The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- Darth Vader takes the Empire mini-golfing
- Johnny Depp comes to school to help 9-year-old mutiny against teachers
- Meet the US copyright lawyers planning a denial-of-service attack on the US courts
- Why using movie clips in a political ad exposing paid actors masquerading as steelworkers is fair use
- Luxury underground community: bomb-shelter meets gate-guarded condo
- More mean monkeys
- Law journal paper on human/robot sex
- Magnetic Doorstop
- Uffie's video for "Difficult"
- High Expectations Asian Father
- "Cutter" by Aspirins features colorful toys
- Zoom for audio enables you to hear a single conversation in huge crowd
- Christine O'Donnell: "I'm You" ad fixed
- Charlie the smoking chimp, RIP
- Lou Dobbs douchebag level upgraded from "racist blowhard" to "totally hypocritical racist blowhard"
- Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion hits the road
- Roman helmet sold for $3.6 million
- Die Antwoord: "Evil Boy" lyrics in Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, and Prawn
- A MaybeLogic Academy Course
- What the ladies are doing with their pubic hair these days: A scientific study
- A Free Comic, Courtesy Dan Goldman and Tor Books
- Most autism treatments haven't been adequately studied
- High-tech thrift-store book-picking with a networked barcode scanner
- Public presentation on Cassini mission in Pasadena tonight!
- Man sticks head in decorative noose, ruins it for everybody
- Grant Morrison on the Big Screen
- Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth: return to the steampunk WWI of Leviathan
| Darth Vader takes the Empire mini-golfing Posted: 08 Oct 2010 01:41 AM PDT  Franco Brambilla's "Imperial Minigolf Final Exam" is available as a giclee print, signed and numbered. It's a damned surprising look at the way the Empire trains its elite troops, I'll say that much. Imperial Minigolf Final Exam (via Super Punch)
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| Johnny Depp comes to school to help 9-year-old mutiny against teachers Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:20 PM PDT Johnny Depp staged a cute publicity stunt yesterday, showing up at a south London school where a 9-year-old student had sent him a letter asking for help in staging a mutiny against her teachers: He said nine-year-old Beatrice had written to Captain Jack, asking him to lead a mutiny against her teachers.Pirate Johnny Depp makes surprise school visit
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| Meet the US copyright lawyers planning a denial-of-service attack on the US courts Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:16 PM PDT Ars Technica's Nate Anderson follows up on his excellent work analyzing the practices of ACS:Law, the UK law firm that uses "legal blackmail" (as the House of Lords termed it) to shake down accused copyright infringers on behalf of the porn industry; now Nate gives us a rundown of ACS:Law's US equivalents -- the handful of lawyers who are set to send legal threats to tens of thousands of accused downloaders this year, offering them a "settlement" if they simply cough up thousands of dollars rather than asking a court to rule on the evidence. So far this year, there have been more than 24,000 lawsuits filed against "John Doe" downloaders in order to get names and addresses for these shakedown letters -- that's not a business model, it's a denial of service attack on the judicial branch. US anti-P2P law firms sue more in 2010 than RIAA ever did
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2010 11:09 PM PDT Republican Ohio Congressman John Kasich released a video showing an actor dressed as a steelworker, pretending to be an average local citizen who was upset with Democrat Governor Ted Strickland's performance. The Ohio Democratic Party countered by putting up a YouTube video showing that the "steelworker" was actually a paid actor called Chip Redden, illustrating the claim with clips from Redden's career. But Arginate Studios, LLC, one of the production companies responsible for one of the Redden film clips, objected to the use of the clip, and had the video removed from YouTube with a copyright claim. As the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kurt Opsahl explains, As an initial matter, the use is extremely transformative (adding new meaning and message). The original video by Arginate is an entry in a film festival's "Road Movie" genre, featuring Redden as Sam Carpenter, a man who provides some special tickets to two women in a bar. The political video's use, on the other hand, was to provide evidence that the supposed steelworker was actually a paid actor. The use could hardly be more transformative. As the Supreme Court explained, transformative works "lie at the heart of the fair use doctrine's guarantee of breathing space within the confines of copyright."Copyright Abuse in Ohio Governor Election
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| Luxury underground community: bomb-shelter meets gate-guarded condo Posted: 07 Oct 2010 11:10 PM PDT Terra Vivos (which Mark wrote about in May) is a 135-person bomb shelter in the Mojave, a "Luxury Underground Community" that is the first of several to be installed in driving distance of major cities. I always wonder if the people who decide to secede from their neighbors' society at the first sign of disaster (on the ground that they can't trust their neighbors) ever think that, just maybe, the "bug-out" mentality will do more to harm us than any disaster could? Every disaster I've been in or near has been primarily characterized by people helping each other, doing their best to avoid the Mall Ninjas who are convinced that Mad Max is around the corner. See, for example, the people selflessly rescuing their neighbors after Katrina, while shoot-to-kill Blackwater roughnecks herded them into a sports stadium where there was insufficient food, drink, and sanitation. The World's First Everything-Proof Underground Luxury Community (via Neatorama)
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2010 01:22 PM PDT |
| Law journal paper on human/robot sex Posted: 07 Oct 2010 01:02 PM PDT As our Institute for the Future project on the "future of robotics" continues, my colleague Jake Dunagan follows-up yesterday's "epic robot tattoo" reference with another helpful citation: "Blurring the love lines: The legal implications of intimacy with machines," an academic paper by published last year in the journal Computer Law & Security Review. From the abstract (image from this previous BB post): "Blurring the love lines: The legal implications of intimacy with machines"
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2010 12:06 PM PDT  I frequently have windows open in the house and have for years put up with doors slamming closed when the wind catches them. I have finally found a solution in the form of these magnetic door catches. They work excellently and I have installed them on most doors throughout the house. I have used them for several years and always show them off to the house guests. I can now leave windows open without a door slamming shut. One minor drawback is that they are a little loud when the magnet makes contact with the catch. Finally, care should be taken when installing to make sure the two parts align well otherwise the magnetic hold will be weaker. -- Don Allen Magnetic Doorstop with Catch $9 Available from Amazon Comment on this at Cool Tools. Submit a tool.
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2010 03:20 PM PDT I love Uffie's video for "Difficult," from the album Sex Dreams and Denim Jeans. Did I see Johnny, Joey, Dee Dee, and Clem Burke? (Via The Daily Wh.at)
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| High Expectations Asian Father Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:45 AM PDT  Princess Christy and Viet Dac Biet run a very funny, "shit my dad says" kind of blog called High Expectations Asian Father, "the image macro dedicated to the bitchiest parents in the world. Too bad we love them."
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| "Cutter" by Aspirins features colorful toys Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:35 AM PDT "Cutter" by Aspirins was directed by Mr. Harrison and features many colorful toys. (Via Doobybrain)
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| Zoom for audio enables you to hear a single conversation in huge crowd Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:26 AM PDT Two physicists developed a new technology called AudioScope that apparently enables you to zoom in on sounds in huge, loud places like sports arenas or lecture halls. Physicists Morgan Kjølerbakken and Vibeke Jahr, formerly of the University of Oslo, were were experimenting with sonar when they hit upon the idea for the AudioScope, which is based on a circular array of 300 microphones and a video camera. They've now launched a company, Squarehead, to commercialize the system. From New Scientist: The AudioScope software then calculates the time it would take for sound emanating from that point to reach each microphone in the circular array, and digitally corrects each audio feed to synchronise them with that spot. "If we correct the audio arriving at three microphones then we have a signal that is three times as strong," says Kjølerbakken. Doing the same thing with 300 microphones can make a single conversation audible even in a stadium full of sports fans."Audio zoom picks out lone voice in the crowd" (via @chris_carter_)
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| Christine O'Donnell: "I'm You" ad fixed Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:16 AM PDT |
| Charlie the smoking chimp, RIP Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:13 AM PDT Chimp Charlie has died. As I posted in 2005, the 52-year-old chimpanzee became "famous" after picking up smoking thanks to jerks who tossed him lit cigarettes. Apparently though, Charlie died of old age. From the BBC: "Chimp Charlie dies at 52 despite smoking habit"
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| Lou Dobbs douchebag level upgraded from "racist blowhard" to "totally hypocritical racist blowhard" Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:17 AM PDT The Nation reports that former CNN anchor Lou Dobbs, who railed daily on television against evil illegal immigrants from Latin America and their evil employers, was apparently an exploiter of undocumented laborers from from Guatemala and Mexico. $8/hr, sin papeles y sin derechos.   |
| Bucky Fuller's Dymaxion hits the road Posted: 07 Oct 2010 10:16 AM PDT  In 1933, Buckminster Fuller designed the Dymaxion car, a concept vehicle that could hold 11 passengers and had a fuel efficiency of 30+ miles per gallon. Three prototypes were built, but the only survivor is in the National Automobile Museum in Reno, Nevada. Recently though, renowned UK architect Norman Foster, one of Fuller's colleagues late in his life, commissioned construction of his own Dymaxion car. Right now, it's on exhibition at the Bucky Fuller & Spaceship Earth exhibition in Madrin, Spain. From The Guardian: I watched Foster's Dymaxion No 4 being made in East Sussex, at racing car restorers Crosthwaite & Gardiner. Foster was introduced to this haven of automotive engineering by David Nelson, one of his partners and the co-designer of the elegant McLaren Technology Centre in Woking. It was a marriage made in heaven. "As a child," says Foster, ""I lived in a fantasy world inhabited by these cars and their legendary drivers: Bernd Rosemeyer in the rear-engined Auto Union and Rudolf Caracciola in the Mercedes-Benz, racing at Nurburgring, Tripoli and Monaco.""Norman Foster's back-to-front car" (via Submitterator, thanks kentkb!)
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| Roman helmet sold for $3.6 million Posted: 07 Oct 2010 09:40 AM PDT  This Roman helmet, dating to the 1st or 2nd century AD, sold at auction today for $3.6 million. I hope a biker bought it! From CNN: The helmet is made of two sections: the tall pointed helmet and the face mask. The latter has openwork eyes, which would have allowed the wearer to see during the cavalry sports events -- known as hippika gymnasia -- when it would have been used."Ancient Roman helmet sells for 10 times estimated amount"
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| Die Antwoord: "Evil Boy" lyrics in Xhosa, English, Afrikaans, and Prawn Posted: 07 Oct 2010 01:02 PM PDT By request of Boing Boing readers, after an epic thread dissecting the meaning of the "Evil Boy" video released yesterday (do read that first), I've asked the band to provide us with lyrics for the new single and more info about the video. As you'll see, some portions are in Xhosa, some in Afrikaans, some in English. I believe some portions are also in Prawn. Bonus: a new ad-free embed is now above (direct link here). The teenage Xhosa guest-emcee's name is Wanga.
EVERYBODY GO HO! LIKE A THUNDERCAT
MAMELAPA UMNQUNDUWAKHO! (Listen here, you fucking asshole)
YO-LANDI VI$$ER SO FANCY LIKE THIS DOPE ASS BEAT [HOOK] I WENT FROM FOKOL TO SO FOKKEN HOT RIGHT NOW I'LL PUT YOU IN YOUR PLACE (nothing)
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| Posted: 07 Oct 2010 09:41 AM PDT  Robert Anton Wilson and his crew set up an online academy for him to teach James Joyce and other subjects to those of us who thrived off his learning and insights. Before he died, he began to invite others to teach courses through the Maybe Logic Academy, and the site has lived on. I was honored to be asked to teach a course based on my new book. It goes for ten weeks, and begins October 11. I'll be donating my proceeds to archive.org. Here's the pitch. Ten weeks of study and dialogue, ten commands for a digital age. We continue to accept new technologies into our lives with little or no understanding of how these devices work and work on us. We do not know how to program our computers, nor do we care. We spend much more time and energy trying to figure out how to use them to program one another, instead. And this is a potentially grave mistake. Just as the invention of text utterly transformed human society, disconnecting us from much of what we held sacred, our migration to the digital realm will also require a new template for maintaining our humanity. In this course, Rushkoff shares the biases of digital media, and what that means for how we should use them. The course will be organized along the ten main biases of digital media - time, distance, scale, choice, complexity, identity, social, fact, sharing, and purpose - exploring how digital media is tilted towards one or the other end of each spectrum. We will then discuss how to maintain agency in the face of each of these biases.
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| What the ladies are doing with their pubic hair these days: A scientific study Posted: 07 Oct 2010 09:42 AM PDT  The Journal of Sexual Medicine recently published the results of a large Internet survey aimed at finding out how American women wear their pubic hair, and whether choice of down-there hair style has any correlation to other factors, like sexual orientation or enjoyment of sex. Couple of interesting things this survey turned up: •Most of us aren't getting rid of it completely. •The ladies who do take it all off report a higher level of positive genital self-image than those who don't. That's pretty interesting, since, in some circles, the full monty is kind of regarded as antithetical to liking your vulva—something young women only do because porn-addicted young men have been trained to expect it. This data could be evidence to counter that perception. But, on the other hand, it might not. The trouble with surveys is that we don't necessarily know what's going on behind the answers. Because a bare hoo-ha is also associated with younger women, it might just mean that younger generations have avoided some of the genitals-are-nasty cultural baggage of their elders. The data could also mean that these women really don't like their bodies with hair and, thus, have come to associate Brazilian waxes with a more positive self-image. And, of course, survey results are subjective. One woman's "I really super dig my vulva!" can be equal to another woman's, "Yeah, I'm pretty happy with it." Maybe younger women are just more enthusiastic. So, yeah, like most social behavior surveys, this brings up more questions than it really answers for me. But, still, very interesting! Thanks for Submitterating it, verde! Image: Some rights reserved by VolaVale
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| A Free Comic, Courtesy Dan Goldman and Tor Books Posted: 06 Oct 2010 10:42 AM PDT  Dan Goldman, who hit the comics scene running with a debut graphic novel hit Shooting Wars, has blossomed into one of the industry's most innovative artists and self-publishers. Somehow, he got Tor Books to pay him for the work, and then release the entirety of his new graphic novel, Red Light Properties, on their website for free to all. If this is where publishing is going, count me in. It's a fine and fun connected series of horror stories that utilize both traditional panels and 3D architectural rendering. While the interface might still benefit from some additional iterations, it does put control over the timing of the reading experience in the user's hands - something print comics do naturally, but digital ones have been slow to recreate or improve upon. Relocated from New York to Brazil where he wrote and drew this series, Goldman has also had the time and headspace to work out a narrative that functions on more than a few levels at once. This book represents an emerging comics talent coming into full possession of his storytelling powers. I'm using the framework of ghost stories set in a sunny climate and a depressed economy to speak about the membrane between the world of the living and the dead, the memories of places after we've gone, and the roots of family during difficult times. The firm's owners, Jude Tobin and his soon-to-be-ex-wife Cecilia, struggle to keep their own mortgage paid, their electricity on and their young son provided for while the remains of the real estate market smolders around them. And while the company's exorcisms rely on Jude's frequent intake of 'entheogenic substances' to enter the spirit realm to deal with the dead, it's that same hallucinogen intake that's pushing him further away from his marriage, his kid, society at large... and the world of the living.
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| Most autism treatments haven't been adequately studied Posted: 07 Oct 2010 08:28 AM PDT  Scientific American has a story up today that's particularly interesting in light of yesterday's link to the Wired interview with autism activist and presidential appointee Ari Ne'eman. Sci Am offers up the results of a review that grades autism treatments—not on how effective or safe the treatments are, but on whether those treatments have received anything close to adequate research. In other words, are claims about the treatment based in fact, or in speculation. Perhaps unsurprisingly, most of the treatments don't have quality data backing them up. In fact, of 16 treatments, only one got an "A" grade—meaning that it's been tested in a number of randomized, controlled trials, and that data from multiple labs has been compared in meta-analyses. Ironically (though, again, perhaps unsurprisingly), what all that quality research found was that the treatment in question, a gastrointestinal hormone called secretin, has no benefit to people with autism. Another seven treatments received the lowest grade—"C"—meaning that they have nothing backing them up beyond individual case studies, anecdotes and unsupported theory. Anything can be said about these treatments, but they've not been seriously studied in any reliable way. Scientific American—Alternative Biomedical Treatments for Autism: How Good is the Evidence? Also worth reading: Related piece on what happens when desperation drives parents to try under- and un-studied treatments on their autistic children Image: Some rights reserved by Pink Sherbet Photography
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| High-tech thrift-store book-picking with a networked barcode scanner Posted: 07 Oct 2010 08:15 AM PDT  Slate has an article, "Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman," in which a thrift-store book-picker describes his sure-fire scheme for picking out good books for online resale at the local thrift (he uses a barcode scanner to figure out whether the book is priced low enough to be profitable on Amazon). Only one in thirty books he checks is worth buying, and he lists about 1,000 books at a time on Amazon. He has to race to out-scan other people in the same line of work when he's out picking, and he'll accept potential profits as low as one dollar. He ignores old books -- no barcode means no scanning means no instant, Amazon Marketplace valuation -- even though there are probably large sums to be had there. As it is, he thinks you can make $1000 a week (though he works up to 80 hours a week at this). I make a living buying and selling used books. I browse the racks of thrift stores and library book sales using an electronic bar-code scanner. I push the button, a red laser hops about, and an LCD screen lights up with the resale values. It feels like being God in his own tiny recreational casino; my judgments are sure and simple, and I always win because I have foreknowledge of all bad bets. The software I use tells me the going price, on Amazon Marketplace, of the title I just scanned, along with the all-important sales rank, so I know the book's prospects immediately. I turn a profit every time. Confessions of a Used-Book Salesman (Thanks, JeffinMontreal, via Submitterator!) (Image: Ted's Used Books, Santa Barbara, CA, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from brewbooks's photostream)
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| Public presentation on Cassini mission in Pasadena tonight! Posted: 07 Oct 2010 07:53 AM PDT The very awesome Carolyn Porco—leader of NASA's Cassini satellite imaging team and science adviser to J. J. Abrams' Star Trek movie—is celebrating her win of the 2010 Carl Sagan Medal for Excellence in Communication of Science to the Public with a multimedia tour of Saturn, presented tonight in Pasadena, CA. Tickets are $10. Everyone is welcome. (And I am horribly jealous of all attendees.)   |
| Man sticks head in decorative noose, ruins it for everybody Posted: 07 Oct 2010 07:35 AM PDT The Boot Hill Museum in Dodge City, Kansas, has decided to take down the collection of nooses that decorate its ceiling rafters after a tourist stuck his head in one for a photo op and ended up passing out. (Via Cort Sims)   |
| Grant Morrison on the Big Screen Posted: 07 Oct 2010 09:03 AM PDT  The best part about watching documentaries in a movie theater is who you get to see them with. Docs, especially about esoteric subjects, bring together the greatest and weirdest people - people who should know each other, anyway. I mean, remember the people you met at that Theremin documentary? Or at anything about Tesla? My guess is that the following move theater screenings of the new Grant Morrison documentary DVD, Talking with Gods, will be nights to remember. Morrison is considerably weirder than the vast majority of his comics readers probably know - and yes, even weirder than most of the minority know. And filmmaker Patrick Meaney (who interviewed me for the film, too) has just the temperament to engage with a multi-dimensional entity like Morrison. TALKING WITH GODS examines Morrison's 30-year career and the real-life events that inspired his stories. Featuring extensive interviews with Morrison himself, the film delves into his early days growing up in Scotland, the start of his career in comics, the crazy years of the '90s as his life and his comics became enmeshed, and his recent attempts to turn social darkness and personal troubles into compelling comics. The film also gives insight into his creative process, including a look into his vaunted idea notebooks. Complementing Morrison's own words are interviews with many of his collaborators and colleagues, including Frank Quitely, Warren Ellis, Geoff Johns, Phil Jimenez, Mark Waid, Cameron Stewart, Douglas Rushkoff, Frazer Irving, Jill Thompson, Dan DiDio, and more.Morrison is a storyteller, chaos magician, and kung fu practitioner - but most of all he is a True Believer. As a true unbeliever, I don't get along with most true believers. But Grant is an exception, and when the things a true believer is believing in involve machine elves and Superman, I find it easier to accept the possibility of their existence. If anyone is having conversations with the gods, I'd think Morrison is one of the few who could emerge from the encounter still able to say what happened. Or to speak at all. Oh - the screenings: San Francisco - October 8th through October 13th at the Roxie NYC - October 9th at Cinema Village (scroll down) with Director / Producer Q&A Philadelphia - October 15th at the Johnsville Centrifuge with Director / Producer Q&A Boston - October 17th at the Magic Room with Director / Producer Q&A LA - October 21st at Meltdown Comics with Director / Producer / Special Guest Q&A
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| Scott Westerfeld's Behemoth: return to the steampunk WWI of Leviathan Posted: 04 Oct 2010 02:06 AM PDT  Scott Westerfeld's steampunk young adult series, begun with last year's Leviathan, continues now in the newly released Behemoth, a worthy sequel to one of the most fun, subversive and exciting kids' series around. In Leviathan, we were introduced to a world on the brink of World War One, with an alternate history twist: the allied powers are all "Darwinists," living in societies where Charles Darwin's theories have given birth to a menagerie of engineered lifeforms, from blimp-sized flying war whales to the tiny flechette bats who eat sharp, plane-wrecking steel missiles and crap them on command at enemy airscraft; on the other side are the "Clankers," who use German precision engineering to create a range of terrifying steam-driven mecha and war-machines. Now, in Behemoth, the two powers fight for primacy in the strategically vital Istanbul, deploying spies, bioweapons, towering iron golems, chemical bombs (parcels of cayenne pepper, flung with deadly accuracy into the mechas' cockpits), and all manner of materiel. And at the center of the fight remain Alek, the secret heir to the Austro-Hungarian empire, and Deryn, a young girl posing as a boy and working as a midshipman on a great, living British flying ship. Torn apart and scattered to their fortunes in the streets of Istanbul, they ally themselves with anarchist, inter-ethnic revolutionaries who have co-opted the city's ghetto-guarding mecha and plan to depose the sultan, who has become a puppet of the occupying clanker forces. Never sure of whom to trust -- never even really sure of one another -- Alek and Deryn find frustrated romance, heroism, and challenges that tax their ingenuity and resilience to the brink in this page-turning potboiler. As with other Westerfeld books -- the Uglies series, So Yesterday, Peeps, etc -- Behemoth can be read as a straight-ahead adventure yarn, or it can serve as a jumping-off point for a series of fruitful discussions and investigations into evolutionary theory, history, poleconomy, comparative religion, military tactics, gender, and bioethics. And of course, the fact that it's marketed as "young adult" fiction doesn't make it any less enjoyable for us grown-ups. Highly recommended (natch!).
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West Virginia's federal court doesn't see many copyright cases. In fact, the new P2P lawsuits appear to be the first copyright cases in West Virginia since 2008, when the recording industry brought a few cases against individuals in the state. 
In this paper, I explore an area of emerging science, android science, and attempt to start a dialogue about possible future legal implications of fully conscious robots, referred to in this essay as humanoids. While the world currently has millions of robots doing industrial, commercial, and household tasks, I focus specifically on the legal challenges of human sexual interaction with future humanoids, albeit notional technology at this point in time. While this humanoid is a giant leap forward technologically, if a self-aware, super-intelligent, thinking, feeling humanoid is developed, the legal system will be hard pressed to distinguish this creature legally from human actors on grounds not stemming from a religious or moral prejudice. I consider whether human–humanoid sexual interactions should be regulated, the possible rights that might devolve to humanoids, and, finally, possible cost and benefit implications to humans in providing protections to humanoids. The objective is to discuss how the legal framework might appear if humans are not the only legal actors.
For years, zookeepers had been trying to get the chimp to kick the habit, and they discouraged visitors from giving him cigarettes. 
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