Thoughtless Acts is an excellent little photo book from the brilliant minds at IDEO. Janet Fulton Suri, who directs human factors design at IDEO, compiled dozens of photographs illustrating how "we adapt, exploit, and react to things in our environment; things we do without really thinking." From the introduction:

"Some actions, such as grabbing onto something for balance, are universal and instinctive. Others, such as warming hands on a hot mug or stroking velvet, draw on experiences so deeply embodied that they are almost unconscious. Sill more, such as hanging a jacket to claim a chair, have become spontaneous through habit or social learning. Observing such everyday interactions reveals subtle details about how we relate to the designed and natural world. This is key information and inspiration for design, and a good starting point for any creative initiative."

The (Flash) Web site has a nice preview of the book and invites you to submit your own thoughtless acts to the growing collection. Still, the hardcopy, published by Chronicle Books, is a beautifully-designed objet d'art that's well worth the cover price. And Suri's essay at the end of the book reveals some of the lessons we can learn by opening our eyes to this fun and often-unconscious form of reality hacking. Link

Mark Jenkins is a Washington, DC-based artist who also creates figures from transparent tape. (Previous Sellotape art post here.) For Jenkins's Storker Project, he dropped "tape babies" in surreal urban contexts. From his artist statement:

The Storker Project is a species propagation movement by STORKER seeking to incite select individuals from the public at large, perhaps you. If while passsing by one you feel strange sensations in your nipples or fingertips, adopt the infant, breast feed, and give it plenty of pTLC. It will gradually mature to a full size Tape Man or Woman to co-habitate with you and eventually take you to the Glazed Paradise (or possibly oust you from your home).

Link (Thanks to all who submitted this!)

Multimediatrix Violet Blue points us to the alluring work of Helen, a 21-year-old artist in Surrey, England who is seeking "patrons" to buy her art and/or pay for her tuition at Leeds College of Art and Design this year.

The interesting feature of this model is in the material used - it is an entirely solid piece, made using nothing but Sellotape. As it stands at the moment I estimate about 100 rolls have been used in the production, with it weighing well over 5kg.

I have been lucky enough to have been supported by the company Sellotape, and most of my materials have been supplied by them. I have also been featured in numerous Surrey newspapers in a plea for more tape and coverage, which was successful in gaining me about 40 extra rolls.

Link

Eli the Bearded says: "A large gallery of the surprisingly artistic manhole covers (no, not pr0n related at all) of Japan."
Link

Reader comment: Howard says: "I use manhole covers as backdrops for my shoes in various parts of the world. I have Stockholm, Rome, Tokyo, Barcelona, Paris, and New Orleans.
Link

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Richard Giles of the Gadget Show interviewed Carla and me for his podcast. We talked about the treeware version of bOING bOING and our time in the South Pacific.
Link

My friend Bonnie Burton works at Lucas Films. She says: "We just posted a great "Easter Eggs in Episode III" article on starwars.com, if you want to check out all the cool stuff we point out that people may have missed when they saw the film:"

Did you spot the Millennium Falcon in Revenge of the Sith? What about the kitchen sink or the only noted the Wilhelm scream? Or perhaps you were too busy watching Hayden Christensen that you didn't notice George Lucas' rare cameo?  Here's an article that lists many of the hidden tidbits in the last Star Wars film - Revenge of the Sith.

Link

This month, the US Postal Service issued postage stamps honoring four American scientists. The group includes mathematician/computer pioneer John von Neumann, physical chemist Josiah Willard Gibbs, geneticist Barbara McClintock, and physicist Richard Feynman. Link

"Knockoff" is my favorite new Flicker tag, featuring photos of low-cost lookalike products, probably from the 99-Cent Only Store. Shown here: "LA's Totally Awesome plumber." As Blazenhoff says: "Like Liquid-Plumr except that it is 'awesome' and 'burns severely on contact.'"
Link

Discriminating orifices demand to be crammed with bespoke buttplugs. Why -- who wouldn't plunk down $6,000 for a diamond-encrusted titantium dildo? Shown here, a somewhat more affordable obsidian version sculpted from natural volcanic glass (a mere $1640-ish). Stick that in your pipe and smoke it. Link to "Mi-Su Sexual Aesthetics," and here's a Fleshbot post with more intel inside. (Thanks, Fleshbot!)

Boing Boing pal Mike Outmesguine says:

Trying to force wireless connectivity out of the Sony PSP has resulted in some interesting tweaks and hacks by devoted fans of the new handheld gaming/multimedia platform. In this tradition, I worked at getting the PSP onto the internet using a cellular connection, which was happily provided by a JunxionBox Wi-Fi to cellular gateway appliance. The JBox provides a built-in Wi-Fi hotspot where cellular data service is available. As you know, hotspots are (usually) short range affairs, while cellular covers wide areas. The JunxionBox essentially "converts" 802.11b Wi-Fi device connections over to a 3G cell network either for multiple users with Wi-Fi devices or for devices that only support Wi-Fi, like the Sony PSP.

In this experiment, I tried two applications. One was connecting the PSP to play Twisted Metal. The PSP was able to download stats and server info, but I was unsuccesful in joining and playing an actual multiplayer game. It's unclear what the problem might have been. Verizon support said they play World of Warcraft over EVDO during breaks in the lunchroom, so it's unlikely an ISP filtering issue. In any case, I then tried out the Wipeout Pure web browser hack which was a total success! I connected to the internet and surfed a few different websites.

I am reaching for new ways to interconnect mainstream devices. The Sony PSP is one such device with a semi-locked down infrastructure, supporting only minor connectivity options. For example, you cannot connect to the PSP using Wi-Fi for file transfers. And, of course, it does not directly support cellular. By exploring integration options like this, we can expand the options for a connected highly mobile society.

Link. Video (10MB wmv): Link

A delightfully geeky event on Saturday night in LA. Mark Allen of machineproject.com 'splains:

Have you been feeling down lately about your lack of knowledge of quantum computing? Confused about how quantum entanglement could reduce lag time for online gaming? Or curious how high speed integer factorization could make most encryption technologies the betamax of tomorrow?

Well, wonder no longer. Matt Shaw, enthusiast and graduate student has gracefully agreed to come to Machine Project Saturday for an entertaining talk on quantum computing for beginners. Mr Shaw is a first year graduate student in physics at the University of Southern California. He is doing his research in experimental quantum computation at the Jet Propulsion Lab.

Covering what quantum mechanics is, what makes it different from the physics of the everyday world, and why one might be motivated to use quantum systems for information processing. In particular, a brief discussion about quantum probabilities, entanglement, and some of the experimental challenges of trying to actually build a quantum computer, with a focus on the broad concepts and not assuming any background in math.

8pm, Saturday May 28th, 2005 at Machine Project downtown. Link to details.

Glenn Fleishman says,

A coffeeshop in Seattle is trying free Wi-Fi-free weekends: that is, turning off their free Wi-Fi for Saturday and Sunday to try to restore their culture of lively interaction. The owners were torn about the decision and regular staff meetings always produced discussion. Instead of trying to post and enforce rules or beef up the technical side (suggestions that many commenters on my story about Victrola Cafe and Art noted), they pull the plug for the weekend. Part of the motivation is that some people, unbelievably, spend 6 to 8 hours at a table for 2 or 4 using the free Wi-Fi without making a purchase of any kind. Then they get defensive if the staff approaches them. Victrola wants to engage in anarchy: very few rules to result in a milieu that they want to foster. I'm curious if, over the long term, this experiment works for them.

Link

Link (Thanks, Andrew Plotkin)

Previously on Boing Boing, Space Invader: Rubikcubism

From Artist Mark Chamberlain.
Link to gallery; includes NSFW images. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

Reader comment: Peter adds, "Just so you know: the shown painting in above link is inspired by a photograph taken by terry richardson, a very cool guy: Link."

Three engineering students Johns Hopkins University devised a system that enables blind people to play hoops. A large sound emitter beacon is mounted behind the backboard. Another tiny emitter is embedded in an airtight void within a Spalding "Infusion" basketball. The void in that particular ball normally contains a tiny inflation pump. From Headlines@Hopkins:

(Mike) Bullis, representing the project's sponsor (Blind Industries and Services of Maryland), cautioned that this prototype system is not perfect. The basketball's sound pitch needs to be lowered for the comfort of players and to avoid echo problems, which would sometimes make it difficult for a blind player to identify the ball's location. Bullis plans to consult a sports equipment maker about modifying the pitch. He also hopes to persuade a company to install the system in other sports items, including soccer balls and volleyballs. "The process is ongoing," he said. "But I think we'll end up with an audible ball that's going to be a huge asset to the blind community."

Link

A man posted fake profiles on Yahoo! containing nude photos of his ex-girlfriend, her email address, and work telephone number. Barnes demanded that Yahoo remove the "fauxfiles". Now she's suing the company because she says they ignored her requests. From the Associated Press:

The former boyfriend also engaged in online discussions in Yahoo chat rooms while posing as Barnes and directing men to the profiles, the lawsuit claims.

"Due to these profiles and online chats, unknown men would arrive without warning at plaintiff's work expecting to engage in sexual relations with her," the lawsuit claims.

Link

UPDATE: According to a lengthier version of this article, the lawsuit claims that Yahoo! promised to remove the profiles when they got word in March that the story was about to break on TV but then didn't follow through. From that version of the story:

Federal law broadly protects Internet service providers from being sued over information placed there by third parties. But once Yahoo! officials agreed to help Barnes, they had a legal duty under Oregon law to follow through, (Barnes's attorney Thomas R.) Rask said. Link

Snipped from the politech list:

Hewlett-Packard plans to launch a product on Friday that helps governments check the digital identity of citizens. The technology, called the HP National Identity System, is designed to be used in conjunction with a number of Microsoft products, including its .Net line of server, database and middleware programs. The companies plan to jointly develop, market and offer training for the authentication system.

Link to yesterday's CNET story. And as anticipated, here is today's H-P press release.

HP today announced the availability of the HP National Identity System (NIS) solution on the Microsoft(R) .NET platform. The HP NIS solution allows governments to build and quickly deploy at an affordable price a complete, standards-based and technologically agile infrastructure that meets their changing needs for security and identity management.

Going beyond simple secure identification and authentication functionality, the solution enables modern national identification systems to allow citizens to access e-government services and conduct secure transactions. The solution also provides citizens with improved secure and intelligent identity documents. For example, with heightened security awareness at national borders, the solution fulfills the new requirement to ensure traveler and citizen credentials across an entire country or region.

In addition, the modular nature of the solution enables national and regional governments to more easily plug in additional elements, such as biometrics, to customize and balance the level of security and privacy as defined by a government's policy and requirements (...) HP and Microsoft are investing in the solution through initiatives such as joint training programs and the establishment of specialist centers around the world to further develop, demonstrate and sell national identity system solutions.

Link to press release.

Sugary drinks are the bulk of the American diet, calorically speaking. I once had a hand in an effort to reverse engineer the Coke formula and make an open source version (led by Amanda Foubister), and the thing that shocked me then was how much sugar goes in a can of soda. Lemme put it this way: if you spooned that much sugar into a comparable volume of coffee, you'd draw stares and laughs. Basically, fizzy drinks are a slurry of sugar (actually, in tinned soda, it's usually high-fructose corn syrup, which is to sugar as plutonium is to oat muffins) with enough liquid to slide out of the can.

Tufts researchers recently reported that while the leading source of calories in the average American diet used to be from white bread, that may have changed. Now, according to preliminary research conducted by scientists at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University, Americans are drinking these calories instead. The research was presented in abstract form at the Experimental Biology Conference in April of this year and a more comprehensive paper is being developed.

Link

My friend Wayne Correia is traveling through Norway this week, and sends Boing Boing this quickie snapshot of a store window display beckoning passers-by to come on in and buy some SHIT. "Actually, it is the SHIT skateboard company," Wayne explains. "It's coincidentally across the street from the Apple shop here in Stavanger, Norway." Insert punchline here. Link to full-size image.

Reader comment: Misty Quadrucci adds,

Stavanger, Norway has SHIT Sk8board Company while Chicago, USA has Shit Sandwich Records! Interesting T-Shirts and records. Nice logo: Link.

sugar bush squirrel
twiggy the squirrel
bob the squirrel
squirrel power
disco squirrels
musical squirrels
square up your squirrel
move your feet
nut flick
squirrel decanter
scary squirrel world
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

Here's a HOWTO for converting cans of Guinness to popcicles by freezing them, slicing the bottom of the can, inserting a stick, cutting the top off the can, and sliding the can off. The results look beautiful and delicious. Link (via Waxy)

NASA's Voyager 1 has crossed a boundary that's one of the last milestones before it departs our solar system. You can listen online to the weird plasma wave sounds of the boundary, called the "solar wind termination shock." It reminds me of glitchy minimalist electronica. University of Iowa physicist Don Gurnett designed the the plasma wave instrument that captured the sound. From a news release:

Kurth compares the termination shock to what happens when water is allowed to run from a kitchen faucet onto the center of a dinner plate. The water -- representing the solar wind, a stream of electrically charged particles flowing outward from the sun -- strikes the center of the plate and smoothly flows outward in all directions. Somewhere near the edge of the plate, the smooth stream becomes rippled as it runs into slower moving water. This rippled band of turbulence represents the termination shock and the region where it occurs, the heliosheath. Similarly, the solar wind slows from supersonic to subsonic speed as it approaches the gas generated by stars beyond our sun.

Link to news release, Link to "sounds of space" including the termination shock

Back in February, I blogged about the Bean, a mirrored statue in Chicago's Millennium Park. The $270 million park was built with public funds, and then the Bean was donated by SBC, which got an enormous tax break (while the Chicago taxpayer inherited the upkeep bill).

The park's management then set out to turn this prominent public sculpture into a moneymaker. They set out ruinous rates for professional photographers, wedding photos, and videographers, and then used the publicly funded security staff to enforce this ban. The security guards went around, kicking out anyone who looked like they may be a "professional" photographer, which meant anyone with a nice camera and/or a tripod.

The park tried to excuse its abominable betrayal of the public trust (imagine -- a public place that the public can't document!) by claiming that the copyright in the sculpture vested in the sculptor and they were required to police the unauthorized photographing of this copyrighted work on his behalf. Now, there is an exemption in copyright law for public sculpture, but even if there wasn't, the city should never have acquired a sculpture without acquiring the right for its residents to photograph themselves with it, and even if they failed to do so, it certainly isn't the park's responsibility to police the copyrights of the sculptures in it. I mean, there are lots of copyrighted works in the park, from the logos on the security guard's uniforms to the fast-food menus in the garbage cans -- should the park be in charge of providing free enforcement duties for all the rightsholders whose works are placed within its bounds?

Now the park has reversed its position and will no longer be requiring a permit for simply photographing the Bean (if you bring a big crew, they'll charge you for it, which is reasonable, given the public inconvenience such generates). They've also manufactured a new reason that they had been charging for permits to photograph the public's artwork: they needed to count how many photographers were around to ensure that the park wasn't clogged with unruly photographers. Now, Chicago has a lot of public art, like that big ole Picasso in front of the Daley Center (as mentioned in the Blues Brothers) and they haven't, to my knowledge, ever had a crowd-control problem arising from the thundering hordes of shutterbugs and paparazzi who throng the nearby thoroughfares in their eagerness to get a snap, clogging the public byways.

But let's give this moronic excuse the benefit of our doubt: can we imagine a better way of counting the photographers in the park than requiring a $350 permit? How about a free permit? How about a machine you punch if you're a photographer, which increments a counter? A web-form? A park employee with a little clicker that counts the public?

"We weren't trying to make money," she said. "But we needed to know how many people were going to be at elements of the park."

Link (Thanks, Lauren!)

In 1969, John Lennon and Yoko Ono took several well-documented trips to Canada. During their visits, accompanied by Ono's young daughter Kyoko, they climbed under the covers for a Bed In For Peace and hung out with folks like Marshall McLuhan and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. ONOWEB's Richard Joly recently posted an interview that Keith Samarillo conducted with Ono about her family's time in Canada.

Ono says:

I met a woman in a restaurant the other day. She was sitting next to my table with a man, and did not bother me at all. When I finished my meal, she just said quietly "I was there. At the Bed-In in Montreal." I automatically said. "you must have been a baby then," because she looked so young. She told me that she and her friends were told that John and I were doing a bed-in in Montreal. They got into a car, and drove up to Montreal. They were college students. Asked if they could go meet us. I remember we were told that there were some girls who came up all the way from New York, and wanted to meet us. We said that's fine. The girls came into the room, and we shook hands with them. They stayed quietly. They were there when we recorded Give Peace A Chance.

The woman said she was so deeply effected by the experience, she did not tell her experience to her husband for many years even after they got married. The man who was at the table with her in the restaurant was her husband. He was smiling and nodding about it.

My friend who went to the restaurant with me was also impressed that the woman looked so young. Then the friend told me that he was told by many people that he looked unusually young for his age. His theory was that anybody who touched the moment - our bed-in in Montreal - must have experienced the magic of it, and they could not grow old. Well, that's a nice thought, isn't it? John sat in Montreal for a whole week., intently wishing peace for the world. John was laughed at and had stone thrown at him for doing that. He laid his life on line to wish Peace for the world. I will not be surprised if there is a fountain of peace, good will and love in Canada, from which an invisible water is flowing out to the world. Link

My pal Teresa Moore had her own Canadian moment with the Lennon/Ono family:

My brother's best friend was a reporter for the Toronto Star. He was covering John and Yoko's visit to Toronto and their trying to get a visa into the US. (I recall that he had a drug conviction and couldn't get in.) I had just completed my first year at the University of Toronto and my brother's friend called me at my summer job. He asked if I could come down to the King Eddie hotel to babysit Kyoko for the afternoon while John and Yoko went off to see the lawyer and US immigration people.

I went to the hotel and the halls were filled with screaming girls. I walked through them all, knocked on the door, and Derek Taylor (their manager) answered. I introduced myself, walked in, and met John and Yoko, the lawyer's wife, and Yoko's daugher Kyoko. They left and I went to the park to play with the kids. John and Yoko came back later and they both dressed entirely in white linen. You could see through the linen that John was wearing red knickers. They kept playing their latest record over and over. Then Jacqueline Suzanne and a few other people came in with some reporters. They all talked about going to Montreal and Taylor asked if I would go along to look after Kyoko. I decided not to and left around dinnertime.

A week later, Taylor or someone sent me some money for my time. I think it was about 50 bucks, which seemed like a lot at the time. It was all quite thrilling as I was a huge Lennon fan and had seen the Beatles from the fourth row during their first North American tour.

I filed this report for Wired News today on labor conflict between the game industry and two Hollywood unions representing voiceover talent.

The most contentious issue at hand: whether actors should be entitled to a share of the profits from video games that feature their voices.

"Nine of the top 10 selling games in 2004 were produced with union contracts, using union voice talent -- and because of that, the quality of those games becomes exponentially higher," said Seth Oster, a representative of SAG and AFTRA. Under one of several models proposed by the two unions, actors would receive additional compensation when a game in which their voice is used sells 400,000 units. When sales reach additional 100,000-unit thresholds, the actors would receive additional payments. "Every other sector of the entertainment industry provides some residual profit-sharing model to performers whose talents make the product come alive," Oster told Wired News. "The video-game business is the only exception, and that's unfair."

Bob Finlayson, of the game industry's Publishers Interactive Bargaining Group, disagrees."People buy games for gameplay, not to hear voices," counters Finlayson. "And technology creates gameplay, not actors. People who play these games understand that, and in fact, some gamers turn the volume down because (they) find those voices distracting. In film or television, the actor's performance makes the experience. In video games, it does not."

Link

Reader feedback: Many Wired News and Boing Boing readers wrote in with their thoughts on the story. Here are a few.

"Mark Long, Zombie" writes:

I'm an independent game developer in Seattle and I think SAG is nuts if they think they deserve residuals for a half day of VO work when the development team slaves away for 2 years to produce a title. I'll back SAG when game programmers and artists get residuals first.

Ron Gilbert writes:

It would have been interesting to mention in you article about SAG actors in video games that very few people working the games industry get royalties. Why should we pay actors royalties when programmers and arts don't? Hollywood is driven by the "points" everyone gets, the games industry is not. It is a very different economic model. I think that fact that the actors are asking for back-end when very few people in this industry get any is worth mentioning. I hardly ever see this in the mainstream press.

Kevin Greenstein writes:

Given the reviews that Revenge of the Sith [the video game] has received, particularly with regard to the stand-in voice talent (no Hayden Christensen, Ewan McGregor, etc.), I think it's clear that high-quality voice talent adds a great deal to the gaming experience. Otherwise, game manufacturers wouldn't be seeking out that talent in the first place. As games get more advanced, the presence of quality talent will become more and more crucial... until game manufacturers can adequately simulate the voice talent electronically, thus no longer needing any voice talent at all.

Craig writes:

I honestly don't care whether they strike or not and I don't think it will make a difference to the industry. I do wonder though if the people that actually create the games are union and will they back the "actors" up in their idiotic battle.

SFCave was the most addictive PalmOS game I ever played. In SFCave, you piloted a spacecraft through a cave with many upthrusting stalagmites and downhanging stalactites. Pressing the sole control button made you rise, and taking your finger off made you fall. Like all great timewasters, the simplicity was the key to the addictiveness.

Now there's a 3D version of it implemented in Java, which can be played in your browser. You see the cave from the PoV of the ship, with hills and dips looking ahead of you, and use the mouse-button to rise. This first-person version of the game is, if anything, even more addictive. Consider yourself warned. Link (Thanks, Yoz!)

A winning bottle of 7UP or affiliated beverage contains a prize good for a trip to space on a private suborbital vehicle.

The grand prize is a suborbital trip to the fringe of space, on a yet-to-be-flown craft that's based on SpaceShipOne technology. Why SpaceShipOne? Because the giveaway deal is being put together through the auspices of the X Prize Foundation.

"One of the rules that the [X Prize] teams signed onto in their master team agreement was that the X Prize Foundation would have access to some of the early seats at the going ticket price," Peter Diamandis, the foundation's chairman, explained.

Link (via Fark)

Two WWII-era Japanese soldiers have been discovered living in a Filipino jungle. They knew the war was over, but they still saw no reason to come out of hiding for all these years.

According to Japanese media reports, the pair had been living with Muslim rebel groups and at least one of them has married a local woman and had a family.

The BBC's Tokyo correspondent says the likelihood is that they are well aware the war is over but have chosen to stay in the Philippines for their own reasons...

The Sankei Shimbun daily said the men would most likely be members of the Panther division, 80% of whom were killed or went missing during the final months of the war.

It speculated there could be as many as 40 Japanese soldiers living in similar conditions in the Philippines.

Link (via Fark)

California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger dispatched a road crew to a residential street in San Jose to create a pothole, which he later turned up and filled, grinning for news-cameras and declaring his willingness to increase funding for transportation projects. The Potemkin pothole was later sealed by a roadcrew with a gigantic roller truck,

Porrovecchio and his business partner, Joe Greco, said that at about 7 a.m. they became fascinated watching "10 city workers standing around for a few hours putting on new vests,'' all in preparation for the big moment with Schwarzenegger.

But their street, he noted, didn't even have a hole to pave over until Thursday morning.

"They just dug it out,'' Porrovecchio said, shrugging. "There was a crack. But they dug out the whole road this morning.''

"It's a lot of money spent on a staged event,'' said Matt Vujevich, 74, a retiree whose home faced the crew-made trench that straddled nearly the whole street. "We still have the same problems. Everything's a press conference.''

Link

Shufflehacks is a blog chock full o' interesting ways of modding and hacking the iPod Shuffle, from cases made out of gum-wrappers to chargers hacked into Xboxen. Link (Thanks, Mothman!)

Congrats to the copyfighting student movement Free Culture on having successfully incorporated as a nonprofit! Gavin Baker sez, "FreeCulture.org, that rabble of a student movement, is now a legit non-profit. We need opinions, advice, or cranky comments. We need help finding board members, mulling tax-exempt status, and much, much more."

Here are just some of the questions we have to consider:

* How big should the board of directors be?
* What should the makeup of the board be? For instance, should be it all students? Students and alumni? Others? What ratios/percentages? Should we have a student majority? A student-or-alumni majority?
* Who should we ask to serve on the board?
* Should we have an advisory board? Who should we ask to sit on that?
* Should board members be volunteers, or should we try to remunerate them?
* Officers: what are the roles/titles? (e.g. “treasurer”) What do we need? Who are they?
* Funding: what do we need it for? Where do we get it?

Link (Thanks, Gavin!)

The VGMix online community is dedicated to remixing and mashing up music from video games, with extensive reviews, commentary and, of course, downloads. One cool element of this is the degree to which the most prolific remixers improve from mix to mix, and how the mixers help each other. Link (via MeFi)

Update: Drew points out that OCRemix does the same thing.

This collection of animated TV ads for Japan's Kabaya snacks are hilarious and crazy. Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

Wade sez,

I'm a senior editor at MIT's Technology Review. Right now we're trying something a little unusual (for a mainstream media outlet). For details, see this post on a new blog we created a few weeks ago.

It’s Part 1 of an article about "continuous computing" that will appear in the print magazine in August. Continuous computing is a term we've coined to describe the new, much more personal, social, and natural way of using computers that's taking hold as mobile devices, ubiquitous wireless access, and "Web 2.0" services converge.

We've decided to pre-publish the article on the Web in order to gather comments, suggestions, and corrections from readers. We're folding the comments back into the online version of the story in the form of pop-up notes, and we'll include as many of these comments as we can in the actual print article.

We've never tried anything like this, but it seemed appropriate to experiment with online participatory journalism with this particular story, since it’s all about social computing. All four parts of the story have now been posted on the blog, and they’re generating a good amount of discussion and commentary. But we'd like to invite more people into the discussion.

Link (Thanks, Wade!)

This Joy of Tech strip made me chuckle -- Hare Krishnas telling of iPod-bearing Mac cultists for singing and dancing on their pitch. Link (Thanks, Robert!)

It turns out that sea-boogers (clams, oysters and mussels) have a weird-ass immune system that makes them into excellent hosts for human-toxic pathogens, even if they're well-cleaned.

Clams, mussels and oysters are important vehicles for the transmission of enteric diseases when consumed raw or undercooked. Vibrio species, including human pathogens, are particularly abundant in bivalve tissues, where they can persist even after cleaning procedures, thus representing a potential risk for human health. Although different environmental factors are well known to affect the persistence of vibrios in these organisms, the key role of the interactions between vibrios and the immune system of bivalves has been recently highlighted by scientists from the Universities of Genova and Urbino (Italy) in Environmental Microbiology.

Link

Mattel is suing to shut down a BBQ joint in Quebec called "Barbie's," on the grounds that very stupid children might wander alone into the bar/restaurant and order ribs under the mistaken impression that they have something to do with the Barbie dolls. Mattel: "we think our customers are morons(TM)".

"My client's position is that there's no confusion when you have an adult restaurant with a bar that has nothing in it to have someone think about toys or children," she said.

"It's no decorated in pink colours or in any way that could have someone think about dolls or children."

But documents filed with the Supreme Court show Mattel thinks there's plenty of room for confusion and that the company deserves exclusive rights to the brand.

"Barbie and Barbie's are among the most famous marks in North America, having been widely used and promoted for more than 40 years," the company maintains.

Link (via Lawgeek)

Check out the FusionHDTV USB TV peripheral. Plug this into your PC's USB and receive standard and high-def DVB television (DVB is the standard used in Europe, Australia and parts of Asia and Latinamerica). Use your computer for a PVR, burn your favorite shows to DVD, and so on. I wonder if the manufacturer knows that DVB has a working group (PDF Link) that is aimed at making this product illegal? I think I'll tell them.

* Supports any notebook PCs as well as desktop
* Bus-powered (No power adapter required)
* Small form-factor and fancy design which can fit even your pocket
* High resolution, crystal clear picture quality
* Provides ultimate picture quality experience on PC
* Crisp, clear picture quality even on LCD and low resolution monitor
* Record digital HDTV directly to your hard drive like a VCR
* Supports native mode .MPG capturing as well as “AS IS” transport stream format.
* Cut streaming files "on-the-fly" with the APP software
* Record one channel while watch another with FusionHDTV PCI
* USB application can run side by side with PCI
* Supports recording one channel while watch another if you already have FusionHDTV PCI.
* Supports fastest DVD/Divx conversion for burning and archiving
* Supports ultra fast native mode .MPG conversion
* Bundles DVD authoring and burning software

Link (via Red Ferret Journal)

The iGuy is an anthropomorphic iPod stand that -- as Gizmodo point out -- makes the iPod pretty useless for pocket-borne use. Still and all, it's a cool and friendly enough looking desk-mount that I'd consider using one, if I had a desk. Link (via Gizmodo)

Update: Of course, there's always the (sold out) Podbuddies for your iPod Shuffle.

Chernobyl-area doctors claim that local "radiation-damaged" children are smarter and healthier than their counterparts. Now, this is reported in the UK Sun, which isn't much of a newspaper, and who knows where they got these Russian doctors from, but still: interesting.

Kids growing up in areas damaged by radiation from the plant have a higher IQ and faster reaction times, say Russian doctors.

They are also growing faster and have stronger immune systems.

Link (via JWZ)

Update: Ben sez, "This documentary on HBO sharply contrasts the article. I could barely sit through the whole thing. It shows the damage done by a combination of the Chernobyl accident and poor Russian health care.

"Do these kids look like a bunch of super humans?

"The Chernobyl Children's Project works to help take care of these kids."

To be clear -- the interesting thing about this story isn't the possibility that it's true. It clearly isn't. It's that there are doctors participating in a Big Lie regarding the ongoing tragedy of Chernobyl.

Bre Pettis says, "Mr. Miller, a fellow teacher, asked his students to come up with puns around the concept of 'Darth Tater.' The results have had me chuckling all day."

# "Luke, I am your farmer"
# "Trust your peelings"
# "Luke Frywalker"
# "If only you knew the power of the deep fried"
# "Luke, I have drained you well"

Link

The Universe Within is an exhibit of plastinated corpses currently on display at San Francisco's Masonic Center. It's basically a knock-off of plastination pioneer Gunther von Hagens' Bodyworlds show. Apparently though, the people who plastinated these bodies didn't have von Hagens's chops. The bodies are leaking. City officials are investigating and may shut down the exhibit. From ABC7 News:

The I-Team spotted moisture beading up across faces, dripping inside chest cavities, and pooling beneath feet. Plastination experts tell us, it's evidence of a rush job.

Bob Henry, Int'l Society for Plastination: "It appears to be a classic example of someone not understanding the process and not realizing that it literally takes months to prepare a nice specimen."

The I-Team took samples from the bodies and sent them to a lab. It's silicone from the plastination process and liquefied human fat. The bodies were not degreased properly before they were filled with plastic. Link

There's also question about how the organizers acquired the bodies:

The Masonic's executive director and the show's promoter claim they were able to bring the bodies from China with the help of Peking University and Professor EnHua Yu. The promoter, Gerhard Perner, says he pays rent to the Masonic, keeps 15-percent of the show's profits for himself, and sends the rest back to China.

ABC7's Dan Noyes: "Do the profits go to Dr. Yu personally or to the university?"

Gerhard Perner: "To the university."

But university officials say all that's not true. They had no role in acquiring the bodies, they're receiving no money. In fact, they never heard of this body show until contacted by the I-Team. We've learned that Perner was able to get bodies meant for medical research and teaching from a factory in Nanjing, China. It worries San Francisco supervisors that these bodies are now on display on Nob Hill. Link (Thanks, April!)

New Scientist provides a list of eleven ways to boost your brainpower--from smart drugs to more sleep to training your "working memory"--and surveys the research behind the claims. From the article:

Until recently, a person's IQ - a measure of all kinds of mental problem-solving abilities, including spatial skills, memory and verbal reasoning - was thought to be a fixed commodity largely determined by genetics. But recent hints suggest that a very basic brain function called working memory might underlie our general intelligence, opening up the intriguing possibility that if you improve your working memory, you could boost your IQ too.

Working memory is the brain's short-term information storage system. It's a workbench for solving mental problems. For example if you calculate 73 - 6 + 7, your working memory will store the intermediate steps necessary to work out the answer. And the amount of information that the working memory can hold is strongly related to general intelligence.

A team led by Torkel Klingberg at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, has found signs that the neural systems that underlie working memory may grow in response to training. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) brain scans, they measured the brain activity of adults before and after a working-memory training programme, which involved tasks such as memorising the positions of a series of dots on a grid. After five weeks of training, their brain activity had increased in the regions associated with this type of memory (Nature Neuroscience, vol 7, p 75).

Link

"What does the American media have to be proud of with regard to covering Iraq? The press have functioned as little more than stenographers for the war."
-- Flavia Colgan, political analyst for NBC and Fox News, at a private screening/fundraiser for a documentary film about the personal, psychological effects of war on the soldiers who do make it home alive.

Here's the film project -- it's powerful stuff. The Ground Truth, directed by Patricia Foulkrod. More on that soon.

The Indipod is a new in-vehicle toilet designed for people with medical conditions or families on long road trips. An inflatable bubble around the throne gives the user privacy. Manufactured by DayCar, the Indipod sells for £199.00. From the BBC News:

"For people with bowel disease, incontinence or bladder problems, this product is not a luxury, it's a necessity," said (DayCar managing director Barbara) May. "It's giving them back their social lives and their freedom."

The company says that the chemicals break down waste into a "sweet smelling, inoffensive liquid", which can be disposed of at the end of a journey.

Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

Cat and Girl saddle up to the bar for a comic send-up of contemporary/avant-garde art called "Where is the Little Andres Serranos Room?" Link (Thanks, Professor Cupcake!)

For today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day:

Console video game heavyweights Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo have all announced their own next-generation game systems. Each system moves beyond eye-popping graphics to focus on creating a larger media experience for gamers -- and in the case of the Microsoft XBox, becoming a central home entertainment platform. Alex Chadwick talks with Day to Day technology contributor Xeni Jardin.

Included: comment from game biz experts Joel Johnson (Gizmodo), Brad King (author, Dungeons and Dreamers), and Alice Taylor -- BBC producer, and fragger nonpareil (do not question her Quake authoritaaah).

Link to archived audio. Link to more archived "Xeni Tech" segments on NPR.

Reader Pete Barr-Watson says,

I saw your Boing Boing post on the RubikCubism exhibition and thought you might want to take a look at the Flickr group I started for the invaders... I've been into finding the various installations for a number of years and started the group so people could upload their own pix of them.

Shown here, two snapshots contributed by users "Meteorry" and "Keees" to that pool: "The red light district in Amsterdam is invaded too! This is the Arm bridge (Armbrug)." Left, detail; right; the scene from a distance.

Link

Previously on BB: Space Invader, Rubikcubism.

Reader comment: Boing Boing reader Alan says, "As well as the photo pool, there's a commonly-used tag on Flickr that will show many more." Link to tag.

I remember the TV commercial for Sixfinger, a plastic toy finger from the '60s that shot darts and had a built-in pen. I really wanted one but I think my mother thought they were dangerous. It's one of the most phallic looking toys I've ever seen.
Link

Following up on yesterday's Boing Boing post on the first-ever BitTorrent criminal bust by the Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement division, reader Breon Halling says:

I just took a peek at the site, elitetorrents.org . It's a just a frame for a page sitting here. A couple of things about that page:

1) The feds use MS Word for their page designs. Silly.
2) This one is kind of interesting. Right at the bottom of that page, in red text on a red background -- making it effectively invisible (but if you view the source or select everything on the page, you can see it) -- are the following characters: RTJKJA

I'd be interested in knowing what those letters signify. Maybe with Boing Boing power, we can figure it out!

Regarding that MS Office "code stamp," reader mediamelt asks, "Any way to check whether it was made with legally purchased software?"

Tim Bennett says,

WHOIS.NET says that the EliteTorrents registration expires on the 7th of July 2005. Given that the feds say it's been "permanently shut down", I wonder if they'll take an interest in anybody who subsequently re-registers it?

And over on the politech discussion list, CNET's Declan McCullagh writes about the DHS' seizure of elitetorrents.org:

This isn't the first time domain names have been seized. See this [article], from 2003:

WASHINGTON--Federal police have adopted a novel crime-fighting tactic: seizing control of domain names for Web sites that allegedly violate the law. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Monday that the domain names for several Web sites allegedly set up to sell illegal "drug paraphernalia" would be pointed at servers located at the Drug Enforcement Administration. A federal judge in Pittsburgh granted the U.S. Department of Justice permission to do so until a trial can take place, the government said.

The domain name at issue there, iSoNews.com, now redirects to freecellphones.com. Guess DOJ wasn't paying the domain name renewal fees.

Link, and see also this related Politech message.

Previously on Boing Boing: First criminal BitTorrent bust in USA: Elite Torrents

Update: Not sure if this is true, but it's certainly funny. Reader Andreas says,

"RT" (as in "RTFM") means "Read The". "JKJA", as we are reminded these days, means "Jedi Knight Jedi Academy"; there's also a Raven Software / LucasArts game of the same title and commonly referred to by the same acronym. While "Read The Jedi Knight Jedi Academy" doesn't make much sense to me, "Raid The Jedi Knight Jedi Academy" sounds more plausible, especially since the elitetorrents.org site has been blamed for spreading Episode 3 to an interested public.