Badass ninja science fiction writer Charlie Stross has just posted a killer essay on the futility of space explorationcolonization. Nutshell: it's far and hostile, and we can't even figure out how to live in the Gobi desert or the ocean's floor, infinitely closer and more hospitable.

Here's a handy metaphor: let's approximate one astronomical unit — the distance between the Earth and the sun, roughly 150 million kilometres, or 600 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon — to one centimetre. Got that? 1AU = 1cm. (You may want to get hold of a ruler to follow through with this one.)

The solar system is conveniently small. Neptune, the outermost planet in our solar system, orbits the sun at a distance of almost exactly 30AU, or 30 centimetres — one foot (in imperial units). Giant Jupiter is 5.46 AU out from the sun, almost exactly two inches (in old money).

We've sent space probes to Jupiter; they take five and a half years to get there if we send them on a straight Hohmann transfer orbit, but we can get there quite a bit faster using some fancy orbital mechanics. Neptune is still a stretch — only one spacecraft, Voyager 2, has made it out there so far. Its journey time was 12 years, and it wasn't stopping. (It's now on its way out into interstellar space, having passed the heliopause some years ago.)

The Kuiper belt, domain of icy wandering dwarf planets like Pluto and Eris, extends perhaps another 30AU, before merging into the much more tenuous Hills cloud and Oort cloud, domain of loosely coupled long-period comets.

Now for the first scale shock: using our handy metaphor the Kuiper belt is perhaps a metre in diameter. The Oort cloud, in contrast, is as much as 50,000 AU in radius — its outer edge lies half a kilometre away.

Link

Patrick "Bad News" Hughes has a book out now which amounts to a more portable version of his blog that you can leave unlimited comments on with a ballpoint pen. In other words, I love it.

Hughes is best known for humorous, sometimes vulgar first-person essays on everyday indignities suffered in life, and that's what you find here. "Whimsical stories of soul-melting shame."

The "key phrases" Amazon associates with this book should give you a better idea of the flavor: "poo water, ass blood, saltwater catfish, florida, skinhead katrina, Burger King, Four Horsemen, Downs Syndrome, Bob Seger." There's also a passage in here about a guy who set his dick on fire at Sean Bonner's wedding, many years before Jackass.

Link. The book cover is so awesome. Let's hope he doesn't get in Jill Greenbergian hot water over the baby torture photo at the top of this post. (thx Sean!)

Previous posts about Patrick Hughes on BB:

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

Reader comment: dr.hypercube says,

I've been a Bad News fan for a while - a few days ago I was looking at some bad album covers (Link, via), saw an awful mustache and was inspired to set up a Chile D. mustache Flickr group.

From Uncle Patrick's advice to Children: "Burt Reynolds? Nope. Tom Selleck? Uh uh. Try Chile D. Molester. Shave that fucking mustache." Just a few participants so far, but i know there are some great molestaches out there.

Video Link. This horrible, blurry mashup of Spock lipsynching to the Bad Brains is hilarious if you grew up on DC hardcore, otherwise just skip this post.

Here's the Bad Brains performing the song live in 1982. They were one of the first bands I ever saw live, and they changed my life and defined punk rock for me. These equally-shitty quality YouTube uploads might give you an idea why: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. Just pure, crazy speed. (thanks, Sean Bonner)

Update: To all the humorless pedants in the hizzouse who like to use email: yes, this is an unauthorized adaptation of "Bilbo Baggins."

Richard Berry says:

The Tweety popsicle entry was hilarious and alarming at the same time. Here in Australia I've highlighted a similar serious problem we have encountered on my blog: Sticks & Stones.

The Bubble 'O Bill ice cream bears absolutely no resemblance to what's promised on the packet. But that's the least of our worries. The main problem is, the popsicle is the spitting image of Australia's most nortorious murderer, Ivan Milat.

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Ice cream patent wars in the 1930s
• Expertly produced Korean red bean ice cream fish
• Tweety Bird popsicle doesn't look like Tweety Bird
• Bugs Bunny popsicle
• Turtle popsicle reflects pride in workmanship
• Popsicle parody ad

Amy Crehore says: "There is the most amazing collection of fantastic images in the Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections of Cornell University Library."

Illustration shown here is from J.A.S. Collin de Plancy. Dictionnaire Infernal. Paris : E. Plon, 1863 Link

These LED fans have 5MB of memory and will spin-animate any series of bitmaps you load onto it -- alas, it requires you to use something called "Windows" with it.

5 megs of memory holds up to 128 individual frames. You can animate, spin, slide, flash and dissolve to your heart's delight. All the while, enjoying the cool breeze from a chromed-up art-deco desktop fan.

Show off your m4d 4rT 5k1Llz using the included software. Import animated GIF files, or draw your own frames. If you've got a logo you want to display, have at it!

Link (via Wonderland)

Bad Spock Drawings is a curious blog devoted to "bad" artistic interpretations of Mr. Spock. Jason Robert Bell is the, er, curator. At left, "Bauhaus Spock" by Jeremy English; Middle, one of Bell's original Bad Spocks; Right, Francisco Lemos's "'Ceci n'est pas une pipe' Spock."

Here are the criteria for a Bad Spock Drawing:

0. When some else looks at it they should ask you "is that meant to be Spock?!" with an Interbang at the end!?
1. Hackneyed, maybe you were drunk when you drew it
2. Totally Punk Rock, you should actual break your pen when drawing it
3. Ham fisted, as if you had not understanding of form
4. Half Baked, the dumber Spock looks the better
5. Sloppy, as if a chimp with metal hooks for hands dipped them in ink
7. Don't let your ability to draw (or lack there of) get in the way of drawing Bad Spocks!
8. Not Spock with a beard that is Evil Spock from the Dark Mirror Universe!
9. What happen to Number 6?
10. If you don't like Star Trek all the better!
11. YOU SHOULD CREATE IT YOURSELF, IT CAN BE A DIGITAL COLLAGE, AS LONG CREATED BY YOU!

Link (via Drawn!)

Yesterday I posted an entry about a mom who was detained for trying to sneak a sippy cup past the TSA at Reagan Airport.

Steven says: "TSA is denying the entire event."

The TSA has a "MythBusters" page showing videos of the Sippy Cup Terrorist incident. The videos have no sound. The first video shows a woman pushing a stroller while a uniformed person walks beside her.

The second video shows the mom (a Secret Service agent) with the stroller, arguing with a couple of people in uniform. She fumbles with her backpack for a bit, then attempts to walk away. [[Update: after several people pointed it out, it looks like mom could be dumping the contents of the sippy cup on the floor. It's hard to tell, though, because a guard is blocking the view.]] A woman in uniform grabs her arm and stops her. Mom takes her kid out of the stroller and continues to talk/argue with the uniformed officer. It's hard to tell what's going on because they have moved so far down the hall. Clearly, though, mom isn't too happy. She's got a kid, a backpack and a stroller, and she now has to deal with this officer. The little kid wanders off and the mom has to chase her. The female officer picks up her microphone and speaks into it. Mom comes back with her kid under her arm and continues to rummage through her stuff.

A man wearing a tie comes over. He must know the woman because he picks up the kid. A cop on a bike doesn't want to miss out on the action, so he pedals over, gets off the bike and takes off his helmet. Mom is on her knees, rummaging around. What is she doing? Now she stands up, looking upset. She walks up the corridor and starts wiping the floor. Is this where she spilled the water? I didn't catch that part. A third security guard supervises her as she wipes the floor. I don't blame the guards for being interested. Dealing with 100 false alarms a day would desensitize anyone, but watching a woman get upset about a sippy cup perks them right up and gives them something to focus on.

Mom does a good job of wiping. Guard #3 speaks into his microphone -- possibly reporting to the head of TSA that mom is good at cleaning up, which means she is probably trying to hide something.

Now mom is back at her stroller, talking to #1 and #2. Guard #3 has never been happier. He slides a sign on a pole in front of woman and begins manhandling other passengers, redirecting the flow of traffic around the woman. This is an important day for him. He nudges the sign an inch and rotates it a couple of degrees, checking his work.

A forth official comes over and hands #3 a piece of paper. It's a memo from Cheney, congratulating #3 on his fast-thinking. #3 scratches his nose and looks down, trying to hide his pleasure.

Oh wait -- it's not a commendation from the vice president. It's a roll of paper towels. Apparently mom didn't do a good enough job of cleaning the floor. It's still wet!

Now I'm beginning to get the picture. Mom is a slip-and-fall terrorist. If she hadn't been stopped, who knows how many tailbones might have been broken that day!

The bicyclist guard has joined #3 to monitor mom's floor-wiping technique. She's got a roll of paper towels in one hand, and she rolls several sheets at a time into the other. This must be the way they deal with tough spills at Secret Service headquarters.

#3 is getting fancy with his arm movements as he directs people around the potentially disastrous spill. He's going to be telling the story of how he thwarted the Sippy Cup Terrorist to his grandchildren.

Mom thinks she's finished wiping up and hands #3 the used paper towels, but #3 isn't letting her off that easy. He crouches down, cleverly using the overhead lighting to catch telltale reflections of missed water spots, pointing them out to mom. #3 uses the sign's pole as an aid to swivel around quickly, catching more and more missed water. He's damn good.

Finally, he lets her go, taking the paper towel roll and sticking it in a cubby in his desk. When will he get to use it again? he wonders. He is jolted out of his daydream by the realization that he has not removed the sign! Quietly admonishing himself, he runs over quickly to retrieve the sign and put it in its rightful place.

Mom is back to rummaging though her stuff with #1 and #2 watching carefully. #3 makes some final adjustments to his trusty sign, then stands next to it and gazes longingly at the other two officials, who are still dealing with the sippy cup terrorist.

The video suddenly ends here. Link (Thanks, Steven!)

Reader comment:

jordan says:

We at NowPublic (well, Bill Adler again) have an update to the Sippy-Cup Airport-Nightmare story... The TSA has retaliated, with a "Myth Busters" section on their website (can Discovery Channel sue them for that?), attempting to discredit Monica Emmerson and her sippy-cup-wielding son. The video is inconclusive, as it has no sound, and the incident report seems incomplete; it also has some "sensitive info" that somehow got overlooked by the black pen, and a few run-on sentences... meanwhile, Ms. Emerson will be appearing on MSNBC tomorrow.

Link

Here's a Washington Post article about the incident and its aftermath.

Rest your weary head on this comforting gun pillow made by the good people at Gama-Go. It's 100% cotton, 16" x 12" x 4", and sells for $24.95.
Link
Previously on BB:
• Gama-Go book contest winners! Link
• Gama-Go iPod case Link
• GAMMA-GO baby quilt with Tim Biskup artwork Link

The fantabulous Jamie Hewlett, who drew Tank Girl, has designed the packaging for some cool looking vibrators. (Hey Alabamans -- I know the law forbids vibrators for sale in your great state, but maybe you can ask him to design some pistols for you!) Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Sex toys still banned in Alabama, guns okay

Here's the sixth installment of the funny "Home Inspection Nightmares" gallery from This Old House. I especially like this retrofitted balcony staircase placed in front of a door.

They should compile these into a book. I'd buy it. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Photos of bad and dangerous home improvement hacks
• Home Inspection Nightmares photo gallery, Vol. 5

Dave says:

These are scans from a favorite childhood book (c. 1958) full of projects to build. It may be worth noting that I never actually built any of them, but I spent many happy hours pondering the implications.

So far I've only scanned the cover and my 2 favorite projects, but it's enough to give you the flavor of the book. Note the lovely ink-wash renderings, and the excellent "Boy's Life" language: "swell!", "fellas", etc.

Used copies of Backyard Things That Are Fun to Build are going on Amazon for $3.50. Link

The Washington Post reports that "A foul-smelling package that led to the evacuation of a post office next to the Smithsonian's National Postal Museum contained two cans of spinach and a dirty diaper." Link (Thanks, mapmaker!)

Matt sez, "Researchers in southern Sweden uncovered an Iron Age artifact that bears a striking resemblance to Mickey Mouse. How ironic that folks who lived over 1000 years before that character was invented could create a better likeness of him than the best and brightest of today's popsicle industry can manage." Link (Thanks, Matt!)

Let's all take a moment to bow our heads in gratitude to the brave TSA agents who saved many lives by confiscating a professional clown's makeup before he was able to make a bomb out of it on the plane.

Gary says:

Ex-Ringling clown and blogger Pat Cashin writes about how the TSA personnel at O'Hare confiscated his clown makeup this week. He takes it along in his carry-on (and has for 5 years without a promblem) because basically if your makeup and costume gets lost by the airline, you're screwed.

Link

A view from underneath as graffiti pioneer Doze Green squirts out a one-liner portrait on a piece of glass. He doesn't lift his implement until the drawing is finished. Makes it looks so easy. Link (via Juxtapoz)

Here's a nice idea for a sweaty day -- stick a capped, trimmed straw in an oblong Ikea ice-cube tray and generate perfect, icy straws. Link (via Cribcandy)

Electronica artist Younnat rocks out with a steering wheel game controller triggering car noises. Link

Authorities are hunting down a giant snake that's reportedly eating kittens in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania. From NBC10.com:

Neighbors... said they wouldn't rest until the large black snake, which appears to be nocturnal, is no longer free.

"My dogs, I won't even let them out. I make my dad … at night take them out, because I won't even come out here," said Nicole Petro.

"There are small children around here. I mean they're doing a great job. Let's just get it, capture it and get rid of it," said Jeanette Petro...

Officials said they believe people are buying snakes and bringing them to Bristol. Link

Meanwhile, Loren Coleman puts this serpent search in cryptozoological context, surveying other tales of giant snakes. From his post:

(Explorer Colonel Percy) Fawcett ran across his snake in 1907, as he was drifting along the Rio Negro. Fawcett shot the creature and finally examined it on the river bank where it came ashore. According to Fawcett, the snake measured 45 feet out of the water and 17 in it, for a total of 62 feet.

Dating from 1919, up through more recent sightings in 1975, a forty-foot snake was seen on the slopes of Big Top Mountain, Pennsylvania. The 2007 reports out of Bristol, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, are of a small serpent by comparison... Link

The Daily Mail has an article about how kids have been restricted from roaming far from their houses when they play or go to school, and why this is bad for their mental health. It includes a map that shows how, over four generations, the roaming range afforded to kids has shrunk to the size a a backyard.

It's true: I used to walk about 1/2 mile unescorted to kindergarten everyday. I would never let my kids do that.

The report's author, Dr William Bird, the health adviser to Natural England and the organiser of a conference on nature and health on Monday, believes children's long-term mental health is at risk.

He has compiled evidence that people are healthier and better adjusted if they get out into the countryside, parks or gardens.

Stress levels fall within minutes of seeing green spaces, he says. Even filling a home with flowers and plants can improve concentration and lower stress.

"If children haven't had contact with nature, they never develop a relationship with natural environment and they are unable to use it to cope with stress," he said.

"Studies have shown that people deprived of contact with nature were at greater risk of depression and anxiety. Children are getting less and less unsupervised time in the natural environment.

"They need time playing in the countryside, in parks and in gardens where they can explore, dig up the ground and build dens."

Link (Thanks, Phil!)

Peter says: "In reference to your post on the cardboard submarine here is a picture of myself and my brother in a cardboard space ship about 1954. It might still exist in the basement storage at my parent’s house."

Now if someone can send me a photo of a teacup monkey that they actually got from the comic book ad, I can die a happy man.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Scans of old comic book ads

On 10 Zen Monkeys, RU Sirius interviews David Weinberger, author of Everything Is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder.

RU: The order is found by the end user. A friend of mine has a business and his slogan is “living ala Carte”. That seems to be kind of what we’re doing with information, and so many other things.

DW: Yes, but when you order ala carte, everybody orders individually, based upon their tastes. I wouldn’t want to leave it there! The most exciting and important advances in how we’re making sense of this miscellaneous soup is that we’re doing it socially. We’re doing it through social networks; through recommendations from our friends, from sites that do that more formally; and from what shows up in our inbox. So this is not the Daily Me constituting the world based on our own individual interests. It’s the “Daily Bunch-of-Us.” It’s loosely defined groups of people making this happen.

RU: So this is not the wisdom of the individual or the wisdom of the crowds, but the wisdom of small social networks?

DW: Yeah. It’s the wisdom of the group. The crowd actually turns out to be quite lumpy. We know some people better… I know that this person over here is really useful and knowledgeable about FCC rulings, but I wouldn’t ask about cars! But this other person loves talking about cars.

Link

BB reader Dips says,

A recent development in Zimbabwe: the government has passed a controversial new Bill that allows them to monitor phones, emails and postal mail: Link. South African Newspaper The Mail & Guardian: Link.

Also Zimbabwean blogsite: Link.

Related is another link on BBC site titled Zimbabwe 'collapse in six months': Link.

Following up on yesterday's BB post here -- Jeff says,

Last night on The Daily Show, Jon Stewart asked Angelina Jolie about the controversy of alleged media contracts and access.

This link has a video clip of her response.

She basically said that it was done by her handlers to protect her but that the document did overreach and she wouldn't have authorized it herself. She did seem to indicate that she thought there was no coersion and no harm was done.

Related: CNN says Larry King didn't sign it anyway (Link), and Ms. Jolie's lawyer issues a mea culpa (Link). Here's a related NYT story. Defamer points out that she mightily rocked a $26 dress at the "Mighty Heart" premiere, which should have entitled her to a free pass on this one anyway.

Security guru Bruce Schneier takes a look at the recent "terrorist plots" -- JFK, Fort Dix, the Sears Tower, the liquid bombers -- that the government has foiled, and wonders why we get so worked up over terrorists whose plans are so stupid that they could never have worked.

There's an analogy to DHS checkpoints where we take off our shoes and shed our liquids. Blowing up airplanes with your shoes doesn't work -- if it did, we wouldn't know about it. It's only because the plot failed miserably that we even know about it. Same with moisture bombers -- maybe the terrorists were dumb enough to believe that they could mix a piranha bath in an airplane lav sink without killing themselves on the spot, but organic chemists say that it was pure fantasy.

We devote all our security energy to saving ourselves from idiots whose capacity for self-delusion is far greater than their capacity to kill us and blow up our national monuments.

The JFK Airport plotters seem to have been egged on by an informant, a twice-convicted drug dealer. An FBI informant almost certainly pushed the Fort Dix plotters to do things they wouldn't have ordinarily done. The Miami gang's Sears Tower plot was suggested by an FBI undercover agent who infiltrated the group. And in 2003, it took an elaborate sting operation involving three countries to arrest an arms dealer for selling a surface-to-air missile to an ostensible Muslim extremist. Entrapment is a very real possibility in all of these cases.

The rest of them stink of exaggeration. Jose Padilla was not actually prepared to detonate a dirty bomb in the United States, despite histrionic administration claims to the contrary. Now that the trial is proceeding, the best the government can charge him with is conspiracy to murder, kidnap and maim, and it seems unlikely that the charges will stick. An alleged ringleader of the U.K. liquid bombers, Rashid Rauf, had charges of terrorism dropped for lack of evidence (of the 25 arrested, only 16 were charged). And now it seems like the JFK mastermind was more talk than action, too.

Link

Here's a gallery of homemade Chechen guns seized by Russian police. A kind of fatal ingenuity here -- like prison shivs made by people on the outside with access to better metal-shops. Link (Thanks, IZ Reloaded!)

Hombrelobo sez, "I recorded this video for my videoblog in Taipei, Taiwan. The guy is throwing balls like a maniac, about 140 balls a minute!" Link (Thanks, Hombrelobo!)

Japanese toymaker Take-G produces stunning wooden robot toys. Link (via Cribcandy!)

Andrew Dubber, who is on faculty at the University of Central England, blogged a link to a story critical of RIAA lawsuits. Paul Birch, a British record exec who sits on the boards of the BPI and IFPI (trade orgs that represent the record industry in the UK and around the world) wrote him an angry letter, telling him that he wasn't allowed to post that kind of thing to his personal blog, because he works for a university that is funded by the government.

Dubber offered to give him rebuttal space, and Birch took the opportunity to complain that the record execs who ordered lawsuits against more than 20,000 music fans (in the US alone!) get angry phone-calls, emails and in-person questions.

Dubber countered with words about how suing music fans is a bad idea, and Birch closed with this threat:

It expresses opinion, it’s not factual. If you persist then I shall make a formal complaint to the University.

Your choice.

And this guy wonders why record executives are perceived as bullies.

Link (Thanks, Andrew!)

Master pranksters The Yes Men crashed the Gas and Oil Exposition 2007 in Calgary this week, impersonating a rep from the National Petroleum Council at a keynote in which they proposed to convert people who died from climate change disasters into fuel.

After noting that current energy policies will likely lead to "huge global calamities" and disrupt oil supplies, Wolff told the audience "that in the worst case scenario, the oil industry could "keep fuel flowing" by transforming the billions of people who die into oil," said a Yes Men press release.

Yes Man Mike Bonnano, posing as an Exxon representative named Florian Osenberg, added that "With more fossil fuels comes a greater chance of disaster, but that means more feedstock for Vivoleum. Fuel will continue to flow for those of us left."

The impostors led growingly suspicious attendees in lighting Vivoleum candles made, they said, from a former Exxon janitor who died from cleaning a toxic spill. When shown a mock video of the janitor professing his desire to be turned in death into candles, a conference organizer pulled Bonanno and Bichlbaum from the stage.

As security guards led Bonanno from the room, Bichlbaum told reporters that "Without oil we could no longer produce or transport food, and most of humanity would starve. That would be a tragedy, but at least all those bodies could be turned into fuel for the rest of us."

Link (Thanks, Brandon!)

Following up on a previous BoingBoing post about word of a forthcoming animated "Space Chimps" feature directed by Barry Sonnenfeld -- BB reader Scott Goldman says,

You can't ignore the end title sequence of the Kazakh documentary: Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. Which presents the glorious history of Kazakh space exploration (monkeys and babies.)

Snip:

“Our law enforcement resources are seriously misaligned,” NBC/Universal general counsel Rick Cotton said. “If you add up all the various kinds of property crimes in this country, everything from theft, to fraud, to burglary, bank-robbing, all of it, it costs the country $16 billion a year. But intellectual property crime runs to hundreds of billions [of dollars] a year.”

Link (thanks, Fred von Lohmann)

The Disinformation Company has just published a couple of books that sound excellent. One is called Who's Watching You?: The Chilling Truth About The State, Surveillance, and Personal Freedom, and the other is called Who Really Runs the World? The War Between Globalization and Democracy.

Who's Watching You?: The Chilling Truth About The State, Surveillance, and Personal Freedom

Like a scene out of the hit series 24, the government has used the threat of terrorism and the corresponding climate of fear to erode our freedoms; we no longer have the ability to live our lives away from the prying eyes of hidden cameras. Our government is truly tightening its grip on us by watching and recording nearly everything we do. They do this because they know they can and because knowledge is power. But exactly who are “they” and why do they want to know so much about us?

Who’s Watching You? includes chilling, accurate and up-to-date descriptions of the methods the government (and private company proxies) uses to watch us. Essential reading for everyone concerned about privacy and freedoms of speech and association, even–perhaps especially–if you don’t plan on doing anything wrong.

Who Really Runs the World: The War Between Globalization and Democracy

The world is a mess. It’s constantly at war, things cost too much and the average person struggles to survive against powers it can barely see, let alone control. It appears so at odds with common sense, in fact, that it begs a fundamental question: Who really runs the world?

Who Really Runs The World?looks at the conspiracies in everyday life, both hidden and not-so-hidden. It examines actual people, businesses, social networks, corporate alliances and the dark forces of conspiracy and secret history that hold them together. Writing soberly and with authority, the authors address myriad conspiracy theories with open minds. The conclusions they reach may shock and scandalize some people–especially those who fervently believe in democracy–but will fascinate everyone.

Who's Watching You? |Who Really Runs the World?

"For those still doubting the authenticity of the history of the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats (BB Links 1, 2), hopefully this rediscovered footage will put any skepticism to rest," says Ape Lad.

Video Link on Ape Lad's blog, direct YouTube link.

Actual headline: "FBI tries to fight zombie hordes."

Actual headline: "Baby monitor picks up space video from NASA."

Plague of locusts strikes an airport in Japan.

Nazi squirrels, fuck off!

Dude dresses up in crocodile cosplay in order to study crocodiles. (via)

HOWTO make pants from meat. Warning: do not attend any birthday parties for pit bulls while wearing these.

Artist