ThinkGeek is selling this sweet-looking DIY video-game console kit for $200. If your kids are going to spend the summer indoors getting pasty, at least they can learn a trade:

Written by best-selling game development author Andre' LaMothe, the included book is your complete guide to developing games, graphics, and media applications for the Propeller Powered Hydra Game console. The book assumes you have only basic programming experience. It covers all aspects of the Propeller chip from its architecture to using the Propeller Tool IDE for programming in both Spin and assembly language, with numerous demo programs to use as starting points for your own games.

Included on the CD is all the source code and executables for all the included games, demos, tools and examples. Additionally, "Hydra Tiny BASIC" based on the "Tiny BASIC" specification originally published in "Dr. Dobb's Journal" in 1975 is included. With this classic version of BASIC you can write programs directly on the Hydra without the need for a PC! Simply load BASIC into the Hydra or on the included game cartridge and you are up and running with nothing more than your TV and keyboard.

Link (via Red Ferret)

Boingo, a WiFi hotspot subscription service, has just rolled out flat-rate, worldwide WiFi roaming for $40/month. Boingo lets you login to other companies' WiFi hotspots all over the place (particularly in Europe, where the local tarrif can be through the roof -- one hotel I stayed in in Amsterdam charged €45 per 200 megabits of traffic). For some of these, Boingo subscribers have had to pay a hefty surcharge (it was more than $0.10/minute at the Paddington Hilton in London). With the new Boingo plan, it's one fee, everywhere.

I pay for a T-Mobile WiFi plan and it sucks. They charge gigantic roaming fees to use other T-Mobile WiFi hotspots around the world -- $0.14/minute in London's Starbucks! T-Mobile Italy charges US T-Mobile roamers more than they charge Telitalia roamers -- the company charges its own customers more than customers of the state-owned telco!

I've had a comp Boingo account for a couple months now and I've found it to be way more useful than my T-Mobile account. It works at more airports, hotels, coffee-shops, etc than T-Mobile does, by far. The only bummer was the roaming fees, and now that those are gone, this is a no-brainer for anyone who puts in a lot of road time. You can spend more than $40 on one night's WiFi in a hotel -- $40/month is totally worth it. Link (via Engadget)

Snip from essay by David Barboza of the New York Times:

As an American journalist based in China, I knew there was a good chance that at some point I’d be detained for pursuing a story. I just never thought I’d be held hostage by a toy factory.

That’s what happened last Monday, when for nine hours I was held, along with a translator and a photographer, by the suppliers of the popular Thomas & Friends toy rail sets.

“You’ve intruded on our property,” one factory boss shouted at me. “Tell me, what exactly is the purpose of this visit?” When I answered that I had come to meet the maker of a toy that had recently been recalled in the United States because it contained lead paint, he suggested I was really a commercial spy intent on stealing the secrets to the factory’s toy manufacturing process.

“How do I know you’re really from The New York Times?” he said. “Anyone can fake a name card.”

Link (via Romenesko)

I kind of love the way the new stuff from M.I.A. looks -- sorta like mid-90s websites, word salad spam, Pac-Man, and Nigerian gangsta rap all rolled up and smoked as one. Her recently redone website induces excellent epilepsy.

In the photo above, she's chilling between takes at a video shoot for the new single, "Boyz," with a bestickered MacBook Pro. Snip from Obtusity blog:

Though it's hard to believe, M.I.A. has taken the visual themes of 2005's Arular (seen everywhere from the cover art to the video for "Galang") and created something even more gloriously epilepsy-inducing for sophomore LP Kala. The vibrant collage of neon colors and cheap special effects found in the promo for new single "Boyz" (as well as her fantastic website) is a homage to everything from 80's video games to the advertising and film culture of Nigeria, Southeast Asia and Jamaica. But it's also a completely singular vision, and one that is impossible to pin to any particular movement or region of the world.

Link to post which points to her new "Boyz" video, more behind-the-scenes stills here. Who shot the stills, I wonder? No credit on the website. (thanks, Susannah Breslin)

Reader comment: Chris Hutsul in Toronto says,

I too like MIA's new webiste. But I like art collective Paper Rodeo's better: Link.

As you can see, her's is a blatant copy.

Ben says,

Your commenter meant (hopefully) to say "Paper Rad," not "Paper Rodeo" in the MIA story. Link, and they're eminently YouTubeable.

To be fair, MIA's designer could be getting the Paper Rad influence secondhand; a quick look around MySpace reveals an embarrassment of pages with a similar GIF-Bomb'd Nu-Rave Retarditaire aesthetic...

Brett Burton says,

I'm pretty sure that Ben from Paper Rad actually did that site, so it's not a rip-off of their style.

Paper Rad has been doing this stuff very well for a long time now.

Cayden says,

Chris is onto something, but I wouldn't say MIA's site is a "blatant copy" of Paper Rad's. It's called psychedelia. Check this website of local Detroit art/music collective, Scrummage University: Link.

Glitch says,

I believe, M.I.A.'s website was actually designed by the awesome zephyrerising.com but a lot of the inspiration comes from Cartoon coutour fashion designer cassetteplaya.com who actually helped with the original designs for her 1st album. Rad stuff, that I hope will become uniforms in private schools all across the world.

skim says,

I'm not sure who started the epileptic websites, but sadly a portland band, menomena has recently changed their fun, wackyness website to a more formal readable site. however, you can still access their radness page - it's truly the radness. check it out!

Chris Hutsul says,

Thanks to Ben for correcting me. Indeed, the collective is called Paper Rad. They put out a newsprint comic titled Paper Rodeo, hence the error. As to who came out with this look first, hard to tell. But I recall seeing the Paper Rad site in this current state at least three years ago. Talk about being ahead of your time. Thanks for posting my comment.

Andy Fischer says,

I noticed the recent flurry of epileptic website love surrounding M.I.A. and others. I just wanted to throw in my two cents with the website of underground music reviewer umeancompetitor. When I say music reviewer I mean that in a purely nominal sense of that if you stare hard at the words and don't go insane from the images you will get some idea of whats good in the hip-hop world. I would also warn that following inline links in his writing is both a good and a bad idea. Good because its insane, bad because its really really insane.

Larry Carlson says,

Many people think Paper Rad got their style from the amazing Virgina Beach art collective Dearraindrop. They are all part of an art scene centered around New York city and Providence, RI. Here's a you tube video of their trippy work: Video link.

Text: Jasmina Tešanović, June 19, 2006
Photos: Peace performance in Belgrade. Images courtesy Women in Black.

- - - - - - - - - -

Another one off to the Hague. One more of the last five indicted was arrested two days ago and delivered.

His name is Vlastimir Djordjevic and he is particularly famous for his efficiency in burying thousands of Albanian bodies in a secret mass grave just a dozen kilometers from the center of Belgrade.

The sinister designed efficiency has always puzzled me in the history of local warfare. We Serbs are a sloppy, easy going people, not to say boozy and work-shy. Besides, we lived for years on end under a communist regime with guaranteed salaries and social security, which much promoted our dolce far niente attitude. The Yugoslav army was big, like a second nation in a multiethnic nation.

Then all of a sudden the same placid army turns into a death squad which is second only to Nazis. The bodies were transported in big refrigerator trucks and buried all over Serbia.

As dalek cakes go, this banana-caramel one with moving platform is a doozy. Link.

Like so many Rodent-American actors before him, "Dramatic Chipmunk" got his start in Japanese TV, trying to out-squeal the ladies. Video Link to clip from the program "Mini Moni," jump to about 2:43 to see his television origins.

Gigantomongous grasshoppers, known locally as "lubbers," invade Florida city: Link. Some children are afraid to play outside, according to news reports, and who can blame them? The money quote:

"It's like trying to stop the wind," said David Shibles, a horticulturist with the Polk County extension office. "If you find them, you need to kill them."

Washington Post runs four-part series on why Dick Cheney is the evilest vice president ever: Link (via Threat Level).

Ever wondered what an authentic LA lowrider car show looks like? Link to LA Weekly photo series shot yesterday. Includes Mexi-kitsch transformer cars, Aztec titties, velvet motors, and a golden tricycle. When I die, I intend to scoot around in heaven on one of these.

Gold statue of David Beckham statue placed on altar at Buddhist temple in Bangkok: Link. Not the first time, actually -- happened back in 2000, also. Earlier stories of a Beckham idol at a shrine on Japan's Awajishima Island are said to be apocryphal, but he was immortalized in chocolate, in Tokyo, for World Cup 2002: Link.

Rediscovered photo of Laugh Out Loud Cats' creator: Link. (Previous posts: 1, 2, 3)

"Where the Wild Things Are" garden, recreated IRL: Link, and here is MOAR.

China's Three Gorges Dam is said to be changing weather patterns throughout the region: Link.

Wil Wheaton recently welcomed Gene Roddenberry into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame: Link.

"The Cloud is a speculative design for a resort city elevated 300 metres in the air above Dubai and supported on slanting legs resembling rain." Link.

Washing machines in concert: Link.

(Thanks, Eric, Avi Solomon, Mark Mauer, Chris, Ape Lad, José Leitão, Alex, Kier Smith, John, Marco, Matthew Sokoloff)

Reader comment: David Fischer says,

Regarding the origins of the Rodent clip - Mini-Moni isn't a show, it's a singing group. They were a side-project of Morning Musume, and they showed up on Momusu's TV show a lot.

Mini-Moni were the pinnacle of suger-overdosed jpop for children: Video link 1, Video link 2, Video link 3.

I sincerely hope that when the alien archeologists start digging through the scorched remains of Earth, a Mini-Moni CD is their first evidence of what humans were like.

Pinkblocks has an item about a 16-year-old girl who is going to court to fight for her right to wear a "purity ring" to school, which forbids jewelry.

(Photo from Wikipedia)

A sixteen-year-old girl took her fight for her right to wear a ‘purity ring’ to the High Court. Her school has determined that her chastity ring was jewelry and therefore under the normal school rules, not allowed. Her ring represented her vow to abstain from sex. One would imagine she would abstain until marriage. It doesn’t actually state in the newspaper report when the deadline of her abstinence would expire.

To some extent this young girl has some justification in making her request. There are other forms of apparel that are allowed, which show off religious allegiance. Of these a more obvious one is the head gear worn by Muslim girls and women. These scarves are permitted in schools in the UK. What would one then say is the difference between a narrow ring, and a full-on head covering. If she were to wear a head scarf as an image of her vow, would that be allowed then?

Link

A driver allegedly zonked on cocaine tried to elude police by driving through a cornfield. The moron ruined the farmer's crop, as seen in this photo. Link (Thanks, Joel!)

Reader comment:

Gareth says:

The image of the cornfield destroyed by a driver on cocaine trying to evade police reminds me of experiments conducted by Ulrike Heberlein at UCSF wherein fruit flies were exposed to cocaine vapors and their paths in a glass box were traced. The resulting images show clearly how stoned out of their little minds these flies got.

Specifically this image:

And this caption: Computer-generated traces of the locomotor behavior of a group of five flies exposed to volatilized free-base cocaine. Each panel corresponds to a 1-min period starting 2 min after the end of the cocaine exposure. (a) Mock exposure; (b) exposure to 100 µg of cocaine; (c) exposure to 200 µg of cocaine.

The action-chick-flick Yo Yo Girl Cop is...

Directed by Kenta Fukasaku, son of Japan's master director Kinji Fukasaku (Battle Royale) (...) an off-the-rails revival of Japan's much loved, cult fave 1980's TV series, Sukeban Deka, or as we say in English, "Delinquent Girl Detective."

Link, premieres in New York next week at the NY Asian Film Fest. Here's the trailer on YouTube: Video Link.

Also at NYAFF next week, Dasepo Naughty Girls (Korea / 2007) looks like a winner -- based on a popular webcomic, and described in the tease as a "hurricane of horniness." Link. Still from the film below.

(thanks, Jason Wishnow)

Reader comment: Steve Leggat says,

I knew I recognised the lead in Yo-Yo Girl Cop as Matsuura Aya. While I can't wait to see that movie, I find there's no better way to start each day than watching her music video for Ne~e: Video Link.

This past weekend, O'Reilly Media held its annual geekfest FOO Camp at their Sebastapol, CA headquarters. Google co-founder Larry Page had himself flown in by helicopter for the afternoon. The chopper landed about 20 feet from where dozens of folks were camping in tents. However, Laughing Squid's Scott Beale shot some video suggesting that Larry may not have been the only passenger.
Link

NOTE: We removed the posts from last week about SmartFlix and the attorney. The family of the attorney contacted me and explained that he's not well at this time. We wish him and his family the best.

Seen here is Curtis Michael Allgier, 27, a Utah prison inmate who was caught this morning after allegedly killing a corrections officer and stealing an SUV to escape. Apparently, Allgier was complaining of back pain and the officer, Stephen Anderson, had escorted him to to an MRI appointment at the University of Utah Medical Center. In the exam room, Allgier somehow grabbed Anderson's gun and allegedly shot him in the head. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, Allgier is associated with the Aryan Brotherhood. Link (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)

Snip from iphonesize.com:

With all of the recent confusion surrounding the size of the iPhone, we just wanted to set the record straight on how big (or small) the iPhone really is. To best show it's true size, we've taken the liberty of taking the following shots of things that are of comparable size to the iPhone with a normal sized hand.

Link. You know, the screen resolution on that danish is incredible, but the text input capabilities are better on the Pepto-Bismol box. (thanks, Cameron Gibbs)

Previously on BoingBoing:

Apple uses big-handed model to "shrink" iPhone

Snip:

Twenty-five years ago, the Ridley Scott film Blade Runner became an instant science fiction classic. Set in a sodden, squalid Los Angeles of 2019, the neo-noir masterpiece influenced a generation of filmmakers and video-game designers. Long before I teamed up with Jamie Hyneman to form the MythBusters, I was a special-effects modelmaker, and Scott's cyberpunk gem almost instantly became the most important film in the canon of movies I love.

I'm still such a big Blade Runner fan that I watch it at least once every 18 months. I also own pretty convincing replicas of the "blade runner blaster" wielded by Harrison Ford's world-weary former cop Rick Deckard. The source material was a Steyr Mannlicher .222 target rifle magazine cover, with a Bulldog .44 carriage underneath. I can't get enough of this prop. Now, I want a working one.

Link to "Blade Runner at 25: Why the Sci-Fi F/X Are Still Unsurpassed," at Popular Mechanics, by Adam Savage

Link to the Blade Runner Director's Cut DVD on Amazon, here's a big fat fansite, here's the Wikipedia entry, here's IMDB. (thanks, Matt Sullivan)

Reader comment: Mike says,

To go along with your Blade Runner 25th anniversary story, a replica of Deckard's firearm is currently for sale on ebay with about 1 day left: Link.

[Update: Clay Good, who claims to be the photographer who shot the image previously posted here, has asked us to remove that image from the blog, and we have done so. Here's a link to the image, which appears in Wikipedia.]

andy carvin says,

I've just posted an analysis of today's Supreme Court ruling against the Bong Hits 4 Jesus kid. The court basically says that the school was within its rights to bust the kid because he was displaying anti[pro]-drug messaging and it was a school-sanctioned event, even though it occurred off campus. This might affect students who have been busted by schools for posting drug-related content on the websites, blogs and social networking profiles. Ironically, a school might be able to argue that this is justified if they also allow social networking access at school, thus making it school sanctioned. In contrast, schools that filter out social networking sites might have a harder time punishing kids for their drug-related online activities, because the act of filtering pretty much says that social networks aren't exactly school sanctioned. Pretty ironic if you ask me.

Link.

Here's a Wikipedia article on the case.

An 18-meter-tall statue of Gigantor will be constructed next year in Kobe, Japan. The statue of Gigantor, who debuted in a 1958 manga, is expected to weight 70 tons and cost 135 million yen (approx US$1.1 million). From Blog@Newsarama's translation of an Asahi.com story:

The statue will serve as a double memorial, marking both the birthplace of creator Mitsuteru Yokoyama, who passed away in 2004 in an apartment fire, as well as celebrate the revitilization of the area, which was devastated in the 1995 Kobe earthquake.

Link (Thanks, COOP!)

Video of power line workers about 100 feet above the ground working with a minumum of safety equipment that would prevent them from falling to their deaths. Link

The LaserTour, introduced in 1982 for $20,000, utilized the "modern magic of microelectronics to create a totally new concept of surrogate travel as you exercise." The faster you pumped your legs, "the faster you whirl[ed] through the landscape."

How many of these are collecting dust in the billiard and pinball rooms of retired septuagenarian entertainment industry executives who used them once or twice, then had nothing to do with them other than occasionally using the video disk as a makeshift cocaine mirror? Link

A 27-year-old American woman has brought the Martin Luther King story to China. King is played by actor Cao Li, who kind of looks like the civil rights hero.

The play's production in China is the brainchild of 27-year-old Caitrin McKiernan. She says she's surprised that she's been allowed to hold discussions on Chinese campuses about the Montgomery bus boycott and the freedom rides.

"I think that it shows that there's something happening right now in China," McKiernan says. "There's a moment, there's an opening that's happening that allows people to have these kinds of discussions, that allows the actors during one scene to hold signs that say 'freedom now' and to sing 'We Shall Overcome' on stage, and to show what civil disobedience is."

Link

The Central Intelligence Agency has just declassified 700 pages of documents about such creepy, strange, and titillating subjects as "cranks, nuts, and screwballs," "Soviet Tactical Laser Weapons," and "USSR-UFO Sightings." For example, here's a section of the mostly-redacted thriller "(TITLE DELETED)-USSR-UFO SIGHTINGS-SOMEONE MUST HAVE MADE A POLITICAL DECISION":

One one occasion XXXX asked if the U.S. forecast has even bothered with U.F.O. sightings. He explained that one time the XXXXXXXXX and the XXX in particular, has been plagued with calls and questions about the U.F.O. sightings. He said that some of their scientific balloon flights had prompted some of them. Now, he said, he never gets these calls anymore and half joking surmised that someone must have made a political decision that they were not to be sighted anymore.

Link

Wired News is sporting a gallery of photos of the vasty manufacturing cities of China, eye-melting panoramas of endless assembly lines and dormitories and cafeterias. I just attended a jaw-dropping talk by Chumby's Bunnie Huang about his tours of Chinese factories on the way to setting up Chumby manufacturing and every slide inspired a fresh weirdness. For example, in one factory's cafeteria, visitors are only allowed to eat off disposable plates with disposable cutlery, to avoid giving the (medically screened) residents any foreign germs. Link

Georgia Brown of Hampshire, England, has a 152 IQ and is the youngest member of MENSA. She's two years old. Brown's parents noticed how clever she was after she started crawling at five months, walking at nine, and chatting with people by the time she was eighteen months old. From the BBC News:

(Middlesex University) psychologist Joan Freeman, who tested Georgia, said she thought the toddler could have scored even higher but needed a nap after 45 minutes of work...

She told the BBC: "She is two years, nine months - not very much older than a toddler really - and she is able to answer questions five and six-year-olds can't.

"The test uses questions like 'If brother is to boy, then sister is to ...?'. If you take a normal two-year-old, they cannot hold a pencil, they don't know the colours and they would not be able to answer those simple questions.

"The thing I found most striking was the copying of a circle. Most two-year-olds cannot do that but she drew a perfect one.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Street Tech-Incubated Game Wins Mensa Prize Link
• High-IQ societies in the Village Voice Link

Instructables has a great HOWTO for modding a Swiffer Wetjet mop for use as a prop blood-squirter. Just in time for the summer garden-party season, too. Link (via Make)

In NYC, a country's national corruption index is a good predictor of the likelihood that its UN diplomats will rack up unpaid parking fines.

In London, the top offender for traffic fines is the US Embassy, which refuses to pay the "congestion charge" for driving in central London. The US Embassy owes the city of London £1,484,765 in unpaid fines. This state of affairs has prompted London's mayor, "Red" Ken Livingston, to call US ambassador Robert Tuttle a "venal little crook."

"The majority of missions pay the congestion charge on time and do not incur fines. We also wrote to all missions owing over £1,000 in fines urging them to settle their debts with Transport for London."

The US embassy - along with many others - has refused to pay the congestion fee on the grounds that it is tax; and therefore diplomats are exempt from paying it.

It has led to stinging criticism from London mayor Ken Livingstone, who branded US ambassador Robert Tuttle a "venal little crook" for his refusal to pay.

Link (via Freakonomics)