Fantastic Toronto is Karen Bennet's massive, wide-ranging bibliography of science fiction, fantasy and horror works with some or all of the action set in Toronto. I LOVE reading stuff written in my hometown -- and I've even written a bunch of it. Link

Riazm sez, "This guy apparently was permanently dissatisfied with commercial keyboards and the quality of their microswitches, so he designed the massive custom behemoth. He also has a customised mouse, some footpedals and a variety of custom programmable keypads to do stuff with. Overall his desk must look pretty intimidating."

I will be goddamned if this isn't the coolest keyboard in the multiverse.

It is normal to rest some weight on the fingers during typing. The need to lift fingers from the keyboard to avoid pressing keys seems likely to generate a fairly continuous low-level stress. Typists spend a lot of their time doing this anyway - and so far additional stress is not noticable.

Touch typing demands that the fingers feel their way to the correct positions to some extent. Though the activation force on the keys is very low, they still have a couple of millimeters of travel - and it remains reasonably practical for fingers to feel the locations of the keys without actually pressing them.

Another problem is accidental keypresses. These tend to be caused by reaching for one key without fully retracting the other fingers.

These drawbacks would become increasingly severe if the activation forces were reduced further - and could be alleviated by increasing them somewhat.

Link (Thanks, Riazm!)

See also:
Sledgehammer keyboard
Keyboard waffle-iron
Crazy vertical keyboard
Pirate keyboard
HOWTO make a steampunk keyboard
Keyboard used as bean-sprouting medium

David Weinberger has posted the prologue and first chapter of his wonderful book Everything is Miscellaneous to the web. David's book is a great mix of esoteric web stuff that even seasoned geeks may not have considered and a lucid, easy to follow discussion of what it all means.

But we all know how reality works, so why worry about what might be possible in some sci-fi alternative universe?

Because the alternative universe exists. Every day, more of our life is lived there. It’s called the digital world.

Instead of atoms that take up room, it’s made of bits.

Instead of making us walk long aisles, in the digital world everything is only a few clicks away.

Instead of having to be the same way for all people, it can instantly rearrange itself for each person and each person’s current task.

Instead of being limited by space and operational simplicity in the number of items it can stock, the digital world can include every item and variation the buyers at Staples could possibly want.

Instead of items being placed in one area of the store, or occasionally in two, they can be classified in every different category in which users might conceivably expect to find them.

Instead of living in the neat, ordered shelves we find in the Prototype Labs, items can be jumbled digitally and sorted out only when and how a user wants to look for them.

Link to prologue, Link to chapter 1 (via Kottke)

See also Everything is Miscellaneous - how the Web destroys categories, disciplines and hierarchies

A researcher in the UK says a preservative found in a number of fizzy soft drinks and processed foods could "switch off vital parts of DNA," as reported today in the UK Independent. Here's more from their story:

[An] expert in ageing at Sheffield University, who has been working on sodium benzoate since publishing a research paper in 1999, has decided to speak out about another danger. Professor Peter Piper, a professor of molecular biology and biotechnology, tested the impact of sodium benzoate on living yeast cells in his laboratory. What he found alarmed him: the benzoate was damaging an important area of DNA in the "power station" of cells known as the mitochondria.

Link (from Warren Ellis)

Reader comments: EJMD says,

Professor Peter Piper, the molecular biologist who, according to the extract from the article in The Independent, found sodium benzoate had an effect on mitochondria, may be more familiar to BoingBoing readers for his work with pickled peppers. According to Goose, M., (no date) the question regarding the location of the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked remains unresolved. Link.

Rob says,

Sodium benzoate apparently "causes" benzene, according to that news article. Gawd I love science reporting in the media...

"Sodium benzoate has already been the subject of concern about cancer because when mixed with the additive vitamin C in soft drinks, it causes benzene, a carcinogenic substance."

I bought this ugly Tweety Bird popsicle for my kid from the ice cream truck. The manufacturer didn't even try to center the gumball eyes. Link

Update:

HeyGabe's Mario ice cream is even better!

Renato says: "I got really creeped out by the Tweety Bird popsicle, and thought it could be compared to the Picasso of the popsicles. Anyway, the eyes intrigued me. I could not resist the curious feeling and quick-and-poorly photoshoped the eyes to match the image on the pack...

"So, the question 'Would look a bit more with Tweety if the eyes were in the right places?'

"The answer: 'God, no.'

"The photoshopped picture."

Many of you wrote in to respond to yesterday's reader-submitted item about the closure of a television network in Venezuela.

As a friendly reminder, whenever text is presented on BoingBoing in blockquotes, you're reading the quoted words of someone, and not the blog-voice of a BoingBoing editor.

That said -- many BoingBoing readers shared opinions about the media turmoil in Venezuela.

Emil says,

While normally a station losing a license would be a sad thing, this is a TV station that actively supported a coup against Chavez in 2002, and was partially responsible for the violence and deaths that took place at this time. These events, including the role of RCTV and others are well documented in the (award-winning) film "The Revolution will not be televised".

I'd like to draw your attention to the following article by the "Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting" group: "Coup Co-Conspirators as Free-Speech Martyrs"

Craig Brozefsky says,

The article you quoted from Anonimo regarding the RCTV shutdown completely fails to provide any context for the shutdown (a refusal to renew their license), or the process by which it was carried out and why. RCTV was a major participant in the April 2002 coup, as detailed in these articles.

If you want to see footage of RCTV and the other channels who supported the coup and how they did so, please check out The Revolution Will Not Be Televised, an excellent documentary by an Irish documentary film maker who was in Caracas at the time of the coup.

Venezuelanalysis article: Link. ZNet article: Link.

Felipe Ledesma says,

The venezuelan situation is a very complex one. There is a lot of radicalization, so you will find very opposite POVs. But one small comment: Chavez rise to power came after a failed coup and the actual Ministry of Interior, Jesse Chacon, assasinated some workers when they assalted the goverment channel (the same one they have now under their control) during that coup attempt. This is a matter of free speech. Thanks for listening.

Carlos Martinez says,

While I too think it is a bad idea, it is a litle more complex than is being presented. I was in Venezuela during the coup of 2002 and watched the private media coverage daily. It was incendiary and flgrantly anti-democratic. That station is guilty of faking footage of violence in order to incite further violence, and guilty of hiding the truth about what was really happening from the electorate. I am no pro-Chavez partisan, but I was genuinely horrified by the coverage of the coup. Does this justify its closing? No, but their calls for press freedoms ring a bit hypocritical after their gross manipulations and lying.

Tyson Schwertner says,

Although I am not a Chavez worshiper nor do I live in Venezuela, the article concerning RCTV seems flawed.

Firstly, it is not being shut down. Chavez is not renewing the license for the use of the public airwaves.

The can still broadcast over cable, internet, and satellite. Secondly, the poster failed to mention that RCTV openly supported and helped a coup of his government that was partially successful. Chavez did not shut it down immediately but allowed the contract to expire 5 years later.

He also allows other networks that are openly critical of him to continue, just not the ones that tell people to overthrow a democratically elected government.

It seems plausible that the US would do the same if ABC openly supported and helped enact a coup of the government.

This article sums it up better than i can, if you are interested. (not intended to be a bb link suggestion) It includes a few examples of similar actions in the US and UK and interviews with those opposing Chavez's decision.

Again, I have a plenty of criticisms of Chavez but in this case I do not think he is impairing free speech, at least not in the way it was presented on boingboing. I am open to being completely wrong though.

protoRoB says,

First off all, not only the problem was the exit off the public signal from rctv, the thing is that the goverment is intimidating to the Cable television against the possibility to transmit via this way.

We know that is not the same but at least is something for us the venezuelans almost everybody have cable tv acces, the poor people too, believeme This is a very extrange country, i'm not saying it in the bad sense off the word we are a very wonderfull yet extrange society.

The second point is the potential expropiation of the MICROWAVE (microondas) transmition stations, the new channel Tves, wich is now in the old RCTV frequency (que cagada coño!) but is using a big part of the equipment of rctv wich they say is just a momentary resource untill they build their own structure for broadcasting the new channel. But here, in this wonderfull yet extrange country, we all know that there is nothing more permanent than the provisional. and that is a very sad thing in this case.

The new channel is not bad at all, sincerely, at least by now is very aceptable we aspect not anther channel like Venezolana de Television (the country's public tv channel) wich is almost "the Chavez´ propaganda channel" The new Tves is wat VTV is suposed to be.

This is a personal opinion Xeni, i know there are lots of things that i don´t know in that respect as many persons in venezuela, but this is an obvius violation to the freedom of speech.

I'm going to be a guest on Alan Levy's Blogtalkradio show tonight, talking about Boing Boing and my upcoming book, Rule the Web: How To Do Anything and Everything on the Internet -- Better, Faster, Easier. It's a call in show, so you can ask questions. It starts at 6pm Pacific time. I hope you'll join me! Link