Around the world in an amphibious Jeep

By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:32 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Commenting on Cheyenne Morrison's letter about the book An Island to Oneself, Scott Miller says: "Another great story is Ben Carlin and his trip around the world in an amphibious Jeep in the 1950's. There are two books about the trip. Read the books, you'll love them."

Here is the story. The book.

Tiki Night at Egyptian Theater in Hollywood July 23

By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:20 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

If you live in LA, you will undoubtedly want to come to the Enchanted Tiki Luau Night at the Egyptian Theatre (6712 Hollywood Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90028) on Sunday, July 23. One of my favorite performers, King Kukulele will be there. (Do you remember this commercial he appeared in?)

Join us in the Egyptian Courtyard for a Royal Southern Californian-style Luau between a double feature of island adventures exotic musical entertainment from King Kukelele and his Friki Tikis There will also be Tiki vendors and other special surprises in the courtyard from 1:00 PM till we shut it down.

Tiki Vendors to include: Tiki Tony, Adrift Clothing, Crazy Al's Bone Productions, "Dumb Angel" Magazine authors Dominic Priore and Brian Chidister, Tiki Diablo, Falling Cocos, Coconut Kids Clothing,Tiki Farm and the American Cinematheque selling posters from our fabulous collection!

Separate ticket prices for the films. Or enjoy just the luau and the music, or buy a ticket which includes all the films and the luau. For movies, General: $12.00, Sr/Students: $10.00, AC Member: $9.00 Luau Dinner Only: $15.00 or Movies & Luau: General: $25.00, Sr/Student: $23.00 and Member: $22.00.

Link

Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes

By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:00 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

John Kricfalusi announced the release of his new double DVD: Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes. I got my sticky pseudopods on an advance copy and I'm quaking in awe at the fantastic cornucopia of top-notch entertainment emanating from these shiny plastic discs.

INSIDE:
3 Spike episodes
3 never been seen episodes
9 half hours total cartoon product.

Naked girls (by the # 1 cute girl artist-Katie Rice)
The 3 Things
Ralph Bakshi animated
First on screen live animated birth

Lots of supplemental material:
I introduce each cartoon and tell you the back story of how we came up with it. I even thrust my groin a couple times.

Meet the cartoonists-Eddie, Katie, Luke, Vincent, Annmarie, Steve (of Asifa Archives fame!) and Eric Goddamn Bauza himself!

A rare personal appearance by Dave Feiss (creator of Cow and Chicken)

Weird Al live justifies the existence of the set!

Animatics
background paintings
model sheets
storyboards

Link

OpenOffice's anti-MSFT bus ads in Redmond

By Cory Doctorow at 8:13 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Wade sez, "Sun Microsystems has posted extremely pointed OpenOffice.org ads on the sides of transit buses that serve Redmond. Slogans include, 'Stop giving a bully your lunch money,' 'Compatible with expensive, closed, memory-loving software,' and 'Prehistoric reptilians welcome.' Booya!" Link (Thanks, Wade!)

Update: Creede sez, "Just a quick note from a guy who takes the bus to Microsoft on a regular basis. I haven't done an in-depth survey to confirm that this is the case, but it certainly seems like those OpenOffice ads *only appear on bus routes specifically going to the Microsoft campus.*"

Record player made of paper

By Cory Doctorow at 8:09 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

This design for a paper phonograph is elegant and sweet:

To play the record the handle needs to be turned in a clockwise direction at a steady 331/3 rpm. The paper cone then acts as a pick up and amplifies the sound enough to make it audible.

Link (via Red Ferret)

HOWTO make a bookshelf out of books

By Cory Doctorow at 8:06 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Here's a great project for those giant, awful hardcover books you find at library sales: convert them into wall-mounted bookshelves. Link (via Make Blog)

Update: Here's the inspiration for this

Pac Man with crickets controlling the ghosts

By Cory Doctorow at 8:04 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Wim van Eck's grad project for the Masters program in Media Technology at the Netherlands' Leiden University was a version of Pac Man that used crickets to control the ghosts:

Up till now we had one-way interaction: the game play depends on the movement of the animals. But if we want somewhat more intelligent game play, the animals should also react to the actions within the game. It is possible to attract or repel an animal with stimuli such as sound, vibration, temperature, pheromones, light, electricity and smell. In nature, vibration of the ground warns crickets for an approaching predator. We chose to use this behaviour to stimulate the crickets in the game. We divided the floor of the maze into six parts, each with a motor attached underneath that vibrates when switched on. When the crickets should chase Pac-Man, we switch on the motors furthest away from his location in the maze, so the crickets will flee in his direction. When Pac-Man eats a power-up, the crickets are supposed to run away from him, so we then vibrate the part of the floor that contains Pac-Man’s position.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

AOL's "customer retention" dirty tricks manual

By Cory Doctorow at 8:01 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Consumerist has gotten hold of a copy of AOL's "retention" manual for customer service reps. This is the manual that the notorious AOL rep was working from when he abused a customer who recorded and published his phone conversation. Link (via Waxy)

Bush "gropes" Germany's (female) chancellor Merkel

By Xeni Jardin at 4:36 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Yesterday's news from the G8 summit was all shit. Today, blogger Taylor Marsh posts photos of another "candid moment" in which President Bush gives an unsolicited, surprise neck-massage to German prime minister Angela Merkel. The Los Angeles Times reported:

"Entering the meeting room, as relayed by a Russian television camera, Bush headed directly behind the chancellor, reached out and, placing both hands on the collar of her gold jacket, gave her a short massage just below the neck. She smiled."

IANAFRE (I am not a facial recognition expert), but that doesn't look like much of a smile to me, or a happy hand-gesture following. What odd manners the leader of the Western world has. Link (Thanks, Stefan Jones)

Reader comment: Alex Steffen says,

There's video on this page that makes it clear how inappropriate it was... the Germans are calling it a "Liebes-Attacke"

Image of the day: children send messages on missiles

By Xeni Jardin at 4:14 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

I don't know the whole story behind these images, but they say a lot on their own. Here, some Israeli girls have apparently been told to "sign" bombs directed at Lebanon, writing messages like "from Israel with love." Link (via lawrenceofcyberia and thismodernworld) Update: That link keeps crashing my browser. Here are better links, to the source of these photos: one, two, and another. Caption, via AP, "Israeli girls write messages on a shell at a heavy artillery position near Kiryat Shmona, in northern Israel, next to the Lebanese border, Monday, July 17, 2006." AP Photo/Sebastian Scheiner.

Reader comment: Chris Maytag says,

In your boingboing post "Image of the day: children send messages on missiles", the objects in the picture are alternately referred to as "missiles", "bombs" and "shells". These are three very different terms, and it's worth keeping things straight.

A "missile" is a projectile, powered during flight by either solid of liquid-fueled engines, with a weaponized payload of some kind (example: SCUDs, 'Katyushas'). A "bomb" is a weapon dropped from an aircraft or other airborne platform and guided by ballistics alone or a combination of ballistics and fin-based guidance (example: JDAMs, unguided 500lb mk82 bomb).

A "shell" is essentially a bullet. It is fired from a tube (cannon, howitzer or mortar) il it either hits a target or explodes due to to one of a variety of triggers (flight time, position, etc). Contents of shells range from pure metal (as in an early, simple cannonball) to explosives (as in the high explosive and shaped-charge shells generaly used by tanks) to advanced anti-personnel munitions, which explode and release smaller objects (much like a shotgun shell releases 'shot').

Why is this worth paying attention to? Because there's enough misinformation in the MSM already. By the way, the objects being signed by the Israeli girls appear to be 155mm howitzer or tank shells.

Amy M. says,

The Getty caption I have seen for an image similar to this (ie of the same girls) reads: "Israeli girls write messages in Hebrew on shells ready to be fire by mobile artillery unit toward Hezbollah targets in southern Lebanon 17 July 2006"

I assume this means they are tank shells. I disagree with Chris Maytag: I don't think it matters what sort of weapon these are. The fact is, they are deadly weapons intended to kill and maim, and they are being signed by children. I fail to see how anyone can justify this, even if they support the right of the Israeli state to carry out these attacks.

This is no different to the images of Palestinian toddlers dressed as pretend suicide bombers.

Aryeh Abramovitz says,

This unfortunate 'photo op' has taken on a life of its own, with the meme that bloodthirsty Israeli children are sending a message of destruction to their Lebanese neighbors. Neither the hebrew or english says anything like "From Israel with Love". I can make out "Nazrala with.. from Israel", which I assume might be "[To] Nazrala with [love] from Israel". From the little I can make out, all the messages in hebrew are similarly addressed to Nasrala.

[Ed. note: Hassan Nasrallah is the leader of Hezbollah.] Adrian Midgley says,

Perhaps a bit pedantic, but a missile is of course anything which pursues a trajectory - as in being thrown, fired etc, so journalists or subs who pick that one word to describe gun projectiles, freefall bombs and ballistic rockets with warheads are not being unreasonable in their use of English...

And of course the one thing that a shell is not is pure metal. The distinction was between a cannonball, and a projectile made to be fired from a gun which was merely a shell containing something - gunpowder to start with.

One effect of removal of foreign nationals from the Lebanon is that there will be less hindrance on random bombardment of it with whatever anyone chooses to project, not that I'm not pleased to see HMS Gloucester hauling our citizens out of Beirut or that I wouldn't have discovered an appointment elsewhere if I'd been in the target zone myself.

Update: Lisa Goldman of Global Voices has more on the background behind these photographs: Link.

Update 2: Here's a related post at The Guardian, with more background on the circumstances under which the images were taken. (thanks, Dave)

Blogging photos from bombed Lebanon

By Xeni Jardin at 4:13 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

The Flickr stream for blog/online newsletter "Arabist" (maintained by Issandr El Amrani, a journalist in Cairo) is filling up with photos taken on the ground in bombed-out areas of Lebanon. Link to stream, includes extremely disturbing, explicit images of burnt corpses. Image: a destroyed home; residents were evidently reading the Quran when the bombs hit. (Thanks, Sassan)

Chris Cunningham's new grossout music video

By Xeni Jardin at 3:16 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

The latest music video directed by "Rubber Johnny" creator Chris Cunningham: "Sheena Is A Parasite," from the UK band The Horrors. As one Brit YouTube commentser wondered aloud, how many (s)quid were in the budget for this one?

Link to video (anyone have a better version? YouTube craps up the strobe effect that makes this video so visually interesting), here's a related post on elastico, and here's a previous BB post about Cunningham. (thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Update: here's a way better quality video link, and lo, ye shall find alternate video links here in better quality than the YouTube url. Apparently, Cunningham first hooked up with the band via MySpace. (Thanks, Katzenjammer and James Battersby!)

Reader comment: David Stein says,

The movie clip via the alternate link is in Quicktime, and the standard Quicktime plugin that plays the clip will allow you to - gulp! - step through any part of the video frame-by-frame. I am a big believer in the "less is more" theory of horror, but many of the frames in this clip are even *more* macabre and horrifying!

Great food-review prose from folks who aren't food critics

By Xeni Jardin at 2:50 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

I've been chowing down lots of food-related prose recently. Reviewing gadgets is all well and good, but I generally have to return the goodies to their makers when the review is over, which means I never get to eat them. Food reviewers must live happier lives, perhaps even more so when they're noshing on Treos and PSPs.

So my friend Sean pointed me to this one graf on a guy's blog which may just be the awesomest flavor description snippet of all time -- despite the fact that it's not a food review but a personal account of an appendectomy. Bad News Hughes, a blogger fond of generous pottymouthery, has just had his appendix out. He wakes up:

As dawn broke it was once again time to have more fluids dripped into me, while other were sucked out. I woke up with a hard-on, which was a good sign. Not that I was expecting them to chop off my dick, but, you know... Accidents happen... They gave me some sugar-free raspberry Jell-O, and let me tell you – your ass goes a solid 24 without food and that goddamn sugar-free raspberry Jell-O is like having Osama Bin Flavor crash a plane full of celebration into your mouth.

Link

Over 100 Iraqi civilians killed per day in June

By Xeni Jardin at 1:52 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

A UN report released today says over 3,000 civilians were killed in Iraq last month alone, and nearly 6,000 in May and June combined. Link to report text at Reliefweb, and here's an excerpt:

Insurgent, militia and terrorist attacks continued unabated in many parts of Iraq, especially in Baghdad and in the central and western regions, with an increasing sectarian connotation. A total of 5,818 civilians were reportedly killed and at least 5,762 wounded during May and June 2006.(1) Killings, kidnappings and torture remain widespread. Fear resulting from these and other crimes continued to increase internal displacement and outflows of Iraqis to neighbouring countries. The negative effect of violence on professional categories, targeted by sectarian and criminal violence or displaced as a result, coupled with inadequate provision of basic services, also affected the level of education and health care received by the population. Women, children and vulnerable groups, such as minorities, internally displaced and disabled persons continue to be directly affected by the violence and the ongoing impunity for human rights violations. Organized crime and corruption have persistently added to the overall insecurity.

Here's an article about the findings by Kirk Semple at the NYT.

How to "gain flesh"

By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:43 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

"A SKINNY man hasn't a chance."

A chance to what? To make it with the delectably curvy woman shown here? On the contrary! She's says "I'll tell you how to gain pounds quick!" See, this woman digs skinny guys. She likes to help them become big and strong.

The moral of the story: no matter your phenotype, there's someone out there ready to love you for who you are (or for what they might be able to mold you into becoming). From the archives of Modern Mechanix blog.

Deja-Katrina? US rescue bogs down in Lebanon

By Xeni Jardin at 1:00 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Perhaps we need a template for "US government does lame job rescuing citizens from wars or acts of God" stories -- just like we do for each newly-leaked domestic surveillance program. Snip from Los Angeles Times article:

Thousands of Americans whose vacations and business trips to Lebanon have degenerated with sickening speed into stints in a battle zone remained stranded here under Israeli bombardment Monday, their frustration and anger mounting because the U.S. government hasn't gotten them out faster.

Waiting around Beirut with bags packed and fingers crossed, U.S. citizens derided the embassy for busy phone lines, a lack of information and gnawing uncertainty over when and whether they will get out. Hundreds were expected to be shipped to Cyprus today, but how long the full evacuation will take remains uncertain.

Link (thanks, Cyrus)

Previously: U.S. gov't billing citizens for evacuation from Beirut

With Google Earth, defense analysts spot North Korea missile sites

By Xeni Jardin at 12:13 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Brendan from Radio Open Source says, "Colin, an intern here, was poking around North Korea on Google Earth and discovered that defense analysts -- active duty and retired -- are identifying missile installations and sub bases flagged by civilians. From a retired Army satellite analyst..."

There are areas in several countries that have been left at low resolution at the request of the countries affected for security purposes. Since the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea [N Korea] is a secretive state that does not have regular contact with the rest of the world, they have not requested any areas to be excluded.

Link

Update on India censoring blogs

By Xeni Jardin at 12:06 pm Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Over at the Chennai (India) metblog, Nancy Gandhi writes:

According to a report on NDTV 24X7, an Indian news channel, the Indian government's clampdown on blogsites (and some websites) is NOT connected to the recent blasts in Mumbai, but is an effort to curb the propagation of religious extremism on the Net. If that's true, the ban may not be lifted any time soon. The Indian government, however, has yet to issue an official statement on the subject. If it's not clear from what has been said so far, the Indian ban applies to ALL blogs from these sites, not just those originating in India: ALL blogspot, typepad, geocities blogs worldwide. If you have a blog from one of these providers anywhere in the world, I cannot read you. It's odd that we can still post to our own blogs, and read the blogs that we have had the foresight to subscribe to through RSS. These loopholes may be closed soon, if this is to be a long-term policy. The list of blocked sites includes: • hinduunity.org • hinduhumanrights.org • princesskimberley.com • bloodspot.com • dalitstan.org • clickatell.com • blogspot.com • geocities.com • typepad.com

Link (thanks, Sean Bonner) Previously: Indian gov blocks Blogspot, Typepad, Geocities blogs

Yeti skin rug

By David Pescovitz at 11:16 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

UK artist Debra Swann transforms everyday materials "into fantastical objects" such as Sellotape animal exoskeletons, faux taxidermy made from dried plants, and this beautiful Yeti Skin Rug.

From Swann's artist statement:

I attempt to investigate my own imagination and explore the boundaries between the everyday and the subconscious or metaphysical worlds of fantasy. I am interested in how science tries to explain or make sense of the world and the way in which we place our trust in what we consider to be fact.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

Boy uses sound to see

By David Pescovitz at 11:07 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

People magazine profiles Ben Underwood, a blind 14-year-old who apparently uses echolocation to "see." Ben, sightless since the age of 3, makes loud clicking noises with his tongue and then listens for the echo. According to the article, he can not only detect distance but sometimes the material of an object based on how soft, dense, or sharp the echo is. From the People profile:

Ben's ability to navigate in his sightless world is, say experts, extraordinary. "His skills are rare," says Dan Kish, a blind psychologist and leading teacher of echomobility among the blind. "Ben pushes the limits of human perception."

Kish has taught echolocation to scores of blind people as a supplement to more traditional methods, such as walking with a cane or a guide dog, but only a handful of people in the world use echolocation alone to get around, according to the American Foundation for the Blind...

Ben learned how to read Braille and walk with a cane, but when he was 3, he also began teaching himself echolocation, something he picked up by tossing objects and making clicking sounds to find them. His sense of hearing, teachers noticed, was exceptional. "One time a CD fell off his desk and I was reaching for it when he said, 'Nah, I got it,'" says Kalli Carvalho, his language arts instructor. "He went right to it. Didn't feel around. He just knew where it was because he heard where it hit." Haase took walks with Ben to help him practice locating objects. "I said, 'Okay, my car is the third car parked down the street. Tell me when we get there,' " she says. "As we pass the first vehicle, he says, 'There's the first car. Actually, a truck.' And it was a pickup. He could tell the difference."

Link to People, More on human echolocation here and here

God-Jesus robot

By David Pescovitz at 10:52 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

An oldie-but-goodie... the allmighty God-Jesus robot, sold by Bandai in the 1980s.
Link

Virtual Reality test for telepathy

By David Pescovitz at 10:36 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Psychologists and computer scientists at the University of Manchester have created a virtual reality game that they claim will "provide the most objective study of telepathy to date." In the game, two participants enter separate virtual rooms containing a random selection of objects. One person is asked to identify the object that the other is interacting with. From a press release:

Dr Toby Howard said: "This system has been designed to overcome the many pitfalls evident in previous studies which could easily be manipulated by participants to produce an effect which looks like telepathy but is not.

"By creating a virtual environment we are creating a completely objective environment which makes it impossible for participants to leave signals or even unconscious clues as to which object they have chosen."

Link

Marco the Monkey sculpture by Jessica Joslin

By Mark Frauenfelder at 10:14 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Sculptor Jessica Joslin says: As one fellow monkey-lover to another, I thought I'd send you a little sneak preview of my next solo show at Lisa Sette Gallery in November. It'll be a delightfully bizarre circus of bedecked dogs balancing on balls, beasts with bareback riders, birds pulling chariots and monkeys being...well, being their charming monkey selves!

In the meantime, I have a bunch of new works (including Leopold and his majestic fur pom pom hat) at Lineage Gallery in Philly and a mad march hare for the "Hair" show at Lisa Sette Gallery. Link

Daniel Pinkwater serializing new fiction online

By Cory Doctorow at 10:11 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Daniel Pinkwater, the greatest sf writer in the universe, is serializing a story on the Internet. Many writers had an influence on me when I was growing up, but no single writer did so much to inspire me to write as Pinkwater: a gifted humorist and storyteller whose savage wit and nerd-positive message comes across in stories from picture-books to young adult novels (including the blisteringly, savagely funny Young Adult Novel). Two Pinkwater omnibuses (5 Novels and 4 Novels) collect nine of his finest.

I'm so excited to see him doing this great story on the net -- I'm going to devour it as soon as I post this.

I didn't always live here. And by here, I do not mean the La Brea Tar Pits, where I am writing this down in a notebook--I mean Los Angeles. When I was a little kid I lived in Chicago.

On Wilshire Boulevard, in Los Angeles, there is a restaurant shaped like a hat. It is called The Brown Derby, and that's what it looks like--one of those derby hats, with the round top, and the little brim all around. There is a sign outside that says, "Eat in the Hat." And people do. I knew about this because I saw pictures in Look Magazine. The pictures showed the restaurant, the "Eat in the Hat" sign, and two movie stars--I think it was Bette Davis and Laird Cregar--inside the hat, eating cheeseburgers. They were eating cheeseburgers with knives and forks! This was interesting too. I had only found out about cheeseburgers a short time before--and had only actually eaten two of them. I did not know that some people eat them with knives and forks, but I thought of them as grown-up and sophisticated food, even before learning that movie stars ate them.

Anyway, when I read about the Brown Derby and saw the pictures, it became one of my life's ambitions to eat there.

Link (via MeFi)

Consumerist on Nightline

By Cory Doctorow at 8:09 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Conusmerist editor Ben Popken sez, "Hey, we were in a nice chunky segment on Nightline this past Friday. Here's the video. Pretty neat to see how these stories can burble up to national tv! The piece also goes into the broader implications of consumers using blogs and internet shared recordings to shame companies into accountability." Link (Thanks, Ben!)

Chico Marx on the piano youtube

By Cory Doctorow at 7:57 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Kevin sent in this lovely clip of Chico Marx performing the Beer Barrel Polka, really hammering on a piano and playing it with his whole body. The is some of my favorite Marx Bros schtick. Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

Why Slashdotters slashdot

By Cory Doctorow at 7:34 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

A Harvard Kennedy School of Government Study called "The Hype vs. Reality vs. What People Value: Emerging Collaborative News Models and the Future of News" analyzes why people participate in sites like Slashdot and Digg, and what they do there:

* mostly young and male, especially those who visit technology-related sites.
* very active in their use of the sites.
* looking for "a fix of unique, informative fun."
* and "filling in the blanks" left by traditional news sources.
* sharing what they know.
* looking for and finding multiple perspectives.

Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Cory's CBC column on authority and reporting online

By Cory Doctorow at 7:28 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

I recently wrote a column for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation on how news-gathering works on blogs:

Wikipedia gets it wrong all the time. So do bloggers. But then, so do newspapers, magazines, TV and radio. The interesting thing about systems isn't how they perform when they're working to specification, it's what happens when they fail.

Blogs, Wikipedia, and other online media fail gracefully indeed. When a newspaper gets a story wrong, it can take 24 hours to get a correction out – if it corrects it at all. There's no ready way to link criticism of a newspaper article with the article itself. Certainly, you can't make the edits yourself.

But if you find an error in a Wikipedia entry, you can fix it yourself. You can join the discussion about whether a blogger got it wrong. Automated tools like Technorati link together all the different blogs discussing the same topic, turning them into a conversation.

Link

Goatse polo shirt

By Cory Doctorow at 7:27 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

The Goatse polo sports a discreet over-the-breast logo that you can use to evoke giggles from attentive Internet perverts. Link, SFW Wikipedia entry on Goatse (Thanks, Justin!)

Cutlery made out of potato starch

By Cory Doctorow at 7:21 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

VegWare makes "durable," disposable, degradable cutlery out of pressed potato starch and oil:

Durable means that it will withstand the rigors of dining on foods which exert greater levels of force on the cutlery, such as hard ice cream, stabbing carrots onto a fork, etc. Durable has no relationship with biodegradable - they are completely independent characteristics. Wood is biodegradable, but people build homes which are 'durable', lasting hundreds of years. However, allow the wood to become moist and dry rot sets in, i.e. moisture, heat, and microorganisms, also known as biodegradation.

Link (Thanks, Bryan!)

OpenOffice.org taking out an ad in NYC daily paper

By Cory Doctorow at 7:18 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Benjamin sez, "Like Firefox did in 2004, the open source OpenOffice.org project will be running a major newspaper ad in New York City. Our ad will run on the back page of the Metro newspaper on July 31." Link (Thanks, Benjamin!)

Indie band sticks free CDRs of its music on its gig posters

By Cory Doctorow at 7:15 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Here's a Flickr shot of a telephone-pole poster for a band called Hyena Snarls that comes with a CDR (presumably of the band's music). That's some smart indie marketing. Link (via Ono Sendai)

HOWTO get near-free broadband out of Comcast/SBC

By Cory Doctorow at 7:12 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

If you live in a town with both Comcast and SBC broadband, you can get your Internet service for next to nothing by playing htem off against one another, cancelling your service every six months and switching to the other on their "switch and get six free months" plan. Link (via Consumerist)

Advertising TV shows on supermarket eggs

By Cory Doctorow at 7:09 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

CBS will laser-etch ads for its programs on 35 million eggshells in the coming TV season -- the slogans will bear goody, egg-related puns, like "CSI: Crack the Case on CBS." The company that does the etching promises future advertising inventory that's targeted to precise ZIP-codes, and they print serial numbers on each egg that can be looked up online for more information. Link (Thanks, Jim!)

Extensive analysis of Boing Boing posting habits

By Cory Doctorow at 7:02 am Tuesday, Jul 18 • Comments • Share

Jeff Clark has made a wild set of graphs analyzing the postings on Boing Boing, noting the frequency of posting over time, dividing it by day, author, year, and subject. He used the archive of 6+ years of Boing Boing posts to do this, and the results are endlessly fascinating to me. Link (Thanks, Jeff!)