The Latest from Boing Boing |  |
- EZTakes: 5,000+ strong DRM-free online video store
- Celebrate Explicit Legal Pants Day (except in Mississippi schools)
- Half-and-half Chinese/European traditional porcelain designs
- 1939 World's Fair: the future's cradle, in pictures
- New book about Funnyman, a Jewish superhero from the Golden Age of Comic Books
- Tokyo fishermen update seafood e-commerce site from their boats
- CyberWalk: a giant omni-directional walking platform for virtual reality
- Chinese video of bleeped South Park episode #201 provides clues on Cartman's final speech
- Dead man propped on his beloved motorcycle for funeral
- The telephone was an aberration in human development
- Hitler finds out how to challenge a wrongful YouTube DMCA takedown with Fair Use
- Rudy Coby at the Magic Castle in LA - an amazing show!
- Listen: Noby Noby Boy soundtrack hits iTunes
- Good Show Sir: "only the worst Sci-Fi/Fantasy book covers"
- Microsoft Courier cancelled
- Searching and replacing Job's Flash statement
- How to make nice electronic enclosures
- Is the Uzbek government sterilizing women to control the population?
- Caught in a lab romance
- Anne Frank's complete diary on display for the first time
- Cleaners unknowingly paint over Banksy art
- Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (now on your junk)
- What's wrong with this picture?
- Lyrics for Beatles song expected to sell for $700K
- Tom the Dancing Bug: How to Draw God-Man
- Beware icebergs in black hats
- Gulf oil spill—kill it with fire?
- Your underwear may soon be measuring your biochemistry
- 1950s PSA for fire safety
- Fox-Tossing: Lessons in horrific/ridiculous history
| EZTakes: 5,000+ strong DRM-free online video store Posted: 30 Apr 2010 03:55 AM PDT  Jim sez, When I co-founded EZTakes, my intention was to create a movie download service that encrypted content with DRM. But after hearing Cory give a speech on DRM at a 2005 indie film conference in Montreal, I decided to launch a DRM-free service. I've continued the fight ever since.EZTakes (Thanks, Jim!) |
| Celebrate Explicit Legal Pants Day (except in Mississippi schools) Posted: 30 Apr 2010 03:26 AM PDT YA author Scott Westerfeld has a great post about Ceara Sturgis, the top student at a Mississippi high school who saw every mention of her purged from her senior yearbook because she is a lesbian. Scott puts the fight to dress how you choose and express your gender identity in your own way into historical context, noting that this year marks the centenary of "Explicit Legalization of Pants in Kansas! (Otherwise known as ELPK Day.)" Why Pants Are Legal in Kansas Previously: |
| Half-and-half Chinese/European traditional porcelain designs Posted: 30 Apr 2010 03:18 AM PDT   Ctrlzak design studio's "Ceramix" collection fuses Chinese and European porcelain traditions, creating motley half-and-half plates, bowls, vases and the like. Ceramix (via Geisha Asobi) Previously: |
| 1939 World's Fair: the future's cradle, in pictures Posted: 30 Apr 2010 03:06 AM PDT  Wired has a dandy appreciation of the "World of Tomorrow" exhibit at the 1939 World's Fair, the birthplace of the dark ride (the "Futurama," which motored you past enormous dioramae depicting the domed-city tomorrow). It was a futuristic city inspired by the pages -- and covers -- of pulp science fiction: huge geometric shapes, sweeping curves, plenty of glass and chromium, and gleaming white walls. The fair was the last great blossoming of the Streamlined Moderne style of Art Deco. It was also heavily influenced by the still-rising International Style of such architects as Le Corbusier and Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Read More http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2010/04/gallery-1939-worlds-fair#ixzz0mZnuEfVj1939's 'World of Tomorrow' Shaped Our Today Previously:
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| New book about Funnyman, a Jewish superhero from the Golden Age of Comic Books Posted: 29 Apr 2010 05:17 PM PDT Feral House has a great new book coming out about Funnyman, an unusual and short-lived comic book series created by Superman's Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster. Funnyman was a clown-like superhero who used gags, pranks and Yiddishisms to defeat his humor-deficient enemies. He was a dead ringer for Danny Kaye, one of my favorite comedians. The comic book was a total flop. It ran for six issues and went out of business. Siegel and Shuster tried to keep it going as a newspaper strip, but gave up after a year. The team never worked together again. (Joe Shuster went on to illustrate seedy little bondage booklets, barely scratching out a living. You can read all about it in Craig Yoe's book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster.) The video above consists of interviews with Mel Gordon and Thomas Andrae, the co-authors of Siegel and Shuster's Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero from the Creators of Superman. It also describes how the invention of Superman might have been inspired by a Jewish vaudeville strongman from the 1920s named Siegmund Breitbart, who was billed as a "Superman of Strength." Pre-order Siegel and Shuster's Funnyman: The First Jewish Superhero, from the Creators of Superman |
| Tokyo fishermen update seafood e-commerce site from their boats Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:30 PM PDT  Fisherman in Tokyo are taking photos of the fish they catch and posting them to a retail website before they even return to port. Fishermen's benefit: no fish broker nor auction market process is required. Buyers' benefit: fish and seafood you've ordered on the website before 9am will be delivered to your home within the same day. (It is expected to be delivered within 12 hours from being caught by fishermen to a consumer's kitchen.) C.O.D. available.Tokyo fishermen update seafood e-commerce site from their boats (Thanks, Francesco!) |
| CyberWalk: a giant omni-directional walking platform for virtual reality Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:25 PM PDT Erico says: "Put on your VR goggles and walk on this thing without fear of hitting a wall. Built by Italian and German researchers, it's the largest VR platform in the world." CyberWalker: A Giant Omni-Directional Treadmill for Virtual Reality |
| Chinese video of bleeped South Park episode #201 provides clues on Cartman's final speech Posted: 29 Apr 2010 04:28 PM PDT Boy, censorship issues sure get confusing when American fans of the English-language version of South Park have to look to a Chinese broadcast of the episode to figure out what Cartman was saying in the closing speech of episode 201. That's the controversial "Mohammed" episode Comedy Central/Viacom bleeped out, against Matt and Trey's wishes, over threats from a small wacko wingnut group identified as "Muslim extremists" (but founded by a Jewish dude). Complicated! (andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com, thanks, Richard Adler) |
| Dead man propped on his beloved motorcycle for funeral Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:57 PM PDT This fellow was shot to death in Puerto Rico, but his loved ones gave him one last ride by propping his body onto his motorcycle for the wake. |
| The telephone was an aberration in human development Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:50 PM PDT Rick Webb: "The telephone was an aberration in human development. It was a 70 year or so period where for some reason humans decided it was socially acceptable to ring a loud bell in someone else's life and they were expected to come running, like dogs. This was the equivalent of thinking it was okay to walk into someone's living room and start shouting." |
| Hitler finds out how to challenge a wrongful YouTube DMCA takedown with Fair Use Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:15 PM PDT  The folks at Rocketboom and Know Your Meme have put together a handy PSA video to teach YouTube the basics of challenging a wrongful DMCA takedown claim with a "fair use" defense. The subject gained much interest recently after the film company behind the movie Downfall / Der Untergang DMCA'd a bunch of those "Hitler Finds Out..." funnyvideos. Links: YouTube PSA, Rocketboom "Know Your Meme" blog post with details (with links to EFF, CfSM, FUP). Related: Mark Dery, a recurring guest contributor to Boing Boing, has a recent essay over at True/Slant on the ünterganging of Üntergang vids: Endtime for Hitler: On the Downfall of the Downfall Parodies
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| Rudy Coby at the Magic Castle in LA - an amazing show! Posted: 29 Apr 2010 02:49 PM PDT  Last night I went to the famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, California to see Rudy Coby's Magic vs. Science performance (I wrote about the show's opening here). Donning his trademark white lab jacket and sporting his flamboyant pompadour for the first time in 15 years, Rudy had me and the rest of the audience in stitches with his hilarious routines that combine slapstick theatrics with smoothly executed magic tricks. It reminded me a little of Blue Man Group, because the show is an absurd delight. I'm planning to visit Rudy's workshop soon, where he designs and makes his unique props. If you live in the LA area, I recommend you get over to the Magic Castle to see him. He'll be performing every night through May 2. I made a copy of the brochure about the show, which lists performance times along with the names of the other magicians (all selected by Rudy) who are performing in the other rooms in the Magic Castle during the Magic vs Science week. UPDATE: The Magic Castle is a members' only club, but there are ways for non-members to attend. For information call: |
| Listen: Noby Noby Boy soundtrack hits iTunes Posted: 29 Apr 2010 02:01 PM PDT  Though it lacks the lyrical high weirdness and therefore probably the punch of the original Katamari Damacy soundtracks, the new 34-track collection of Noby Noby Boy's instrumental background music -- just released to iTunes -- is still basically an essential download. Wistful, innocent and occasionally childishly rambunctious, it's perfect background music for stretching homemade pasta or clay sculptures, and comes with a bonus booklet of acoustic guitar sheet music for a song lifted from Katamari. NOBY NOBY BOY 0---0 (Original Sound Track) [iTunes, via Jeriaska & GSW] Previously:
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| Good Show Sir: "only the worst Sci-Fi/Fantasy book covers" Posted: 29 Apr 2010 02:28 PM PDT  What is it about the Sci-fi/Fantasy genre that seems to make perfectly sensible publishers lose their minds and stamp "APPROVED" on cover proofs that would give a sane person nightmares? I'm not talking about every cover in the genre, of course. You know the ones I mean. The ones that look like something you might see in a long night of fever dreams after a Tuborg bender. The ones that look like this one on the right. Gosh, but there's a lot going on in it, isn't there? It isn't just that it violates any precept of sensible design; it's also that it obliterates any rational notion of narrative discipline. What I'm saying is, sure you could infer a story from the cover, and that story might even be Art, but that Art would be, in Shelby Lynne's words, the killin' kind. What you want to do with art like this is gather it up and wall it off where it can't hurt anybody. Which is, in a way, what a British site called Good Show Sir has done. Its motto is brisk and direct -- Only the worst Sci-Fi/Fantasy book covers -- and the criteria for inclusion are blessedly clear: Some of the things to look for in a cover:This is a valuable public service. Visit the site if you dare. Just don't blame me if you end up sobbing in a corner. |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2010 01:31 PM PDT Gizmodo reports that Microsoft has canceled Courier, the book-like device that was expected to go toe-to-toe with the iPad and Android tablets. I can't help but wonder if HP was its hardware partner. Now the owner of Palm, HP isn't likely to maintain any interest in making mobile devices that aren't built around WebOS—even if it still makes the Windows 7-based Slate, which is a more traditional full-bore tablet PC. |
| Searching and replacing Job's Flash statement Posted: 29 Apr 2010 01:23 PM PDT Over at Hoopyrides, Mister Jalopy took Steve Jobs' anti-Flash statement and replaced "Adobe" with "Apple" and "Flash" with "closed." The results are funny. Searching and replacing Job's Flash statement |
| How to make nice electronic enclosures Posted: 29 Apr 2010 11:59 AM PDT Collin Cunninghan of Make: Online is partial to "sweet retro sci-fi styling" for his electronics project enclosure, which is why I like this video so much. |
| Is the Uzbek government sterilizing women to control the population? Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:41 AM PDT To control population growth, the Uzbek government has reportedly been sterilizing women without their consent. Not cool. From the Times Online: Uzbek sources say the measure was ordered by Islam Karimov, the president, who has ruled with an iron fist for 20 years. The policy is aimed at keeping down the country's poor population -- with 28m people, it is Central Asia's most densely populated state.[via Mother Jones] |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:26 AM PDT Fox-tossing, oil spill, incurable gonorrhea ... I've been on a real downer streak today. As penance, please enjoy this parody music video, featuring scientists dancing and voguing around laboratory equipment. Lyrics can be found at the blog of Christina Agapakis, one of the Harvard Medical School grad students involved in this little endeavor.
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| Anne Frank's complete diary on display for the first time Posted: 29 Apr 2010 10:32 AM PDT The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam now has on display the full three-volume diary of Anne Frank; previously, only a part of it was housed there; the rest was at another museum. |
| Cleaners unknowingly paint over Banksy art Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:58 AM PDT A team of street cleaners in Melbourne unknowingly painted over a Banksy stencil of a rat while cleaning up garbage in a graffitied alley. A similar incident happened in London last September, which makes me think someone should do something to protect high-value street art from accidents like these. |
| Antibiotic-resistant bacteria (now on your junk) Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:49 AM PDT Speaking of Superbugs, it looks like we're on our way to incurable, antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. This article also brings up a point I didn't mention in the book review yesterday: Part of the problem is that nobody is developing new antibiotics. Once an old drug becomes ineffective, there's nothing to replace it with. New drugs could be made, but the work (as with any brand new drug development) is expensive, and pharmaceutical companies aren't inclined to invest in products with a limited effective life, that patients only use for short periods of time. |
| What's wrong with this picture? Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:33 AM PDT  Not a damn thing. (Especially when compared to offshore oil.) And the Obama administration agrees. Yesterday, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced approval for Cape Wind, hopefully soon-to-be America's first offshore wind farm, to build in federally owned waters off Massachusetts. Wind blows harder offshore, and you can install bigger turbines that produce more electricity. Capturing that power, where we can, is crucial to a sustainable energy future. Of course, some would argue that the turbines mar the view from Hyannis Port. Bottom line: It looks like Cape Wind has passed its final hurdle. We're (probably) getting offshore wind, everybody. Image courtesy Flickr user phault, via CC |
| Lyrics for Beatles song expected to sell for $700K Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:22 AM PDT  A piece of paper with John Lennon's handwritten lyrics for the Beatles song A Day in the Life will be sold at an auction in NY in June; the BBC is reporting that it is expected to sell at around $700,000. I think the estimate is based on the fact that the lyrics for All You Need is Love sold for $1 million in 2005 at the same venue. |
| Tom the Dancing Bug: How to Draw God-Man Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:05 AM PDT  Enjoy our second installment of Ruben Bolling's Tom the Dancing Bug here at BB; the full strip is after the jump. And be sure to check out Ruben's work in print: Thrilling Tom the Dancing Bug Stories (Andrews McMeel, 2004); All I Ever Needed to Know I Learned From My Golf-Playing Cats (NBM Publishing, 1997); and Tom the Dancing Bug (HarperCollins, 1992).
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| Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:59 AM PDT |
| Gulf oil spill—kill it with fire? Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:55 AM PDT  How do you stop an ongoing Maybe you burn it. With options dwindling, the Coast Guard started test burns last night, and is likely to do some larger patches today. It sounds a little crazy. Yes. But, we're past good solutions here and on to the world of slightly-less-shitty. Frankly, that oil was going to get burned (and the CO2 emissions produced) anyway, had it not spilled out of the broken well all over the freaking Gulf of Mexico. And the particulate pollution is less of a threat than the oil itself would be to animal lives and human health/livelihoods if this stuff makes landfall. Based solely on foggy, childhood memories of the Exxon Valdez spill, one might be tempted to think that an oil spill on land can be cleaned up effectively. But Treehugger points out that job isn't as easy, or successful, as you might think. The stress of cleanup can kill as easily as oil. Plus, there's the massive expense involved. And the oil is only about 20 miles away from Louisiana. For the record, cleanup crews have already been suctioning up the oil and using chemical treatments to break it down and disperse it. Burning is a last-ditch effort, and probably will only be used in spots where the oil is thickest and difficult to get rid of fast enough any other way. It's also worth noting that this isn't just tossing a match out onto the waves. There's a protocol here, which involves corralling oil inside a fireproof enclosure. The burns are controlled. Each lasts about an hour and gets rid of more than 90 percent of the oil. What's leftover can be easily skimmed off. Historical photo of burning oil tanker courtesy Flickr user paddling, via CC |
| Your underwear may soon be measuring your biochemistry Posted: 29 Apr 2010 08:54 AM PDT Researchers in Taiwan and at UC San Diego have figured out how to print electrochemical sensors onto fabric, so that your undergarments can double as a way to measure your vitals. |
| Posted: 29 Apr 2010 09:49 AM PDT This 20-second public service ad from the 1950s features Poncho and Francisco in sombreros teaching a little girl not to play with matches or lighters, inside or outside. |
| Fox-Tossing: Lessons in horrific/ridiculous history Posted: 29 Apr 2010 01:36 PM PDT  Is there a German word for "the feeling you get when something is so ridiculous that you want to laugh, yet is simultaneously jaw-droppingly horrible"? Can we make one up? I ask, because I recently discovered Fox-Tossing, a 17th/18th century European pastime that is exactly what it sounds like. People would go out in a field and set up a little fenced-in court. Then high-society types would stand, in pairs, holding slack ropes. Then a bunch of foxes would be released into the court. When the foxes ran over the ropes, the players pulled the ropes tight, launching the foxes up into the air. Repeat until all foxes are dead. Aren't you glad we can rot our brains with TV now, instead? According to the Ptak Science Books blog:
And a partridge in a pear tree. 10:00 am isn't too early to start drinking, right? UPDATE: Resident German commenter Tillwe has offered a couple of possibilities: First, "fürchterliche Witzigkeit" (lit. frighteningly funnyness). He/she says that captures the mood best, but, to pack it all into one word, we could use "Grausamkeitsspäße" (lit. "funny cruelties"). |
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