By Cory Doctorow at 10:58 pm Sunday, Feb 4
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There's not much detail about this extraordinary sofa-design, but the video hints at an intriguing and excellent design. The sofa appears to be made out of hundreds of thin, flat chair-shaped silhouettes, joined together by some kind of membrane in an accordion that can collapse down into a dictionary-think chunk or be spread out for feet on end, as a divan, chair or sofa.
Link
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Thanks, Zaidan!)
Update:
Vanessa sez, Here's a link to Molo, the company that makes the accordion sofa. They are a favorite of mine!"
Update: Norman sez, "Just got off the phone with Molo Design. They do not, as your correspondent, Vanessa, suggests, make the accordion chair." He sends this link to this company, who appear to be the manufacturers.
By Cory Doctorow at 10:38 am Sunday, Feb 4
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Peter sez, "The classic animated film The Last Unicorn is coming out in a new remastered DVD on Feb 6th. You've reported in the past about Peter S. Beagle's difficulties in getting his due from the Granada Media, so I thought you might like to link to a place where BoingBoing readers can buy the DVD directly from him (autographed) and they can help support his fight while getting a copy of it."
Link
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Thanks, Peter!)
See also:
Help Peter Beagle sue the film-house that made "The Last Unicorn"
Peter Beagle's the Last Unicorn as unabridged MP3 audio, read by author
Last Unicorn author ripped off by filmmaker, struggling and penniless
By Mark Frauenfelder at 9:21 am Sunday, Feb 4
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LA Times has an article about a new four-disc DVD anthology titled "Animated Soviet Propaganda." It contains dozens of cartoons from the 1930s to the 1980s.
These were no Disney-like fairy tales or Russian folk stories. Instead, these animated short films intended for the Soviet masses painted a sinister portrait of life in capitalist America.
"Black and White," produced in 1933, depicted a highway with an endless row of blacks lynched on telephone poles. "The Millionaire," made in 1963, told the story of a rich American woman who leaves $1 million to her pet bulldog, who becomes so wealthy and powerful that he eventually is elected to Congress. And in the 1979 animated short "Shooting Range," a jobless American youth finds work in a carnival shooting gallery only to discover the evil, greedy owner is now charging double — for people to use the youth as target practice.
Link
By Cory Doctorow at 8:32 am Sunday, Feb 4
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The folks at DailyLit have just converted my novel
Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom to an email-based serial. Sign up for the free service, specify how often you'd like a little chunk emailed to you, and then sit back and read by email, on your schedule.
Link
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Thanks, Albert!)
By Cory Doctorow at 8:27 am Sunday, Feb 4
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You can open the door of a Mazda 3 with a tennis ball -- just burn a small hole in the ball, line it up over the lock mechanism, then push it as hard as you can. The ball forces air into the locking mechanism, which causes it to spring open. See the video for more.
Link
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Thanks, Michael!)
Update:
Erik sez, "Consensus on GT is this is almost certainly fake. The two GTers with access
to Mazads were unable to reproduce. Faking in on video is trival -- have
someone hit a remote unlock button.
We're not condemning it outright yet -- the weather's too fucking cold to
give a a full try right now -- 17F/-8C in St. Louis, 2F/-17C in
Detroitm,-2F/-19C in Chicago, and we must note that squeezing a tennis ball
that's dropped to 5F isn't trivial, and a large number of GTer work for the
auto industry in some form.
This is unlike the Kryptonite ball-point pen hack, which all of us were able
to reproduce within a day."
Update 2:
Clint sez, "Just a note that the tennis ball trick does work on some cars, but they must have a vacuum door lock system. You can also break into these cars with a toilet plunger, which must look decidedly odd."
Dan sez, "Ray Keim, creator of the beautiful Haunted Mansion paper models, just put a flashing LED Mooninite on the Haunted Mansion on his splash page. 'They pretend to terrorize,' indeed!"