"Making Sense of Marcel Duchamp" is a wonderful interactive trip through the life and work of the artist whose ideas redefined the meaning of art forever. The site, created by Andrew Stafford, is several years old but the content is as young as tomorrow. From "Making Sense of Duchamp," this description of the piece Bicycle Wheel (1913):

Bicycle Wheel was the first of a class of objects that Duchamp called his "readymades." He created twenty-one of them, all between 1915 and 1923. The readymades are a varied collection of items, but there are several ideas that unite them.

The readymades are experiments in provocation, the products of a conscious effort to break every rule of the artistic tradition. in order to create a new kind of art -- one that engages the mind instead of the eye, in ways that provoke the observer to participate and think.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Duchamp's Fountain attacked with a hammer Link
• Not a pisser Link
• Smithsonian magazine on Dada Link

The Droste effect is the modern name of a recursive visual effect most famously used by the artist MC Escher. There are hundreds of fantastic Droste effect photos in the Flickr pool "Escher's Droste Print Gallery." You can create your own by following Flickr user Pisco Bandito's tutorial. (Seen here, Bandito's "I've Opened Myself To You.") From the Wikipedia entry on the Droste effect:

The 'Droste effect' is a Dutch term for a specific kind of recursive picture, one that in heraldry is termed mise en abyme. An image exhibiting the Droste effect depicts a smaller version of itself in a place where a similar picture would realistically be expected to appear. This smaller version then depicts an even smaller version of itself in the same place, and so on. Only in theory could this go on forever, but practically it continues only as long as the resolution of the picture allows, which is relatively short, since each iteration exponentially reduces the picture's size.

The term was coined by the poet and columnist Nico Scheepmaker at the end of the 1970s. It is named after Droste, a Dutch brand of cocoa, whose box has a picture of a nurse carrying a serving tray with a cup of hot chocolate and a box of the same brand of cocoa.

Link to Escher's Droste Print Gallery on Flickr, Link to Droste Effect Tutorial (via Neatorama)

Charles Ferguson made the Iraq documentary No End in Sight with money he earned when he sold his startup company to Microsoft. Snip from Joe Garofoli's feature in the San Francisco Chronicle about Ferguson's film (distributed by Magnolia Pictures), his message about Iraq, and the start of his new career:

In 1996, Charles Ferguson sold the startup company he founded to Microsoft for $133 million. He was 41, had $14 million worth of growing Microsoft stock in his pocket after paying off investors - and was thoroughly exhausted after barely sleeping the previous year. Then for the next eight years, he wrestled with the question that relatively young entrepreneurs rarely consider until they hit it big:

Now what do I do?

"For quite a while I didn't know," said Ferguson, as he looked out a window of the book-filled two-bedroom Berkeley home near Strawberry Canyon where he has lived since before he struck gold. While he was hardly idle during that time - he wrote two books, including the scathing "High Stakes, No Prisoners" (1999) about his startup experience, traveled and served at the Brookings Institution think tank - he felt unfulfilled. He couldn't sleep, and felt himself growing too dependent on sleeping pills that left him feeling dopey. And for a man who thinks at warp speed, that wouldn't do.

A little more than two years ago, Ferguson said he started to "get my energy back." What germinated during his hibernation was "No End in Sight," a documentary about how the United States has botched the occupation of Iraq. It opens Friday in the Bay Area after winning the special jury prize for a documentary at the Sundance Film Festival this year and garnering largely rave reviews in New York, where it opened last month.

Link to SFGate article. Link to No End in Sight website. The movie is playing in some cities now, and opening in more around the US throughout this month. (Thanks, Wayne Correia)

9/11-themed CGI terror-rotica: Link, another Link. Flesh, by Edouard Salier. (mildly NSFW, some stylized CGI nudity) I don't know that I'm a fan of it, or not, just fascinated that it exists and evidently floats some people's boats.

Foot and mouth disease outbreak in the UK probably originated with viruses "that escaped somehow from a pair of veterinary laboratories where vaccines are made." Link (NYT)

Monsoon rains this year in India, Bangladesh and Nepal are causing some of the worst floods in decades. 19 million people have been displaced, roughly the entire population of NY state, or nearly the entire population of Sri Lanka. By comparison: Hurricane Katrina scattered about a million Americans, and that was the largest US population displacement in 150 years. Ennis Singh Mutinywale at Sepia Mutiny has more: Link.

On August 28, a colorful eclipse of the full moon will occur. Link.

After a teen was arrested for recording a 20-second clip of Transformers in a movie theater (to share with a family member, for personal use), many are now calling for a boycott of Regal Cinemas: Link.

8-foot-tall man made out of Legos washes up on a beach in Amsterdam: Link.

Hurry, hide your cats. Google Street View vehicles are now surveilling and snapping in four new cities: San Diego (high-res), Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando: Link.

Geeksugar takes a peek inside the newly renovated video-game-themed hotel in San Francisco's Japantown district, Hotel Tomo. Link to review.

(thanks, Siege, Dave Markland, Callum!)

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has a post with a bunch of interesting WWII propaganda posters. Link

Steve Jurvetson's Flickr stream is always full of awe-inspiring images. Above, a photo he uploaded yesterday:

I head out to Cape Canaveral this evening for the STS-118 launch. Will bring cameras. Barbara Morgan has waited 22 years for this launch as part of the Teacher-in-Space program. Mission specialist Tracy Caldwell is also making her first spaceflight on STS-118 (Space.com) This photo shows one of our payload mascots getting some fresh air in the Black Rock Desert before her flight.

Link.

The NASA Shuttle Endeavor launch is scheduled to take place tomorrow, Wednesday August 8, 2007, at 6:36:36 p.m. EDT. Here's coverage on Space.com. Here's the NASA mission website.

Representative Bob Allen, a Republican in the Florida House of Representatives, blamed the weather and his fear of black men for offering $20 to perform oral sex on a man in a public park. The man turned out to be an undercover police officer, who promptly arrested Allen.

365gay has more on what happened:

Titusville Officer Danny Kavanaugh who was on plainclothes duty says he observed Allen entering the washroom twice. Kavanaugh said he was drying his hands in a stall when Allen peered over the stall door.

The officer's report said that after peering over the stall a second time, Allen pushed open the door and joined Kavanaugh inside. Allen muttered "'hi,'v" and then said, "'this is kind of a public place, isn't it,'" the report said.

Kavanaugh wrote that he asked Allen about going somewhere else and Allen suggested going "across the bridge, it's quieter over there."

"Well look, man, I'm trying to make some money; you think you can hook me up with 20 bucks?" Kavanaugh wrote in the report that he had asked Allen.

The Republican lawmaker, the report said, replied, "Sure, I can do that, but this place is too public."

According to Kavanaugh's statement, the officer said, "do you want just (oral sex)?" and Allen replied, "I was thinking you would want one."

It was at that point Allen was arrested.

Towleroad.com reports:

When Allen was loaded into the patrol car, the statement said, he asked if "it would help" that he was a state legislator.

"No," the officer said.

Soon after taking office in 2001, Allen was one of 21 Florida legislators to sign Gov. Jeb Bush's friend-of-the-court brief supporting the state's ban on gays adopting children.

In March, he co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill that would have enhanced penalties for "offenses involving unnatural and lascivious acts" such as indecent exposure.

The Florida Times Union reports: "In his seven years in the Legislature Rep. Bob Allen of Merritt Island has built up a 92 percent approval rating with the Christian Coalition of Florida on issues like abortion, marriage and pornography." Link

Kevin Kelly shares with us a piece of spam he's received from Andrew Keen, the Web 1.0 dot-bomber who recently reincarnated as professional troll and spokesdouche for internet-fearing reactionaries everywhere. Mr. Kelly explains:

Here is not the first unsolicited advert I have gotten from him. The denouncer of All That Is Evil With The Internet is himself guilty of the worst scourge in modern times.

Below, a screengrab of part of the loathsome spam (Link to larger size). See also Kevin's epic trouncing of the sender on Jewcy: Link. Listen to Annalee Newitz whup his ass in a similarly unfair battle of wits (hint: only one of the two participants has any): Link, segment is in the 8am hour.

Previously on BB:

Andrew Keen compliments Boing Boing in WSJ

Shirky explains why Keen is a Luddite

The internet is impurifying our precious bodily fluids, Mandrake

Bob says:

I don't even know where to start describing this story [from a 1995 edition of the New York Times Magazine]. It's completely insane. It involves nude photos of George Bush, Sally Quinn, Miss Manners, Hillary Rodham, Bob Woodward, Brandon Tartikoff, and Meryl Streep, among thousands of others. But not just nude photos of these people. Photos of them with metal pins glued to their spines. Taken during their freshman orientation, at the direction of a eugenicist and somatacist who once wrote that "Negro intelligence comes to a standstill at about the 10th year."

I'm not sure what my favorite thing about this story is. Possibly it's the way that halfway through, the writer (Ron Rosenbaum), deciding that we need a little break from the sideshow freaks, brings out the geek (Camille Paglia), lets her bite the head off of a chicken or two, and then continues with the story.

Link

The Great Happiness Space - Tale of an Osaka Love Thief (2006) is a documentary on the lives of "host club" workers in Japan -- sharp-dressed, good-looking 20something guys who are paid to make women feel loved. No, not to perform sex acts, but to feel cared for.

My friend Eduardo Sciammarella, who spends a lot of time in Japan and recently pointed me to the film, says: "People look for love and will pay anything for it, even when they know they are being deceived and in turn deceiving. If you could capture the business model documented in this film into an online social network, you'd have something worth easily 10 times the projected value of Facebook."

Director Jake Clennel describes how he came to make this film, after spending time in Osaka on another project:

I eventually met some hosts. And after I had been to a few clubs I became very struck by just how charming these people were, it was always very nice to sit down and have a drink with them.

There is a raw charisma that through a sort of natural selection tends to be present in a successful host. The hosts experience reminded me of my experience when working with astronauts at N.A.S.A. They were a special and talented group of people who could be counted on to handle intense, prolonged, interpersonal contact and be friendly and cool despite the stress and being in a noisy space ship. Which is a little like being in a host club where the hosts only make money if they can maintain their charm and be engaging while selling champagne at $500 a bottle.

As the scene became clear, it became apparent that their customers were also professionals in the charm business. The situation in the club was a new phenomenon. Gender roles are constantly changing around the World and here it was happening in the extreme.

Tokyomango has a post about it here: Link. You can watch the entire film on Google Video: video Link. (directed by Jake Clennel, 1:15, in Japanese with English subtitles).

Reader comment: Greg Conley says,

The host club is likely familiar to people outside of Japan through an anime that aired fairly recently (and the source material manga that's already published in America), called Ouran High Host Club. Here's a wikipedia entry: Link. It alters the situation a little; a club in a high school forms their own club on the grounds, but it works on the same premise, that charming young men entertain ladies. There's a sample of the manga online here: Link (requires flash)

Gitai R. Ben-Ammi says,

For another interesting look at host bars in Japan, check out Shinjuku Boys. There are a number of host bars in the Shinjuku district of Tokyo that are staffed exclusively by FTM transsexuals. Shinjuku Boys is a documentary about those bars.

Charlie says: "Your recent entry on Freakonomics and street gangs reminded me of this documentary on YouTube: 80 Blocks From Tiffany's, in 8 parts (part one submitted here) chronicles gang activity and block life in the South Bronx in the late 1970s and is well worth a look."

Members of the Puerto Rican gangs (aka "clubs") Savage Nomads and Savage Skulls are interviewed. Great opening song! Link

Adam Aviv says:

Prof. Matt Bishop of UC Davis, author of An Introduction to Computer Security, describes his recent work of hacking the California voting machines for the California Department of State on "Talk of the Nation Science Friday" on NPR.

Lo and behold, the voting machines have physical and software flaws, but of course, as seen before, the tallying software also has many flaws as well. He also makes a wonderful argument to allow independent researchers, hackers, to access and analyze systems in order to fix them.

It is a fascinating interview covering a wide range of topics surrounding the voting machine issues, but he also takes time to describe, in very understandable terms, the many intricacies of computer security in general. A must listen.

Link

Reader comment:

Andy Fell, Science Writer, UC Davis News Service says:

I see you just blogged about Matt Bishop's Red Team exercise on the California voting machines. I thought his NPR interview was pretty good too.

I've been helping Prof Bishop with the press on this and also writing about it on our blog, egghead. One of the interesting things I think is how much the local election officials are complaining and pushing back... Except for our own clerk here in Yolo County, Freddie Oakley. Oakley and Bishop happen to be friends, and she early on got him involved in getting their electronic voting machines up and running and getting security in place. And she’s enlisted comp sci students from UC Davis to help out with the machines on voting day.

“God bless ‘em, but my colleagues all over the state are panicking and I’m not,” she told the Davis Enterprise.

When traditional physicians refused to castrate Russell Daniel Angus, a 62-year-old St. Paul, Minnesota man who complained of chronic pain, he apparently hired several unknown "professionals" to conduct the surgery at his home. When Angus awoke after the operation, the "professionals" had split and he was bleeding heavily from his testicle-free groin. Angus was taken to the hospital but refused to provide police with the names of his medical providers. From the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune:

When police arrived, they found a makeshift operating room set up in the upper level of the house. There were bright lights, an apparent operating table, medical supplies and equipment, and a camera. Angus was still bleeding, and there was blood in the living room, hall and bathroom, ( a search warrant) affidavit said.

Link (via Fortean Times)

Previously on BB:
• Basement cosmetic surgery clinic busted Link

UPDATE: BB reader Megan Dooley writes, "I thoought your readers might be interested in the movie American Eunuch. It's fascinating in a looking-through-the-fingers way." Link

Above, scan of a Civil War era illustrated envelope. The New York Historical Society's online collection contains hundreds more.

The printed envelope came into use in America in 1840 and was first used for advertising or satirical purposes. In the 1850s to 1860s 'corner cards,' with printing applied in the upper left-hand side of the front of the envelope, were common. By the onset of the Civil War, printed envelopes were already in use as a propaganda medium.

Found via BibliOdyssey, which offers a great introductory post with links to other online collections of 19th century envelope art: Link.

The popularity of blogging may reach its peak in 2007, at which point there may be as many as 100 million bloggers online -- according to a newly released Gartner report. Ars Technica has an analysis post up:

Chief Gartner fellow Daryl Plummer pointed out that "a lot of people have been in and out of this thing. Everyone thinks they have something to say, until they're put on stage and asked to say it." Indeed, most people who start blogs don't keep them up forever, and Gartner says that there are now 200 million ex-bloggers.

Link.

Also out today, a Communications Industry Forecast report (Link) which predicts that online advertising will be the largest ad sector by 2011, outpacing dead-tree newspapers and broadcast television. Adario Strange at Wired News sees flaws in this report and others like it, and blogs:

As for the future of newspapers, that's where this report, and many others like it, experienced a blind spot. The near-future emergence of electronic paper as the new medium of newspapers continues to go mostly ignored by analysts who should know better. Newspapers and magazine won't die, but the materials we use to read them will.

Link

If this item in the New York Post is true, there will soon be much cause for celebration. The days of the New York Times' online paywall are said to be numbered, and few at that: Link. Maybe next they'll stop cockblocking readers with those annnoyingly truncated RSS previews. Full feeds or go home, guys.

Nifty $99 iPod speaker for bike (clips to water bottle holder). Link

Merlin Mann discovers awesome movies at Archive.org. Link

Writer for Money magazine knocks on rich peoples' doors and asks them how they got rich. Link

1977 ad for Apple computer. Note turtleneck on man. Link

Video -- Headstone for woman's beloved pet dog, named Shithead, upsets other pet cemetary plot owners. Link

Nifty electronic art -- the Touch Box. "When left on its own the display randomly displays patterns and alphanumeric characters that dissolve by way of some random shenanigans. It also picks colors randomly from a set that I have deemed aesthetically pleasing." Link

Researchers extracted 8-million-year-old bacteria from an Antarctica glacier, resuscitated it, and are now watching it grow in a petri dish. From New Scientist:

Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University, who led the study, describes the ancient bacteria as small round cells that had been in a "suspended state of animation for 8 million years". He says the increasingly rapid flow of glaciers into the ocean as a result of global warming could release new organisms into the sea but he does not believe this is cause for concern because marine bacteria and viruses are typically far less harmful to human health than, for instance, those found on land.

Link (Thanks, Sean Ness!)

Doctors in Berlin have removed a pencil that had been lodged in Margaret Wegner's skull for fifty years. As a child, she tripped while holding the pencil and it went right into her noggin. From The Belfast Telegraph:

The pencil missed an artery and nerve endings in the brain by a whisker. Doctors at the time deemed it too risky to operate. That remained the consensus among many doctors over the years but the large part of the pencil was finally removed.

The 2cm tip is still embedded. It has been overgrown by nerves and blood cells which are too dangerous to cut through.

Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

A new law passed in haste by Congress over the weekend and signed into law by President Bush on Sunday expands the government’s ability to spy on the phone calls and e-mails of US citizens -- no warrants required:

Congressional aides and others familiar with the details of the law said that its impact went far beyond the small fixes that administration officials had said were needed to gather information about foreign terrorists. They said seemingly subtle changes in legislative language would sharply alter the legal limits on the government’s ability to monitor millions of phone calls and e-mail messages going in and out of the United States

Link to story in the NYT by James Risen.

At Wired News Threat Level blog, Ryan Singel has analysis:

The bill, known as the Protect America Act, removes the prohibition on warrantless spying on Americans abroad and gives the government wide powers to order communication service providers such as cell phone companies and ISPs to make their networks available to government eavesdroppers. (...)

Prior to the law's passage, the nation's spy agencies, such as the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency, didn't need any court approval to spy on foreigners so long as the wiretaps were outside the United States.

Now, those agencies are free to order services like Skype, cell phone companies and arguably even search engines to comply with secret spy orders to create back doors in domestic communication networks for the nation's spooks. While it's unclear whether the wiretapping can be used for domestic purposes, the law only requires that the programs that give rise to such orders have a "significant purpose" of foreign intelligence gathering.

Link