Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Boing Boing reader Cowicide remixed the several-year-old home video of a live D&D re-enactment which was blogged here earlier today. Cowicide's new version includes a soundtrack by Slayer and totally jank "special" effects. "Special" as in, rides the short bus.
Link. Previously: D&D re-enactment vid remixed to Bon Jovi tune. Andrew of "House 8" weblog posts the original, higher-quality, unremixed video here: Link

Phil Torrone showed me this fantastic Flickr gallery of pictures of the contents of people's bags. Many of the photos are annotated.
Link

Hutch says: "Hell is other people removing your cigarette. France's National Library has airbrushed Jean-Paul Sartre's trademark cigarette out of a poster of the chain-smoking philosopher to avoid prosecution under an anti-tobacco law." Link

UPDATE: Russ Kick says: "Cigarette removal has also been done to the Beatles, Courtney Love, Robert Johnson, Jackson Pollock, James Dean, and Paul Simon.

"While I'm not saddened that there are fewer public places where I have to inhale second-hand cancer, this revisionism is ridiculous. If this keeps up, it may appear as though no one in history ever smoked!"

Alice continues to take fantastic, exhaustive notes at the Game Developers' Conference in San Francisco. She's just posted her notes from the closing panel in which eminent game developers were invited to rant about the state of the industry. What follows is lewd, hilarious, and very, very true:

Greg Costikyan: I don't know about you but I could have been a lawyer, or a carpenter. or a sous-chef. How many of you are here because you're after a paycheck? [One bloke raises his hand, audience laughs and crows]. Ahuh. And how many of you are here because you love games? [all hands go up]. Right. So we're being told that everything's going to get bigger. Paychecks. Budgets. Consoles. But is it going to get better? I've been researching old board games and I've spotted a pattern. A new genre: it's called One Hit Game And Its Imitators. One fishing game appears in mid-19C and dozens follow. Games grow through innovations. Creations of new game styles that spawn imitators and whole new markets. The story of the past few decades is not about graphics and processing power, but startling innovation and industry. That's why we love games. BUT IT'S OVER NOW!

As recently as 1992: games cost 200K. Next generation games will cost 20m. Publishers are becoming increasingly risk averse. Today you cannot get an innovative title published unless your last name is Wright or Miyamoto. Who was at the Microsoft keynote? I don't know about you but it made my flesh crawl. [laughter] The HD era? Bigger, louder? Big bucks to be made! Well not by you and me of course. Those budgets and teams ensure the death of innovation. Was your allegiance bought at the price of a television? Then there was the Nintendo keynote. This was the company who established the business model that has crucified the industry today.. Iwata-san has the heart of a gamer, and my question is what poor bastard's chest did he carve it from? [audience falls about]

How often DO they perform human sacrifices at Nintendo?? My friends, we are FUCKED [laughter]. We are well and truly fucked. The bar in terms of graphics and glitz has been raised and raised until we can't afford to do anything at all. 80 hour weeks until our jobs are all outsourced to Asia. but it's ok because the HD era is here right? I say, enough. The time has come for revolution! It may seem to you that what I describe is inevitable forces of history, but no, we have free will! EA could have chosen to focus on innovation, but they did not. Nintendo could make development kits cheaply available to small firms, but they prefer to rely on the creativity on one aging designer. You have choices too: work in a massive sweatshop publisher-run studio with thousands of others making the next racing game with the same gameplay as Pole Position. Or you can riot in the streets of redwood city! Choose another business model, development path, and you can choose to remember why you love games and make sure in a generation's time there are still games to love. You can start today. [standing ovation]

Link

A guy who has the same name as a character in a Blair Witch video game is making crazy lawsuit threats against a gamer news-site because when you google his name, you get information about the game -- and he's sad because people think he's a nutcase!

My name is Robert MacNichol and this name is coming up on the Blair Witch Vol. II site at:

http://gr.bolt.com/games/codes/pc/blairwitch_vol2_coffin_walk.htm

I'd like some explination as to how this happened. I want my name off your public domain and diconnected with anything relating to your business. Please advise Rob...

Thank you. I'm wondering if my name shows up on some NAMBLA site---which I won't even click on out of curiosity. I got a couple of lawyers--I know--looking into it now. Usually they say forget it. not yet on this one. You're probably on track when you imply I can shove it if I don't like it. I got a scathing bunch of e-mails calling me a whack job because this popped up when someone typed in my name. Damned embarrasing. I wasn't threatening to sue. I was asking for some solution other than that. If I do. And if I win big--hahahahahahahahaha!--I'll remember you and the site...and your pointer about reality. Someone got rich when they spilled a cup pf coffee in there lap at McDonalds. I ought to be able to get my name off a whack site don't you think? My favorite all time game was River Raid by Atari(?) as I recall. The only other one I like is Pong , oh! and Brick Attac k--on my cell phone. I know a lady who "became" a witch. Blair Witch wadda .... wadda.... I can't even think of the term. The VN thing is me. A Canadian liblosrer? Naw. Helen who? I get your point...never the less wish me luck. I may be paving new ground on the WWW.

Link (Thanks, Duke!)

This Syracuse University thesis on the history of candy bar wrappers is a very breezy work for an academic paper -- insightful and interesting history of the evolution of an object whose ubiquity has rendered it invisible to our modern eyes. Interesting to think that there was a time when the idea of a candy bar wrapper was novel.

Candy wrappers are designed to communicate with consumers, - even though the communication may often be one-way. The bright colors, shiny paper and animated logos speak to our culture in the most friendly and trusting tones. We know that each wrapper holds the promise of something good - at least as good as Grandma used to make.

Link (via Waxy)

I've always loved this photo of William S. Burroughs taken in 1975 by Gerard Melanga, one of Andy Warhol's "Superstars" whose photographs of that whole scene have always made me wish I was there for the fun. Now a poster-size gelatin print of this image is up for auction on eBay. Along with this shot is a creepy 1978 photo of Burroughs taking aim at the World Trade Center with his shotgun. Starting bid for the limited-edition pair? $16,000 (AKA "way too rich for my blood.") Link

Isaac B2 says: "William Drenttel details the moving of the Axum Obelisk in the late 1800s from Egypt to New York, complete with photographs. It is an astounding story of innovation in moving techniques. 71 feet and weighing 244 tons, Cleopatra's Needle was turned sideways, loaded onto a boat, shipped across the ocean, loaded onto a custom-created rail line, and erected in Central Park -- at a cost of only $100,000. A similar event is taking place right now, sending an obelisk from Italy to its original home in Ethiopia, but it will be split into three parts and cost $450 million."
Link

Gary says: "I was over at the Masonic Center on Nob Hill on Wednesday and met up with some Brothers for lunch. Check out the mosaic window in the central lobby:

"Reminds me a bit of the Disneyland mosaic murals. This, though, incorporates bits of metal, parchment, felt, linen, natural foliage, and soil from all 58 counties of California and Hawaii. This technique is called “endomosaic," although Google isn’t showing any info on it. It was done around 1958. Swell, eh?"
Link

Princeton University Library's special collection of antique handcrafted bookbindings is utterly amazing. It's a shame that more books today aren't published with such artistry. I'd definitely buy "special editions" of my favorite books. Pictured, a 15th century edition of De civitate Dei, Venetian binding, blind-tooled goatskin. Link (via MetaFilter)

New Scientists reports on the development of a lie detector that works by tracking blood flow through the blood vessels in your face. The system is being developed by (natch) the Us Department of Defense.

As I relax into the chair, the questioning begins. An automated voice instructs me to answer a series of questions with a simple yes or no. "Is your name Susan?" Yes. "Do you understand that I will not ask any trick questions on this test?" Yes. "Did you stab that woman downstairs this afternoon?" No.

My voice remains calm and even, and I feel no sense of flushing as I continue answering questions and read through a list of potential murder weapons, including the one I guiltily remember using earlier, a screwdriver. But as Ryan's colleagues look through the data afterwards, they pull out two images and set them side by side. The first image looks normal. On the second, large highlighted rings of blood encircle my eyes.

If I were a real criminal, that picture could be big trouble for me.

Link

Nick Denton sez, "I collect images of New York, not just as it once was, and as it might one day be, but as it was once thought the city might one day be. It's an alternate universe, in which history took a different course. The Empire State Building, with a zeppelin docking, as imagined in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Bryant Park, if they'd never taken down the Croton Reservoir. The Gaudi building, if the Catalan architect's plans for the American Hotel had come to anything. As magnificent as the real New York may be, it still doesn't compare with what might have been." Link (Thanks, Nick!)

Charred meat contains compounds that can cause cancer. Drinking a glass of beer with that well-done steak may reduce the DNA damage though, according to a new study by Okayama University scientists. The research was conducted on mice using near beer, since alcohol can be carcinogenic on its own and would muddy the data. From Science News:

After a few days of administering the beer diets, the scientists laced some of the animals' food with either of two heterocyclic amines (HCAs)—the carcinogens from cooked meat....Beer diminished by some 40 to 75 percent the number of HCA adducts (abnormal DNA structure) that formed, depending on the type of tissue (studied after dissecting the mouse) and quantity of beer ingredients ingested, the researchers report in the Feb. 9 Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry. Good news for beer drinkers: Both light-colored lager and a darker stout proved protective.

Link

This morning's San Jose Mercury News contains a scathing, fantastic open letter to Steve Jobs by Mike Langberg, urging him to back off from his ongoing legal actions to get online journalists to reveal their sources:

There's another old saying in my profession: The mission of journalists is to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

Apple looks comfortable, even smug, by insisting online publishers such as the 19-year-old Harvard University freshman who runs ThinkSecret should face huge financial liabilities just because it's embarrassing for you to introduce new products at the big Macworld show after details have been revealed in advance online.

You don't want to look hypocritical. You've grabbed the media spotlight with both hands, much to Apple's benefit, so you shouldn't suddenly complain the beam is too bright.

Reg Req'd Link, try "bugmebob@gmail.com/bugme1" (Thanks, Cindy!)

Boing Boing reader Patrick Grote sez:

Someone posted [this Stileproject] video clip of adults dressed up and re-enacting a Dungeons and Dragons melee to our forums, then decided to remix it in slomo to the tune of Bon Jovi's Blaze of Glory. The result is fantastically humorous. An homage to all things geek.

Original video: Link
Remixed video: Link
Thread discussing the remix: Link.
Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!

Guests of Japan's World Expo opening on March 25 will be greeted by multilingual, rapping robots. The Actroid, shown here, was developed by Kokoro and Advanced Media. She's a twentysomething fembot with dewy skin, warm eyes, and enough AI to understand 40,000 phrases in each of four languages: Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean. She also "performs rap music." Snip:

The humanoid can put on facial expressions suitable for the more than 2,000 types of answers it can give, but it may refuse to answer to some questions for "privacy reasons," making an X with her arms and bowing. She also has a sense of irony. When asked if she is a robot, she says, "Y.e.s, I. a.m. a. r.o.b.o.t" in a disconnected voice and moves about clumsily. A moment later, she says "Just kidding" and starts a natural flow of movements.

More: we make money not art, and Actroid product website is here.

Boing Boing reader Avi Solomon says,

Radio Free Mars is a free online streamed audio eclectic collection of space related interviews, lectures and music. I especially like this interview with Apollo Flight Director Gene Kranz: Link

Becky sez, "My article on software patents and the knowledge economy has gone up on openDemocracy.net. It's called 'Patents for profit: dystopian visions of the new economy'. It's a big'un - and ambitious in scope too, making links between the version of 'democracy' that has emerged from the closed doors of the European Commission and WIPO's decision to exclude ad hoc observers from the upcoming A2K talks. openDemocracy runs a really good debate space alongside each article it publishes - anybody who'd like to come and thrash out the issues with me there over the coming week is more than welcome..."

The question has been a live one long before it entered the deep entrails of the European Union’s legislative process. Since the commercial software industry emerged around 1990, technologists have argued that code is different from other inventions: it does not need protection by patents. In software creation, open standards – code as common knowledge – are the key to fermenting progress. To patent code is to add disabling and unnecessary burdens on software enterprise that can kill its potential in this crucial, formative stage.

These fifteen years (a shorter timespan than the average patent) have seen the birth and maturing of the World Wide Web, all thanks to a protocol known as Hypertext Transfer (http). Tim Berners-Lee, the man who conceived the code that embodies this protocol, did not patent it. Thus it became an open standard: anybody could use it to contribute new programmes designed to run on the web. And use it they did. To the extent that the multiplying, democratising life-forms of the web now challenge the dominance of corporate media and orthodox models of economic activity.

Link (Thanks, Becky!)

On the MAKE blog, Phil Torrone proposes in-game moblogging -- sharp idea.

How about a Flickr uplaod button -in game-. See something cool? Hit the button, add the tags, designate it to your guild, upload. I suspect this would mean tens of thousands of accounts for a service like Flickr, but on a more macro level, people are going to start moblogging their virtual worlds just as much as the real world, why not use Flickr.

Link

Update: BuhBuhCuh sez, "a user of the MMO Second Life has already created just this. Players are already using it to document their own narritive and explorations throughout the virtual world. All they need to do is use SL's 'Postcard' feature to email Snapzilla a screenshot with a title and a comment."

Update 2: Andrew sez, "SixApart employee (and blog innovator) Mark Paschal had this running since last August over at TypePad."

A statement from the Office of Tibet says:

As the Tibetan people wait for His Holiness the Dalai Lama's national address of 10 March, hackers in Beijing are working overtime to sabotage the cyber world of Tibet movement. Offices of the Tibetan exile administration have recently started receiving emails disguised as originating from Sonam N. Dagpo, "Additional Secretary" (sic) of the Department of Information and International Relations (DIIR) in Dharamsala, and purportedly carrying the text of His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 10 March statement as an attached file.

Promptly denying authorship of the insidious emails, Dagpo, Secretary (no longer additional secretary), warned us that the attachment was actually a virus. Dagpo warned us also not to open any attachment purportedly coming from the official email addresses of other DIIR staffers, such as Tenzin Lekshey and Masood Butt. Once opened, the attachment is designed to plant a Trojan Horse on the unsuspecting recipient's computer, making its content accessible to the attackers.

The source of the eavesdropping devise was traced by Washington, D.C.-based International Campaign for Tibet to China Railway Telecommunications Center in Xicheng District, Beijing. This makes it the third round of cyber attacks coming from Beijing and targetting the Tibet movement.

Link