The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
| Arse Electronika 2008 call for papers: "Do Androids Sleep With Electric Sheep?" Posted: 31 Mar 2008 06:04 AM CDT Vienna net-art-pranksters Monochrom have just posted their annual call-for-submissions for Arse Electronika, "Do Androids Sleep with Electric Sheep? Critical Perspectives on Sexuality and Pornography in Science and Social Fiction." Link |
| Griefers deface epilepsy message-board with seizure-inducing animations Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:59 AM CDT Scumbag griefers defaced an epilepsy message-board with strobing graphics and redirects to animations that were intended to trigger seizures in people with epilepsy: RyAnne Fultz, a 33-year-old woman who suffers from pattern-sensitive epilepsy, says she clicked on a forum post with a legitimate-sounding title on Sunday. Her browser window resized to fill her screen, which was then taken over by a pattern of squares rapidly flashing in different colors.Link |
| Plastic bag animal sculptures for subway gratings Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:57 AM CDT An unknown artist fashions animals out of plastic bags and fastens them to subway gratings, and the hot air inflates them and makes them puff up and wiggle. Link (Thanks, Marilyn!) |
| Building Stonehenge by hand, with gravity and sticks Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:52 AM CDT |
| Graveyard game: walk around until you die Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:47 AM CDT Here's a video-game that sounds like hours of bittersweet fun: Link (Thanks, Kris!) |
| London's Spitalfields market: shoot the architecture, we take away your camera Posted: 31 Mar 2008 03:02 AM CDT Yesterday, I met my friend (and editor) Patrick Nielsen Hayden for breakfast at Spitalfields Market, our local Sunday market here in London. Spitalfields has been around for centuries, and it's just undergone a massive, years-long renovation. If you ask me, this has not been entirely successful, removing a lot of the market's charm, but there are some lovely grace notes, like the cartoony architectural flourishes in the joists that support the glass roof. Just as we were arriving at Spitalfields, I got a call from Patrick: "You won't believe what just happened: I was taking a photo of the market and a security guard came up and tried to take my camera away and delete the picture!" Apparently, this guy had invented a new Spitalfields policy prohibiting photography (some of the stalls have had this policy for a long time, including -- hilariously -- a stall that sells photos of Banksy graffiti) and was planning on enforcing it by taking away people's property -- without a warrant or badge, without any kind of posted signage. Here in London, you get photographed upwards of 300 times a day, by every junior sneak, pecksniff, and petty CCTV operator who can afford a cheap little camera. The cameras often fail to help catch criminals, and they certainly don't deter desperate muggers and junkies and stupid drunken kids. All the law seems to require by way of consumer protection is a sign saying, "You're being filmed." You can be photographed again and again, but heaven help you if you take a picture back. Your person isn't deserving of any serious privacy protection, but buildings, t-shirts, shop-windows, and market stalls are all entitled to unlimited protection from having their precious photons stolen. I've bought plenty of stuff at Spitalfields over the years -- like I say, we go every weekend -- but if this turns out to be the new official policy, consider me out. People have been taking pictures at the market since cameras were invented (the town hall archives are stuffed filled with old box-camera shots of Spitalfields during the Jubilee) and any market that doesn't welcome my camera doesn't deserve my money, either. Generally speaking, I love being a Londoner, but when my fellow residents decide that the best response to terror isn't keep calm and carry on, but rather "When in trouble or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout." it's downright embarrassing -- like being a Bostonian or something. Link |
| Circuit City does $12K worth of damage to a car while installing a GPS, won't pay up Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:24 AM CDT If you're thinking of getting Circuit City to install your new GPS in your car, think again -- this poor guy had $12,119 worth of damage done to his Civic by the Circuit City contractor (Honda's declared it an undrivable fire-hazard), and now Circuit City is telling him it's not their problem, he needs to take up his beef with their bureaucratic third-party insurance company. Link |
| Remixed generic thrift-store clothes Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:20 AM CDT  Here's the latest installment in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: this amazing dress made from thrift-store suit-coats, seen yesterday at Junky Styling in the Truman Brewery off Brick Lane in London. Junky has a knack for taking the most generic, bulk-available charity shop clothes and layering and mixing them to make the most extraordinary things. I have an overcoat from there that's so cool that people stop me on the street and ask me where I got it. We always stop in on a Sunday to see what's new there, and we're never disappointed: one week it's a ballgown made from Kiehl's Pharmacy aprons, the next it's a scarf made from the sleeves of an otherwise unlovely suit-coat. Link |
| Posted: 31 Mar 2008 02:19 AM CDT Lisa at TokyoMango's spotted a disturbing dog-rental service in Tokyo: Link |
| Lawsuit about risk of CERN and parallel universe Posted: 30 Mar 2008 01:20 PM CDT  BB pal Vann Hall spotted this great headline at The Register. It's no joke, either. Walter L Wagner and Luis Sancho fear that firing up the new Large Hadron Collider could create a black hole that might suck the Earth into a parallel universe. So they've sued to delay the LHC from being switched on. "And people claim we live in a too-litigious society!" says Vann. Link |
| 1972 Ideal "Bing Bang Boing" commercial Posted: 30 Mar 2008 01:00 PM CDT  There are many things to like about this 1972 Ideal toy commercial: 1. The Jean-Jacques Perrey background music. 2. The black set. 3. The announcer's voice. 4. The name of the toy: Bing Bang Boing. 5. The toy itself, which is a brightly-colorted DIY Rube Goldberg kit with lots of fun parts that you can set up in different configurations. It's got to be a Marvin Glass creation. (Thanks, Richard!) |
| Posted: 30 Mar 2008 12:51 PM CDT |
| Posted: 30 Mar 2008 11:10 AM CDT The New York Times has a loving profile of Mad magazine idiot gang member, Al Jaffee, who at age 87, recently completed his 400th Mad Fold-in! Link | Interactive Fold-In gallery (Thanks, Coop!) |
| Anime characters based on Afghanistan and neighbors Posted: 30 Mar 2008 09:13 AM CDT  Porsupah, "You might recall the 'OS-tan' series of manga style characters depicting various operating systems. Here's a similar concept, portraying the various countries surrounding Afghanistan similarly cutely: meet Afuganisu-tan, Kyrgyz-tan, Pakisu-tan, Meriken, and more. Each strip offers a little adventure for the characters, whilst the accompanying text explains some more of the history of the region's countries, rulers, would-be conquerors, and myriad factions." Link (Thanks, Porsupah!) |
Taken at Spitalfields Market, 9:20 AM, Sunday, March 30, 2008. I liked the cartoony cloud-trail decorations seemingly supporting the left side of the ceiling, and the fact that the spire of Nicholas Hawksmoor's Christ Church Spitalfields was so dramatically framed in the transparent roof. 
Puppy the World is a dog rental store. You can choose small, medium, or large breeds and rent them for $19/hr, or $100 a night. They have everything from chihuahuas to labs to border collies to papillons—and you get a 5% discount at the cafe if you rent one! You can't lose.... 
"When he brings in fold-ins now, a lot of times, it's, 'Geez, this guy's painting better than ever,' " said John Ficarra, Mad's editor. | You are subscribed to email updates from Boing Boing To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email Delivery powered by FeedBurner |
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Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: everyday objects underpinned with clockwork. 
We at Boing Boing are delighted to welcome the latest addition to the Happy Mutants family, 
Golubov doesn't dispute that he owned a Raskat at the time, but he says he purchased it online to resell it at a local market for a tidy profit. 
In 2004, journalist John Gorenfeld scooped the Washington press corps when he exposed a scandalous party on Capitol Hill, in which members of Congress watched as Moon held a ritual coronation for himself as the "King of Peace." Wearing a majestic cape and coronet, the publisher declared himself the Messiah. The New York Times editors compared the event, sponsored by a U.S. senator, to an act of the Roman emperor Caligula. 
Enjoy the new spring colors for the Homeland Security Advisory System. It's always cantaloupe in Cheneyville! 
Nathan Black says: "I collect pictures of people's knuckle tattoos and the stories behind them. I've got about 170 or so sets up and I've been collecting them for about a year and a half." 
After seventy years, Jerome Siegel's heirs regain what he granted so long ago -– the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics' corporate sibling's exploitation of the Superman copyright.
As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm." 
Last July, intern Eric Lawrence was cleaning out a Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk, a small, airship-based fighter that the Navy used in the 1930s for reconnaissance patrols along the U.S. coasts. When he was working in the fuselage tail cone, Lawrence came across a broken pencil, inscribed with the words "Hoover for President, 1928..."
POWERED by a motorcycle engine and operated through the conventional handlebar control, a rubber-tired motor wheel has been invented which is claimed to represent the ideal in cheap and rapid transportation. The device is so simple that a youngster can operate it. The large wheel is fitted with a continuous inner track along which run a series of flanged wheels on which the mechanism revolves. The rider is seated inside the wheel on a regulation motorcycle saddle. 
The lenses block out the green reflected by chlorophyll in the healthy areas of your lawn and garden, causing those areas to show as black or gray. Any unhealthy spots, deficient in chlorophyll, will show up as pink, red or coral colors. It's the plant equivalent of full-body MRIs that detect problems before their symptoms surface. 
Saturday, 3/29 – Electronics Recycling Day (open to the public)
Incredible pop surrealist painter 
The Musical Rumba Series tables contain interchangeable percussion instruments that are played by banging on the table top. As someone who must resist the annoying urge at Chinese restaurants to use chopsticks at drum sticks, I know I'd enjoy this. Joel has more info and a video at Boing Boing Gadgets.
Sublime Stitching has a nice package of glow-in-the-dark embroidery thread for a mere ten bucks. 
![[BBTV] Leslie Hall show, SF, 03-2008](http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2241/2364772659_9b27263136.jpg)
![[BBTV] Leslie Hall show, SF, 03-2008](http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3284/2365605758_ab52178e99_o.jpg)
The 72-year-old, who has lived in the town since 1971, was originally charged with four counts of taking indecent liberties with a 9-year-old girl and an 11-year-old boy in 2005. 
Further to yesterday's post about Clay Shirky's Harvard talk on his book 
Los Angeles artist 
I like this clever print advertisement for Sony audio products.
If it is Cooper's parachute, that will solve one mystery -- where he apparently landed -- but it will raise another, Carr said. 
From Gakken's Sophisticated Science Kit for Adults, this replica kit uses the same technology that Thomas Edison used, replacing Edison's waxed pipe and stylus, the kit uses a plastic cup and a needle, but the end results are the same! You record your own voice on a plastic cup -- and play it back! Here's how it works, your voice vibrates the air minutely when it gets into the horn. Then the vibration is conducted to the needle and is translated into a wavy movement of the needle and carves a groove onto the cup.
In mid-December, Emru was diagnosed with leukemia, and a condition called monosomy 7. Due to the monosomy 7, he has an increased risk of the leukemia coming back, no matter how successful chemotherapy is. This is where you can help save his life. 
What sort of things are they going to spend this 22% on? 
FoxClocks is a fantastic Firefox plugin that gives you a little toolbar showing the current time in various cities around the world (you choose). Since the US rejigged its Daylight Savings Time start-date, I keep getting caught out on scheduled phone-calls, assuming that California is eight hours behind me when it's really only seven. 
Over the last year or so, Astley has watched with puzzled amazement as "Never Gonna Give You Up" has been mocked, celebrated, remixed and reprised, its original music video viewed millions of times on YouTube, all by a generation that could barely swallow its Gerber carrots when the song first topped the pop charts. "I think it's just one of those odd things where something gets picked up and people run with it," Astley said. "But that's what brilliant about the Internet." 
Here's a video of a Clay Shirky talk at Harvard's Berkman Center, called "Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations." It's a summary of the ideas in 
On Friday, March 28th (April 4th rain date), join 
Artist Bert Simons makes realistic papercraft heads. 
Within minutes of riding on the first trains in Japan, I notice a significant change in advertising, from train to television. The trend? No more printed URL's. The replacement? Search boxes! With recommended search terms! 
A German website, Pundo300, took photos of food products and compared them with the depictions on their packages. 
New spit-based home medical tests for the likes of breast cancer may be 
A sophisticated bugging and tracking device has been unearthed in the vehicle of a member of the Dublin 32 County Sovereignty Movement. The device was secreted internally into the dashboard of the vehicle and was equipped with its own self contained power supply. The manner by which the device was installed strongly suggests that those who planted it took considerable time to effect this and was obviously professionally done. The device bears English Manufacturing Labels but as of yet it is uncertain whether it originates from a British, Irish or joint British/Irish intelligence source.
The fur on this kitten, born Sunday in Sacramento, California, seems to spell out "I (heart) (dot)." That's especially cute because the kitten's mother is named Dottie. 
In every case, the last thing staff reportedly remember is the thief leaning over and saying: "Look into my eyes", before finding the till empty...
A civil servant turned member of the French Resistance in World War II, the Longlier native partnered with two friends to create a small publishing company on Rue du Lombard in Brussels. Their big coup came in 1945 when they convinced Herge to bring his Tintin into the fold of a weekly publication devoted to kids to share the feature's name. The cartoonist, already a success with a dozen albums to his credit but battered personally and professionally by the limited publishing opportunities during the war in a way that would drive criticism his way for the remainder of his days, accepted their offer. He recruited three friends -- Paul Cuvelier, Edgard P. Jacobs, Jacques Laudy -- to help him form the core of the magazine. They and their successors would take aim at the successful Spirou and forge a successful legacy for themselves at the same time. 
Nora and I finished our fried whale and plum sandwiches, our cream coffees, and the cocoa and coca pastries, and sat in a comfortable silence as landscapes of buildings and millions of well-wishers whirred past the windows at six hundred kilometers per hour. Halfway on our train-date, after the conductor blew the massive, buzzing horn, and the waitresses in their black-and-yellow-striped honeybee uniforms, complete with dangerously sharp-looking stingers, cleared the dishes, Nora closed her right eye and gazed at me with her left; I, in turn, did the same, and it was like we were the perfect couple. 
Pandit Surinder Sharma, a famous Indian tantrick (magician) was on a televised panel discussion when he claimed he could kill any man with black magic in under three minutes. Fellow panelist, Sanal Edamaruku, the president of Rationalist International, challenged the tantrick to kill him right then and there. Hilarity ensued as Sharma chanted the death mantra, and, when that failed, waved a knife and sprinkled water on him, as Edamarku laughed the entire time. 
To our neighbors, my wife, Nancy, and I don't appear in the least unusual. To those in the quiet Oregon community where we live, we are viewed just as we are -- a happy couple deeply in love. Our desire to work hard, buy our first home, and start a family was nothing out of the ordinary. That is, until we decided that I would carry our child. 
[EC comics publisher William] Gaines was not a stupid man, but, as Hajdu points out, he was in the position many liberals find themselves in when they set out to defend the freedom of artistic expression: he claimed that comic books that treated social issues in a progressive spirit were good for children, and that comic books that were filled with pictures of torture and murder had no effect on them. If art can be seriously good for you, though, it follows that it can be seriously bad for you, and that is the point at which censorship enters the picture. The committee was not interested in debating the merits of comics that treated social issues in a progressive spirit; it was interested in the claim that horror and crime comics were merely anodyne entertainment, and they twisted Gaines like a pretzel. "Let me get the limits as far as what you put into your magazine," the committee's junior counsel, Herbert Beaser, asked him. "Is the sole test of what you would put into your magazine whether it sells? Is there any limit you can think of that you would not put in a magazine because you thought a child should not see or read about it?" 
As I recall from reading the (sadly, out of print) Mad World of William M. Gaines many years ago, Gaines has taken a fistful of tranquilizers before he testified, which made him break out in a sweat and act loopy. The overall effect did not help his case. 
My friend Tommy has just published a wallet-sized map of over 250 public toilet locations in Manhattan, and is selling them on Etsy. 
Austin Davis-Richardson says: "Apparently Tux isn't able to make ends meet as the Linux mascot and has to work a second job selling soft drinks at a gas station in Gainesville, Fl. " 
Over at BB Gadgets, Joel has word of a Gundam statue guarding a train station in Shinjuku, Tokyo.
The survey was part of the International Polar Year program involving 23 countries in 11 voyages to survey marine life and habitats around Antarctica. The program hopes to set benchmarks for determining the effects of global warming on Antarctica, researchers said...
In 2010, motorcycle gear manufacturer Dainese will release protective suits outfitted with airbags. It's apparently taken them ten years to get the system right and they've just released a video demo. I wonder what the outtakes look like. 
Rob sez, "Jason Lane is a Bristol-based artist who has been making moving robot sculptures from junk for years. 
Tikistitch sez, "This one may not be *quite* as cool as the 
(Wilmington Star-News photo by Amy Hotz) 
Our 
