Tired of students bitching about the cafeteria food, some colleges are soliciting family recipes to add to the menus. From the Associated Press:

"It's a great connection with home for the students, and a way to de-institutionalize a college food service program," said J. Michael Floyd, food service director at the University of Georgia, which pioneered the approach 20 years ago with its annual Taste of Home competition...

From hundreds of entries that are taste-tested each year, Georgia has selected such winners as eclair squares, poppy seed chicken and bulldog punch bowl cake.

At Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts, barbecued salmon and Thai eggplant dishes had their start in students' homes, as did the Ukrainian apple nut squares and whole-wheat cheddar buns.

Link

Coop says, "Bad little kids used to get coal in their stocking; now they get this!" It's true--a Dr. Laura Talking action figure. According to DrLaura.com, you just "Press her button" (!) and she says things like, "...proud mother of an American Soldier," "...this is the hill you want to die on?," and "Now, go do the right thing."
Link

Next Saturday, I'm hoping to nail up all of my Xmas shopping in one swell foop by attending Felt Club, the semi-regular crafts fair in Los Angeles. The pre-Xmas one on Dec 9 promises to be the biggest and best ever -- a lounge hosted by Craft magazine, swag bags, raffles, and DJs Dirty Robot and Lance Rock. Plus, of course, plenty of crafty artisanal wares for easy, one-of-a-kind Xmas shopping.

Where: Ukrainian Cultural Center LA, 4315 Melrose Ave at Heliotrope
When: Sat, Dec 9, Noon-7PM

Link, Flickr Felt Club photos

Yesterday, I blogged about Fox sending out bogus copyright takedown notices to websites that linked to material that they said infringed their copyright. There's no established law that says that linking to infringing material is itself infringing, but that doesn't stop Fox from just making up whatever copyright laws it wants and enforcing them through harassing, fraudulent letters.

There's more harm to this than the direct harm to individuals who post links that Fox doesn't like. Even worse is the chilling effect on people who write the Web, the fear that they're going to come under a legal hammer unless they validate the copyright status of every link they make (imagine if Google held itself to this standard! No Blogger, no search-results, no Google Groups).

Some Wikipedia editors have now taken the position that all links to YouTube clips and any other material whose copyright status can't be validated (that is, practically every single page on the Internet) should be ripped out of Wikipedia. That means that an entry about Stephen Colbert couldn't link to fair-use excerpts of his White House Press Corps speech; that an entry about the Katrina disaster couldn't link to eyewitness videos, and so on. Link (Thanks, Adam!)

Looking for the right Xmas pressie for the British sf fan in your life? Aust Gate, one of the UK's finest sf bookstores, has just posted its Christmas Catalogue, including some signed copies of my latest novel. Aust Gate's proprietor, Iain Elmsley, has a talent for sniffing out obscure titles you won't see on the shelf at Waterstone's. Link (Thanks, Iain!)

Edgar Bronfman Jr, head of Warner Music, was asked if his kids steal music. He said they had, and that he'd made sure that they'd "suffered the consequences" but wouldn't say what he actually did to them, beyond giving them a stern talking-to.

However, Warner Music and the other big labels routinely sue the families of children who download music for their entire life's savings. That, in Bronfman's view, is the "consequences" of "stealing music" -- so did he turn over his entire life's savings to his employer?

We asked Edgar Bronfman, the head of the world’s fourth largest music company, at the Reuters Summit whether any of his seven kids stole music.

“I’m fairly certain that they have, and I’m fairly certain that they’ve suffered the consequences.”

We couldn’t begin to guess what that means. He explained to our Second Life reporter, Adam Pasick:

“I explained to them what I believe is right, that the principle is that stealing music is stealing music. Frankly, right is right and wrong is wrong, particularly when a parent is talking to a child. A bright line around moral responsibility is very important. I can assure you they no longer do that.”

Great, but what did he do to them?

“I think I’ll keep that within the family.”

Link (via NetZoo)

"Sexual Consent" -- just about the funniest net-video I've seen this year. A couple in bed -- and their lawyers -- negotiate the terms of the night's nookie. Link (via Lawgeek)

Update: Brad sez, "The Kids in the Hall perform a hilarious sketch that covers some of the same ground as the 'Sexual Consent' video, albeit before the proposed date even happens. Best line: 'That's panty-peeler and you know it!'"

Like the jackalope and the flatbed truck-sized trout, the long-horse became extinct around the same time that the black-and-white postcard went out of vogue.

In the comments section of Robyn's blog, a reader questioned the authenticity of these photos, suggesting the images may have been altered to make the horses appear longer than they really were. But Robyn replied: "Oh no, I assure you, they are absolutely real. Their demise is a sad one. A lesson indeed for future generations!" Link

Reader comment:

Some people have written to tell me that long horses aren't real. But if you read the comments section of Tinselman's blog post, you will read first-hand accounts of people who walked among these gentle giants. For example:

When I was in the Army in Italy in 1944 I saw a long horse that unfortunately had to be put down after a minor shrapnel wound to it's leg. So remarkly big and docile, she was. Her owner wept when we shot her at his request.

This Sunday (December 3) Machine Project in LA is teaching a workshop on BEAM robotics. They'll be using Gareth Branwyn's article from MAKE Vols. 6 and 8 as the textbook, and the cost of the workshop includes materials, so you can take you very own robot home with you. Link

As soon as I saw the "Naked Lunch" plate set at PopInk ($40), I immediately bought a set for myself and another for a friend. PopInk also has a lot of other fantastic dinner plate sets. I want them all. Link

A seal pup was picked up on a country road in Capernwray, Lancashire, England, several miles from the nearest seashore. A woman and her daughter nudged the seal into their car trunk and caged him in a calf pen until the animal collection officers arrived. Named Sid, the seal is currently at a wildlife center and will eventually be returned to the sea. From the BBC News:

Nick Green, animal collection officer for the RSPCA, said: "Wild seals don't like being around humans at all, but this one seemed really quite tame, which suggests he could have been a pet..."

Link

This year, only two books have made me laugh until tears ran down my face: John Hodgman's The Areas of My Expertise, and this parody of the hideous SkyMall catalog, appropriately titled SkyMaul.

The fake products and their descriptions in the SkyMaul catalog are exactly like the ones you'd find in the SKyMall catalog, except they're wet-your-pants funny.

I don't usually like magazine parodies (Pre-1980 National Lampoon was the only publication that could do a funny, dead-on magazine parody), so when Jesse Thorn of The Sound of Young America sent this to me, I wasn't expecting much, but I was hooked from the very first product (Reality-Canceling Headphones from the Image Sharpener: "Using a simple principle called "science," the professor was able to invent headphones that block all the bullshit and responsibilities in your life. You can still hear things such as the microwave going off but not babies or the doorbell or dogs.") and couldn't stop reading it until I got to the last (A "Bettering your WordPower" audio CD set: "We will send you 2 of the first 200 CDs, packed with two hours of crippling content; including the "top gun" words, the vocabulary principals overview, and a VHS tape called Nature's Killers where an orca throws a sea lion around like a rag doll. You will shit at how powerful these whales are, and how cruel.")

Just looking it is making me laugh again. There's the "Hitler-Turning-into-Werewolf Nightlight" for your baby, a Divorced Dad "Pancake Time" Trumpet, Christian Over-the-Clothes Massage Lotion, a combination Retirement Crutch/Metal Detector, a Tiger Arm Extender, and lots more.

It was written by the comedy group, Kasper Hauser, which has a podcast produced by Jesse. Link

Forbes has a new special issue on the future of books, and I have a lead op-ed in the issue, called "Giving It Away."

The thing about an e-book is that it's a social object. It wants to be copied from friend to friend, beamed from a Palm device, pasted into a mailing list. It begs to be converted to witty signatures at the bottom of e-mails. It is so fluid and intangible that it can spread itself over your whole life. Nothing sells books like a personal recommendation--when I worked in a bookstore, the sweetest words we could hear were "My friend suggested I pick up...." The friend had made the sale for us, we just had to consummate it. In an age of online friendship, e-books trump dead trees for word of mouth.

There are two things that writers ask me about this arrangement: First, does it sell more books, and second, how did you talk your publisher into going for this mad scheme?

There's no empirical way to prove that giving away books sells more books--but I've done this with three novels and a short story collection (and I'll be doing it with two more novels and another collection in the next year), and my books have consistently outperformed my publisher's expectations. Comparing their sales to the numbers provided by colleagues suggests that they perform somewhat better than other books from similar writers at similar stages in their careers. But short of going back in time and re-releasing the same books under the same circumstances without the free e-book program, there's no way to be sure.

What is certain is that every writer who's tried giving away e-books to sell books has come away satisfied and ready to do it some more.

Link, Link to special books issue of Forbes

Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman is interviewed in the December issue of Chicago monthly paper The Skeleton News. The interview is accompanied by Becca Taylor's wonderful illustration of Loren with a menagerie of cryptids, a portion of which is seen here. From the interview:

Has the willingness of the greater scientific establishment to listen to or respond to your work substantially changed since the late-60s?

Yes, it has increased positively. Many childhood fans of cryptozoology are now professors in universities...

Which cryptid mysteries do you think are most likely to be settled in the public eye in the next couple decades?

The discovery of a new Asian great ape, whether it is the Orang Pendek in Sumatra, the Ebu Gobo in Indonesia, or an unknown orang in China, will occur, I think, in the next 25 years.

Link to the interview republished at Cryptomundo, Link to Loren Coleman's appearance on Boing Boing's Get Illuminated! podcast

Hugo-award-winning author James Patrick Kelly is podcasting his "On the Net" columns rom Asimov's Science Fiction Magazines. In these columns, Jim takes us on a thematic tour of the Internet, running through themes like "Time travel" and "Faster than light travel." This week, he podcasted his "Afraid of the Darknet" column, about copyright, science fiction, DRM, and the future of the Internet. It's a great piece. Link, Podcast feed link, Text transcript link

The world's greatest type designers, House Industries, are coming to Los Angeles. They will present a lecture and play music at the Petersen Automotive Museum on December 7. And on December 8, they'll have an art opening at the Reserve Gallery. Link

Tom sez, "CNET editor and former TechTV product reviewer James Kim is missing along with his family while on vacation in the Pacific Northwest. James, his wife and two children left last week on a road trip. They were last seen in Portland on Saturday November 25th, where they visited with friends. His family has filed a police report and we currently working with the San Francisco Police Department, which has opened a missing persons investigation, to help in any way we can. We are also working with local news station who are planning to air stories tonight in the hopes that more visibility will help locate the family. We are all very worried about James and his family, and will keep you up-to-date with any developments. If you know anything about James' whereabouts, you can contact the SFPD by calling 415-558-5508 during normal business hours and 415-553-1071 after hours." Link (Thanks, Tom)

The winners of TokyoFlash's impractical Japanese watch giveaway have been announced. Congrats to BB readers Dallas Cloud (Texas), Justin Russell (Washington) and Dylan!

TokyoFlash's Christian sez, "please also mention that as a thank you to all our customers we are running a Christmas giveaway. The prizes are a Playstation 3 with 2 games and 10 watches."

Link

Fox has invented a new copyright law: the right to control who links to clips of your work. They're sending takedown notices to websites that link to supposedly infringing clips on YouTube:

The below links are specific examples of quicksilverscreen.com web pages linking to video files that infringe upon Fox’s intellectual property rights. Fox hereby demands that quicksilverscreen.com promptly remove and disable the links to all unauthorized copies of Fox Properties on the quicksilverscreen.com website of which it is aware, including the infringing links identified below:

Copyright law doesn't allow you to control who links to things you don't like. Links don't infringe copyright. It's not a violation of copyright to link to material on the Internet.

I'll tell you what is illegal, though: sending fraudulent takedown notices. Diebold was hammered by the courts for sending out DMCA takedown notices for something that isn't copyright; now career troll Michael Crook faces a similar fate.

I'd love to see Fox creamed over this, too. Link (Thanks, Steve!)

Update: EFF senior IP attorney Fred von Lohmann sez, "Whether linking to infringing materials can itself create copyright liability is still a somewhat murky question. Some cases suggest that linking to material you have reason to know is infringing (i.e., after the copyright owner notifies you that the material you're linking to is infringing) can give rise to liability (Intellectual Reserve v. Utah Lighthouse Ministry), while other cases point the other way (Perfect 10 v. Google). Of course, I think the latter cases have the better of the argument. But one thing is clear -- the DMCA's 'safe harbors' for online service providers (OSPs) give linkers a strong incentive to remove links upon receiving a DMCA takedown notice, because if they do so, they are protected from paying damages in any copyright infringement case. That's one of the problems with the DMCA safe harbors -- because OSPs have such a strong incentive to simply comply with takedown notices, courts get fewer chances to decide the underlying copyright questions, like whether linking to stuff on YouTube is infringing. So things stay murky. "

During the Q&A at last night's screening of Kirby Dick's "This Film is Not Yet Rated," Dick recounted the story of how his film was unlawfully duplicated by the MPAA's ratings board. He submitted one copy of his movie to the MPAA, extracting a promise that no more copies would be made -- the MPAA's own anti-piracy materials describe making a single unauthorized duplication as an act of piracy.

Once it got out that the MPAA had made its "pirated" copy of Dick's movie, one of the MPAA's lawyers called Dick up to admit that the cartel had indeed made an infringing copy, but not to worry, "The copy is safe in my vault."

At this point, I raised my hand and asked if Dick thought anyone caught downloading movies from the Internet could get off the hook by saying, "Don't worry, I keep my copies safe in my vault?" Link

The MPAA has killed a California law that would have outlawed "pretexting" -- fraudulently misrepresenting yourself to gain unlawful access to someone's private information ("Hi, this is Fred Frederickson, I'm at the office and need to look at my phone records for last month, can you fax them to me?").

Pretexting was used in Hewlett-Packard's crooked investigation into boardroom leaks, in which board-members, journalists and others had their privacy invaded by HP's investigators.

The MPAA opposes the bill because they want to have a broad arsenal of tools available to them as they attack movie-lovers who share films online.

Ira Rothken, a prominent technology lawyer defending download search engine TorrentSpy against a movie industry copyright suit, says he didn't know about the lobbying, but can guess why the MPAA got involved. Rothken is suing (.pdf) the MPAA for allegedly paying a hacker $15,000 to hack into TorrentSpy's e-mail accounts.

"It doesn't surprise me that the MPAA would be against bills that protect privacy, and the MPAA has shown that they are willing to pay lots of money to intrude on privacy," Rothken said. "I do think there needs to be better laws in place that would deter such conduct and think that it would probably be useful if our elected officials would not be intimidated by the MPAA when trying to pass laws to protect privacy."

Link

Asteroid's Revenge is a Flash game that does for Asteroids what Interview with the Vampire did for bloodsuckers: retells the story from the villain's perspective. In Asteroid's Revenge, you play a heartsick asteroid who has watched many of your kin destroyed by heartless vector-art spaceships. You are determined to avoid their fate by actively attacking the spaceships. Link (via Plasticbag)

Orange Crate Art blogger Michael Leddy, a college English professor, wrote a short and insightful essay for Lifehack.org titled "Granularity For Students." Michael presents a simple idea: break tasks down into manageable chunks and they won't be as daunting. But as he says, "the typical spiral-bound student-planner doesn’t seem to encourage (granularity); that tool is often little more than a place to store due dates: “research paper due.” I like how Michael explains the way granularity might be applied to the task of writing:

Instead of writing a draft and “looking it over,” it’s much smarter to break down the work of writing and editing by thinking about one thing at a time. Developing a strong thesis statement: that’s one task. Working out a sequence of paragraphs to develop that thesis: another task. Figuring out how to make a transition from one paragraph to another: another task. If you tend to have patterns of errors in your writing, look for each kind of error, one at a time. Noun-pronoun agreement? Read a draft once through looking only for that. Comma splices? Read once through with your eyes on the commas. It might seem that approaching the work of writing and editing in terms of smaller, separate tasks is unnecessarily cumbersome, but breaking things down will likely make it far easier to work more effectively and come out with a stronger piece of writing. No writer can think about everything at once.

Link

The excellent Library of America--publisher of hardcover editions of such literary greats as Fitzgerald, Melville, Thoreau, Twain, and Stein--will release a collection of four novels from surrealist science fiction author Philip K. Dick. Neo-noir author Jonathan Lethem is slated to edit the volume. (Link to my post on Monday about PKD's influence on Lethem.) From the Associated Press:

"(Dick) is someone, like Raymond Chandler, who took the conventions of a pulp genre and made very adventurous literary use of them," Max Rudin, publisher of the Library of America, told The Associated Press on Tuesday...

Beyond literary merit, Rudin cited a couple of factors in choosing Dick — the 25th anniversary next summer of Blade Runner, which will be marked by director Ridley Scott's remastered "final cut," and the positive response to the Library of America's volume of horror writer H.P. Lovecraft, published in 2005.

"There were a lot of people who felt their reading tastes were validated by including Lovecraft in the library," Rudin said.

Link (Thanks, Professor Gill!)

Volkswagen Credit recently sent a letter to its customers, inviting them to skip a payment this month. But the fine print reveals that they will charge you $25 to take them up on their seemingly kind holiday offer.

"The holidays...time to give thanks, spread joy and shop for the best sales. Now, here's the perfect "gift" to help you stretch your holiday dollar. Volkswagen Credit is offering you the opportunity to 'skip' your December 2006 payment on your current account listed above. [...] Upon receipt of your extension agreement, we will assess your account a $25.00 extension fee, payable on your next due invoice. There is no need to send money at this time. [...] Happy Holidays!"

I like the way Volkswagen put the word "gift" in quotes.

Link

This unusual ad for a set of Hummer tires was spotted on the Phoenix Craigslist. I wonder if the photo on the bottom right implies that the seller would be willing to trade the tires for a rock. Click image for a better look. (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)


UPDATE: And the ad is back up with a new photo in the bottom right and the additional comment, "I changed my last pic maybe this one won't get flagged"
Link (Thanks, Josh Weiss!)

Aww... look at those cute pink bats in the confiscation bin. From Todd Lappin:

"In Louisville, Kentucky -- home to Louisville Slugger, America's most famous baseball bat manufacturer -- TSA has a special warning display near the security screening area at the airport.

"Sadly, this is the closest thing to 'local flavor' that I've seen at any of the otherwise uniformly-grim TSA outposts around the country."

Link

These handsome sterling silver skull cufflinks by designer Christofle are $225 from Vivre, the same fine catalog that brought us the "Baby Devil Art" and "Baby Cross Bone" multi-thousand-dollar pendants.
Link

Roost has designed a line of stately and elegant animal trophy heads hand-carved from blocks of laminated basswood. The range includes a Cataline Goat, Bighorn Sheep, Blesbock, Reedbuck, and others. Seen here is the Noble Stag (H 42" x W 29"), priced at $595 from Velocity Art and Design in Seattle.
Link

A "killer whale" named Kasatka attacked a trainer during a show at San Diego's SeaWorld last night. Apparently, the orca grabbed trainer Ken Peters and pulled him twice to the bottom of the tank, breaking his foot. From Reuters:

SeaWorld's vice president of zoology, Mike Scarpuzzi, said the incident happened when female orca Kasatka was supposed to shoot out of the water upright so that the trainer could dive off her nose.

Instead, Kasatka grabbed the trainer's foot and dived to the bottom of the 36-foot-(11-metre-)deep tank, Scarpuzzi said. They surfaced less than a minute later, but she ignored other trainers' signals to draw her to the side.

The orca dived a second time with the trainer for about a minute. The trainer "stayed calm and calmed the whale down. He gently rubbed the whale, stroked her back," and she let go, Scarpuzzi said.

Link

Tag Heuer have released a concept belt-drive watch called the V4 -- you have to see the video to believe it.

Powered by a oscillating linear weight that falls back and forth within the central shaft - transmitting the energy to the four ball bearing barrels. All part of the mechanical revolution in watchmaking where everyone is trying to reinvent the wheel - but this time with belts.

Link

Scientific American reports on military research to "juice up" soldiers' brains using amphetamine-alternatives like Provigil and Ampakine CX717. The aim, of course, is to find the next generation "go pill" that fighters can pop to stay awake longer without impairing their cognitive abilities. The article also discusses transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), a method to stimulate specific regions of neurons to possibly alleviate depression or, of interest to the military, improve reaction time. (More on TMS in this Popular Science article I wrote several years ago.) For me though, the most interesting bit in the SciAm article is the brief discussion of the "fear gene." From the article:

A distinguished team of U.S. researchers reported in 2005 that a gene called stathmin, which is expressed in the amygdala (the seat of emotion), is associated with both innate and learned fear. The researchers bred mice without the gene and put them in aversive situations, such as giving them a mild shock at a certain point in their cage. Normal mice exhibited traditional fear behavior by freezing in place, but the altered mice froze less often. And when both types of mice were put in an open field environment--an innately threatening situation--the mice without stathmin spent more time in the center of the field and explored more than the control mice.

Do individuals who have lesser stathmin expression exhibit less fear? It is unlikely that there is a one-to-one correspondence, because humans are far more psychologically complex than mice, capable of modifying their genetically programmed behavior. Yet it is not difficult to imagine that a military official who overestimates the significance of genetic information will someday propose screening Special Forces candidates, or even raw recruits, for the "fear gene." Indeed, a few years ago the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company had to pay $2.2 million to employees who had been secretly tested for a gene associated with carpal tunnel syndrome, even though the scientists who developed the testing technique said it could not work for that purpose. The company was trying to see if the workers' medical claims were attributable to their jobs or their genes.

If DNA testing for a fear gene is both scientifically and ethically dicey, what about setting out to create people who lack that characteristic? Would breeding humans without stathmin or other genes associated with fear reactions engender more courageous fighters? Would parents sign on for such meddling if they harbored ambitions for a child capable of a glorious military career or just didn't want to give birth to a "sissy"?

Link

Japanese researchers have built a miniature pump that's driven by living cells cultured from a rat's heart muscles. Instead of batteries, the pump is powered by a nutrient bath. Someday, this kind of bio-mechanical pump could be integrated into medical implants or labs-on-a-chip. According to the scientists from the University of Tokyo and the Japan Science and Technology Agency, the next step is to integrate chambers and valves to better control the liquid being pumped. From New Scientist:

The main part of the pump is made from a flexible polymer sphere 5 millimetres in diameter. Teflon capillary tubes measuring 400 microns in diameter are inserted into opposite sides of this sphere.

A cell-friendly protein coating is then added to the sphere followed by a sheet of pulsing cultured heart cells. After just an hour the cells are firmly attached and begin driving the pump.

To test the pump, the researchers placed it in a nutrient medium at human body temperature (37°C). They watched through a microscope as small polystyrene balls contained with a fluid moved through the pump's tubes. The pump operated continuously for six days in testing.

Link

Scientists have uncovered the workings of an ancient computer called the Antikythera Mechanism. Built at the end of the second century B.C.E, the device was used to calculate and display moon phases and a luni-solar calendar. Its exact workings have been something of a mystery since it was first found in 1901 at the site of a Roman shipwreck. Now, researchers from the UK, Greece, and US report that high-resolution imaging have revealed the function of the gears and the partial inscriptions on the body of the machine. They report their findings in this week's issue of the scientific journal Nature.

From the New York Times:

They said their findings showed that the inscriptions related to lunar-solar motions and the gears were a mechanical representation of the irregularities of the Moon’s orbital course across the sky, as theorized by the astronomer Hipparchos. They established the date of the mechanism at 150-100 B.C...

Historians of technology think the instrument is technically more complex than any known device for at least a millennium afterward.

The mechanism, presumably used in preparing calendars for seasons of planting and harvesting and fixing religious festivals, had at least 30, possibly 37, hand-cut bronze gear-wheels, the researchers reported. An ingenious pin-and-slot device connecting two gear-wheels induced variations in the representation of lunar motions according to the Hipparchos model of the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth.

Link to NYT article, Link to abstract at Nature (Thanks, Mike Liebhold!)

Rotterdam's Urban Cactus housing project (UCX Architects) uses ingenious staggered terraces to make huge, sunny spaces, and a building profile that seems to have been parachuted in from 1945's future.

They placed the 98 residential units on 19 floors, using the pattern of outdoor spaces to determine the overall appearance of the project.

The slightly irregular pattern alternates these outdoor spaces to create what are in effect double-height spaces. Each unit then receives more sunlight than a typical stacked composition.

Link (via Futurismic)

Update: Fabio FZero sez, "The cactus building reminded me of this other architecture experiment in Montreal, created for Expo '67. It looks like a bunch of matchboxes stacked on top of each other, but provides a garden with open and unblocked view for all apartments. Impressive!"

Buttonless elevators are programmed in the lobby -- you enter your floor and are directed to a given lift. The idea is to make elevators efficient at routing -- say, by putting everyone going to floor 8 in the same box. However, the loss of control freaks people out:

You can't change your mind about where you're going after the doors shut. "Once you get on, you've got claustrophobia," says Mr. Glassberg, who is a senior vice president at Gemstar-TV Guide International Inc.'s TV Guide. He calls the new elevators "Wonkavators," after the flying glass elevator in the movie "Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory..."

Most people catch on pretty quickly. Just a month after the Hearst Tower opened, some Hearst executives said they were forgetting to push buttons in old-fashioned elevators. "My problem has become that I keep forgetting to press buttons in the elevator in my apartment building, so as I tap tap tap on my BlackBerry, I realize minutes later that the elevator hasn't moved," says Atoosa Rubenstein, the departing editor in chief of Hearst's Seventeen magazine.

Link (via Futurismic)

This beautiful turntable is powered by a 2.5 cc engine. It wasn't made as a real product, but it sure looks cool. Link (Via Ektopia)

In 1938, Modern Mechanix magazine ran an article on a new design for a fire-alarm box. It had an arm-hold trap built in that held the alarm-puller in place until the fire department arrived -- the idea was to lock prank-alarm-pullers in place (of course, if you were dumb enough to pull an alarm during a fire, you were horribly trapped alive in the flames until you succumbed to immolation or asphyxiation).

THE sending of false fire alarms by mischievous persons may be eliminated through use of a newly developed call box. To use the device, the sender of an alarm must pass a hand through a special compartment to reach the signal dial. Once the dial has been turned, the sender’s hand is locked in the compartment until released by a fireman or policeman with a key.

Link

BlueQ sells a line of gum in funny, Internet-meme-y boxes, including one bearing the classic legend, "Every time you masturbate, God kills a kitten." Link (via AccordionGuy)

Those uncontested kings of pixel-based eye-candy, eBoy, have created an astoundingly beautiful new poster called FooBar, and it's an homage to all things webalicious. It's fun looking for your favorite Web brands (Boing Boing and Make are both in it!), and imagine the memories it will evoke when you look at it 20 years from now. Link