of equipment you have if your raw materials are crap. Water and beans. I always buy a bottle of spring water to use as the base because ceiling cat only knows what weird shit is floating around in hotel plumbing that could imbue your cup o' joe with weird flavors. Also, one of the last things I do before leaving town is buy a bag of high quality beans that were roasted as recently as possible. Keep in mind that coffee tastes the best when the beans were roasted between 3-10 days prior. For this particular trip I've been enjoying Los Inmortales, El Salvador: Finca Bosque Lya and Itzamna, Guatemala: La Maravilla both roasted up by the folks at Intelligentsia in Los Angeles.

Intelligentsia beans & Hario Filters

Now that we've gotten that out of the way, let's talk grinders. If you know coffee, you know the single most important piece of prep equipment is the grinder. No matter how good your beans are, screw up the grind and there is nothing you can do to save it. You can easily spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a good home grinder, but in addition to being pricey those are generally too large for carry-on luggage.

Oh, what's that you say? You have a really small blade grinder that you got at Target?


GTFO.

You need a burr grinder if you actually want your coffee to taste good. Because different countries have different power sources that become annoying to worry about, a hand grinder is your best bet. For most of this year I've been using the Hario Skerton which is a very nice grinder for what it is, though it does have some problems. The bottom burr "floats," which means that especially when grinding at a coarser setting (like you'd do for drip coffee) the consistency is really bad. An inconsistent grind means the finer bits are over extracted and the larger ones under extracted which results in an inferior cup of coffee.

Luckily there are other options. Unluckily, they are super hard to get a hold of.

Legend has it that Hario makes an even smaller hand grinder that addresses the floating burr problem. I'd never seen on of these in person as they are almost impossible to find in the United States. My friend Tonx revealed to me that he had one locked up in some in some crazy coffee fortress in mid-city Los Angeles and after hours of jedi-mind-tricking I convinced him to let me borrow it for this trip to try it out. And then, at the eleventh hour, as if fate itself wanted to kick me square in the beans, it pops up on Amazon.

I spent a week in Singapore with the Mini Mill Slim and it's noticeably better than it's larger brother. I fell in love and swore to myself that since I was also going to Japan (where Hario is based) I'd go right to the source and buy one while I was there. As soon as I got on the ground there I went hunting for one, but I found something even more amazing.

Porlex Hand Grinder and Hario Mini Mill

Again, the Hario Mini Mill is awesome. Super awesome. But without question the Porlex hand grinder is even super awesomer. When I saw this on the shelf at Tokyu Hands I didn't know what it was but instantly had an object design orgasm. Upon further inspection I found that reaction to be justified. The attention to detail on this is unstoppable. Every piece fits just perfectly which means when assembled it feels solid (the Harios tend to feel wobbly). Functionally, it's a significant improvement: the ceramic burrs are sharper and the adjustments more precise. The Hario Mini Mill produced grinds that were far more consistent than the Skerton, but still kind of variable. The grinds that come from the Porlex are extremely consistent; I'd say even better than many electric grinders in the $100 range. These grinds are nice. No question about it.

Porlex vs Hario burr parts

Hario Mini Mill vs Porlex grinds

The Porlex is slightly taller than the Mini Mill Slim, but it's more narrow and just as easy to pack. I'm pretty excited about that upgrade. If you want one, let me know before I leave Japan and I'll pick you up one, but I gotta warn you my service fee is obscene.

Now that we have freshly-ground beans, we gotta brew 'em. Earlier this year I was carrying around the Clever Coffee Maker, an interesting design that blends pour-over with immersion (think French Press) brewing techniques. It's really nice, but not terribly small. Also, I found myself wanting more control over the brewing process. I switched to a Hario V60 which is a pure pour-over device. Once you figure out its nuances, this thing makes a damn good cup of coffee. I feel like I now have the hang of it, and became very satisfied with the results I was getting every day from it— maybe this is as good as it gets, I thought.


That is... until I saw the "crystal" (plastic) version. I'd been using the ceramic one: nice, but heavy. For traveling around, if I can shave off a few onces every once and a while I'm pretty happy. These were also cheap as hell so I picked up the 1 and 2 cup sizes for when I'm traveling solo or with the fam.

Hario V60-01 and Mini Mill

V60-02 Crystal, V60-01 porcelain, V60-01 Crystal

While these improvements range from awesome to nice, this next one is firmly in the land of dreams come true. A few months ago I publicly lamented the lack of a good travel sized drip kettle. If you are unfamiliar with drip kettles, they have a long, narrow spout which allows you to control the speed and flow of the water you are pouring to make sure you wet the grounds in the proper way, and to repeat that easily each time. Yes I know it's super nerdy, but you're reading a super nerdy blog post about super nerdy coffee gadget obsessions. Anyway, the kettles I knew about were large and not suitcase-friendly.


And then I spotted this...

Kalita kettle

Yeah. Whoah.


I can divide my life into the time before and after I knew that this Kalita slow pour kettle existed. My internal debate about purchasing it lasted seconds. It's about half the size of the smallest kettle I've seen and it looks beautiful.


I tried it out the second I got back to the hotel room and it was everything I hoped it would be. It's not as narrow as the sketch I'd used as a wishlist months prior, but it's damn close and seriously does the trick. I'm definitely psyched about this one.

One thing I didn't have to upgrade is my scale. For repeatability and general super-nerdness I've been measuring the beans and water I use by weight rather than volume for quite some time. If you want to get really precise it's really your only option. And the Soehnle Page digital scale is a super small and lightweight way to do that. This thing is 8"x5" and takes up almost no room in my luggage. And it's great for showing off to friends when you make them coffee on the road.

Soehnle Kitchen Scale

The downside to finding all this awesome stuff is now I have double the load to bring back with me. Though I'll have some pretty happy friends when I get home and start dishing out the hand-me-downs.


I am a minimalist: I have no reason to keep the old stuff around. Awesome though it may all be, I only need one complete setup that works for me. No point in having items that duplicate functions sitting around, particularly when I know people who could benefit from putting those extra items to regular use.


In the end, my new setup is lighter, smaller, and produces better results.


Not bad, if you ask me.

Full set up (plust blackberry for scale)



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