I dig this "Painkiller Polo" designed by Thomas Han for Kidrobot. "Bright white pills printed with a soft plastisol ink on a 100% cotton polo!" This is the "Nighttime" colorway. It's also available in a "Daytime" colorway with brightly-colored pills on a white shirt. They're $99 each.
Link to Nighttime, Link to Daytime

New research from New York University suggests that a combination of three different mental processes our brains use to decode words determine how fast we read. One of the processes, phonics (the familiar method of sounding out a word), accounts for 62 percent of a person's reading rate. "Each reading process always contributes the same number of words per minute, regardless of whether the other processes are operating," the researchers write in their PLoS One scientific paper. According to co-author Denis Pelli, professor of psychology and neuroscience, understanding the role of these processes could lead to better ways of helping remedial readers. The way they conducted the study is fascinating. From Scientific American:

The three processes: phonics (a letter by letter sounding out of words); contextual clues (earlier parts of sentences that help readers anticipate upcoming words); and holistic word recognition, or the physical shape of words...

Using passages from author Mary Higgins Clark's murder mystery Loves Music, Loves to Dance, Pelli and study co-author, undergraduate Katharine Tillman, manipulated passages to block readers from using each of the word-deciphering processes.

To muffle context clues, they shuffled words in a sentence ("contribute others. The of Reading measured"); discrimination via word shape was covered up by inserting random capital letters ("ThIS tExT AlTeRnAtEs iN CaSe."); and to eliminate letter by letter decoding, they substituted similar-looking letters into a word, thereby retaining the ability to use word shape and context, once a reader figured out a previous word ("Tbis sartcrec bes lctfan suhsfitufas").

Link to Scientific American, Link to PLoS One paper

Atsushi Tomura is an expert craftsman of Japanese kigurumi, animal and monster costumes worn by entertainers at malls, amusement parks, and other locations. His incredible creations look like a Jim Woodring drawing come to life! PingMag visited Tomura's house and interviewed him about the art of kigurumi design.

From PingMag:

...How do you usually transport these kigurumi monsters?
I just lug them onto public transport! (laughs) When I took “Bekkosu,” which was used in the PV for a Japanese band called RIZE, on the train, everyone was staring - despite the fact that it was designed to be compact. (laughs) Also, once a month I serve as a monster waiter at an event in Shibuya. When I show up fully dressed, the streets take on a carnivalesque atmosphere…

I can imagine…. Is that part of your motivation to make kigurumi and cuddly toys?
Of course, there is the feeling of wanting to surprise people. But seeing your own drawings turn into a real thing is the most fulfilling element, I think.

Link (Thanks, John Alderman!)

From Tokyo Times:

The Japanese habit of wearing masks during hay fever season may well be what created a fondness for such facial fashion amongst certain people, rather bizarrely resulting in the birth of ‘mask idols’.

The link also includes photos of plaster-cast and eye-patch fashions. Link

Reader comment:

Kevin says:

Threadless has a tee reminiscent of the mask idol girls.

Following up on a series of BB posts exploring the history of soused spaceflight, The Celestial Monochord says,

Never forget -- given sufficient catnip and an appropriate helmet, all cats will pretend to be drunken astronauts.

Link to photographic evidence.

Previously on BB:

Drunk Astronaut Hall of Fame: Tintin's Capt. Haddock did it first.

Are you a drunk astronaut?

Beer in space

Homer Simpson, Drunk Astronaut Pioneer

Speaking of Popeye, there's a just-released 4-DVD set of 60 Fleischer Brothers Popeye cartoons from 1933-1938. Cartoons don't get any better than this. Link

Excellent cartoon in which Popeye is thrown into an anime universe. He becomes angry and confused and and beats up all the vomitously cute characters. Link

Free ebook -- The Janus Syndrome, by Steven E. McDonald. "A freewheeling intergalactic agent trained to troubleshoot the hot spots of space... wild escapades that find him fending off the advances of a bevy of extraterrestrial beauties, fighting shoulder to tentacle with a madcap collection of alien companions ... leading to an all out war against the deadliest beings in the universe -- a race known only as The Enemy."

Extraordinarily handsome-looking stringed instruments made from lunch boxes, cookie tins, and cigar boxes. (Via Makezine)

Homeland Security forbids Canadian cartoonist from pitching stories in United States. I feel safer!

1923 comic strip: How to be a successful comic artist.

Interview with Fletcher Hanks biographer Paul Karasik.

Photos of flowers reflected in drops of water on plants. (Via Arbroath)

NYT on psychological phenomenon of "priming" -- "people tidy up more thoroughly when there's a faint tang of cleaning liquid in the air; they become more competitive if there’s a briefcase in sight, or more cooperative if they glimpse words like "dependable" and "support" — all without being aware of the change, or what prompted it." (illo by Jason Mecier)

New hotel security technology: retractable doorknob. (Via Grow-a-brain)

Artur Bergman writes about his first flight on Virgin America. "If you build a playlist from the 3,000 mp3s on board, the reservation system will remember it and pre-load it the next time you board."

"Toothbrush can redirect water from a faucet to your lips for easy rinsing."

Melissa Lafsky of Freakonomics interviewed Karen Abbot, author of Sin in the Second City, about the "Everleigh sisters, two madams who ran a famously high-class brothel on South Dearborn Street that earned them extraordinary wealth and international fame."

Q: Could you describe the economics of the Everleigh brothel? What was the total income? Salaries for the Everleigh madams and their prostitutes? Food/decorating budget?

A: On a busy night, the Everleigh sisters could make as much as $5,000. They spent $18,000 per year in renovations alone, including the upkeep of a $15,000 gold piano and several $650 gilded spittoons. They allotted a budget of $2,000 to $5,000 a month for imported spirits. The sisters sold bottles of champagne for $12 in the parlors and $15 in the bedrooms, but never beer or liquor. They also paid about $800 a month in protection fees [to law enforcement officials].

The Everleigh Club “butterflies,” as they were called, pocketed from $100 to $400 each week—an unthinkable salary in other houses. “One $50 client is preferable to ten $5 ones,” Minna [Everleigh] advised her courtesans. “Less wear and tear.” A man had to pay $50 just to walk in the door, in an era when a three-course meal cost fifty cents. Dinner in the club’s Pullman Palace Buffet could cost another $150.

When the sisters retired, they had $1 million in cash, the equivalent of $20 million today.

Link

Reader comment:

Sarah says:

I enjoyed reading your post about Sin in the Second City. I wonder if your readers are familiar with the inflation calculator (with which I am not affiliated). It made the info even cooler when I figured out that $800 a month in protection was equivalent to more than $17,000 today...

BoingBoing reader and Transformers devotee Morgan Valentine says,

I had a giant Optimus Prime Birthday cake made for my husbands 30th. It turned out better than I could have imagined and I think you'll all get a kick out if it. Ba weep granna weep ninny bom! ^_^

Link 1, Link 2.

YouTube Link or Veoh Link to an experimental short video featuring adult performer Justine Joli, by Clayton James Cubitt. (Mildly NSFW, I guess, blurry breasts) (thanks, Susannah Breslin)

UPDATE: What a disappointment, the video has been taken down by YouTube. Honestly, I don't understand that move at all. The image was so stylized and blurry, the model could have been wearing a flesh-colored leotard for all you can tell. It wasn't porn, she looks like a Greek statue, rotating on a pedestal. (sigh). Clayton says,

YouTube's tag on the deleted breast-dangerous video now reads: "Rejected (content inappropriate)"

Fear not, though, you can still see lots of police chases and Iraq bombings.

UPDATE 2: Clayton uploaded the short film to Veoh: Link. "We'll see if Veoh is any more art-friendly," he says. "I tagged it 18+ so people have to nanny 'agree' before seeing the deadly blurred boobies."

UPDATE 3: YouTube has restored access to the video, and it's also on Veoh. Thanks, YouTube.

Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has been writing about cartoon characters with personality. Today, he examines the appeal of Popeye.

Here's the opposite of bland. Now I knew tons of little kids who indentified with Popeye, even though he is a bizarre looking 90 year old toothless man who eats terrible tasting spinach. Everything about him is unique and original, even his walks and taste in women. He has more personality that the rest of animated feature heroes combined and he's funny and charismatic.

Link

The Computer and Communications Industry Association (Microsoft, Red Hat, Google, Yahoo, et al) have filed a complaint with the FTC alleging that the copyright warnings in books, DVDs, movies, and sportscasts materially misrepresent the law, giving short shrift to fair use and other user rights in copyright. They're asking for an injunction banning rightsholders from using this kind of intimidating warning.

For now, all the CCIA wants is an injunction barring rightsholders from using overly-broad warnings. "Our ultimate goal is to expose this for what it is and to make it clear to people that their rights are being violated," explained Ward. "We'll get to the issue of whether fines are necessary down the line."

Indeed, the complaint asks the FTC to order the organizations named in the complaint to stop misrepresenting US copyright law, "including but not limited to consumers' fair use rights." The CCIA also wants the FTC to force the NFL, MLB, and studios to come up with a plan to keep these sort of mispresentations from happening again as well as a model copyright notice that is "accurate, balanced, and consistent with all provisions of the US Copyright Act and Federal Trade Commission Act." Lastly, the CCIA would like to see those named in the complaint forced to foot the bill for fair use education. (Maybe they can pay for Fair Use Day celebrations next July.)

Link

A downloadable Chinese game called "The Incorruptible Warrior" is an unexpected success -- something attributed to Chinese exhaustion and frustration with official corruption. In the game you're a civil servant out for blood, torturing and executing corrupt officials.

What is so interesting about this game? After all, the executable file is only 78M, the pictures are crude, the scenes are spare, the copyright is suspect (because it borrows a great deal of material from other games), the lone server is unstable and the financial sponsor is the Communist Party Disciplinary Committee of the Haishu district in Ningbo city.

The reason for the public interest is that the hero of the game is a "honest and upright official" whose assignment is to weed out corrupt officials, along with their children and mistresses. Here 'weed out' does not 'putting in jail' -- it means using weapons, wizardry and torture to kill them. There are 165 characters taken from history. On your side are the famous clean officials such as Hai Rui and Lord Bao. On the opposite side are the famous corrupt officials such as Zhao Gao, Huo Shen and others who exhibit different degrees of power (=corruption) as indicated by the gauge levels over their heads. When you kill a corrupt official, you gain experience points. For example, killing the eunuch official Wei Zhongxian gains you 100 experience points. As you accumulate points, you increase your powers for "Combatting corruption," "Moral character" and "Degree of being corruption free" instead of "life," "magic" and "strength" in other kinds of games. Your ultimate goal is to reach , where "the birds sing, the flowers give out fragrance, the people are full of love and harmony, the nation is prospering and the world is calm and peaceful."

Link (Thanks, Maureen!)

Lunch In A Box went crazy with a set of Williams Sonoma "ice cream sandwich molds," using them to shape dyed hardboiled eggs. The effect is great -- whimsical food stuff. Link (via Neatorama)

Security expert Bruce Schneier is serializing a five-part interview with TSA head Kip Hawley. Today, they talk about no-fly lists and ID checks. Schneier points out all the ways that these measures fail -- and all the ways that they compromise our freedom, and Hawley counters that they're actually very good, but only in ways that are too secret to let us know about them. Accountability? Who needs it?

Let's talk about ID checks. I've called the no-fly list a list of people so dangerous they cannot be allowed to fly under any circumstance, yet so innocent we can't arrest them even under the Patriot Act. Except that's not even true; anyone, no matter how dangerous they are, can fly without an ID ­or by using someone else's boarding pass. And the list itself is filled with people who shouldn't be on it -- dead people, people in jail, and so on -- and primarily catches innocents with similar names. Why are you bothering?

Link

See also:
TSA chief promises an eternity of unshoeing
Bruce Schneier interviews TSA head Kip Hawley