I picked up Ragnar's wonderful, gross kids' book "Got Your Nose" at Comic-Con this weekend. Ragnar's illustration style -- retro Ren and Stimpy-esque cartoons -- is eminently suited to this children's tale of two brothers, one of whom is good and the other is evil. The evil brother steals the good one's nose and then subjects it to all manner of hilariously illustrated stinky tortures (the fart page is a real gas). This is the kind of book that's naughty enough to get a million laughs out of the stink-obsessed six-year-old in your life, and handsome enough to want to cut up and frame. Link

See also: Ragnar's "Maltese Chimp" as a sculpture set

I've just finished uploading and tagging my photos from Comic-Con 2007. It was my first Comic-Con and I was absolutely blown away. 175,000 people, but it still retained its essential fannish nature, with tons of artisanal material, creators mingling with readers, and playful cosplayers. I especially love how my shots from the panel on action-figure modding came out. Link, Link to "comiccon" tag for all Flickr shots

A reader writes, "Some countries, such as Japan, have Defense Department logos that are non-threatening and modern, while others stick with the traditional 'angry bird holding weapons.' Who-sucks.com has a post comparing various logos, with a user poll to determine the most appealing design." Link

Howstuffworks's in-depth look at swearing is unexpectedly fascinating, especially the neurology of cussin'.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have shown that the higher and lower parts of the brain can struggle with each other when a person swears [ref]. A New York Times article cites several other studies that involve how a healthy brain processes swearing. For example, the brains of people who pride themselves on being educated respond to slang and "illiterate" phrases the same way they do to swearwords. In addition, in studies in which people must identify the color a word is written in (instead of the word itself), swearwords distract the participants from color recognition. You can also remember swearwords about four times better than other words [ref].

Swearing can also be a symptom of disease or a result of damage to parts of the brain. We'll look at swearing and brain disorders next.

Link (via Digg)

(Creative Commons-licensed image, oh ( ---- )!!! ganked from Debaird's Flickr stream)

Update: Get your cussin' button here

BB reader wishbook says,

With the recent passing of televangelist Tammy Faye Messner, I thought it was a fitting time to share the shrill sounds and sights of the 1975 album, "Oops! There Comes A Smile: Songs & Stories By Jim & Tammy & Their Friends."

To that end, I've flickr'd scans of the album and created a link to the creepy track, "God Is Watching You," in which the Tammy-voiced pig puppet proclaims "he sees everything you do, and he hears everything you say; my God is watching all the time!" For the penitent or masochistic, there is alo a megaupload link to the entire album.

Link. Also noteworthy is the lyrical name of the woman to whom this one belonged, visible in this larger jpeg: Link.

Reader comment: Anonymous says,

The lizard looks suspiciously like the Winslow from various Phil Foglio comics, chiefly Buck Godot. Perhaps the Bakkers were really Winslowists in disguise!

Dan, from The ARChive of Contemporary Music, says:

I noticed that you posted the cover of Tammy Faye's "Oops, There Comes A Smile" today and I wanted to let you know that last week we posted that and two other Tammy Faye covers, as well as a ten-record discography of people in the Bakker/PTL orbit (mostly Tammy, but Jim and others as well - yes, we have all of them in our collection). You can see the covers here: Link (Click on them for a larger view.) While "Oops" was perhaps the "best" for music, "Run Towards the Roar" was everyone at the ARChive's favorite cover. It's precious and she looks really sassy.

Audrey Kawasaki, one of my favorite living painters, posted on her blog about a provocative artist I wasn't familiar with: Vania Zouravliov. The image above is a detail view; click for the full piece. Audrey says, "i came across the works of Vania Zouravliov through the 'Black Magic, White Noise' book. his work is sooo~ chillingly beautiful~." Link to Audrey's post with images, For more Zouravliav, navigate through the Flash at Big Active Link

Previously on BB:
• Audrey Kawasaki: Juxtapoz profile Link
• Audrey Kawasaki interview on MacTribe Link
• Audrey Kawasaki at Roq La Rue Link
• Smitten: art by Hultberg, Kawasaki, Sol, Milne, and KuKula Link

Link. Snapshot of cosplay competition participant just trying to score some dadburned pansit or something for chrissakes, at a mall in the Philippines. (thanks, Rain)

On this bittersweet weekend in which we celebrate the triumphant debut of "the teeny little indie movie that could" while mourning reports that American astronauts spaced while soused, BoingBoing reader Thomas says, "The story about the alcoholic astronauts reminded me of the episode of The Simpsons entitled "Deep Space Homer"."

From Wikipedia:

NASA takes both Homer and Barney to Cape Canaveral to train them into astronauts. They pit the two in competition against one another as they can only take one to space. With NASAs' alcohol ban, the training goes well for Barney (he even does a backflip and sings the opening lines of Gilbert and Sullivan's "Major General's Song"), but the future is grim for Homer when he learns that Barney has been chosen to go on board with Buzz Aldrin and the fictional astronaut Race Banyon (whose name parodies Race Bannon). However, when Barney has a toast with the people at NASA, he drinks champagne that was apparently non-alcoholic, goes berserk and fastens himself to a jet pack. After taking off, the jet pack fails and he bounces off the roof of a pillow factory and onto the road, where he is run over by a marshmallow truck. A scientist declares Homer the default winner of the competition, and he goes up into space with the two other astronauts.

Video Link (excerpt).

Reader comment: Alan says,

You would be remiss in your Homer astronaut post if you didn't at least mention the genesis of the overlords meme. Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Homer Simpson pops up on medical marijuana packaging

This weekend's New York Times magazine features a huge robot-themed feature by Robin Marantz Henig. Ten whopping pages online, with embedded video and photographs. Snip:

At the Humanoid Robotics Group at M.I.T., a robot’s “humanoid” qualities can include fallibility and whininess as much as physical traits like head, arms and torso. This is where our cultural images of robots as superhumans run headlong into the reality of motors, actuators and cold computer code. Today’s humanoids are not the sophisticated machines we might have expected by now, which just shows how complicated a task it was that scientists embarked on 15 years ago when they began working on a robot that could think. They are not the docile companions of our collective dreams, robots designed to flawlessly serve our dinners, fold our clothes and do the dull or dangerous jobs that we don’t want to do. Nor are they the villains of our collective nightmares, poised for robotic rebellion against humans whose machine creations have become smarter than the humans themselves. They are, instead, hunks of metal tethered to computers, which need their human designers to get them going and to smooth the hiccups along the way.

But these early incarnations of sociable robots are also much more than meets the eye. Bill Gates has said that personal robotics today is at the stage that personal computers were in the mid-1970s. Thirty years ago, few people guessed that the bulky, slow computers being used by a handful of businesses would by 2007 insinuate themselves into our lives via applications like Google, e-mail, YouTube, Skype and MySpace. In much the same way, the robots being built today, still unwieldy and temperamental even in the most capable hands, probably offer only hints of the way we might be using robots in another 30 years.

Link (Thanks, Susannah!)

Rebecca McKinnon writes,

Yahoo! executives say one thing in public, an official Chinese document says something else. Oops.

I just discovered today that the Dui Hua Foundation, which does excellent, low-key work on Chinese human rights issues, has a blog. Last week they posted a full English translation (PDF) of a document that has surfaced recently on the web: the Beijing State Security Bureau'€™s request to Yahoo!'s Beijing office for information about the e-mail account huoyan1989@yahoo.com.cn. That's the account used by Chinese journalist Shi Tao, who is now doing 10 years in jail for divulging state secrets.

The folks at Dui Hua say they've examined the document and believe it to be authentic. If it is indeed authentic, this document would seem to clear up any lingering questions about whether Yahoo!'s Hong Kong office was involved in handing over Shi Tao's account information.

But it also raises new questions. Here is what the document says (emphasis added)...

Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Jailed Chinese journo Shi Tao joins lawsuit against Yahoo

China: government's new campaign to "cleanse" the internet

Yahoo aided China in torture, says dissident in lawsuit papers

China dissident's wife: "Yahoo betrayed my husband."

Jailed Chinese dissident's wife to sue Yahoo for ratting out her husband

Yahoo rats out Chinese reporter to Beijing, writer gets 10 years in jail

The National Space Society is asking its members and "the broader space community" to donate funds for the families of the deceased, and for the injured and their families. Link.

Previously on BB:

Mojave Space Port blast kills 3 Scaled Composites employees

Snip from an article in today's NYT:

A 2004 dispute over the National Security Agency’s secret surveillance program that led top Justice Department officials to threaten resignation involved computer searches through massive electronic databases, according to current and former officials briefed on the program.

It is not known precisely why searching the databases, or data mining, raised such a furious legal debate. But such databases contain records of the phone calls and e-mail messages of millions of Americans, and their examination by the government would raise privacy issues.

The N.S.A.’s data mining has previously been reported. But the disclosure that concerns about it figured in the March 2004 debate helps to clarify the clash this week between Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senators who accused him of misleading Congress and called for a perjury investigation.

The confrontation in 2004 led to a showdown in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft, where Mr. Gonzales, the White House counsel at the time, and Andrew H. Card Jr., then the White House chief of staff, tried to get the ailing Mr. Ashcroft to reauthorize the N.S.A. program.

Link. Ryan Singel at the Wired News blog "Threat Level" has analysis here. Noah Shachtman recalls Total Information Awareness, ca. 2003, here.

The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a web "contract" -- that is, the ridiculous "terms of service" that you agree to just by looking at a web-page -- can't be changed without notice, something that's standard in most of these "agreements."

This is a rare, overdue moment of sanity from the legal system about web agreements, which are universally abusive and one-sided.

"How hard is it to send out an e-mail letting people know about [any changes]?" she said.

According to the court documents, Douglas signed a contract for service with America Online. The business was then acquired by Talk America, which continued to provide telephone service to AOL's former customers. However, Talk America changed the contract AOL had with its customers and posted those changes on its Web site without notifying the customers first.

Link (via /.)

Today at ComicCon in San Diego, I happened on the Skellramics Studios booth where they sell custom, comic-skull-adorned ceramic pieces. There's some awesome stuff there, but I'm especially fond of (and ended up buying one of) their potion bottles, as well as this gigantic devil's-head stein and, of course, the Day of the Dead-like cake-topper. Link