Assemblage sculpture/clock of surpassing gorgeosity: "Cory Doctorow:
Roger Wood, my pal the genius assemblage-sculptor clockmaker, has been on a tear lately, as is evidenced by his latest mailing-list update, shown here.
Link
"
(Via Boing Boing.)
Friday, September 24, 2004
So much for American pluralism and tolerance....: "
So much for American pluralism and tolerance. Under the current administration, you can be barred from the United States because of your religion. Will someone explain to me how the fuck Bush is leading in the polls?
"(Via blog.)
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
Card Trick: I Can Read Your Mind!: " You are here:
About>News & Issues>Urban Legends and Folklore
Urban Legends and Folklore
I Can Read Your Mind!
Pick a card, any card...
Here is a well-traveled card trick/mindreading illusion that has popped up again and again on the Internet, even circulating in the form of a PowerPoint presentation purporting to be (although it almost certainly is not) the work of master stage magician David Copperfield.
The illu"
Little Pony Borg
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
What a great mod: converting a My Little Pony into an element of the Borg.
(Thanks, Biz!)
[Boing Boing]
Are you a Copyright Criminal?
Posted by MacDood
Xeni Jardin:
BoingBoing reader Robert Daeley says, "Came across this picture on the wall just behind a copy machine. All the hackers I know wear ski masks when they commit their crimes. Oh, and big thick leather gloves are great for typing."
Link to blog post with pointer to full size image. Mwuhuhahahahaaaaaaa. [Boing Boing]
Saturday, September 18, 2004
Friday, September 17, 2004
Have you smacked a libertarian today? Vol. 2
Posted by MacDood
I think it's important to know that "Michael Badnarik", the Libertarian candidate for President, is an anagram for "A animal bred hick". [Geekable.com]
Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.
How to Protect Yourself From Vandals, Viruses If You Use Windows
Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.
Personal Technology -- Personal Technology from The Wall Street Journal.
Web Zen: Yarrrr! 'Tis Pirate Zen 2004!!!
Posted by MacDood
Xeni Jardin:
yar! pirate zen 2003
and for a limited time...
david byrne's pirates
(this will disappear on 09.20.04)
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
Robo-roach
Posted by MacDood
David Pescovitz:
How do animals walk without falling over? A multi-university research effort led by UC Berkeley will try to answer that question by studying a small robot that imitates cockroach locomotion. Berkeley biologist Robert Full's insights into animal movement have informed the design of other robots as well, including the wall-climbing Mecho-Gecko. By simultaneously studying the cockroach-bot and various insects, the researchers hope to identify the muscular and neural networks that result in the whole-body motion of a wide range of animals, including humans.
"The robot has to operate in the real world, like the animal does, so we can use it for testing hypotheses," Full said. "We know, for example, that the body's center of mass bounces along like a pogo stick, which is embodied in the robot, but we don't know how its parts - its legs, feet, actuators or muscles - sum up to give that remarkably general pattern of movement. Now we can ask questions like, 'What if you had a more compliant leg? What if you had two joints in that leg, what does that give you versus one joint?'"
Remembering π
Posted by MacDood
David Pescovitz:
In March, a savant in England recited π from memory to more than 22,000 decimal places. Still, he wasn't even halfway to the world record set by a Japanese man in 1995. This article in Plus magazine describes how these amazing memory feats are accomplished and how to improve your own remembrance of numbers past.
"Like most people, you have probably had the odd experience of smelling, say, an old piece of furniture and being reminded of something that happened to you in the distant past. Smell has a particularly strong connection with memory, perhaps because the part of the brain that deals with smell is close to the hippocampus, which is where it is believed long term memories are formed. If you deliberately surround yourself with a particular smell when trying to memorise something, that smell is likely to help trigger the memory later when you need to recall it."
Link (via Reality Carnival) [Boing Boing]
Haunted Mansion castmember's remembrance
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Here's the first-person account of a summer student intern at Walt Disney World who got the killer assignment of working at the Haunted Mansion (what a dream gig!):
I hated being told I wasn’t scary. I hated being made fun of for my deep Southern accent. I hated the fact that I was a southern happy blonde with pigtails stuck in a dark damp Mansion. Then I gave it a chance. I realized I was lucky to have such a highly coveted position. I slowly let myself fall into the role and was thrilled the first time I actually scared a guest. I learned that many of my fellow cast members weren’t as rude and sarcastic as they seemed, they just really took pride in their job. And I found my spot in the Mansion crew. I was the one that lost children were taken to because I was probably the least scary. I was the one that parents turned to for an encouraging word to convince their children to try the ride. The first time a six year old boy came running out of the Mansion with a huge smile to give me a hug before getting back on the ride, I finally felt like I had a place at the Mansion.
(via The Disney Blog) [Boing Boing]
Harvard Primate Neuroscience Lab has sense of humor
Posted by MacDood
Xeni Jardin:
Theron "Somebody's at Harvard's having a little fun at George W.'s expense. Check out the Bush to monkey morph in the top right. No idea if this is a subtle hack, or really the Harvard PCNL having some fun." Link [Boing Boing]
Friday, September 10, 2004
Girls get new Barbie CD-ROM game
Posted by MacDood
Vivendi Universal Games on Thursday announced the release of Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper, a new game for girls ages five and up. Girls help Erika prove that she is worthy to be crowned queen, with the help of Princess Anneliese (Barbie does a dual role in the game as both main characters). The game features games and puzzles that Barbie must successfully complete in order to become queen. Five different creative activities also add to the fun, like making banners, baking cakes, creating stained glass and flower gardens, and grooming a kitten. Flags, flowers and other objects can be collected as well. Barbie as the Princes and the Pauper CD-ROM ships in hybrid format for both Macs and PCs. System requirements call for a G3/300MHz or faster, Mac OS X v10.1.5 or higher or Mac OS 9.2.1, 128MB RAM (64MB for OS 9), 24x CD-ROM, 800x600 resolution with thousands of colors, and QuickTime 6.5. The game retails for US$29.99. [MacCentral]
Mad Magazine: Bush Vs Jesus
Posted by MacDood
Mark Frauenfelder:
Thom sez: Atrius has a copy of a funny and insightful Mad Magazine parody of a TV commercial Bush would air if he were running against Jesus. Bottom line: "Jesus wrong on social services. Wrong on crime. Wrong on defense. Wrong for America." Link [Boing Boing]
Eisner's resignation letter
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Here's the text of Eisner's letter announcing his intention to resign from Disney in 2006.
We are different from companies not in the entertainment field. We are a creative company, and as a result, we are so much more. We must consider, develop, discard and reconsider, literally masses of ideas each day, based on few inexact criteria, using experience, talent, judgment, instinct, and hope as our guides along with our education and experience and sense of fiscal responsibility. This is a complicated and risky process, unlike the manufacture and sale of a single or related line of product. We are judged by definitive standards. But it is the creative that pushes to new heights that which can be measured, that which has lasting value to our culture and company.
I believe we have learned who we are, and who we are not; what we do best, and what we don't. Of course, that does not mean we stagnate into a museum or play safe. It just means we play smart. There are so many opportunities available to utilize our core assets, our brands and capabilities around the world. We must be completely informed and involved in the future, in new technologies that can help us maintain our leadership in creating and distributing and protecting our content. We must be prudent entrepreneurs and pragmatic capitalists. We must not forget that we are always singing and dancing "for our supper."
(via The Disney Blog) [Boing Boing]
Wednesday, September 8, 2004
Rolling Stone: The Curse of Dick Cheney
Posted by MacDood
Mark Frauenfelder:
"D" sez: This profile of Cheney is frightening. The only hope it offers is that every President to have Cheney involved in its adminitration has failed to be re-elected.
I knew the guy was bad, but if all the allegations in this article are true, he's singlehandedly hamstrung all the offices of the military and intelligence in the US:
Over at Defense, competent intelligence professionals were purged in order to ease the way to war. Douglas Feith, brought in under Rumsfeld to serve as undersecretary of defense for policy, applied an ideological test to his staff: He didn't want competence; he wanted fervor. Col. Pat Lang, a Middle East expert who served under five presidents, Republican and Democratic, in key posts in military intelligence, recalls being considered for a job at the Pentagon. During the job interview, Feith scanned Lang's impressive resume. "I see you speak Arabic," Feith said. When Lang nodded, Feith said, "Too bad," and dismissed him.
Tuesday, September 7, 2004
US Army to Rebid Halliburton Contracts
Posted by MacDood
US Army to Rebid Halliburton Contracts
Looks like Halliburton's about to lose its sweetheart deal as the US Army looks to rebidthe contracts.
"Pentagon auditors last month "strongly" urged the Army to withhold paying 15 percent of Halliburton's bills in Iraq, saying the company had not provided enough details to support at least $1.82 billion out of $4.3 billion of logistical work."
Insert inappropriate snide political comment here. [metafilter.com]
AWOL George's service record questioned in new ad
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Texans for Truth has produced a TV spot that inverts the ads run by the Lying, Dishonorable Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, in which an air guardsman who served in the unit that George Bush claims to have served in reports that George Bush didn't report for duty, or reported so infrequently that neither he nor any of his unit-mates from the small group can recall ever having seen him.
Monday, September 6, 2004
Henry David Thoreau
Posted by MacDood
"It is an interesting question how far men would retain their relative rank if they were divested of their clothes." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Web Zen: (More) Music Video Zen
Posted by MacDood
Xeni Jardin:
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). [Boing Boing]
Classic pulp mag replicas
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Girasol Collectables is a small Canadian press that's producing high-quality facimilies of classic pulp magazines (I bought a copy of this Spicy Adventure Stories mag yesterday for the cover, without realizing that one of the stories was written by Robert Howard under his Sam Walser pseudonym) at the rate of one a month. At US$25-35 per issue, it's a little pricey to consider as a subscription item, but as a one-off, these things are fantastic. I love the old pulps, but when I buy them, I'm reluctant to give them a home beside the toilet, where they'd be great reading material, what with all their humorous quack-remedy ads, overblown short stories, and general bite-siized irony. But the old pulps feel like a piece of history, something you down own so much as take custody over -- they're so fragile and poorly wrought that they bring out the maternal/archival instinct in all but the most hardened junk-hater.
But these replicas -- in addition to being better-manufactured than any of the original pulps! -- are cheap(ish) and replaceable, and a perfect tank-top reader. I kept hauling out my copy yesterday and showing it around, and the universal reaction among the WorldCon-goers was a bittersweet sigh of regret for the passing of the golden age of dreadful fic and exploitative covers and quack advertisements.
Sunday, September 5, 2004
Active Duty Military Attending the RNC
Posted by MacDood
A recent report filed by the Associated Press contained a startling bit of information: About 15 percent of the 4,800-plus delegates and alternates to the convention in New York are veterans, organizers said Monday. An additional 3 percent are active military personnel. This report was displayed prominently on the Republican National Committee's website, and lauded gleefully by the fine folks at Free Republic, among others As it turns out though, it's actually not such a good thing to have active-duty military anywhere near a political convention - if you value your democracy. In fact, up until just a few days before the convention, it was quite illegal for active-duty military even to attend. And yet, there it was in black and white. Active duty military members were not only attending, but participating as delegates in the RNC. How could this happen? [Kuro5hin.org]
Friday, September 3, 2004
Swift Boat Veterans for Truth are identity thieves
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Remember the Lying Swift Boat Veterans for Truth who made up a bunch of base smears about John Kerry's military record and aired them in a TV spot? They even published an open letter in which they lied some more, claiming to have served with Kerry when they hadn't.
Well, it turns out that some of the swift boat veterans whose name appeared at the bottom of that open letter never saw it, never signed it, and don't agree with it. Those Lying Swift Boat Veterans For Truth! Whacky.
"It's kind of like stealing my identity," said Anderson, who spent a year on a swift boat as an engine man and gunner.
The letter, which was posted on the Swift Boat Veter-ans for Truth Web site, claims the Demo-cratic presidential candidate has "grossly and knowingly distorted the conduct of the American soldiers, marines, sailors and airmen of that (Vietnam) war."...
"After reading the letter," Anderson said, "it kind of got under my skin. I had never come across a situation where someone used my name without my support or approval. It's not a very comforting feeling."
What's worse, he said, he disagrees with the letter.
"Had they asked me to use my name, I wouldn't have allowed them to," he said...
Anderson does not know how the Swift Boat Vets for Truth got his name, but it appears exactly as it has appeared on rosters at swift boat vet reunions. He suspects the list was pulled from the Swift Boat Sailors Association, a nonpolitical, not-for-profit organization linking swift boat veterans.
(via Atrios) [Boing Boing]
SETI@home spots unusual signal... or not
Posted by MacDood
David Pescovitz:
SETI@home has turned up an unexplained radio signal from 1000 light years away that's, well, unexplained. From New Scientist:
“It’s the most interesting signal from SETI@home,” says Dan Werthimer, a radio astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley (UCB) and the chief scientist for SETI@home. “We’re not jumping up and down, but we are continuing to observe it.”Named SHGb02+14a, the signal has a frequency of about 1420 megahertz. This happens to be one of the main frequencies at which hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, readily absorbs and emits energy.
Some astronomers have argued that extraterrestrials trying to advertise their presence would be likely to transmit at this frequency, and SETI researchers conventionally scan this part of the radio spectrum.
Link
Update: The BBC followed up with a report quoting researchers who say that the news above was blown out of proportion and there is no signal. Nothing to hear here. Move along. (cue X-Files theme) Link [Boing Boing]
Chess computer's thought process
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
These breathtaking visualizations of the decision-tree explored by a chess-playing computer are great.
A view into the workings of a chess-playing program that must make millions of decisions in each game. In this piece we explore the notion that our lives consist of a vast sequence of choices.
(via Oblomovka) [Boing Boing]
Thursday, September 2, 2004
Nanotech and Kabbalah
Posted by MacDood
David Pescovitz:
At the NanoBot, Howard Lovy writes about the philosophical connection between nanotechnology and the Jewish mysticism of Kabbalah. This is not newage (rhymes with "sewage") mumbo-jumbo, but rather an informed, passionate, and moving thought-exercise about the "spirit" of science:
"...the most brilliant men of Medieval Jewry, shut out of any other profession in which their intellect could be used, spent what I used to think was a complete waste of mind power, reflecting on the minutia of Jewish law – taking the Torah and extrapolating a complex system of laws. Creating, codifying, obsessively ordering and numbering a spiritual system into a logical system.But the smaller you get, the more you see the logic and order break down. The laws of physics seem to change. The smaller the size, the deeper the mystery and the more the orderly turns chaotic. It all meets on the nanoscale and below, where spirit/spirituality meets the individual components of organisms, where sand meets wave, where analog meets digital, where spirit meets matter."
Link [Boing Boing]
Wednesday, September 1, 2004
Goths in Disneyland
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
August 29th was the annual "Bats Day in the Fun Park" -- an annual gathering of goths at Disneyland. Here are Livejournal entires and photogalleries from the event.
Batty's Livejournal, Foxfire's Livejournal, DrunkRockers gallery one, DrunkRockers gallery two
(via The Disney Blog)
Tuesday, August 31, 2004
Monday, August 30, 2004
Election-related Daily Show clips
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Lisa Rein has posted a bunch of election-time Daily Show clips -- the fourth one listed, on the GOP hacks who are trying to get Nader on the ballot to split the left-wing vote, is fantastic:
The Shrub Killing Time On A TV Fishing Show
An Interview With Maureen Dowd
Robert Novak Being a "Douchebag For Freedom" (Again)And a really important report from Ed Helms about the organization making calls on behalf of Ralph Nader in order to re-elect George Bush. (CSE)
Saturday, August 28, 2004
The problem with M. Night Shyamalan
Posted by MacDood
Since his breakthrough film 'The Sixth Sense', director M. Night Shyamalan has made three more films culminating in the recently released 'The Village'. This is a look at what keeps the director from greatness via a discussion of the twists and plot devices he has become known for. Be warned, in discussing them, I pretty much give away every twist he's ever done. **SPOILERS ABOUND** [Kuro5hin.org]
Phone exec: "People don't want open Internet access"
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
The COO of 3, a European 3G wireless company, has uttered one of the stupidest things ever said by a phone company executive (there's a field with some stiff competition!). In justifying his company's decision to censor the Internet services delivered over its wireless link (they're only allowing customers to access certain, selected services, rather than providing a fast wireless pipe that customers can use as they see fit), this loonytune has this to say:
'People don't want open access, that's not what our customers tell us they want,' he said. 'Anyone in their right mind who tries to do anything on the Internet with a screen that size has to be nuts.'
(via Engadget) [Boing Boing]
Friday, August 27, 2004
Thursday, August 26, 2004
Will Rogers
Posted by MacDood
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Henry Miller
Posted by MacDood
"Living apart and at peace with myself, I came to realize more vividly the meaning of the doctrine of acceptance. To refrain from giving advice, to refrain from meddling in the affairs of others, to refrain, even though the motives be the highest, from tampering with another's way of life - so simple, yet so difficult for an active spirit. Hands off!" [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
This Land is Your Land is actually in the public domain
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
JibJab's hilarious election-year parody of Woody Guthrie's "This Land is Your Land" has been spared from death-by-litigation thanks to the efforts of my cow-orkers at EFF and the Internet's outraged musicologists. It turns out that Woody Guthrie's initial publication of This Land is eleven years earlier than previously thought, which means that the copyright renewal filed by Ludlow, the carpetbaggers who bought his estate's publishing rights, was eleven years too late.
That's right: as my cow-orker Fred "Total Grokster Victory" von Lohmann notes, "So Guthrie's original joins the Star-Spangled Banner, Amazing Grace, and Beethoven's Symphonies in the public domain. Come to think of it, now that 'This Land is Your Land' is in the public domain, can we make it our national anthem? That would be the most fitting ending of all."
The most delicious aspect of this is that Ludlow could have gone on treating Guthrie's song as a copyrighted work, collecting licensing fees from anyone who was not making a fair use of the song -- say, someone making a [puke] car commercial -- had they not decided to pull a Lord Vader on JibJab, the poor, abused parodists. Reminds me of when Sony sued an Aussie dictionary for defining "walkman" as a generic personal stereo, which resulted in the court finding that the dictionary was correct, Sony was wrong, and walkman is generic. If they'd just kept their lawyers in their pants, they'd still be sitting pretty.
(Thanks, Donna and Chris!) [Boing Boing]
I have three thoughts on Dean Koontz:...
Posted by MacDood
I have three thoughts on Dean Koontz:
The first is the memory of the gag on The Family Guy. A van runs over a man walking along the side of the road. The driver sticks his head out and yells, "Oh my God! I'm so sorry! Are you Stephen King?" "No!" the man yells back. "I'm Dean Koontz." The driver backs up over him again.
The second is my memory of reading one of his books while working retail. I was allowed to read on the job, but only the books that the store sold. It was just a rack of mass market paperbacks, whatever the bestsellers were that week, so I picked up a Dean Koontz. I don't remember the title, but the plot hinged on a supersmart dog that communicated through Scrabble letters. I'm not even kidding.
The third is my fear of his hair. See picture one. Then see picture two. Try to tell me you're not terrified.
I guess I could have other thoughts by reading this interview. But I'd really rather not.
[blog]Sunday, August 22, 2004
Let There Be Light
Posted by MacDood
Let there be light - Canadian researchers have devised a new polymer material by manipulating buckyballs (carbon atoms that look like soccer balls). The technology could be used to create optical (light based) switches to replace electronic network switches. It could lead to an Internet based entirely on light. [metafilter.com]
Lying Swift Boat Veterans for Bush
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth is a gang of liars who ran a thoroughly debunked TV ad in which they lied about serving with John Kerry in Vietnam and lied about his service record. Then the Bush campaign disavowed any connection to the Lying Swift Boat Veterans for Truth.
It was lying.
This New York Times infografic traces the financial connections between the organization and the Bush administration's staff, financiers, and cronies.
It also delves into the Lying Veterans' own on-the-record statements, like George "John Kerry has not been honest about what happened in Vietnam" Elliot's 1996 statement that "The fact that he chased an armed enemy down is not something to be looked down upon, it was an act of courage. And the whole outfit served with honor."
(Thanks, bomark!) [Boing Boing]
Imagineering's decline and fall
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow: A new columnist at SaveDisney.com (a site backed by ousted Disney Board members including Roy Disney, Walt's nephew) is chronicling the decline and fall of Imagineering, attempting to answer the question, "How is it possible that the same people who created EPCOT Center, Splash Mountain, Indiana Jones Adventure and Tokyo Disney Seas, also created Disney's California Adventure, Walt Disney Studios Paris, DinoRama, and Journey into YOUR Imagination?"
Paul Pressler had convinced everyone on the Parks & Resorts team that Disney's California Adventure would be an unparalleled success. In the days leading up to the opening of California Adventure, the Director of Attractions at Disneyland, Paul Yeargin, openly discussed his concerns that Disney's California Adventure would fill to capacity every day. He thought the resort's biggest problem would be disappointed guests, who, after traveling a great distance to see California Adventure would have to settle for Disneyland instead. Yeargin and other Disneyland executives made decisions based on this premise. Including a now infamous decision by Disneyland Resort President, Cynthia Harriss, to restrict Annual Passholders from using their passes at Disney's California Adventure for the first few months after opening. This decision only served to anger the already disgruntled 400,000 passholders who provide a significant amount of revenue for the resort. Harriss and Yeargin, like many of the Disneyland executives, had followed Pressler over from the Disney Stores and had no previous theme park experience.
Then in February 2001, the world saw what had been festering behind closed doors at WDI for the past several years. Disney's California Adventure opening in the old Disneyland parking lot. It was a mix of off-the-shelf carnival rides and film-based attractions. When Walt's close friend and long-time Imagineer, John Hench, saw the park for the first time he said, "I liked it better as a parking lot." WDI would try to fix California Adventure any way they could. They threw attractions at it left and right...Who Wants to be A Millionaire, a bug's land, The Twilight Zone Tower of Terror, even the Main Street Electrical Parade would come out of moth balls. None of it worked, of course.
(via The Disney Blog) [Boing Boing]
Battening down Disney World for Charley
Posted by MacDood
Cory Doctorow:
Caines sez, "A guest at Walt Disney World on 8/13 and 8/14 snapped these shots of the MAgic Kingdom being prepared for Hurricane Charley. Signs being secured and kiosks being tethered. He was staying at the All-Star Sports Resort and his pics of some of the characters that were sent, guests swimming, and shots of the rain/wind from his hotel window. The last of the shots are trees and signs blown away."
(Thanks, Caines!)
Friday, August 20, 2004
"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestioned ability of a man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
"That would be a good thing for them to cut on my tombstone: Wherever she went, including here, it was against her better judgment." [Motivational Quotes of the Day]
Charter Schools and Testing Collide
Posted by MacDood
The education policy of the Bush administration is founded on two pillars: standardized testing and charter schools. However, as reported in this New York Times article (see also the audio archive at NPR or nonsubscription coverage at the Boston Globe) , the US Department of Education's own testing data show that nationwide, charter schools are, in aggregate, lagging their public counterparts. [Kuro5hin.org]
Monkey portrait photography
Posted by MacDood
Xeni Jardin: BoingBoing reader Darren says:
"Jill Greenberg is an accomplished celebrity photographer. Recently, though, she's turned her attention to another biped: monkeys. She discovered her affection for monkey portraits on a commercial, and started renting various species of trained primates and taking their photos as if they were A-list celebrities. The portraits express an amazing range of emotion, and are way more interesting that your average celebrity pic."
Link to Jill's website, with photos of monkeys, apes, and other non-human primates. You may also recall that totally gorgeous cover she shot for Wired Magazine's September, 2003 issue (The New Diamond Age): Link. LA-dwellers: the monkey images and other new works will be on exhibit starting October 23 at Paul Kopeikin Gallery on Wilshire. [Boing Boing]
For the librarians: " I love you,...
Posted by MacDood
For the librarians: "I love you, Madame Librarian" by Kurt Vonnegut.
[blog]Wednesday, August 18, 2004
Spacesuit Fetish photos
Posted by MacDood
Had to go browse this..
See what happens when all of my co-editors go on vacation? There goes the bloggerhood. Here, I present to you obsessively-organized and allegedly arousing fetish galleries of girls wearing spacesuits.Link. From the same geek wacko perverts people who brought you two equally tittilating galleries of scuba fetish photos and deep-sea diving fetish photos, here.
(Thanks, oscar) [Boing Boing]
Tuesday, August 17, 2004
New Stingray
Posted by MacDood
My original stingray was purple, it was stolen...
Schwinn has re-issued its original Sting-Ray street bike. The 2004 models are available with the classic banana seat frame or in a new chopped Harley-esque low-rider design. Too bad they don't offer a sissy bar option, probably a safety decision to avoid encouraging Evil Knievel-style wheelies. Link (Thanks, C-Lo!) [Boing Boing]
Explosive growth in the market for women's...
Posted by MacDood
Explosive growth in the market for women's fiction, particularly in newer genres like chick lit and women's thrillers, has been drawing readers away from traditional romance novels, those formulaic bodice-rippers stocked with hunky heroes and love-conquers-all endings.
[blog]Monday, August 16, 2004
RoboPod
Posted by MacDood
An iPod cradle in the form of a friendly robot. Link(Thanks, Scott!) [Boing Boing]
Explosive sink and toilet plunger is a gift from the gods
Posted by MacDood
if I only had it last month...
I went to Home Depot over the weekend to buy two dollar's worth of hardware (pins for door hinges) and walked out with over $100 worth of stuff, of course. My prime pruchase was something called a KleerDrain instant drain opener, which combines the fun of explosives with the satisfaction of unclogging a sink.I was a little wary of spending $30 on this gadget, which looks like a cross-between a plunger and a pogo stick. But Home Depot had one of those videos running next to the set-up, which showed clogged sink after clogged sink giving up its precious bolus of greasy hair to the explosive force of a CO2 cartridge unleashing its entire payload at once. Watching the guy on the demo using the device, with its rifle-like kickback and puff of condensed carbon dioxide gas, mesmerized me. The next thing I knew, I was racing home with my new KleerDrain.
I could hardly wait to use it on a slow-draining sink in the bathroom. I duct taped the overflow drain on the sink, and inserted a CO2 cartridge into the Kleer Drain. I screwed on the rubber cone and then pressed it into the drain opening.
WHAM! A shower of gray grime flew out of somewhere and splashed against the walls, mirror and ceiling. I wiped the junk off my face and turned on the faucet. The water whooshed down the drain, ending with a nice sucking sound, like it was wishing there were more water it could dispose of.
I think I'm in love. Time to stock up on more CO2 cartridges. Link [Boing Boing]
Author accuses Shyamalan of plagiarism over "Village," audiences accuse film of sucking
Posted by MacDood
Writer-director M Night Shyamalan (Sixth Sense, Signs) may face legal action over accusations that his latest project, The Village, was plagiarized from a children's book. The source in question: "Running Out of Time" by Margaret Peterson Haddix, published by Simon and Schuster in 1995. While the matter of plagiarism is open to debate, evidently the movie's suck factor is not. Last week, one blogger/culture crit pal was so distressed at the stinker he'd paid two digits to see in a Manhattan theater that he text-messaged me halfway through -- "OMG THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER." He was not alone in this assessment. Link (via MeFi, which includes a handy list of other films accused of plagiarism in recent years) [Boing Boing]
Thursday, August 5, 2004
When pet piranha attack
Posted by MacDood
Some idiot abandoned two pet piranha in a Hong Kong fountain and one took a bite out of a boy's finger while he was playing in the water.
The piranha -- which has its origins in warm South American rivers and can devour whole cows when hunting in packs -- is a popular fish in Hong Kong home aquariums and can be bought in Mongkok pet shops for less than HK$100 a pair (7 pounds).
Maybe piranha could help deal with the problem of the renegade alligators in New York City's sewers. Link [Boing Boing]
Mailer and Mailer
Posted by MacDood
New York Metro posted a long conversation between Norman Mailer and his activist son John Buffalo Mailer about anti-Bush protesting at the Republican National Convention and "the uses and abuses of Bush hatred."
JBM I don’t know that we can make it through another four years of Bush.NM Oh, we’ll make it through, although I’m not saying what we’ll be like at the end. By then, Karl Rove may have his twenty years. Just think of the kind of brainwashing we’ve had for the last four. On TV, Bush rinses hundreds of thousands of American brains with every sentence. He speaks only in clichés. You know, I happened to run into Ralph Nader recently in Chicago, and I, like a great many others, was looking to dissuade him from his present course. He’s a very nice man, maybe the nicest man I’ve met in politics---there’s something very decent about Nader, truly convincing in terms of his own probity. So I didn’t feel, "Oh, he’s doing it for ugly motives." Didn’t have that feeling at all in the course of our conversation. Still, I was trying, as I say, to dissuade him, while recognizing that the odds were poor that I’d be successful. At one point, he said, "You know, they’re both for the corporation, Kerry and Bush." And it’s true; both candidates are for the corporation, and I do agree with Nader that ultimately the corporation is the major evil. But in my mind, Bush is the immediate obstacle. He is a collection of disasters for America. What he does to the English language is a species of catastrophe all by itself. Bush learned a long time ago that certain key words, "evil, patriotism, stand-firm, flag, our-fight-against-terrorism," will get half the people in America stirred up. That’s all he works with. Kerry will be better in many ways, no question. All the same, he will go along too much with the corporations who, in my not always modest opinion, are running America. At present, I don’t see how any mainstream politician can do otherwise. Finally, they’re working against forces greater than themselves.
Link (via A Great Notion) [Boing Boing]
The transcript of Michael Chabon's keynote...
Posted by MacDood
The transcript of Michael Chabon's keynote speech at Comic-Con is up at the website.
Children did not abandon comics; comics, in their drive to attain respect and artistic accomplishment, abandoned children. And for a long time we as lovers and partisans of comics were afraid, after so many long years of struggle and hard work and incremental gains, to pick up that old jar of greasy kid stuff again, and risk undoing it all. Comics have always been an arriviste art form, and all upstarts are to some degree ashamed of their beginnings. But frankly, I don’t think that’s what’s going on in comics anymore.
Now, I think, we have simply lost the habit of telling stories to children. And how sad is that?
[blog]Tuesday, August 3, 2004
Stormtroopers on July 4 parade
Posted by MacDood
Inkeeper2097 sez, "My family and I went to a parade on the 4th of July. One of the participants
was the Ohio Garrison of Storm Troopers.
As they were coming down the street I told my 5 yr old to go stand
in the road so I could take his picture with them.
As you can see from the photo, a couple of Storm Troopers got out of
formation to pose for the picture.
My 2 year old was scared to death and ran to Mom. I kept telling my 5
year old not to be scared and to stand still.
The look on my boys face, priceless.
Fun was had by all."
(Thanks, innkeeper2097!)
How cellphones change teenagers
Posted by MacDood
Sociologist Mimi Ito has just published a great paper on the way that mobile phones change teen social interaction on Vodaphone's Receiver magazine:
After young people have converged in physical space, mobile communication does not necessarily end. In contrast to work meetings in which mobile communications are largely excluded, among gatherings of young people, the mobile phone is a social accessory. They might call a friend, inviting them to join them, or getting information about the conversation at hand. When an email message comes into a friend's mobile, it is quite common to ask who it was from and a conversation about that person to ensue. Young people generally reported that they had no reservations about making contact with others via mobile phones when they were with a group of friends, though they might make a brief apology if a one-on-one gathering was interrupted with a voice call.
(via Joi Ito) [Boing Boing]
DOJ: P2P is bad for national security -- new heights of hyperbole and hysteria!
Posted by MacDood
The US Justice Department has decided that file-sharing isn't just a copyright problem, it's also an issue of National Security:
Our economy is so based on intellectual property ideas that, unless we can protect them, we're really looking at a situation where it's going to hurt our ability to survive as a country.
Secondly, so much of what we do now involves computers, whether it be with software or other types of communication lines. Often, intellectual property is a key component to the things we do to protect ourselves as a country.
(Thanks, Alex!) [Boing Boing]
Chicago's Cloud Gate
Posted by MacDood
Cloud Gate is Anish Kapoor's recently unveiled artwork in Chicago's Millennium Park. The surreal sculpture has caused quite a stir and the media are pissing off Kapoor by nicknaming it "The Bean." Former BB guestblogger Jenn Shreve sent along links to architectural writer Lynn Becker's photo essay of The Bean Cloud Gate under construction, an image gallery of the completed work, and a Webcam site. Jenn says:"Cloud Gate combines the blobular, organic shapes that have been so prevalent in recent design with the reflective surfaces common to Gehry's architectural work and turns the idea of sculpture as something to be *looked at* on its ear, transforming the very looking into an experiential, interactive encounter--all within the public sphere. Plus it looks like an alien just layed a mega egg in the middle of the city, which you gotta love."
Link [Boing Boing]
Sunday, August 1, 2004
Horror Channel coming to cable
Posted by MacDood
hopefully as cheesy as the scifi channel can be
The Horror Channel is an all-horror cable network launching next October.
(Thanks, Prof. Griffin!) [Boing Boing]
Ancient hard-drive, guy in bunny suit
Posted by MacDood
On Gizmodo, this stunning image of an ancient, room-sized hard drive being serviced by a guy in a clean-room bunny-suit. The best part is that this thing and a million of its brothers put together probably had a lower capacity than the USB memory built into the pen I lost last month.
Update: Daniel Klein sez, "The picture is of a fixed-head disk, very similar to a Borroughs unit I had the pleasure of disassembling (in 1975) after a catastrophic head crash (I got authorization from Gordon Bell himself to do it). It took me 3 days to whittle it down to nuts and bolts, and the platter weighed 18 pounds. The hub upon which the platter was mounted was phosphor bronze, and weighed an additional 17 pounds. So imagine the inertia of 35 pounds spinning at 3600 RPM. It had electric brakes, because if you just switched off the power, it would spin for a loooong time. There is an (apocryphal) story of movers just hitting the circuit breaker (not the off switch that engaged the brakes), and after waiting the requisite 5 minutes for spindown, loaded the drive into a truck. All the moves and hallways were right angles, of course. Since brakes had not been engaged, it was still spinning at 2000 RPM or so by the time it was loaded. When the truck turned a corner, the drive precessed right out through the side of the truck. It held a few megabytes at most, if I recall correctly (a similar unit was used as a swap disk on the PDP-10, so it would have held 256K or so). "
[Boing Boing]
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
