DIY animator Marco Spitoni envisioned an alternate history where the World War II Allies were attacked by massive Nazi mechs. The resulting short film, "C.O.D.E. Guardian," is thrilling.
Link to download from Spitoni's site, Link to Part 1 on YouTube, Link to Part 2 on YouTube (Thanks, Jason Weisberger!)

UPDATE: BB reader mongolito404 points us to this .torrent at The Pirate Bay for CODE Guardian. Link

Over at the Comics Journal blog, Dirk Deppy reports that Slashdotters are uncovering more examples of the remarkable coincidences between Todd Goldman's work and the work of other artists.

And what do you get when you post this story to the most widely read tech-news site on Earth? Why, you get scores of techno-literate nerds looking for further examples of swiping, of course! This leads us to your possibly-stolen Todd Goldman concept of the day (pictured above). Courtesy of this post to Slashdot, a Goldman cartoon that bears more than passing resemblance to Marshall Kirk McKusick’s character design for the FreeBSD Daemon, the mascot for an open-source operating system. On the right, one of Goldman’s Goodbye Kitty T-shirt designs. (Note the pattern on each devil’s shoe, transfered directly from the hyperpixellated Daemon to the Goodbye Kitty thingie.)

“But wait,” I hear you say, “The bodies might look really, really similar, but the heads are totally different.” This is true. The head of Goldman’s T-shirt design looks nothing like the head of that FreeBSD critter. It does, however, look eerily like one of designer/illustrator Chip Wass’ “Chippies,” again compared above to another of Goldman’s T-Shirt designs.

But what about the kitty cat inpaled on the trident? Surely that must have sprang directly from the mind of Mr. Goldman! Well, maybe not. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Todd Goldman loves Threadless T-shirt designs
• T-shirt makes fun of Todd Goldman

Reader comment:

Tom says: "The FreeBSD Daemon was designed by John Lasseter. Kirk just holds the copyright."

This guy converted a Moleskine journal into a hard drive enclosure (Yes, he knows it won't dissipate heat very well. He doesn't care and neither do I).

A few weeks later I accidentally placed my WD Passport external drive on top of my Moleskine notebook and, what do you know, they were pretty much the same size. That got me thinking.

After some extensive research (well, I just googled for 2.5" sata enclosure) I found all I needed: an external enclosure for laptop SATA drives that would not need a power supply and with the smallest possible circuitry. There are many brands and models, but this one from Cool Drives was just perfect, and at under $25 it was cheap enough I didn't have to ask my wife for budgetary allowances.

Link

"Defenders of the Night" is a six-minute long Batman and Robin fan film that's a hundred times more fun to watch than any of the big budget Batman blockblunders.

As Coop says, it's "possibly the best thing ever." Link

My nine-year-old daughter met Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on a class trip to Sacramento. He met with the students for about 20 minutes, and told them that one of his favorite acting roles was playing Mr. Freeze in Batman & Robin.

He also handed out photos to the kids. He looks very serious in the photo, and the sticker on the back has a similarly serious warning:

"This photograph is a gift from the Governor and is for the personal use and enjoyment of the recipient only. It may not be used for any other purpose. It may not be sold, duplicated, altered in any way, or used for any political or promotional purpose without the advance express written consent of Governor Schwarzenegger. If this photograph is used in an unauthorized manner, the Governor shall have the right to enjoin its use."

I don't want to break the Governor's rules by holding a promotional contest for the funniest photoshop alteration of the Governor's photo. Instead, I'll hold a contest to find out who can do the best job of imitating the Governor reciting the warning. To enter the contest, dial 818-921-1292 and do your best. The winner will receive a Boing Boing T-shirt! Deadline is midnight tonight, April 25, pacific time. Feel free to be creative and veer from the script. Don't forget to include your name and email address in the message (which I will edit out from the audio if I post it to Boing Boing).

A Shippenberg University ROTC student phoned in a terrorism alert because he saw a brown-skinned poetry professor putting a box of recycling out. The kid assumed that because the man was middle-eastern, he must be a terrorist planting a bomb. The prof was getting rid of rejected manuscripts from a poetry contest he'd been judging.

On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle, carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car, which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks...

Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don't have the heart to take off these days, says, "Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America."

Link (via Schneier)

This pocket-watch, dating back to 1590, has it all: a compass, a powder-flask, and a sundial.

Consisting of a round powder flask made of rosewood with inlaid and engraved rosette-shaped ornaments of brass and bone. A small clock with 1-12 hours twice situated on the outer ring. The small funnel of bone is closed with a springy lid made of brass. Below the center under the engraved lid with a transversally placed hinge, there is a horizontal sundial with indication of the hours from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the evening. A small compass with north-south indication but without correction for the magnetic pole. The string gnomon is stretched by opening the lid and is only valid for one latitude. On the side of the flask, there is an opening to a funnel-shaped small pipe which is placed in the socket and allows for filling up the powder flask. Diameter 10.8cm

Link

See also:
History of spy-cam watches
Solid wood pocket-watch from 1900
Pictorial history of kids' watches
History of armored military watches
History of slide-rule wristwatches
Early days of plastic watches Mechanical "LED watch" from 1970
History of calculator watches
Steampunk watch
Belt-drive watch
Watch guts of great beauty
All-plastic watch movement from the 70s
Awesome, impractical, expensive watch

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement)

Jim Leftwich asks a good question. When will followers of the Church of the SubGenius get a Dobbshead on their military grave markers? SubGenius soldiers would probably even settle for a Dobbsicon.

Two weeks ago, I blogged about an anti-sweatshop demonstration at the University of Southern California, where I'm teaching for a year as part of a Fulbright Chair. The students were seeking a meeting with USC President Sample.

They've been trying to meet with the President for eight years.

They still haven't met with him.

The students come from a group called SCALE, a campus organization that is part of a larger movement called the Worker Rights Consortium. They are pushing USC to adopt a code of conduct and a "Designated Supplier Program, both aimed at eliminating the use of sweatshop labor in licensed USC merchandise (USC overflows with garments and tchotchkes emblazoned with the university logo, mascot, sports team, etc).

One group of SCALE protestors held up banners and picketed outside the building housing the President's office. A smaller group (initially 14, later 13) actually occupied the President's office, sitting in and refusing to leave when asked.

The issue of labor conditions in USC's merchandise program is a complex one. USC is a member of something called The Fair Labor Association, which welcomes representatives from manufacturing concerns, such as Nike, on its board of directors. It, too, has a code of conduct, which is substantively similar to the one offered by the Worker Rights Consortium. The biggest difference between the two organizations is in how they approach enforcement: the FLA enforces its policies through inspections. The WRC uses unions -- the Designated Supplier Program requires members to buy from union shops. The theory is that inspectors keep factories honest and humane only at inspection time, while unions safeguard workers for the duration.

However, Liz Kennedy, USC's Licensing Director, says that the Preferred Suppliers Program doesn't confront the reality of manufacturing, requiring that manufacturers do the primary sewing and the logoing at the same time. Many suppliers buy generic pre-made garments and add logos later.

Both sides make good points, but the university administration also says some genuinely silly things -- for example, both university spokesman James Grant and Vice President Michael Jackson suggested that it was impossible for SCALE to have been requesting a meeting with the President for eight years, since the membership of the organization rotates as students graduate, and none of the students in the group today were enrolled eight years ago. SCALE, one supposes, is reborn every term, a new organization.

If this is so, then the same thing must be true of other campus organizations -- for example, the football team, the Trojans, doesn't have the same students playing on it today as were playing on it in 1999. All those trophies that "the Trojans" won were therefore in fact won by other teams, playing in a separate, distinct slice of time-space, unrelated to the present team.

Marc Laidlaw is just as much of a fan as I am of movies that animate people scooting around on their butts. The driver safety film, "Stop, Look and Listen," is a classic of the genre. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Super Mario, the stop-motion Legos edition
• Stop-motion Space Invaders using human pixels
• Excellent amateur stop motion video
• Stop-motion video game animation made with candles
• 1952 stop-motion short film
• Fun stop motion videos
• Early 70s Levi stop-motion commercial
• Stop motion film maker: PES
• Vintage Eastern European stop-motion animation clips
• Video-games recreated in stop-motion with household objects
• Vicious Cycles

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says:

The guy who made this cartoon totally lifted John K's Ripping Friends, and he seems to think there's nothing wrong with ripping off another artist. In fact, he says he's proud of doing it.

As one person in the message board says: “No sir…I don’t like it.” Link

This short, sweet Google video mashes up Super Mario Bros with Psycho Crusher, in an hilarious example of why different games have different physics. Link (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Update: Shadow Government Supreme Commander sez, "That video was created using the MUGEN game engine. MUGEN basically allows you to import characters from various 2D fighting games into a single roster and allows you to edit those characters into different backgrounds/levels - allowing for awesome mashups like the video you posted and awesome matchups like Homer Simpson Vs. Mario or any other combination you can imagine... And for yer extra added enjoyment, Here's godzilla smashing up the same level (also thanks to MUGEN)."

On Monday I posted a video of a man who interrupted Mike Daisey's performance by pouring water on his notes. Yesterday, Mike Daisey posted his account of speaking with the man who did it. His name is David.

He has three kids--one is 21, and two are 17--and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together--a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way--and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

He also said he's had anger-control issues for years, and sometimes acts of rage come over him--he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn't know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he's ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn't going to work--until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him.

He agreed with this.

Link (Thanks, Dave!)

From a report titled "SERGEANT GUILTY IN SUPERMAN CASE," from a local paper in Newport News, Virginia, a military town home to the Fort Eustis Army base:

A Fort Eustis drill sergeant was sentenced to six months in military prison after pleading guilty on Monday to a series of training transgressions including an incident in which he instructed a subordinate to dress like Superman and simulate sex acts.

(...) In an affidavit filed April 16, 2006, a soldier accused Estrada of sexually assaulting him. He said he came to Estrada complaining of depression, and that Estrada instructed him to dress in Spandex and pretend to be Superman, weakened by Kryptonite and undergoing sexual torture. The soldier said Estrada photographed him during these acts and threatened him if he refused to participate. Soldiers from Estrada's previous unit said he demanded to photograph them shirtless and wearing spandex.

Link (thanks, Kip Williams)

Previously on BoingBoing:

Real-life underwear perverts in the news

Origin of the term "underwear perverts" (Warren Ellis)

In Fortean terms, simulacra photos depict spontaneous and recognizable figures that occur by chance, often in nature. This daikon, found by farmer Hitomi Katamura in Kokura Minami-ku, Kitakyushu, Japan, is a stunning example.
Link (via Neatorama)

Previously on BB:
• Fortean photography Link

There's an annual competition called MIREX (Music Information Retrieval Exchange) where music transcription programs are pitted against each other to see which ones do the best job at transcribing the musical pieces note for note. Computers have great ears for music when it comes to monophonic sounds but if multiple notes are played simultaneously, as in a chord or by different instruments in a band, the software breaks. The cover story in this week's Science News is about how researchers are leveraging advances in speech recognition to develop software that can deal with polyphonic music. As these machine-learning strategies for transcription systems improve, they could even lead to "computerized-accompaniment programs" enabling a soloist and a computer to perform pieces together that are too complex for an all-human ensemble. says informatics researcher Christopher Raphael of Indiana University in Bloomington. From Science News:

Even without musical sense, Raphael's program is opening new musical possibilities. Jan Beran, a composer and statistician at the University of Constance in Germany, wrote several oboe solos with piano accompaniment especially for Raphael's system.

Raphael has performed the pieces with his system. He says that he doesn't think that those pieces could be played with a live accompanist.

The rhythmic interplays are so complex that performers can't handle them, he says. For example, one piece contains many sections where one musician plays 7 notes while the other plays 11. "Human players say, 'I'll play my 7, you play your 11, and let's shoot for where we come out together,'" Raphael says. "But the program can tell at any place in the middle of this complicated polyrhythm exactly where it needs to be."

With music this complicated, Raphael says, the software takes on a peculiar leadership role even though it does nothing but follow. "From the very first rehearsal, it understands the way the parts fit together and sort of teaches you this," he explains.

Link to Science News, Link to Christopher Raphael's site with audio examples

University of Sheffield researchers have determined that British robins around the UK city have recently started singing at night because the urban noise drowns out their mating calls in the day. Apparently, the background noise in locations where the robins sing at night is on average ten decibel louder than elsewhere. From New Scientist:

There are two ways of looking at these results," says (scientist Richard) Fuller, who admits he does not know if the birds that sing at night are vocal in the daytime too. "On one hand, you could conclude that these birds are highly adaptable to the urban environment. On the other, it could be that they are suffering from the poor-quality habitat and having trouble attracting a mate."

If this is the case, says Fuller, the night-time singers could be sacrificing other activities such as feeding and preening in order to maximise their singing time.

Link

Nike Japan and Tomy have teamed up to make this sweet new Transformer, "Convoy," which transforms from a half-size sneaker into a robot. If only it was wearable. Also -- a little continuity problem with the whole sneaker thing, as when Optimus Prime and the gang are rolling to a rumble with the Decepticons and the Convoy is hopping along one-footed behind them, trying to keep up, getting run over, etc. Link (Thanks, Kristoffer!)

Update: Christian sez, "The transforming sneaker will not be following Optimus Prime, it IS Optimus Prime. 'Convoy' is his Japanese name."

Update 2: $cott sez, "Not to be outdone, Reebok has enlisted Voltron to make a special line of shoes this summer. It's the new mash-up: streetwear collabs."

Update 3: Matt sez, "Not to be outdone, the mighty Megatron also has taken the form of footwear."

A gentleman and his horse were found sleeping in the heated ATM foyer of a bank just southwest of Berlin. Apparently, the man, identified as Wolfgang H., found himself a bit sleepy after having "a few beers" in Wiesenburg and decided to rest a spell. An ATM customer noticed the two at 4:15am and called police who did not press charges. From the Associated Press:

"It was late, it was already dark and cold," (Wolfgang H.) was quoted as saying...

Confronted with the lack of a hitching-post, he brought the 6-year-old horse, named Sammy, in along with him...

Apparently Sammy made his own after-hours deposit on the carpet.

Link

ginohn sez, "Scott McCloud (who understands comics) has put part one and two of his graphic novella online, with a really nice flash interface."

McCloud is the author of the incredible Understanding Comics and the inspiring Making Comics, and I'm always up for whatever he's made.

The Flash UI for this is genuinely novel, cool, and improves the art. I generally hate Flash on websites, but this is an exception.

The Right Number was originally presented in June 2003 using a micropayments system offered by a company called Bitpass, sold for 25 cents each. Since Bitpass ceased operations in January 2007, I'm offering Parts One and Two for free now.

Part Three was delayed due to severe hand strain problems on my part a few years ago and delayed again when I began work on my recent book, Making Comics. I do still hope to finish the third and final chapter and make it available at some point in the future. Part Three will also be offered free through this page. (Sorry for the delay!)"

Link (Thanks, ginohn!)

Update: Clay Shirky sez,

I had a bit of a trip down memory lane today, seeing your item about McCloud's "The Right Number." Though I am a McCloud fanboy for his graphic work, he and I disagreed, violently, about the likely effectiveness of micropayments back in 2003 (me here, Scott here.) My core thesis was that the internet doesn't turn creators into publishers, it turns them into artists with printing presses, and that the desire of artists for attention would make it hard for them to to voluntarily keep their work opaque, in order to support payment regimes. With McCloud's release of The Right Number, it looks like that prediction came true, even for the staunchest of supporters of the micropayment idea.

Jesse England has conceived of a way of printing 8mm and 16mm film using an inkjet printer -- you have to cut out the sprocket holes by hand (surely this could be improved upon), but when you're done, you've successfully converted your video files to films. Link (Thanks, Jesse!)

Update: Mouser sez, "I have written a free program that will let you print out 'flipbooks' from movies with almost no effort, and it's completely configurable with templates so that you could use the program to do EXACTLY what this post is talking about, in a completely automated fashion. It never occurred to me that the program could be used for this; it's a wonderful idea."