Fashion designer Alexander McQueen created a luggage collection for Samsonite, including this gorgeous 20" upright model. Called the Hero, it's available in black or ivory/bone for $750. From the product description:

The human form is treated just like an animal skin, with the ribcage and sternum at the front of the case, and backbone at the back. The inside is formed by the negative of the outside shape in a soft molded form providing contrast with the outer protective hard shell.

Link (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)

Lewis "Scooter" Libby received a commutation of his 30 month prison term today from the president of the United States, who described the sentence as "excessive." Link.

I went to TED2007 as a member of the press and was profoundly impressed by the quality of the events and the speakers. I drove home dumbfounded by the cascade of mind-boggling information in the presentations I saw there.

I told my friends about TED and its effect on me, but I knew I wasn't able to convey how wonderful the speakers were. Fortunately, TED is offering the talks on its website in the form of 20-minute videos. There very high quality, and they're free.

I recommend starting with researcher Hans Rosling's presentation of his Trendalyzer software, which converts inscrutable database numbers into instantly-understandable and revealing dynamic animations.

In a follow-up to his now-legendary TED2006 presentation, Hans Rosling demonstrates how developing countries are pulling themselves out of poverty. He shows us the next generation of his Trendalyzer software -- which analyzes and displays data in amazingly accessible ways, allowing people to see patterns previously hidden behind mountains of stats. (Ten days later, he announced a deal with Google to acquire the software.) He also demos Dollar Street, a program that lets you peer in the windows of typical families worldwide living at different income levels. Be sure to watch straight through to the (literally) jaw-dropping finale.

Link

Reader comment:

John says:

It might be worth mentioning that a version of the software demonstrated in Hans Rosling's TED talk is available to be played with at .

Gatwick aiport has a new capsule hotel, called the Yotel. A four hour stay in a premium cabin (10 square meters, or about 108 square feet)costs £40.00 (US$80).

Bedside charging points, personal lighting, dimming control and bed deployment switch allows you to work or relax without moving from the comfort of your bed

The luxury bathroom includes overhead rain shower, a hand shower, revitalising all in one body wash, hairdryer, heated mirror and soft towels .

A retractable storage area below the bed for suitcases.

The study desk folds out of the techno wall with its own stow able chair and a complete range of power and connectivity including free internet access and cosy local lighting. Suit and dress hanging and storage for everything from your smalls to the loose change provide a place for everything and everything a place.

A 23”flat screen TV system with huge choice of films, TV, radio, internet and an input for your own music and iPod.

Order from a cabin service menu on screen or visit the galley where your cabin crew are on duty 24 hours a day.

Link

Japan's wickedly cool-looking new bullet train, the Type N7000, started operating today. It cost $2.1 billion to develop and can go 185 MPH.

JR officials are touting the Type N700 as the fastest bullet train ever. It will travel between Tokyo and Shin-Osaka stations in two hours and 25 minutes -— five minutes less than before. It will barrel between Tokyo and Hakata in four hours and 50 minutes, saving about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, here in California, we don't even have a train that goes between LA and SF. I guess I'll have to settle for this Shinkansen N700 USB Flash memory. Link

Tom says:

The Supreme Court's ruling in the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case has caused much confusion about what type of student speech is punishable (promoting illegal drug use) and what is permissible (promoting changes to drug laws).

Students for Sensible Drug Policy has put together a fun and educational flash game where players pose as a high school principal who has to choose whether to punish students for a series of banners about drugs and drug policy.

If you punish too many students, you'll get sued, so watch out!

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Supreme court-approved drugs for Jesus
• Bong Hits 4 Jesus: high court ruling's implications for online speech
• Paul Krassner on Supremes' "Bong hits 4 Jesus ruling"
• Chief Justice Rehnquist's drug habit

Surveillance video of young picketpockets removing purses and wallets from unwitting tourists at Milan airport. Link

Farhad Manjoo of Salon.com's Machinist blog says,

There have been lots of stories lately about the inefficiency and environmental damages caused by bottled water, but Charles Fishman has the definitive piece in Fast Company. You'll never want to drink Fiji again.

The label on a bottle of Fiji Water says "from the islands of Fiji." Journey to the source of that water, and you realize just how extraordinary that promise is. From New York, for instance, it is an 18-hour plane ride west and south (via Los Angeles) almost to Australia, and then a four-hour drive along Fiji's two-lane King's Highway.

Every bottle of Fiji Water goes on its own version of this trip, in reverse, although by truck and ship. In fact, since the plastic for the bottles is shipped to Fiji first, the bottles' journey is even longer. Half the wholesale cost of Fiji Water is transportation--which is to say, it costs as much to ship Fiji Water across the oceans and truck it to warehouses in the United States than it does to extract the water and bottle it.

That is not the only environmental cost embedded in each bottle of Fiji Water. The Fiji Water plant is a state-of-the-art facility that runs 24 hours a day. That means it requires an uninterrupted supply of electricity--something the local utility structure cannot support. So the factory supplies its own electricity, with three big generators running on diesel fuel. The water may come from "one of the last pristine ecosystems on earth," as some of the labels say, but out back of the bottling plant is a less pristine ecosystem veiled with a diesel haze (...)

Fiji Water produces more than a million bottles a day, while more than half the people in Fiji do not have reliable drinking water.

Link. Image by Nigel Cox, via Fast Company.

Reader comment: Sam Finnemore in .nz says,

Readers might also want to consider the current government in Fiji - the country has been run by the military since a coup last year, and members of the armed forces have intimidated journalists and allegedly beaten people to death in custody. I'm writing from New Zealand, which has had its high commissioner forcibly expelled from Fiji, so it's in the news a lot down here!

Kurth Reynolds says,

I was in Fiji for a wedding a few years ago, and we went through Rakiraki where Fiji_Water is pumped out of the ground (about 1000 ft up the hill). We were told by our guide not to drink the water there, although it was OK in Nandi the capitol city, and at the resort we were headed to.

It seemed a little incongruous at the time, and I've told most everyone (I've met) in LA who drinks the stuff, but I hadn't actually done a search for how bad it was.

Try searching for (rakiraki youth forum fiji water problem), and you'll get a UNESCO report by highschool students from Fiji complaining about their water. You could shorten the search by including the word "feces". The report is from 2003, but that's right about the time I was there.

Link.

Josh Levin at Slate has put together a terrific slideshow retrospective on animation auteur Brad Bird. Says Josh, "There's plenty of analysis about what makes him a genius, plus video clips from Family Dog, The Simpsons, Iron Giant, Incredibles, and Ratatouille." Link.

Here's an update to my post about interesting methods to discourage yard sign theft.

Nick says:

My neighbor went a step further with their Kerry signs. As you can see, she ran a wire to her electric fence.

Meg says:

Your "Another outdoor warning note" post reminded me of a story from a former coworker. Also a big Kerry supporter in the last election, her lawn signs were consistently stolen each night after she put them out.

Fed up, she covered the next sign she put out in Vaseline, so it looked normal from the street, but covered your hands in slippery goop if you touched it. The following morning she went out, and there was the sign: slightly askew, but still intact.

According to a new research study, yawning may make you more attentive. Psychologists Andrew Gallup and Gordon Gallup of the State University of New York at Albany suggest that yawning cools the brain, increasing performance. From New Scientist:

Blood vessels in the nasal cavity send cool blood to the brain, so breathing through the nose or cooling the forehead cools the brain and eliminates the need to yawn, says Gordon Gallup. He argues that brains operate more efficiently when cool, and that yawning enhances brain function. "According to our hypothesis, rather than promoting sleep, yawning should antagonise sleep," he says.

"Paratroopers report yawning before they jump," says Robert Provine of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. "Yawning signals a transition between the behavioural states of wakefulness and sleepiness, and boredom to alertness."

Link

Mike Haeg founded Mt. Holly, his own city-within-a-city, and has declared himself "mayor / chamber of commerce / justice-of-the-peace / town drunk." The other three citizens are his wife and two children.

Mayor Haeg's driver's license lists Mt. Holly as his address, and he publishes an online town newspaper, which is a work of art.

Here's a TV news video about Mt. Holly from April. Link

This prosthetic finger is completely mechanical, no batteries or electronics whatsoever. Inventor Dan Didrick previously made horror masks before inventing the X-Finger. According to a Wired News article, one in 150 people have lost a digit. From Wired News:

...Each digit incorporates a simple mechanism which, when pushed by the surviving part of the wearer's finger, curls a set of artificial phalanges...

The X-Finger, which currently costs thousands of dollars per digit, might seem expensive to prospective buyers...

"We only receive a fraction of the overall costs ourselves," Didrick said. "Also, many people would be surprised to learn that a cosmetic silicone artificial finger, offering only passive function, with no mechanical structure, can cost $5,500 from an anaplastologist."

The finger, however, is only the beginning. Didrick is already working on an entire hand articulated in similar fashion using the wrist, and has been approached to craft toes using the same principle.

Link

The existence of this grey-market music site once represented a threat to Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation. Allofmp3.com has been shut down now, after the United States condemned Russia for failing to crack down on illicit filesharing. Link. Apparently an alternative site just popped up, under the same management? (thanks, AKMA)

Reader comment: Anon says,

If you had an account with AllOfMp3.com, you have one with MP3Sparks.com. Same login works, and your balance is carried over.

BB reader Jeremy Tolbert says,

Fashion designer Diesel recently held a fashion show in Florence that featured 3D holographic sea creatures accompanying the fashion designs. The art is amazing and very fluid, like creatures from the deep sea or another world. The technology behind it seems similar to the recent live appearance by the Gorillaz at an awards show.

Link to photos and writeup at Creative Review, and here's the entire "Liquid Space" show on Youtube: Video Link. The reviewer describes the hologram quality as "incredible," and even from the shitty YT footage, you can see this is accurate.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Fashion show promises bioluminescent mechanic cephalopods

Reader comment: Spence says,

I don't believe this is a hologram, but an incarnation of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It's obviously taking a public event to show itself in all its grandeur. Maybe Diesel has proven to be a loyal follower and this is the reward!

Anonymous sez,

From the article, it appears that Diesel's "bioluminescent mechanic cephalopods" were not actually holigrams. Like the Gorillaz Grammy performance (or the ghosts in Disney's Haunted Mansion), they were created using the pepper's ghost effect, in which an image is reflected off of a glass-like (or in this case mylar) surface between the stage and the audience. More info on the tech behind the Gorillaz performance in the link.

dustin says,

just wanted to mention that the picture shown on the post is not a cephalopod (literally "head-foot" like an octopus: Link), but more likely some sort of angler fish (Link) or imagined variant.. my bio degree has definitely fallen into disuse, but i'm fairly sure on this one.

love me some boingboing, :)

By popular demand (not kidding). Link to download, 320x480 jpeg (thanks for the idea, Mark Lisanti!).

Previous iPhone-themed posts on BB: Link.

Steve says:

Alabama Governor Bob Riley has implemented an interesting new policy on climate change:

The governor issued a proclamation calling for citizens to pray for rain for a week, beginning Saturday.

Link (Via The Project For an Old American Century)

Update:

Meanwhile, the rainstorms leading to floods can be blamed on gay people, say senior Church of England bishops. (Thanks, Rob!)

BB pal Bonnie says,

The Kwik-E-Marts, along with the 6,000 other Seven-Elevens around North America will sell Simpsons-themed treats during the month-long promotion. Among them: Buzz Cola, Krusty-O's cereal and Squishees, the slushy Slurpees knockoff.

Link to tons of snapshots taken by a guy named Justin (in Seattle?), and here's an AP story.

Reader comment: Cate says,

The official 7-11 website has a list of the locations for all of the converted Kwik-E-Marts. Let us also not forget the upcoming free slurpee day on July 11th (7/11/07)!

Anonymous says,

Someone should get a scan of the wrapper that the Simpsons straw/magnets are packaged in. I work at the company that made them. What started as a simple "for ages 3 and up" warning eventually got expanded to "for ages 12 and up" with detailed descriptions of exactly what the magnets will do to you if you swallow them. For example, if you swallow two of them, they apparently may stick to each other across intestines. It's really quite amusing.

Lucas says,

Here are a few more pics, these from my visit to the Mountain View location.

Michael Cote, a student in the Environmental Design/Sustainable Regional Planning program at University of Massachusetts - Amherst, says:

About the recent Kwiki Mart post on Boing Boing. I agree that the Simpsons rock, I don't agree that we should be celebrating the conversion of 7-11 stores -in the manner it's being done-. After the hype, where will all that 'wonderful' ephemera go? The dump. The landfill. In the trash. None of it recycled, which is in line with Boing Boing's previous posts.

Sorry to deflate the fun, but morals override - Don't you agree it's frivolous and wasteful??

David Lantner says,

I understand and agree with Michael Cote's concern, but there's some good news. I went to the Manhattan Kwik-E-Mart yesterday and I asked the (very helpful) staff what would happen to the decorations and such after the promotion ended. They replied that everything would be donated to local charities for auction. When asked how I could register my own "charity" all I received was a laugh.

This is quite a piece of radio journalism, by NPR "All Things Considered" contributor Addie Goss:

Laura Bush has just completed a tour of Africa, stopping at a school in Bamako, Mali. The U.S. Embassy there helped to spruce up the school before her arrival, making it more amenable to a photo-op.

Listen here (duration -- 06:15) (via Ned Sublette).

BoingBoing reader Mike Marlett submits this work of genius and says, "Just in case someone needs it after that last post."

Previous iPhone-themed posts on BB: Link.

With the iPhone, zooming in is just as easy as goatse-ing your hands apart.

In this case, however, you'll want to pinch to zoom out fast.

NSFW jpeg Link to view in larger size, without the mosaic of kindness to protect your eyes. This will hurt.

Previous BB posts on iPhone:

Jesusphone: He is Risen

More: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Many of you enjoyed Jess Hemerly's videos from the San Francisco Air Guitar Regional Championship that I linked to on Friday. As a follow-up, here is Jess's sidekick Koshi's rawking Flickr photoset of the event. Seen here, Jammin' J-bone.
Link

Previously on BB:
• San Francisco Air Guitar championship Link
• Air guitar t-shirt Link

Fifty years ago, CP Snow posited that there are two cultures in modern society, the sciences and the humanities, and that the difference between the two worldviews acted like a wall blocking not only collaboration, but even conversation. Eventually, Snow talked about a "third culture" that bridged the two. Literary agent provocateur John Brockman drew out this idea in his groundbreaking 1995 book The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution. Yesterday's issue of the Guardian has a long article and panel discussion asking "is the old divide between arts and sciences deeper than ever?" The article profiles Brockman, whose online publication and community Edge embodies this third culture through essays, interviews, and books by some of the world's greatest thinkers living at the intersection of science, art, and philosophy. The Guardian piece also reviews New York Times science writer Natalie Angier's new science primer The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science. The article's sidebar is a panel where three writers, three scientists, and two broadcasters were asked to answer six scientific questions that the paper calls "basic." I was surprised how off I was on a couple. From the main story:

'Science is rather a state of mind,' Angier argues and, as such, it should inform everything. 'It is a way of viewing the world, of facing reality square on but taking nothing for granted.' It would be hard to argue that this state of mind was advancing across the globe. We no longer make and mend, so we no longer know how anything works...."

Though Brockman borrowed Snow's phrase ("the third culture"), he did not employ it in the same way: Snow had hoped for a kind of detente between the rival mindsets; Brockman perceived a third way. 'Literary intellectuals are not communicating with scientists,' he suggested. 'Scientists are communicating directly with the general public. Traditional intellectual media played a vertical game; journalists wrote up and professors wrote down. Today, Third Culture thinkers tend to avoid the middleman and endeavour to express their deepest thoughts in a manner accessible to the intelligent reading public.'

Link to The Guardian, Link to buy The Canon: A Whirligig Tour of the Beautiful Basics of Science, Link to buy The Third Culture, Link to buy The Two Cultures

Previously on BB:
• John Brockman: 40 years of "intermedia kinetic environments" Link
• Brockman on "The New Humanists" Link


UPDATE: Kevin Kelly points us to this great essay he wrote about The Third Culture for a 1998 issue of the journal Science. Link

Photo above (Nathaniel Brooks for The New York Times): composer Joseph Bertolozzi bangs away on a bridge in New York with mallets and dowels to test out sounds for his suite titled "Bridge Music." Snip from a feature by John Schwartz -- I can't wait to hear the resulting work!

The purpose of the test was to check not the bridge’s soundness but its sound. The rather bizarre scene on the Franklin D. Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge near Poughkeepsie was part of Mr. Bertolozzi’s audacious plan to transform the span into an orchestra, compose a piece for it, then actually perform the work live with a small army of percussionists. It is a musical undertaking on a vast scale and one that has brought oddly harmonious marriages among the worlds of art and government, music and engineering.

Mr. Bertolozzi, 48, has been meticulously harvesting a multitude of sounds from the structure: not just the cables, which on playback create woo-wooing effects or sounds like a bass guitar, but the spindles below guardrails, the rails themselves, the interior and flanges of innumerable I-beams, connecting metal plates and the grates between walkways.

He sent mounds of steel pellets down the interior of a 315-foot steel tower to create a rain-stick effect. He collected clanks from the “Hudson River Estuary” sign, with its blue sturgeon emblem. An organist as well as a composer, Mr. Bertolozzi even hopes to turn large upright conduits for power lines into rough organ pipes.

“I only play big instruments,” he said.

Link (Thanks, John Schwartz!)

Reader comment: Hal Bergman says,

I read your post about Joseph Bertoluzzi playing a bridge in New York... very cool. I just thought I'd share that this reminds me of an art installation that David Byrne (of Talking Heads fame) did two years ago, entitled "Playing the Building", where he installed percussion, vibration, and wind machines to different structural components of a warehouse and hooked them all into a keyboard. Here's a link.

UTM says

The brilliant drummer David Van Tiegham did something similar. I think the YouTube video here was made back in the 80s.

Stuart Sands says,

Incidentally van Tieghem played with Byrne, Eno, Talking Heads, Fripp, etc., so perhaps Byrne was influenced by David. Here a link to his bio

David Sanborn says,

While Bertoluzzi playing a bridge is truly fascinating, German provocateurs and eardrum shatterers Einsturzende Neubauten beat him to the punch line by over two decades with "Stahlversion" from their LP Strategies Against Architecture. Here is a link to the song, but Amazon Britain might have a higher quality version. I have enjoyed E.N. through my formative years, gaining a new outlook on what music can express or convey. Also it's nice to have music in my library that will clear most any venue of riff raff.

The Sneeze posted an appreciation of Hobo Soup, specifically the gorgeous artwork on the can. Here's the story of of this nearly 50-year old product:

Hobo Soup was "born" in the restless, creative mind of Lem Kaercher, a small-town newspaper publisher from Ortonville, Minn. In 1953, Lem went into the "Jungles" of Ortonville in search of a feature story on Mr. Hobo, long an American legend. At conclusion of his visit, Lem was treated with some old-fashioned original, homemade Hobo Soup. A Hobo himself as a young man, Lem felt the world should share in this fine cuisine. For years, a proper Canner was sought, and finally in 1960, Lem and son, Jim, finally saw a dream come true... Hobo Soup on the Grocer's shelf - "A Jungle Recipe, Fit For A King!"

Link to The Sneeze, Link to Hobo Soup (Thanks, COOP!)

UPDATE: Mark points out that the logo has changed somewhat over the years. Link

Cropped detail from "The Last Supper," by clarkbar6, courtesy iphonematters.com. Here's the large size so you can read all the funny txt, and the rollovers are pretty funny too (thanks, KN!).

iPhone posts:
1 :-( / 2 ;-) / 3 :-) / 4 :-/ / 5 :-x / 6 :-O / 7 :-P / 8 =-o / 9 :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D :-D.

Google versus Michael Moore's "Sicko": one, two. (Cory)

GPL 3.0 ships (Cory)

Poking at Facebook privacy: one, two (Xeni)

Bong Hits 4 Jesus: one, two, three, four (Mark, Xeni)

Rule the web! one, two (Mark)

Mushrooms as insulation material (Pesco)

Sierra Leone's Refugee All Stars (Pesco)

Peeking at the CIA's "family jewels" -- one, two, three (Pesco and Xeni)

Man thinks he is living inside Grand Theft Auto (Mark)

NYC to require $1MM in insurance and a permit to shoot video on public sidewalks (Cory)

Froot Loop straws (Mark)

Some people hated Michael Bay's "Transformers," while Joel Johnson declares himself "totally gay for robots fighting." (Xeni)

Airplane full of poop (Xeni)

Crustaceans chewing up Japanese island (Pesco)

Wikify the problem of ending corruption (Cory)

Itteh bitteh cheezborgers! (Cory)

Clockers is a screenplay for a steampunk version of "Hackers" -- it's a hoot!

PROSECUTOR
--criminal mischief and destruction of property. The defendant possesses a malicious cunning, which he has used to wreak havoc on the industry of his elders and betters. His "self-replicating automata," engraved with his signature alias "Arctic Pole," dealt brutally with the delicate workings of one hundred and fifty machines in the cotton mills which are the pride of our city, stripping them for parts and building more of themselves. We estimate that he has cost the owners a full month's profits.

JUDGE
Daedelus Murphy, I hereby fine you one thousand pounds sterling.

Gasps from the crowd.

Should you be unable to summon sufficient funds, you or your surrogate will be sentenced to debtors' prison until such time as he has repaid it in full. In addition, you are prohibited from owning or operating a wrench, geartrain, pocketwatch or clock of any kind so long as you reside within this county.

GAVEL.

Title card: 5EVEN Y3ARS LA+ER

Link to script, Link to other versions, including MP3 soundtrack (via DaVinci Automata)

Babies: tiny liars:

Infants quickly learnt that using tactics such as fake crying and pretend laughing could win them attention. By eight months, more difficult deceptions became apparent, such as concealing forbidden activities or trying to distract parents' attention.

By the age of two, toddlers could use far more devious techniques, such as bluffing when threatened with a punishment.

Dr Reddy said: "Fake crying is one of the earliest forms of deception to emerge, and infants use it to get attention even though nothing is wrong. You can tell, as they will then pause while they wait to hear if their mother is responding, before crying again.

Link (via Digg)