I just played with the new Skooba Skin laptop sleeve/totes and I'm impressed. At first, this is just a well-designed, padded canvas laptop sleeve with a simple velcro closureBut the closure folds up and coverts to a handle, turning the sleeve into a tote -- a handy trick for those days when you're just carrying your laptop-sleeve, rather than a larger bag.

The sleeve comes in a bunch of different colors, including an undyed, unbleached white canvas that is meant to be decorated with markers, fabric pens, and anything else you've got hanging around (alas, the surface wouldn't take the stickers I tried on it).

Skooba is the new brand-name for the accessory company Roadwired, whose products I've long admired and used (especially their ingenious RAPS electronics sleeves). Along with the Skooba Skin, Skooba have also launched a shoulder strap called the Superbungee that includes a shock-absorbing ring of bungee cord in the shoulder-pad. I've long used elasticated shoulder straps (mostly the ones from Victorinox, which only last about six months before the metal on the attachment clips gives way catastrophically). They make an enormous difference, converting your computer and books from dead weight into something that moves with you, supporting itself in time with your stride. The Superbungee is going on my bag today, and I'll be taking it on the road with me next week. Link to Skooba Skin, Link to Superbungee Strap

See also:
Joys of RoadWired and Zip-Linq
RoadWired's Skooba Satchel
RoadWired bags kick azz

Giant Robot Warriors, a graphic novel, is a masterful comic allegory for world's military build-up and stand-offs. In a cock-eyed alternate reality, giant robot warriors -- REALLY giant robot warriors -- are the ultimate weapon, capturing the imagination of ever fierce-hearted patriot of every land. Nations that attain GRW capacity are able to handily conquer their neighbors, and that is the scenario that propels this story.

Rufus Hirohito is the playboy scientist in charge of the current-generation GRW program, and his life is inverted by the news that Paraqan, an oil-rich middle-eastern dictatorship, has attained its own GRW and plans to destroy its neighbors. The US has no choice but to intervene -- even if it means sending an untested GRW behemoth into the field.

There's obviously a lot of manga influence here, but the story is pure American, a masterful take on the funnybook hero stories about America's destiny to police and govern the world. The writer, Stuart Moore, describes the book as having been written during the brief flare of post-9/11 optimism that ended when the US squandered its international goodwill on pointless oil wars and security theater.

Five years later, circumstances are still similar enough that Giant Robot Warriors still has political weight (unfortunately). Link

Last week, Australia's Sydney Morning Herald published a jaw-dropping exchange of correspondence between Charlie Rimmer, the commercial manager of Angus & Robertson, Australia's largest bookstore chain, and Michael Rakusin, from Tower Books, a mid-sized Australian press.

The substance of the exchange was this: Angus and Robertson has decided to demand that publishers pay them thousands of dollars for the privilege of having their books sold in their stores. The chain has been churning through management shakeups, unsuccessful SAP implementations, and other foul-ups, and now they want publishers to pay them for the money they're losing by not ordering the publishers' books in a profitable way.

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, who has worked in New York publishing for decades, has done a masterful job in annotating both letters, giving needed context for people unfamiliar with publishing. I worked as a bookseller for years and I have a lot of patience and respect for anyone willing to take books to the public, but some booksellers are so dumb, so evil, so ridiculous -- they deserve to crash and burn.

I am writing to inform you of some changes in the way we manage our business.

We have recently completed a piece of work to rank our suppliers in terms of the net profit they generate for our business.

Malarkey. If you’re a bookstore chain, doing business with a publisher doesn’t mean that you automatically carry a standard number of all the titles they publish. You order the books you want, in the quantities you judge appropriate. Whatever doesn’t sell gets returned to the publishers at their own expense. If A&R hasn’t been making a suitable profit off these publishers, it’s not the publishers’ fault. Booksellers make money by recognizing the books their customers will want to buy, ordering them in appropriate quantities, and selling them well.

Link

Dan sez, "Astromedia is a German science gizmo company that specializes in die-cut cardboard widgets: astrolabes, sextants, telescopes, etc. But this new one takes the biscuit -- a Stirling engine that works on the heat from a cup of coffee. Apparently, if you set it on a frozen compress ("Setzen Sie ihn auf eine Kaltkompresse..."), it runs for hours." Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Update: Pschemp prepared this translation for us!

The Stirling Engine
Runs on a cup of coffee or an ice pack

The revolutionary concept for this hot-air engine was discovered in 1816 by the Scottish minister Robert Stirling and has been updated for today. The principle is as ingenious as it is simple: In a sealed cylinder, heated from the underside, a piston pushes the enclosed air back and forth between the hot and the cold side. The air therefore expands out and compress together every cycle and that movement is converted via a moving piston and crankshaft into rotary motion.

As an energy source, any type of warmth or cooling that produces a temperature differential can be used, from an open fire to solar energy or any other unused source of heat or cold.

Set this fully functional Stirling engine on a cup with boiling hot coffee (Tea or water also works of course) - give the flywheel a small push to the left - and the apparatus begins simply to pump up and down - for up to an hour!

This isn't everything it can do: Set it on an ice pack or ice cubes from the freezer and turn the flywheel to the right and it will also pump up and down for an even longer time.

(Caption:It is really a marvel)

Kit made from sturdy punched cardboard with gold stamping, complete with all accessories including laser cut aluminium plates, low-friction plastic axle bearings and spring steel bent wire.

Height 16.5 cm, width and depth 12.6 cm.

Samuel sez, "Hey guys. Several months ago, I bought an episode of Star Trek on Google Video, just out of curiosity to see how it worked. Today I got an email letting me know my videos would stop working in five days."

Hello,

As a valued Google user, we're contacting you with some important information about the videos you've purchased or rented from Google Video. In an effort to improve all Google services, we will no longer offer the ability to buy or rent videos for download from Google Video, ending the DTO/DTR (download-to-own/rent) program. This change will be effective August 15, 2007.

To fully account for the video purchases you made before July 18, 2007, we are providing you with a Google Checkout bonus for $5.00. Your bonus expires in 60 days, and you can use it at the stores listed here: http://www.google.com/checkout/signupwelcome.html. The minimum purchase amount must be equal to or greater than your bonus amount, before shipping and tax.

After August 15, 2007, you will no longer be able to view your purchased or rented videos.

If you have further questions or requests, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you for your continued support.

Sincerely,

The Google Video Team

Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View, CA 94043

Notice that Google called these videos "purchased" and "download to own" -- as though by buying them, they became your property. Funny kind of property, that. Imagine if these were DVDs: one day, a man from Virgin Megastore shows up at your door and says, "We're taking away all your videos. Sorry! But we'll give you a credit to spend at a different store. Not a credit for videos, though. Also: it expires in 60 days."

This is a giant, flaming middle finger, sent by Google and the studios to the customers who were dumb trusting enough to buy DRM videos. How many of these people will trust the next DRM play from Google (no doubt coming soon from YouTube) or the studios?

The terms that Google sold its video on were similar to those laid down by other downloadable video "stores," like Amazon Unbox. These stores claim to "sell" you things, but you can never truly 0wn the things they sell -- they are your theoretical property only, liable to confiscation at any time. That's the lesson for DRM: only the big motion picture companies, search giants and other corporate overlords get to own property. We vassals are mere tenant-farmers, with a precarious claim on our little patch of dirt.

Hey, class-action lawyers! This seems like a golden opportunity.

See also: Google Video DRM: Why is Hollywood more important than customers?

About:blank is looking for the source of these disturbing and funny instructions for "alternative life." Link

US airline passengers in airport security screening areas can be searched at any time, and may no longer refuse to be searched by leaving the airport, according to a ruling today by the nation's largest federal appeals court. Snip from summary at Wired News Threat Level blog:

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the circuit's 34-year-old precedent that over time was evolving toward limiting when passengers could refuse a search and leave the airport after they had checked their bags or placed items on the security screening X-ray machine. Citing threats of terrorism, the court ruled passengers give up all rights to be free of warrantless searches once a "passenger places hand luggage on a conveyor belt for inspection" or "passes though a magnetometer."

Link to blog post, Link to PDF of court decision.

Snip from Reuters item:

"Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Link, and here's Galactic Suite online: Link. In space, no one can hear you screaming because a shitty website has bloated flash and obnoxious sound. I hope they're better at designing intergalactic hotels than they are with terrestrial html.

Reader comment: Thierry was one of many folks who wrote in to say the whole thing sounds like a possible hoax, or at least an implausible vapor-venture (I concur):

I am reporter, specialised in science (astronautics/astronomy/computing/photo) Permit me to tell you that you have no much criticism sense to assert that Galactic suite will build a space resort without even warn the readers that this project could be an utopia.

Have you even imagine to build a spaceship and a hotel in space in about 4 years ? Even Virgin Galactic and Astrium EADS are only able to build a ship in 4 years, and for a one-hour trip in space, without even think to build a hotel ! So don't imagine that it should be possible for a private company to build a resort in space in the same time. I suggest you to add some technical comments on the article and highlight the fact that it looks like a huge hoax, a great mediatic fear for this architecture office searching architects and high level designers, but probably not able to build a space station ! Of course, if their idea can incitate private companies to invest in the space tourism, go with it. I have written to the promoters to get more information and validate my ideas, they have nevrr answered...

Link to explanatory blog post, here's the photo set. (thanks, Ryan Russell)

An icon of cryptozoology, the coelecanth is a fish that was thought to have been extinct for 65 million years ago until it was found alive in 1938. Now, another mystery surrounding the fish has been solved. Scientists have long wondered why the coelecanth's fins are symmetrical while land animals like us that shared a common ancestor with the fish have asymmetrical hands and feet. If hands and feet evolved from asymmetric fins, it should follow that the colecanth's fins would also be asymmetric. Recently, University of Chicago grad student Matt Friedman found the missing piece of the puzzle, the only fossil ever discovered of an ancestral coelacanth's fin. It's the cover story in the current issue of the journal Evolution & Development.

From New Scientist:

Recent fossil discoveries have shown that hands and feet evolved from an extinct ancestral fish with asymmetric fins, but the question of how the coelacanth got its symmetrical fins remained....

The fossil (that Friedman found) revealed that the ancestor, which the researchers have named Shoshonia arctopteryx, had asymmetric fins. This indicates that the living coelacanth evolved its symmetry.

That Shoshonia and living coelacanths are different is perhaps not entirely surprising – coelacanths have, after all, been evolving for 400 million years. But it serves as a lesson to those studying limb development.

"The asymmetry in our own paired limbs is in fact a primitive feature," says Michael Coates of the University of Chicago, US. While the coelacanth has not retained this feature, other, more primitive living fish have.

Link to New Scientist, Link to abstract of Evolution & Development paper, Link to University of Chicago press release

Previously on BB:
• Coelacanth in danger Link
• Coelacanth caught on video Link
• Video: Indonesian coelacanth Link
• Fisherman catches coelacanth Link

The Goof Button found this ad for a fur-lined auto ignition keyhole in an old copy of The New Yorker.

Now! IT CAN HAVE FUR AROUND IT!

Tired of groping under a darkened dashboard, trying to find that elusive ignition lock? With this genuine mink keyhole cover, you can find it in a flash, every time! Made from the same precious skins used in $5,000 fur coats... it's sure to dress up the interior of any car. Installs in seconds, no tools required. Rush only $1.00 cash. check or M.O. Money back if not delighted.

Link

Previously on Mad Professor:
• Hey Skinny!: Great Advertisements from the Golden Age of Comic Books

Nissan is developing a system that would prevent cars from starting if the driver is drunk.

The car's technology will use sensors to detect alcohol in the sweat and odour of a driver, as well as checking awareness levels.

Sensors are placed in the gear stick to measure the amount of perspiration on the driver's hand and odour detectors are fitted into the driver and passenger seats.

A monitoring system will also check to see if the car is staying inside its lane and a camera mounted at eye level scans the driver's eyes for signs of tiredness.

Link

BB pal Bonnie says,

Red and Jonny are are married artists who live in Ontario, Canada -- who like to photograph themselves wearing stormtrooper helmets frolicking on the beach and in the grocery store. If you're the type of fan who likes to look at bikini girls wearing stormtrooper helmets, then you're in luck.

Link. I think some of my favorite photos from these guys are in their "Country Stormtroopers" photoset: Link. Absolute faves: one and two.

Comics Journal: "Here’s 'A Tale of Two Planets,' an Al Hartley parable in which we learn that good people are better than bad people. (Above: can you guess which are which? Sequence from the Spire comic Archie’s Parables, 1973 Archie Comics.)" Link

Reader comment:

DaveX says:

I held off as long as I could, but Boing Boing seems hot on the weird-o Archie comic scans these days. I respectfully throw my scans in the ring for consideration. Be sure to at least scroll down far enough to see Legion, the hippie stereotype, and his fantastic array of drugs!

Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky, says terrorists need to attack the U.S. again in order to "quell the chattering of [anti-war] chipmunks and to restore America's righteous rage and singular purpose to prevail." Link

Old Super-8 movie teaches people how to shoot home movies (information still useful!). Link

Video game uses sensors on partners' undergarments to encourage couples-friendly play. Link

More issues of The Realist have been archived at Ethan Persoff's site. Highlights: 1963 FUCK COMMUNISM! Poster, Norman Mailer (1965), Lenny Bruce (1961), Paul Krassner's First LSD Trip (1965). Impolite Interview: Lincoln Rockwell (1961) Head of the American Nazi Party and Confident Presidential Hopeful. Link

Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Va.) earmarked $150,000 of taxes to pay retired cops to surf for porn on their computers and report on anything they deem obscene. Link

Kevin Kelly's three favorite podcasts (In Our Time, Radio Lab, This American Life). Link

Freakonomics on the pick-up artist's technique of "negging," (jargon for insulting a woman during initial meeting) designed to “lower her self-esteem, thus making her more vulnerable to your advances.” (This subculture was explored in the entertaining book, The Game: Penetrating the Secrect Society of Pickup Artists.) Link

You can tell that Rudy Guiliani has read his Orwell:

"Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do."

Link, Link to 1994 speech (Thanks, Hal!)

In my latest column for Information Week, I talk about the Hollywood attempt to re-create the Napster Wars, suing all the funded, legit companies that want to do Internet video, like YouTube. When the record companies did this to Napster, all it did was ensure that the P2P market was saturated with companies that had no interest in doing deals with the record companies -- instead, we got rogues like Kazaa and AllOfMP3, whose business-model was built around the difficulty of being sued offshore, not paying the record companies for the use of copyrights.

Now the TV and movie people are following suit -- and there's every chance that they'll succeed at scaring off all the legit Internet distribution companies. Which will just make ThePirateBay into the world's biggest, most successful video distribution system.

Napster had an industry-friendly business-model: raise venture capital, start charging for access to the service, and then pay billions of dollars to the record companies in exchange for licenses to their works. Yes, Napster kicked this plan off without getting permission from the record companies, but that's not so unusual. The record companies followed the same business plan a hundred years ago, when they started recording sheet music without permission, raising capital and garnering profits, and then working out a deal to pay the composers for the works they'd built their fortunes on.

Napster's plan was plausible. They had the fastest-adopted technology in the history of the world, garnering 52,000,000 users in 18 months -- more than had voted for either candidate in the preceding US presidential election! -- and discovering, via surveys, that a sizable portion would happily pay between $10 and $15 a month for the service. What's more, Napster's architecture included a gatekeeper that could be used to lock out non-paying users.

Link

Tonight at LA's Secret Headquarters (my favorite comics shop in the world!), comics legend Peter Bagge. Free beer and everything!

By common consensus, Peter Bagge is the funniest cartoonist of his generation.

Bagge is probably best known for the '90s comic book series Hate, which followed the exploits of the slacker ne'er-do-well Buddy Bradley (and managed to show probably the truest representation of Seattle during the "grunge" boom and bust).

But the Buddy Bradley saga is only a small part of Bagge's oeuvre, which saw its first glory days in R. Crumb's Weirdo Magazine (which he edited for several issues) and continues to expand to this day as he appears in Reason magazine, MAD and the Weekly World News.

Secret Headquarters
3817 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026

323-666-2228

Link

Snip from the summary of a new Pew Research study released this week:

The internet news audience – roughly a quarter of all Americans – tends to be younger and better educated than the public as a whole. People who rely on the internet as their main news source express relatively unfavorable opinions of mainstream news sources and are among the most critical of press performance. As many as 38% of those who rely mostly on the internet for news say they have an unfavorable opinion of cable news networks such as CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC, compared with 25% of the public overall, and just 17% of television news viewers.

Link.

In the latest MAKE Weekend Projects video, Bre Pettis and Joe Grand show you how to use radio frequency modules to make wireless gizmos. Link

And now we pause for a sweet serenade by the Lady In The Radiator. "In Heaven" was written by Peter Ivers for David Lynch's 1977 masterpiece Eraserhead and performed by Laurel Nears.
Link to watch, Link to buy Eraserhead soundtrack, Link to buy Eraserhead DVD

UPDATE: The episode will air! Details soon.

Two of the coolest guys in the world, Sir Richard Branson and Stephen Colbert, apparently poured water on each other's heads in an unfriendly manner during a television segment taping that will likely never air.

BoingBoing reader George W. says,

Ian Bogost appeared on the Colbert Report on Tuesday, August 7 to discuss his [book and website] Persuasive Games. He mentions in his post, paragraph 7, that there was a segment filmed with another guest that went not exactly as expected. This guest was Richard Branson, presumably on to discuss one of his Virgin America planes being named in honor Stephen, the "Air Colbert." [Editors's note: Hey, I saw this plane chillin' on the SFO tarmac on on August 8! So cool.]

Apparently Branson got upset he wasn't able to advertise as much, and poured his mug of water on Stephen.

Here is a recount from a member of the studio audience that night. He posted this comment on a Stephen Colbert fan site under the name Rocktimus Prime (Link):

"I haven’t posted a recap anywhere else, but I’ll spill it here first. Branson was apparently upset that he wasn’t able to give a direct plug to the new Virgin service and doused Colbert with his guest mug of water. Stephen was DRENCHED. He took a beat, then signalled for his own “ammunition” for about twenty seconds until Alison (Silverman) ran and gave him her bottle of water, and Stephen retaliated. The two of them sat for a VERY uncomfortable second looking like two wet cats. Then Stephen thanked him for coming. I really don’t think it was planned, since Stephen had another bit to introduce (the American Samoa Better Know a Protectorate) and a full interview left to do. They had to get him a new jacket and even broke out a blowdryer. Everyone in the crew had a “WTF?” reaction."

Also of note, during the interview with Ian Bogost, there is a visible crushed poland spring water bottle sitting on the mantle. After approximately 1 minute the cameraman on Bogost adjusted to a different odd angle so the bottle was out of shot. There is a screenshot of Bogost with the bottle behind him in his blog posting, the first link.

I realize since this segment hasn't aired, and may never air, it might not something you would all normally post, but it is a very interesting turn of events.

Link to Bogost's blog post.

And in shameless self-promotion news, hey look everyone! Colbert cited this BoingBoing post in last night's show, during a bit about Harry Potter and piracy! Here it is: Video Link ah, YouTube's pulled it, bummer. Can't find it on comedycentral.com. #%&*$^%*. (Thanks, Patricio López)

Previously on BoingBoing:

Supremely bad Harry Potter knockoff books from China and Japan

Getting high with Richard Branson: Virgin America's virgin flight

BoingBoing names a Virgin America plane: "Unicorn Chaser"

Reader comment: Ben Slater says,

weirdly enough this isn't the first time Branson has poured water over a talk-show host, about ten years ago he did the same thing to Clive Anderson on Channel 4 in the UK, when Anderson was mocking him on the bad rep of Virgin Airlines... Anderson's quick response was something like - "So this is what the service is like on your planes"... can't find that on youtube sadly.

Last year, I posted about underground filmmaker Patrick O'Brien who is suffering from a terminal disease called Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, AKA Lou Gehrig's Disease. With just a few years to live, Patrick is making a documentary about his experiences. Sales of the "beer in a feeding tube" poster seen below go to support the film and ALS research. And this Monday, August 13, the Patrick O'Brien Foundation is holding a fundraiser and party celebrating the release of "Everything Will Be Okay or How I Learned to Transcend Form, Live in the Now, and Make Love in my Electric Wheelchair," a DVD of excerpts from the feature length documentary he's still shooting. You can also buy the DVD online.

From the description:

Underground Filmmaker Patrick Sean O'Brien was looking for a story about the disabled, until a disability found him. O'Brien, seen by millions worldwide on TV and the internet, is known for his darkly humorous, controversial and sometimes disturbing films, animations and photographs. Now, for the first time on DVD, follow "The Notorious POB" on an odyssey from the short films that brought him so much notoriety, to the humbling search for truth in excerpts from his first feature length film.

Link (Thanks, Jemma Hostetler!)

Previously on BB:
• Beer in a feeding tube poster Link

Artists Xiaoqing Ding and Jason D'Aquino are showing new work at Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. The exhibition, titled "A Fine Line," opens tonight and runs through September 1. All of the pieces are viewable online. At left, D'Aquino's "March" (12" x 8.5", graphite on vintage paper). At right, Ding's "Act Two" (28" x 38", pastel on paper).

Link

My friend Mason Inman is in Pakistan for a month with his girlfriend Sarah who founded a company called SaafWater to provide affordable clean water for poor people in developing regions. Mason, a science writer for National Geographic News, New Scientist, and other publications, is blogging about his experiences in Pakistan. One of the things he noticed in use at hotels and also at the Karachi airport are homebrew "bomb detectors" like the one pictured here. From Mason's post:

...We were happy to wind up at the Chancery Executive Guesthouse, with a stout wall and two somewhat scary guards, who lounge around on plastic chairs holding snub-nosed shotguns.

Before our taxi drove into the grounds the first time, they searched under our car for bombs with this high-tech device. It's just a mirror on a stick, with a flashlight attached. This is what, in Sarah's field of work, is known as "appropriate technology": it's only as complicated as it needs to be, and it's easily fixable in-country.

Link

UPDATE: Thanks to all the readers who point out that similar devices are in use in the United States and many other places as well.

The excellent BibliOdyssey blog has a post up today about an original imprint of L. Frank Baum's The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, illustrated by William Wallace Denslow (1856-1915).

I first read this classic in this very form as a child. I've since lost possession of the book (was a really old copy) -- so these beautiful scans are bringing back many memories. Snip:

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was an innovative book not least because of the twenty four full colour plates and myriad monochromatic illustrations in which the colour changed according to the location in the story (Kansas = grey, Emerald City = green and so on). With the illustrative vignettes often encroaching on the text area, the type was cleverly printed over the top of the coloured images. Such elaborate printing techniques again required that Baum and Denslow fund the printing costs and the book was published by George M Hill and Company of Chicago and New York in 1900 for $1.50 per copy. It was apparently successful.

Each of the books in which Baum and Denslow collaborated was held in joint copyright and it was probably inevitable that these two successful and strongly individual types would end up having royalty conflicts. Denslow published magazine and book illustrations featuring characters from the Goose and Oz books without Baum's knowledge. The partnership ultimately ended over a dispute about the division of spoils from the Broadway musical of Oz in 1902. Denslow continued to produce many successful childrens books and with the fortune amassed from this and his previous work with Baum, he bought an island near Bermuda and installed himself as King, under the hippocampus flag.

Link.

You can buy a reprint of this version of the book, with Denslow's illustrations, on Amazon: Link.

Noah Shachtman at Wired's Danger Room blog reports,

Before they blog, upload a video to YouTube, or even play a game of World of Warcraft, members of the British military first have to get approval from superior officers, if there's any hint that defense matters might come up. That's according to a new set of rules issued by the U.K. Ministry of Defence...

Those rules and more analysis are here: Link.

The Eco-Media Player is a wind-up MP3/video player created by Trevor Baylis, inventor of the Freeplay wind-up radio. One minute of winding gives you 40 minutes of playback, and the device can also charge mobile phones and has a built-in flashlight. It plays mp3, wma, asf, wav, mp4, and has an FM radio, an analog recorder, and a photo-viewer. You can wind it for 20 hours' worth of playback. Link (via Shiny Shiny)

ti speech products

bent sound

tone shared

paper craft synths (image above)

reactable

buddha machine

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!).

After a great year in America courtesy of the Fulbright people, I'm leaving LA and moving home to London. Tomorrow (Saturday) I'm throwing a yard sale to get rid of all my beloved junque -- stuff I can't possibly lug home to my teensy London flat. If you're in or around Silver Lake, come on down and get some cheap stuff!

When: Saturday, August 11, 8AM-1PM
Where: 2618 Locksley Place, 90039, Los Angeles

Link

Today's Something Awful Photoshop Phriday theme is "Add Something" -- extra eyes on a frog, extra legs on a goose. Overall, this isn't one of the better Photoshop Phridays, but the best entries are absolute stunners: extra-teeth shark, triple-decker London bus, and Lady Liberty with two torches.

Link

This concept-camera from designer Hye-Jeong Yang is a clever way of reimagining panoramic photography: set it down on a flat surface and it will roll itself in a perfect circle, capturing and stitching pics as it goes. Link (via Gizmodo)

Hammacher Schlemmer's $200 animated Frankenstein's Monster stands five feet tall and writhes and plays music when you walk past it, a Hallowe'en version of the giant, scary animated Santas. The fact that you can buy this much plastic and human labor for two hundred bucks is a tribute to the awesome might of the WTO and the Chinese labor force -- now that all trade barriers have been dropped and labor rates seek out the lowest level on the planet, we are slowly exploring the entire problem-space of "3D objects made from plastic that Americans will pay for." Link (via Gizmodo)