Tamales are an essential holiday tradition in Mexico and in every place where Mexico is felt. Christmas without them is like going tree-less. There's always a long line at Lilianas if you wait until Christmas Eve to go pick them up, but the longest of lines is a small penitencia to pay for that fragrant corn vapor that fills the car on the drive home. If there is a perfect scent, this is it. I sat in the back seat, with the bag pulled up around my face like I was huffing glue. Maybe Liliana sneaks a little crack into the masa or something. Me intoxican. De dulce, de rajas con carne, de pollo con chile verde, y sencillo, de elote. Irresistibles.
Larger phone-snap images: Steaming hot bag of fresh tamales, La Virgen on Cesar Chavez, and long line outside Lilianas.

Link to full-size.

BB reader Dan Berkes says, "Meet the Slavic Mexicans! How a Cold War lover's quarrel resulted in one Eastern European nation's adoption of Mexican music and movies. Does this make Tito the father of the mashup?"

In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (May 7, 1892 - May 4, 1980) broke up with the Soviet leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (Dec. 21, 1879 - March 5, 1953) and Yugoslavia was on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. There were tanks on both sides of the border and Tito's regime imprisoned many Soviet sympathizers (real or just suspected). Russian films were suddenly not so popular anymore.

Yugoslav authorities had to look somewhere else for film entertainment. They found a suitable country in Mexico: it was far away, the chances of Mexican tanks appearing on Yugoslav borders were slight and, best of all, in Mexican films they always talked about revolution in the highest terms. How could an average moviegoer know that it was not the Yugoslav revolution?

Update: BoingBoing reader meeroh says, "Naturally, the Yu-Mex mashup was parodied, with the parodies often far better than the originals. One of my favorite parodies songs is here (MP3), and the somewhat poorly transcribed lyrics are here.

"Remember the days before George Lucas so tightly controlled the Star Wars franchise? The days when there could be a Star Wars Christmas Special on TV? Cleaning out my garage, I found an old 45 RPM record from 1977: The Rebel Force Band, performing "Chewie the Rookie Wookie" (sort of Motown) and "May the Force Be With You" (imagine a lounge singer doing a version of "Sunrise, Sunset" - that's what it sounds like). Of course, nowadays something like this would never get off the ground; it's just not as sophisticated as Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, or that Jake kid."
Link

Seven people arrested last week by Dutch law enforcement officials for offering links to allegedly copyright-infringing content have been released. The group shared thousands of movies, games and music files through eDonkey and BitTorrent files.

Dutch lobby organisation BREIN remains likely to start criminal procedures against the site owners. BREIN believes that warez group DVD Europe Team, which shares illegal copies of movies as soon as they are released in cinemas, is part of the group that hosted the files.

That spot was a chat between Ira Flatow and Alex Chadwick on the NPR program "Day to Day," to which I'm a contributing tech correspondent. Here's the audio for that segment: Link

Reader Philip Downey adds, "The site heavens-above.com tells you when ANY satellite is going over anywhere in the world. One neat feature is going back a day in time to figure out what you saw last night."

Link

And reader Eric Case says, "Over at the BiodieselBlog, I posted about something similar back in April: Link. They're using the oil left over from fish processing as biodiesel: Link."

"The procedure itself involved injecting a liquid to elevate and separate the layers of the eyeball, which helps the surgeon with the placement of the implant under the conjunctiva (in old age, many people build up calcium deposits in this area, so our eye is actually designed to handle material stuck there). A small flap is cut, and the implant is inserted. After it was in place, they began suctioning out the liquid that was used to elevate the layers. After a few weeks, the liquid will dissipate and the implant will become even more visible."

"Earrings, make-up and more recently tattoos and piercings are accepted forms of body cosmetics. Surprisingly, no jewelry is available for the organ that is most important in social interactions, the eye."

I know this may seem petty, but Ms. Crisholm should have told you how we feel about goatees or facial hair in our corporate offices. While I realize they may be considered stylish and acceptable in our Starbucks outlets, we ask that men refrain from wearing them in our corporate offices as we are trying to uphold a certain image. That includes earrings and other piercings on men, which I do not tolerate at all. Unfortunately, there's little we can do about the appearance of our counter people no matter how much we try. I certainly wish this weren't the case, because most of them have absolutely no loyalty to our brand, and they have done nothing but tarnish our image. I hope you understand our position. Please have it removed by Monday.

The bus, which ran on avocado oil during a week-long drive down from the U.S. border, is being used to prove that vehicles can run on recycled fuels that pollute less than gasoline as it chugs around oil refineries, factories and eateries collecting vegetable oil.

"We're running low, we have to score some oil today," said environmentalist Zak Zaidman as crew members called around the greasiest-sounding eateries in the city's phone directory.

I'm living in mainland China for a couple of months. The dearth of English TV and the terrible quality of Chinese shows made me set out, on my very first day, to a local DVD store.

They're on every street. These people must listen to and watch a fair number of movies and CDs. But since the average wage here is, very roughly, US$150 a month, and the average DVD costs about US$15 back home, how can they afford it? Do they get a continental discount?

I walked in and got right to the discount rack. Dozens of American and foreign movies were on sale for 6RMB, about 75¢! The full-price ones ranged from 12-18RMB ($1.50 - $2.25.) Obviously, these are copies, fakes, pirate booty. But how good are they? For the sake of journalistic thoroughness, I bought 35 of them.

(...) The DVD cases are works of pirate art. They are all made in the same style from hard glossy cardboard. Cheaply made, but professionally graphically designed. They're so uniform, you can tell they almost all come from one maker. What makes them art, though, are the mistakes: made by a genius dyslexican who flunked the TOEFL. English literacy here is almost zero. A Chinese person picking up a movie to buy would not read the title, the quotes, the description, or the credits if they were in English. But any American movie case has to have English, right?

BoingBoing reader Charles Lin adds,

I lived in China for a short while, and the pirated DVD's tend to have OCR errors. How they got "brine" from "bride" is a horrid mistake, but especially when it comes to recognizing movie blurbs and the blocks of credits on the back, most of the errors don't appear to be typing transcription errors, but OCR errors from a scanner. Much of the box art doesn't look like the American version because it's scanned in from foreign posters for the movies, which often are of a slightly different design.

Update: BoingBoing reader Jim Appleton says, "The incomparable Masamania has at least two whole galleries of these vans. Masa's [warning: Engrish] indifference to Ayumi herself is typical Masa: 'Sorry but I am not fan of her, because breast problem.'" Link

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society have nearly finished making a 1920s/30s style black and white silent film of "The Call of Cthulhu", and they've put a quicktime trailer on their site.

It looks really bizarre: they seem to have done quite a good job of mimicking the visual style of films of the period, particularly the horrifying rituals of the cultists.

"Reading the BoingBoing post about mass tomb in Kutna Hora near Prague, I realized that here in Poland we've got a similar sacral place. It's located in a village called Czeremna, near a famous spa center called Kudowa Zdroj in lower Silesia. About 24 thousand human skulls are gathered there (3000 in a main hall, the rest in a cellar). A priest named Waclaw Tomaszek dig them out in during the XVIII century, and the chapel itself was built in the 1780s. The human remains mostly date from the 30-year war (1618-1648) and epidemic disease which killed thousands of people in that period. You can check out some pictures here: Link (the text is in polish but the pics are clickable), as well as here: Link."

100,000 California donors receive identity theft warning after a single laptop is stolen from a mobile blood bank. It was being used to register donors. "The blood bank will no longer require Social Security numbers from its donors, and has revised procedures for handling computer hardware and other sensitive equipment."

"In late 18th century, Italian physicist Luigi Galvani shocked the public by demonstrating that an amputated frog's leg twitched when touched with certain metals. Galvani was convinced that energy stored in the frog's leg caused the jerk. He called the accumulated juice "animal electricity." Galvani's friend Alessandro Volta called it nonsense. To prove that the energy came from the metal, not the flesh, Volta eventually made a sandwich of silver, moist cardboard, and zinc. His device also spurred frogs' legs to spasm. In the end, Volta won the intellectual battle and also invented the battery. Two hundred years later, the technology hasn't changed much."

"This is a concept that's been around for a long time," Owens said in a telephone interview. "But I'm not going to wait for the other guy to come out and make it when I've got the capability to do it myself."

When completed, the idea is for the pilot to be able to strap himself into a central, padded compartment, and then control the mecha with the motions of his own body. When the pilot walks, the mecha walks. Raise an arm and open a hand, and the mecha does the same, with 46 possible movements planned.

Owens said he can't afford top-of-the line equipment, like infrared sensors and electronics that would govern the motion. Instead he's using a hydraulic system to transfer the motion of his limbs to the larger structure, and a gas engine mounted on the back to generate the power needed. In all, the system can exert about 3,500 pounds per square inch, or more than enough to set his ton and a half creation in motion, he said.

The BRICKIA, DESKIA and POKIA all plug into your mobile and work as a headset (although hardly hands free) The BRICKIA is a genuine vintage 80s mobile phone converted into a plug in headset. (...) The DESKIA is perfect for any office environment. Take calls from your mobile on the big chunky 60's 70's and 80's phones. There is nothing like holding a traditional earpiece close to your head to maximize your telecom pleasure. The POKIA is a vintage telephone handset in a selection of fine colours and styles...

Sedlec is a small suburb of Kutna Hora, which you can get to in about an hour on the train from Prague. Just off the main road into Kutna Hora, there's a small chapel, set in a very green graveyard. There is a statue of a Saint outside, with a halo of stars made from gold metal. There's a low-key, local restaurant opposite. The church-yard is quiet. The church itself has spires, and at the top are skull and crossbone motifs.

Sedlec is not actually a church - it's an Ossuary: a tomb. Inside, it contains the remains of about 40,000 people. They have been used to decorate the building: their skulls cover the walls, their limbs hang from the ceiling as a massive chandelier and their bones form a huge coat of arms on one wall. I spent an afternoon in the place and have loads of creepy photos up on my site.

Update: Reader Lucas Emery says, "I was excited to see your post about the Kostnice bone ossuary. I first heard of it in a Smithsonian magazine article when I was in, like, the eighth grade and over the spring I was lucky enough to finally get to see it up close and personal! I've got a few cc licensed pictures up on flickr for the curious. My next dream travel destination is the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo. Spooky!" Link.

Reader Darren Barefoot says,

"Here are two photos I took when visiting that creepy place last winter: Link, and Link 2. The latter one won me a free point-and-shoot camera from Backpacker magazine. Another interesting note about the ossuary is that if you want to take photos, you have to pay an additional fee. This is presumably to mitigate the postcard and poster revenue lost from their tiny giftshop. The fee, in my recollection, was nominal. I figured it was a reasonable compromise approach to the thorny issue of photography in tourist attractions. If you should find yourself in Kutna Hora (a small town near Sedlec), don't miss Church of St. Barbara. It's my favourite European catheral."

"Inspired by David Boyk's excellent Bollywood mp3 compilation Bollywood for the Skeptical, I slapped together some printable album art to accompany it. Available in PDF format on my site, for free, of course.
Link

Here's your chance to own a piece of art/porn history: the original printing plate for legendary illustrator and comic artist Wally Wood's "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" went up for sale on eBay this week. Wood, an EC Comics artist and one of the original illustators for Mad Magazine, produced the work in 1967 for The Realist, Paul Krassner's seminal counterculture journal; Disney chose not to sue Wood for his depiction of dozens of its signature characters in naughty (though not explicit) positions, but a subsequent bootleg poster edition of the image prompted Disney to file a lawsuit, which was later settled out of court.

Another innovative idea was to use mimes to improve both traffic and citizens' behavior. Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes.

UPDATE: Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña sez: "Antanas Mockus was Bogota's mayor for the 2001-2003 period. Luis Eduardo Garzón is in his place now. So, this news originally took place during 2003."

Some of my favorite blogs reclaim the radical promise inherent in the notion of an online journal, letting casual passersby eavesdrop on a stranger’s innermost thoughts, see the world through another mind’s eye. Call it the Being John Malkovich effect. The cultural critic Julian Dibbell had it just about right when he theorized the weblog as postmodern wunderkammer—an idiosyncratic jumble of found objects (in this case, ideas and images, facts and fictions scavenged from the global mediastream) that “reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the ‘discovery’ of the networked world.” Some of the most consistently enlightening and entertaining blogs are the inscrutable products of borderline obsessive-compulsives. Like the baroque “wonder closets” invoked by Dibbell, blogs such as bOING bOING, The Obscure Store, Kottke.org, and Die, Puny Humans are omnium gatherums, overstuffed with anything that catches the fancy of their eccentric curators.

Somewhere in China, frantic factory workers cannot make enough toy automatic teller machines for clamoring American children.

"I wish every kid in America could have an ATM," says Michael Searl, the onetime stockbroker who created the Youniverse ATM Machine, a highly evolved piggy bank that receives and dispenses real cold cash, not that fake play stuff. "Why wouldn't I want every kid to have one?"

Tweens and beyond can insert the supplied ATM card into the silver machine, punch in their PIN, be greeted by name on the electronic display, peer into the pretend security camera and wait for that seminal capitalistic moment -- when crisp bills miraculously appear, ripe for the plucking. Unlike in a real ATM, a cash drawer opens in the toy ATM, allowing an avaricious child to grab every last cent and run. What do you want for $24.95?

I'm pretty sure that Urkel-O's and pickled pork rinds trump those cans of basil seed drink by a food fear factor of fifty. Japan and Korea do not have a monopoly on icky snacks and soft drinks. Link (Thanks, Dogzilla)

Also, an update on that chrysalis snack story (gag). Reader Kyungjoon Lee says, "You said they were caterpillars, but I think that's a little misleading. They're silkworms. The only chrysalis we eat in Korea are from silkworms. The chrysalis is what the silkworm becomes when it finishes spinning its cocoon. We boil the cocoon, unravel the silk, and eat what's inside. It's not *that* popular, but you can see chrysalis vendors at national parks or hiking trails."

The night was humid.  With the air conditioner on high, I drove North towards Kahului.  The laptop sitting on the center console continuously pinging at the networks being discovered.  “Man, there’s a lot of wireless around here,” I said.

Which shouldn’t have surprised me.  The island of Maui in the state of Hawaii is a popular tourist destination with hundreds of hotels and time-share condominiums supporting over 2 million tourists a year.  Haleakala, the dormant volcano reaching to 10,023 feet, is home to ”Science City”, a research facility and observatory.  Maui fosters a strong technology community boasting state tax incentives, a modern research & technology park for industry.  And Hawaii is the hub of the Southern Cross Network, a submarine fiber optic network capable of providing 1.2 terabits of bandwidth from Hawaii to mainland US, and 480 gigabits of capacity to Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.

In case you didn'ts know this type of service, a french studio offers a nice service : "Limona Studio offers you the opportunity to commission your own hand-painted movie poster on canvas. From your pictures, the best artists of Bollywood selected by Limona Studio, will create a very unique and colorful painting in Bollywood style." Watcha !

Update: Shahrukh sez:

I'm a regular Boing Boing reader from India. Guess that makes me know a little more about Bollywood than the westerners. Love ur coverage on the stuff, but the pic shown in this post isn't exactly Bollywood. "Bollywood" refers to the HINDI film industry rather than the entire Indian film industry. That's because they're made in Bombay (now Mumbai) hence B-ollywood. Get it? There's also Tollywood. The Bengali film industry which is located in Tollygunge, which is Calcutta (now Kolkata), in India. See they're all still part of the Indian film industry but not "Bollywood. That pic is from the "South Indian" film industry and isn't "Bollywood".

PowerLight's three Bavarian solar parks, consisting of 57,600 silicon-and- aluminum panels, will generate 10 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power 9,000 German homes. The amount of electricity produced is much less than power plants fueled by coal or natural gas, but with very low operating costs, the solar project is expected quickly to turn a profit while emitting zero pollution. Schroeder's left-of-center Social Democrat-Green coalition has turned Germany into the world leader in renewable energy since it took office in 1998. Billions of dollars have been spent on wind and solar projects, and Schroeder, in a politically risky move, has sharply increased taxes on petroleum products in an attempt to reduce consumption of conventional fuels.

Tony Luke's is an infamous steak & hoagie joint in South Philly, patronized by Judge and Mobster alike. I was looking at their site today, and came across the TONY LUKE'S flash VIDEO GAME.

It's SERIOUSLY cheesy, and completely South Philly, starring the owner, Tony Luke Jr. You shoot blonde haired ninjas running amok at a South Philly wedding hall, trying to thwart the plans of the EVIL DR. MONELLA, who has stolen the Tony Luke's recipe disk! Man. It doesn't get better than this.

"Basil Seed Drink with Honey may just be the epitome of non-thirst-quenching drinks. Mmmm... very sweet, with nary a bit o' liquid. Instead, the tongue is met with an onslaught of slick gelatin capsules that, through a nefarious mixture of slipperiness, honey, and yes, sheer numbers, forcefully override the throat's core instinct not to swallow tadpoles, or chilled vomit. And yet, I can't say it wasn't fun. Yes, yes I can."

"On the night of Tropical Islands' gala launch, the transformation from airship hangar to island paradise is nearly complete: there are still a few coiled up hoses about, and the rainforest plants look a bit dusty, but most things are in place. The sand along the lip of the Balinese lagoon is a pristine white. Round the other side of the rainforest, the island in the centre of the tropical sea - a body of water about the size of four Olympic swimming pools - is set for the premiere of what will be a nightly stage show. The scale of the operation puts one in mind of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, or a Martian colony, or other things that don't exist in real life. They have trucked in 30,000m cubed of soil and 500 plant species for their rainforest. The speakers which broadcast insect noises are shaped like rocks. And the building itself, it goes without saying, is extraordinary, the biggest inside of anything you will ever see. It makes your head spin. This place doesn't just have a climate. It has weather. As the place fills up, the extra moisture in the air condenses on the roof. It starts to rain a little bit."

Faced with the prospect of spending the night in jail, his brother admitted the ruse to prison guards.

"We knew there was a certain risk of a mix up, so we took some measures," said Lars-Aake Pettersson, the warden for the jail. "But this was apparently not enough. They managed to dupe us."

* Synthetic biology that could cure blindness

* A flare-up in solar physics

* The fly guy and the genetics of Drosophila

"While I was supposed to be studying for finals, I made a mix CD to introduce dubious Westerners to Bollywood. That didn't waste enough time, so I also made a big web site that has all the tracks from the CD, plus some more, and a lot of other information to explain Bollywood movies and music, and also to help a bit with language."

Far from a waste of time, David's terrific site includes a "bollywood for dummies" primer, and a very helpful list of common Hindi words you'll encounter. As for the MP3s, man -- there are some serious gems in here, in particular the rockin' 1960s numbers. This may not be the largest Hindi MP3 collection online, but it's a terrific place to start.

Link

Hey, Hollywood! Can you feel the future slipping through your fingers? Do you understand how badly you've screwed up? You took a perfectly serviceable situation - a nice, centralized system for the distribution of media, and, through your own greed and shortsightedness, are giving birth to a system of digital distribution that you'll never, ever be able to defeat. In your avarice and arrogance you ignored the obvious: you should have cut a deal with SuprNova.org. In partnership you could have found a way to manage the disruptive change that's already well underway. Instead, you have repeated the mistakes made by the recording industry, chapter and verse. And thus you have spelled your own doom.

It's said that the best sequels are just like the original, only bigger and louder. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one hell of a crash. This baby is now fully out of control.

Once a week, PPCT puts a sign outside its clinic that says, "Even Our Protesters Support Planned Parenthood." To date, the Pledge-a-Picket program has raised $18,000 for PPCT. While not a significant chunk of its overall revenues, Pledge-a-Picket contributes greatly to PPCT's patient assistance fund, which helps clients who don't have resources get the care they need.

"Tijuana Xmas! Aaaaaaahahaha! the cheesiest christmas songs, straight outta Tijuana! these are going straight onto a christmas cd to terrorize my family."

Link to Christmas MP3s from "The Border Brass." Link to image of front cover, Link to back.

Link to the label behind the album, part of a series of xmas releases. (Thanks, Shawn)

Reader Bill the Splut says,

"As the owner of scores of freakishly anti-Christmas albums that have been used to abuse my friends at this time of year, I was excited to buy "Tijuana Christmas" for a dollar. But I never used it. The reason isn't that LP isn't cheezy enough, but because the joke is too subtle. As an actual, admitted lifetime fan of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Tijuana Christmas is brilliant. They aren't just Xmas tunes--every one is a parody of a TJB hit. For instance, note how track 3 mimics A Taste of Honey. The rest of the tracks have similar musical jokes.

"And people would've caught those jokes. Remember, the TJB was a huge success before the Beatles came over. Anyone who was an American kid in the 60s had parents with most of Herb's LPs. Why else do you think that you find so many copies of Whipped Cream and Other Delights in every stack of used vinyl?"

UPDATE: Derek sez "Just saw the Sandbag Shelter link you dropped on the Boingx2 site. If you click over to the indicated page, check out the 4th pic on the top of the page (listed as photo 6 at the bottom). Its the one with the completed huts. Look in the background about 2/3 to the right. You'll see (what appears to be) an airplane about half a second from a ground smashing explosion. The smoke trail looks to start in the upper left then you see it headed straight down and the plane is just above the mountain horizon when the pic was snapped. Bizarre timing, eh?"

UPDATE:Hayes sez: "It's a piece of string or rope hanging from the line that you can see in the left side of the picture."

I just got back from Mumbai yesterday, and it's true about the scale of the Baazee uproar -- it's front page full-width headlines, first the scandal, then the arrest, then the arrest scandal, etc.

Worth noting is the echo to it, also front pages over there -- a phonecam snap of some Bollywood celebs kissing in public. It provoked a series of suprisingly fierce newspaper debates over Public Displays of Affection in India overall.

There's a funny logic behind that, considering that almost no one saw the event itself, and that the real Public is the viewers of the news networks which broadcasted the image. The distributed image was considered the documentation of public-ness, rather than a further expression of it.

The [oral] sex clip was recorded weeks ago and passed on by the bragging schoolboy to three of his friends and eventually made its way to video disc sellers in New Delhi. It did not draw much attention until an engineering student at a prestigious Indian college listed it for sale on [eBay's Indian subsidiary] Baazee.com... it's the talk of urban India, an obsession of newspapers and talk shows. (...)

Of greater concern to many in the business community is [Baazee.com exec Avnish] Bajaj's arrest under the Information Technology Act of 2000. The law makes a criminal offense of "publishing, transmitting, or causing to publish any information in electronic form, which is obscene." But it also says an Internet provider or Web site manager can't be held responsible if he acted diligently to remedy an electronic offense after learning of it. Baazee.com maintains it yanked the sex video listing as soon as customer service managers noticed it, and Bajaj had traveled to New Delhi to cooperate with authorities.

Pawan Duggal, a cyberlaw expert, said Bajaj's arrest has serious implications, especially when Internet usage in the country is rapidly growing and foreign investors are increasingly looking to India for e-commerce opportunities. "Ultimately we have to see bigger picture. We want to increase Internet penetration. All this will only happen if you allow service providers the freedom," he said.

Update: Fleshbot picked up an interesting/creepy angle on the story as reported by Agence France-Presse: the incident is reportedly being followed at the "highest levels" of US government as well. Fleshbot's editor asks, "Yes, the manager of Baazee.com is an Indian-born US citizen, but still. Is this the sort of case the US State Department usually gets involved in? We'd have thought they were busy with other things, like ... oh, war and stuff." Link

And reader John McCarthy says, "According to today’s Salon, Condi’s on the trail of the India phone sex scandal."

[Condoleezza] Rice is understood to have telephoned the U.S. ambassador in India, David Mulford, about the case. The Bush administration's national security advisor and future secretary of state has let it be known that she is furious about Bajaj's humiliating treatment. He is, after all, a U.S. citizen.

I've signed a deal to do The Long Tail book with Hyperion (in the US--Random House will be publishing it in the UK and others TBA elsewhere). I should be turning in the manuscript next fall for a spring 2006 release. Following John Battelle's great example, I'm starting The Long Tail blog to help me preview my book thinking and research in public and to tap the wisdom of crowds on this rich subject.

He's also my uncle, and he is the person who first taught me to love photography -- and appreciate the grace of machines. I've enjoyed his work since before I could walk, and I'm overjoyed to see it online now, where the rest of the world can find it more easily. I'm a biased critic, but I really love my uncle's work. He says:

"I am still a child. I have always been fascinated with big things, especially big machines. My photography has tended toward industrial subjects. In the 1970s I started photographing steel mills as a documentary project. Over the years I found that I was reacting to the mills, especially the blast furnaces, more from an emotional than a documentary viewpoint. Something about their tremendous size is both scary and attractive, and ultimately magnificent."

"Standing near an operating blast furnace is like becoming that child again watching a robot monster movie on Saturday afternoon. The mill looms above. The men working around the bottom move cautiously and wear protective clothing. There is a constant roar from the blast stoves, the unique smell of hot metal-and there is the light. Molten iron emits a glowing light that is mesmerizing. You want to reach down and scoop up a handful of this flowing strand of light."

Image: Sunrise, Edgar Thomson Works. Link to gallery home, Link to steel mill photos (these are my favorite!), link to Pennsylvania railroad photos, Link to Appalachian railroad photos.
Merry Christmas, Uncle Kev, and thank you for capturing the soul of endangered machines.

The most widely viewed news article described bias in a heads-or-tail toss of a coin. The most popular feature looked into the physics underlying a new generation of yo-yos. Other top articles reported on:

* DNA differences among various breeds of purebred dogs.
* Stone Age human relatives that were surprisingly small.
* Psychology investigations of how, and how well, people recognize lies.
* A Martian chemical that hints there was once life on the Red Planet.
* A gene mutation that resulted in a superstrong toddler.
* Technologies developed to mimic ocean animals.

When I arrive on Mahé, it's easy to spot Graf in the crowd at the airport. He's the only guy wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the classic pirate ensign—a skull and crossbones. Tanned and fit, the treasure hunter seems relaxed—hardly what you'd expect from someone who has spent a third of his life obsessed with a long-dead pirate. Yet Graf is no laid-back islander. He's in-your-face intense right from the start. I'd barely heaved my suitcase into the trunk of his rusty compact car when he launched into a breathless retelling of how he'd voyaged some 10,000 miles from his Colorado home, married a Seychellois hotel reservations manager and spent more than $450,000 of his own money looking for a treasure that others have failed to find here for nearly a century.

"The research enabled us to determine the close connection that exists between the sequence, structure and functions of the proteins," said (researcher Uri) Gat. "From a practical viewpoint, mass production of fibers, whose diameter is one-thousandth of a millimeter, is likely to be useful in the future for manufacture of bulletproof vests, surgical thread, micro-conductors, optical fibers and fishing rods; even new types of clothing may be envisioned."

"A guy with his hand-made robot playing songs for change at the Bedford L (subway) stop (in New York City). It was so understated. The robot was an art project from the guy, who said he wasn't really into robotics. Sort of like, Yeah, that's my goddam robot. Like the robot was trouble or something, or he had inherited it -- even though he'd made it himself."

Link

Update: reader Joshua Dickens says, "In reference to the robot from Bedford Ave post, I actually encoded a video for the robot-creator in question and am hosting it on my web site: Link. The robot paints to [the music of the 30-year-old hair band] Rush.

Oh, and maybe someone can torrent the video in case my site gets slammed!"
I am bleeding through my eyeballs I'm laughing so hard right now. Email Josh if you want to help with the torrent: Link

And reader Ben Seigel says, "A correction: Rush is not a '30-year-old hair band,' but rather, a 30 year old progressive rock band. Please don't lump them together with Ratt and Poison." Ben, I thank you, and mea maxima prog-rock culpa.

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I enjoyed your post about the apocalypse and devasation on ebay. Thought you might like to know, i've stumbled across two other unsettling algorithmic hiccups: searching for "11-year-olds" gets you ebay ads for children, and searching for "ringworm" results in "sexy ringworm singles." i've got screenshots of each on my blog: one, two.

Reader Larry Swanson says,

Couldn't resist playing along. These are all actual AdWords results from today:

Famine
Find Everything You Want at Ebay
It's Fun, Quick & Easy to Buy! -aff
www.eBay.com

Find Drought
We have what you're looking for.
Drought & much more! www.eWoss.com

Vomit
600+ Popular Stores - One Website &
One Simple Checkout - Shop Now! SHOP.COM

Lint
Lint for sale. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com

In Japan we don't only have capsule hotels. No -- we also have capsule buildings. At the outskirts of the posh Ginza district stands the now almost forgotten Nakagin Capsule Tower, the world's first capsule architecture built for actual use.

Built from 1970 and opened in 1972 the Nakagin Capsule Tower was a innovative masterpiece by architect Kisho Kurokawa. Kurokawa developed the technology to install the 2.3m x 3.8m x 2.1m sized capsule units into a concrete core with only 4 high-tension bolts, making the units detachable and replaceable. The capsules were designed to accommodate the individual as either an apartment or studio space, and by connecting units they could also accommodate a family. Complete with appliances and furniture, from audio system to telephone, the capsule interior was pre-assembled in a factory off-site and then hoisted by crane and fastened to the concrete core shaft. Today the Nakagin Capsule Tower is in rather bad condition and most capsules are rented out as mini-offices for a monthly fee of about 70,000yen each.

This pass is the property of Universal Pictures which reserves the right to admit, revoke admission or refuse access to the theatre at the discretion of an authorized representative. Please arrive early! Seats are not guaranteed, are limited to theatre capacity and are first-come, first-served. EXCEPT FOR MEMBERS OF THE REVIEWING PRESS. CHILDREN ARE STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. NO ADMITTANCE ONCE SCREENING HAS BEGUN. This theatre is not responsible for seating over capacity. This Ticket Is Not For Resale.

NO RECORDING

This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any recording device into the theatre and you consent to physical search of your belongings and person for recording devices. If you attempt to enter with a recording device, you will be denied admission. If you attempt to use a recording device, you consent to your immediate removal from the theatre and forfeiture of the device. Unauthorized recording will be reported to law enforcement and may subject you to criminal and civil liability.

Update:: Reader Chris Vincent says,

Just thought I'd point out that most of the content on those sites (including the Coke machine article) is verbatim from the Anarchist's Cookbook, a legendary collaborative document that can be found all over the internet. Everything from social engineering to fun explosives to (obviously) Coke machine hacks can be found there.

Another interesting bit of information, this time about Pepsi machines (not from the cookbook, just something I found out about last week):

New Pepsi machines have a "code", a special sequence in which you can push the buttons on the face of the machine, which causes the LED screen to report the number of cans sold and the total cash value. I'm not sure what that code is, and it may be configurable on a per-machine basis. I'm sure somebody out there can shed more light on it than me.

It's probably not the first time that an IP address had led police to capture a criminal but this is certainly a high profile mention of such a technique - and it seems like they moved awfully fast given that it was a regular non-cyber crime.

Among the more than 17 classifications of products and services that AutoCart said it will offer at the proposed supercenters are grocery, pharmacy, banking, movie and game rental, bakery, office supplies, florists, photography development, dry cleaning, liquor, and lottery sales.

Adobe has this service where you send your PDF to pdf2txt@adobe.com and they reply with an ASCII copy of your PDF attached. Very cool, as all PDF viewers I'm aware of lack this feature. The catch: Adobe "may occasionally access the content you submit" so this is probably only safe for stuff like ebooks.

Note: Matt wrote me with the following info -- "This is the McGurk video I was talking about. Just proving that I'm nothing without my notes, I incorrectly remembered the McGurk sounds! It's a visual 'ga' and an aural 'ba' that combine to the perception of 'da.' No 'va' at all (that's a variation on the experiment)."

The Mind Hack's weblog is here.

Link to BitTorrent file of my interview with Matt Webb.

Link to BitTorrent stats. (Thanks, Chuck!)

Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, (Rosser) says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game "Super Monkey Ball."...

More than 5,000 people, from schoolchildren to surgeons, have done training exercises on a system Rosser calls "Top Gun," designed to train laparoscopic surgeons, doctors who use minimally-invasive techniques to repair injuries.

La Mala Educación / Bad Education: Link to website, Link to trailer, Link to IMDB listing, Link to reviews and US showtimes. OMGOMGOMG.

"They are a bit crap really, not enough tea capacity and the biscuit compartment is too limiting. I used them for pouring old bacon fat into. "

The courses, starting in February, will deal with demonology, the presence of the notion of the devil in sacred texts, and the pathology and medical treatment of people suffering from possession.

"The seminar will conclude with the testimony of two exorcists who will explain how to distinguish between someone who is ill and requiring medical care, and one is 'possessed by demons,'" (university teacher Carlo) Climati explained.

Due to our strong personal convictions, we wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.
Michael Jackson
Philipp Lents
Miriam Lents

There is no disorder of the form of thought. He uses neologisms such as "triksy" and "hobbitses." Gollum has nihilistic thoughts, believing that he is a murderer, liar, and thief; although there is some basis in fact for this and he shows little guilt or remorse. He is preoccupied with, and deeply desires, the ring. He has obsessive thoughts but no compulsions, though he would do anything for the ring. He is hostile towards Frodo, the current owner of the ring. He has paranoid ideation about Sauron ("the eye is always watching") and about Samwise Gamgee ("the fat hobbit... he knows"). Gollum has difficulty controlling his thoughts and actions, exacerbated by prolonged contact with the ring. As Gandalf and Frodo have similar symptoms in the presence of the ring, we can attribute this somatic passivity to the ring. There are features of dissociation. Smeagol has separated his personality and is now Gollum as well.

The video cameras will essentially record whenever a person is hit with one of the guns, which immobilize a victim by shooting massive amounts of electricity through them. The electricity does not kill or permanently damage a person hit, according to the companies, but being hit hurts quite a bit.