The Latest from Boing Boing

Calgary voter uses clips to create a three-candidate mayoral debate
Ceramic science jewelry for skeptics
Parody of cats-in-IKEA video - funny!
Wonderful scans from a 1962 book of tech predictions for1975
Rudy Rucker remembers Benoit Mandelbrot
Benoit Mandelbrot, RIP
Verminous Dickens cake banned from Melbourne cake show
Obscure Muppets: The Quiz

Calgary voter uses clips to create a three-candidate mayoral debate

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:31 PM PDT

Gordonmcdowell sez, "Calgary's municipal election is seeing intense citizen engagement, with advance polls attended an increase of 150% over 2007. The latest poll (before Monday's election) shows 3 top mayoral candidates neck-and-neck-and-neck. The candidate with the most name recognition refused to participate in a 3 candidate debate. So such a 3 candidate debate was crafted from the 6 debates captured and released into the Creative Commons. (Note the remix is not CC due to some fair use snippets from non-CC sources.)."

Calgary Mayoral 3 Candidate Debate (Thanks, gordonmcdowell, via Submitterator)

Ceramic science jewelry for skeptics

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:26 PM PDT

Etsy seller Surly-Ramics makes science- and geek-themed ceramic jewelry. I bought a bunch of these as gifts yesterday at the Amazing Meeting in London, where Surly had a table. I'd have bought more, but I ran out of cash!

Surly-Ramics

Parody of cats-in-IKEA video - funny!

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:18 PM PDT

Internet funnyperson Barry Pilling recorded his own rude and funny narration for IKEA's vanity mini-documentary on the making of their "Cats in an IKEA store advert."

IKEA HERDING CATS PARODY (Thanks, Alice!)

Wonderful scans from a 1962 book of tech predictions for1975

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:16 PM PDT

Here's Meat Puppets drummer Derrick Bostrom's scans from Arnold B. Barach's 1962 book, 1975 and the Changes to Come. In addition to the usual hopes for space colonies and some prescient looks at things like pacemakers, there's also a healthy dose of wonderfully goofy, super-modernist TV designs and the ever-popular Kitchen of the Future (shown here).

1975 And The Changes To Come (via Paleofuture)

Rudy Rucker remembers Benoit Mandelbrot

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 11:06 PM PDT

Eileen Gunn sez, "The incomparable Rudy Rucker describes his visit to one of the greatest mathematicians of our time. Surreal, philosophic, mathematical."

Mandelbrot is waiting for me at the end of his driveway, he's worried I might not find the house as the address on the curb is covered by snow. A white-haired balding man, stocky, somewhat diffident, he sees me, I wave, he doesn't wave back, not sure yet I'm the one he's waiting for, when I'm closer he says "Are you Rudy Rucker?" We introduce ourselves, shake hands, I tell him I'm thrilled to meet him. In the house his wife Adèle greets us, Mandelbrot disappears to take a pee I suppose, then we sit in a cold room with some armchairs. They don't seem to really heat their house. He sits on an odd modern chair with parts of it missing, a collection of black corduroy hotdogs. He wears a jacket, a vest, a shirt, trousers with a paperclip attached to the fly to make it easier to pull up and down, I guess he's 75. Rather rotund and, yes, a bit like the Mandelbrot set in his roundness and with the fuzz of hairs on his pate.
He starts talking almost right away, an incredibly dense and rich flow of information, a torrent. Fractal of course, as human conversation usually is, but of a higher than usual dimension. It's like talking to a superbeing, just as I'd hoped, like being with a Martian, his conversation a wall of sound paisley info structure, the twittering of the Great Scarab.
His wife listens attentively as we talk and from time to time she reminds him to tie up some loose thread.

Remembering Benoit Mandelbrot (Thanks, Eileen, via Sumitterator)

Benoit Mandelbrot, RIP

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 02:42 PM PDT

Wikipedia Commons 2 21 Mandel Zoom 00 Mandelbrot Set

Benoit Mandelbrot, the father of fractal geometry, has died. He was 85.

"Fractal geometry is not just a chapter of mathematics, but one that helps Everyman to see the same world differently." -Benoit Mandelbrot (1924-2010)

"Benoit Mandelbrot the Maverick, 1924-2010" (The Atlantic)

Long Live Mandelbrot (Imaginary Foundation)

Verminous Dickens cake banned from Melbourne cake show

Posted: 16 Oct 2010 06:43 AM PDT

"Great Expectations, the Miss Havisham Cake," a remarkable, vermin-infested entry from the Hotham Street Ladies art collective was excluded from the Melbourne Cake Show on grounds of "bad taste." Boo!

Contraband Cake (Thanks, Ansible, via Submitterator)