Earlier this month, Mark posted that David Hahn, the "radioactive boy scout" who years ago tried to build a nuclear reactor in his basement, had been busted again. This time, he was nabbed for stealing smoke detectors allegedly to get at the bit of radioactive material inside for experimentation. For the back story on Hahn, check out Ken Silverstein's 1998 Harper's Magazine article "The radioactive boy scout: When a teenager attempts to build a breed reactor," now freely available on the magazine's Web site. And if the article doesn't satisfy your curiosity, Silverstein later expanded the feature into a book. From the article:

David’s parents admired his interest in science but were alarmed by the chemical spills and blasts that became a regular event at the Hahn household. After David destroyed his bedroom–the walls were badly pocked, and the carpet was so stained that it had to be ripped out–Ken and Kathy banished his experiments to the basement.

Which was fine with David. Science allowed him to distance himself from his parents, to create and destroy things, to break the rules, and to escape into something he was a success at, while sublimating a teenager’s sense of failure, anger, and embarrassment into some really big explosions. David held a series of after-school jobs at fast-food joints, grocery stores, and furniture warehouses, but work was merely a means of financing his experiments. Never an enthusiastic student and always a horrific speller, David fell behind in school. During his junior year at Chippewa Valley High School–at a time when he was secretly conducting nuclear experiments in his back yard–David nearly failed state math and reading tests required for graduation (though he aced the test in science). Ken Gherardini, who taught David conceptual physics, remembers him as an excellent pupil on the rare occasions when he was interested in classwork but otherwise indifferent to his studies. “His dream in life was to collect a sample of every element on the periodic table,” Gherardini told me with a laugh during an interview at Chippewa Valley before his 8:20 A.M. class. “I don’t know about you, but my dream at that age was to buy a car.”

Link to the Harper's article, Link to buy the book The Radioactive Boy Scout (Thanks, Vann Hall!)

In order to study how fear is manifested in the brain, researchers created a Pac-Man-like videogame that shocks the player if he or she gets caught by a digital predator. The scientists from University College London's Wellcome Trust Centre for Neuroimaging used fMRI to scan the players' brains and see which part lit up during gameplay. From a Wellcome Trust press release about the study, published in the journal Science:

When the artificial predator was in the distance, the researchers observed activity in lower parts of the prefrontal cortex just behind the eyebrows. Activity in this area – known as the ventromedial prefrontal cortex – increases during anxiety and helps control strategies on how to respond to the threat.

However, as the predator moved closer, the brain activity shifted to a region of the brain responsible for more primitive behaviour, namely the periaqueductal grey. The periaqueductal grey is associated with quick-response survival mechanisms, which include fight, flight and freezing. This region is also associated with the body's natural pain killer, opioid analgesia, preparing the body to react to pain.

"(An animal's) most efficient survival strategy will depend on the level of threat we perceive," (says researcher Dean Mobbs. "This makes sense as sometimes being merely wary of a threat is enough, but at other times we need to react quickly. The closer a threat gets, the more impulsive your response will be – in effect, the less free will you will have."

Link to press release, Link to Science abstract

The University of Minnesota Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies has scanned and published a full set of playing cards created in 1945 by an inmate at the Dachau concentration camp. They are the size of normal playing cards.

Boris Kobe (1905 - 1981) – Slovenian architect and painter was a political prisoner at the concentration camp of Allach, a sub-camp of Dachau. (...) As a whole, this work of art represents a visual summary of life in a concentration camp, the main vehicle of which consists of Kobe's tragic and humiliating sequences spiced with acrid humor. At the same time, this tiny exhibit is a miniature chronicle of the twilight of humanity brought about by Nazism, which regarded a human being, and therefore the artist himself, as a mere number.

Link. (Thanks, Yaffa)

Reader comments: Doug Rushkoff says,

FYI: It's not a full deck. it's most of a deck, but he either didn't finish it or some was lost.

Jody Wickson says,

The university's article unfortunately fails to put these cards in their proper context. The author seems to be unfamiliar with Tarot decks used for card games. This deck is based on a conventional Austrian style Tarot (or Tarock) design in which the trumps and court cards are double figured and the suit signs are hearts, spades, diamonds, and clubs. Link. This type of Tarot deck is not used for the occult or for divination. It is only used for playing Tarot/Tarock card games.

I am also disapointed that the "all about the occult" link is a very biased anti-occult sermon which is unrelated to the type of Tarot (gaming, not fortune telling) depicted in the article. The article gives the unfortunate and false impression that these cards were used for the occult. Not all of Tarot is related to the occult or fortune telling. In fact, Tarot cards were originally designed in the 15th century for playing a card game and the fortune telling practices date no earlier than the 18th century.

Here is a link which I think better explains the cultural context of this type of Tarot deck.

Here's a snip from a statement just released by World Organization for Human Rights USA, the group representing Chinese internet dissidents Shi Tao, Wang Xiaoning, and Wang’s wife, Yu Ling (Wang and Yu are shown above), in their lawsuit against Yahoo:

On Monday, August 27th, Yahoo!, Inc. will make its first formal response to the lawsuit filed against it by imprisoned Chinese journalist Shi Tao, pro-democracy advocate Wang Xiaoning, and other internet users. The political prisoners accuse Yahoo! of wrongfully providing their internet user information to the Chinese government, leading directly to their arbitrary arrest, long-term detention, and abuse and torture. This will be Yahoo!’s first statement to the court on the substantive issues raised by the case since the lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California in April 2007.

An Alternate History of the 21st Century is William Shunn's first short story collection, a chapbook from Spilt Milk Press. I've known Bill for a decade -- and even before we met, I'd heard the (true) legend of how he once threatened to blow up an airplane for the Church of Latter Day Saints. He's not only an incredible writer (and he really, really is, as his string of recent Hugo and Nebula nominations can attest), but he's also one of the sweetest, nicest, funniest people I know. It was my absolute honor and pleasure to write an intro to Bill's book. Here it is:

Bill Shunn is a legend in certain circles. Long before I met him, I'd had many people regale me with the story of how he once threatened to blow up an airplane in Canada on behalf of the Church of Latter Day Saints. The story -- incredible, hilarious, sad and instructive -- is too long to recount here. Suffice it to say that it ends with Bill getting a rectal probe from a Mountie, trying to convert a drunk in the tank to Mormonism, and then being deported from Canada as a terrorist (the whole thing is recounted in engrossing detail on Bill's website and podcast). In my mental shorthand, I thought of Bill as "that Mormon terrorist skiffy writer."

But once I met Bill, that changed. He was developing geo-hacker software for handheld computers -- this was before Big Bird hired him to program the computers at the Children's Television Network -- and he was nothing like my mental image. I'd expected someone with the fresh-faced earnestness of the door-to-door Mormons who'd roused me on Saturday mornings (albeit I also expected a mad, terrorist glint in his eye). What I found instead was a hip, ironic, funny guy that I took an immediate liking to. I introduced him immediately to my pal Karl Schroeder, a skiffy writer who comes from Mennonite stock, on the grounds that they'd probably have a lot to talk about. They did.

Bill emailed me on September 11, 2001. He'd set up a message-board CGI for survivors of the attack on the Twin Towers. Log on there and tell everyone you're OK. It was a heartbreaking thing. It filled with hundred -- thousands -- tens of thousands -- of messages. Not just "I'm OK," either. Lots of "I'm looking for my Dad, he works at --" Lots of political messages. Lots of anger. Lots of shock. It was Bill's little message board, but it became a flashpoint for the survivors of that terrible day.

Bill has the sure instincts of a twenty-first century science fiction writer. He is keenly attuned to the present (in the twenty-first century, there's no point in keeping track of the future). He recognizes those truly present-day moments that could only come now, today, in this futuristic present that we swim through without ever really seeing.

This extraordinary book is a journey through our present. From the bitingly political ("From Our Point of View We Had Moved to the Left") to the sad and personal ("Not of this Fold" -- a gorgeous novella about faith and humanity that could only have been written by a lapsed Mormon sf writer), and everything in between, this collection is the kind of thing that you can never un-read, a book that will awaken you to the present all around you.

Link

See also:
Love in the Time of Spyware
SF podcast: reality TV as criminal tracking-bracelets
Bill Shunn hasn't been excommunicated...yet.

Hmmm.... Hilton says the official announcement of Castro's death will come later today. Link (Thanks, Jane McGonigal!)

UPDATE: Meanwhile, other news sources report that there are no indications that Castro is dead or about to die. Link (Thanks, Xeni!)

UPDATE: The Miami Herald discusses the rumors that, so far, seem to be just that. Link

Deputy Dog posted an intriguing list of ten people who have modified their bodies in some pretty intense ways. Several are familiar freaks previously seen on BMEzine.com or various TV shows, but seeing them all together is quite a treat. Seen here, from left, Rick Genest, Elaine Davidson, and Kala Kaiwi.

Link

Well, that *is* monstrous. Reuters snip: "Monster.com waited five days to tell its users about a security breach that resulted in the theft of confidential information from some 1.3 million job seekers..." Link.

A new study reveals that female rhesus monkey use "baby talk" to communicate with infants. From National Geographic:

"You can't ask What does it mean?" (University of Chicago professor Dario) Maeustripier) said. "It doesn't mean anything. It's the intonation that matters."

But the sounds appear to serve a key purpose.

"They don't have a meaning linked to a representation of an item or object, but they may perform a very important social function to bring individuals together," said Lisa Parr of Yerkes National Primate Center at Atlanta's Emory University.

Link

Consumerist publishes a pretty wild first-person account from a guy who claims to have been forcibly detained and harassed by private security staff at electronics retailer TigerDirect. The shopper refused to show his receipt after his purchase. The security employee, an employee of Securitas, physically blocked the customer's exit and verbally abused him, according to the account. The customer called 911 and was released. No charges were filed.

Link (thanks, Mike Shea)

Update: Ben Popken at Consumerist says...

TigerDirect manager calls complainant to apologize, fire security guard, and pledge to retrain staff. TigerDirect EVP calls Consumerist to arrange for delivery of big batch of home-made FUD. The latter should take ethics lessons from the former. Link.

Alex Halavais says,

This is a follow-on to your TigerDirect story: a pdf of a brief statement you can hand to the guard who asks to see your receipt, making clear why you both will not show your receipt and how checking receipts is a bad business practice. Link.

A young boy stomped and killed a 10-foot-long python featured in a petting zoo at a Catholic school's festival in Cincinnati, Ohio. House of Reptiles owner Scott Braunstein had brought snakes, alligators, lizards, spiders, and frogs to the St. Bernadette Festival as he has done for several years. The boy apparently told Braunstein that he hated snakes before, allegedly, expressing his dislike in a much more physical manner. From the Associated Press:

"The next thing I know ... the kid raises his leg and stomps down on the snake's head," Braunstein said. "The snake started convulsing."

Braunstein said he saw a man grab the child and say, "This is why I don't take you anywhere," before disappearing.

Link

Are you Amy Winehouse? Link.

Creating an AIM profile: Link (xkcd.com).

R. Crumb explains how there is no hope. Link. Scanned from The Complete Crumb: Vol. 14.

Infinite loop detection. Link.

Periodic Table of Hong Kong. Link.

What Would George Bush Do? Link.

Vietnam vs. Iraq. Link.

The only one you'll ever need. Link.

Windows Vista Upgrade decisionmaking process. Link.

(thanks, AaronM, Ken, Emese Gaal, Brian)

Previously on BB:

Ironic internet flowchart flowchart

Flowchart skull

Flowchart: RIAA Lawsuit Decision Matrix

Flowchart: Is it f*cked up? What to do, if so.

Infographic: Criteria for proper tactical usage of phrase "Oh, Snap!"

Flowchart: Medieval sexual decisionmaking for penitentials

Panflute flowchart

...to charge a teenager for capturing 20 seconds of "Transformers" on her Canon Powershot, so she could share a video snippet with her kid brother.

[Update: BoingBoing readers' protest action, in the comments at the foot of this post.]

David Kravets at Wired News blogs:

Arlington County's top prosecutor, Richard E. Trodden, tells THREAT LEVEL he was pressured by Regal Entertainment Group, the world's largest movie exhibitor, to prosecute a 19-year-old Virginia woman for filming 20 seconds of Transformers.

"What they were saying, 'Could you get her to admit that it wasn't right.' They wanted to make sure the message gets out," Trodden said in a telephone interview Wednesday. "This was kind of trying to address the concerns of the theater people, and the fact that it was not an outrageous crime."

Trodden, pictured [here], said he spoke with Randy Smith, Regal's general counsel. Messages left for Smith at the company's Knoxville, Tennessee headquarters were not immediately returned.

Jhannet Sejas, 19, pleaded guilty last week in Arlington County General District Court to one misdemeanor count of filming a motion picture in a movie house owned by Regal Cinemas. The statute, like the 37 others nationwide sponsored by the motion picture industry, deems filmgoers guilty for filming a "portion" or a "portion thereof" of a movie.

Link.

Reader comment: Jon M says,

In light of the ridiculous action being taken against the 19-year old who took a 20 second clip of the transformers movie, it seems that maybe some boing boing readers should make a project out of filming the entire transformers movie at regal theaters using only cell phones or digital still cameras and afterwards, editing the film together as seamlessly as possible. This is sheer absurdity but a kick in the pants as well. I'd love to send a version of it to Regal so they see that no 'pirate' would steal a movie that way in order to distribute.

Nick says,

If people want to start sending clips to chatfieldtaylor@gmail.com, I'll start to edit the cellphone transformers movie together. Rough timecodes would help, but I'm sure I could just line it up to a street bought copy.

Robotech Master says,

I'd suggest mentioning that anybody who participates in the "tape the movie" protest be prepared to face the same sort of penalties as the person whose charging they are protesting. If they are prepared to be arrested in the name of freedom, like the passive resisters of the 1960s, more power to them, but they should go into it fully aware of what might happen.

(Personally, judging from the number of camcorded movies that haunt BitTorrent these days, I'm doubtful that the protest would have any efficacy. Perhaps people wouldn't *prefer* to watch movies that way, but all evidence suggests that they'll do it anyway.)

Nick says,

In Response to Robotech Master, I suggest that everyone buy a ticket to another movie and then sneak in to Transformers in order to film it.

Chronicle Books will soon publish Van Halen: a Visual History to coincide with the band's reunion tour. Image above from that book, shot by Neil Zlozower. Here's my favorite DLR interview ever, from the post-punk fanzine WET: Link (previous BB post). It was a dueling interview layout, DLR vs. Johnny Rotten. DLR won. Did you know he once trained to be a paramedic?

Stooping to New Lows Department: I ended up in an ABC World News segment about a new version of Facebook for cats and dogs. WNT site doesn't have the video, but this affiliate station posted it: Video Link. Shut up.

Scott Beale says, "Check it out, BART [the SF Bay Area underground train system] is requiring SFShenanigans to get a free speech permit for their Christmas in August on BART event. If not, they're going to send in the BART police. Amazing how much things have changed in the last decade. What if they were doing a Mime Flash Mob, then would they need a free speech permit?" Link. UPDATE: BART representative Linton Johnson has just responded to the criticism: Link.

A documentary film about artist Steve Kurtz' "bioterrorism" case is now opening in theaters around the country. Link. Previous BB posts about his case here.

It Came From Airport Security, the anthology announced about a year ago of fiction based on new security measures at airports, is now available (and is forwardthinkingly licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5).

The new Sony Bio Battery is powered by glucose from grape juice and sports drinks. Link (via ubergizmo).

Conceptual artist Jonathon Keats produces pornography for houseplants, "featuring uncensored acts of explicit pollination, filmed in photosynthetic silhouette for projection onto the exposed foliage of bushes and brambles..." Link.

MUTHR NACHR'S HARBL? A tumbleweed lies lodged in Upper Antelope Canyon, in Antelope Canyon Navajo Tribal Park outside of Page, Arizona. Photo link.

Listening to: some kinda M.I.A., Topknot, Cornershop remix here, MP3 Link.

Twitter updates from Burning Man: Link.

(thanks, Susannah Breslin, Scott Beale, Jeff Reynolds, guinevere harrison, C. Glen Williams, Henrik)

Jody Radzik of the always-illuminating Guruphiliac blog says, "Here's an excellent explanation, deconstruction and debunking of that claptrap "The Secret." From "The Wrath of the Secretrons" by Connie L. Schmidt:

f you’re at all familiar with The Secret, you know that the big secret revealed therein is a centuries-old principle called the law of attraction, or LOA. In The Secret LOA is presented as a scientific law akin to the law of gravity. LOA believers maintain that whether we realize it or not, we “attract” everything that happens to us – the good and the bad, the sublime and the silly, the comical and the tragic. Financial success or failure, health or illness, a life of peace or one beset by violent crime or natural disasters, all occur because we somehow attracted them. Proponents of LOA explain that this happens because our vibrations are in sync with the events in question. If we learn to focus on the good and ignore the bad, we will “raise our vibrations” and attract more good things into our lives – including, and some would say especially, material goodies.

There does seem to be a great deal of emphasis on material wealth in The Secret, and this is by design, according to the producers, since so many people these days are interested in getting rich. The story goes that Rhonda Byrne, the main creator and producer of The Secret, was originally inspired by a 1910 book called The Science of Getting Rich, one of many books by success/motivational writer Wallace D. Wattles (1860-1911). Wattles, who believed a fulfilling life was not possible without wealth, wrote that a “normal” person cannot help wanting to be rich, and that if you don’t become rich, “you are derelict in your duty to God, yourself and humanity.” Although he did not mention the law of attraction by name in the book, he alluded to it: “It is a natural law that like causes produce like effects.” He added, “Once you learn and obey these laws, you will get rich with mathematical certainty.”

I think it worthy of note that Wattles, who died at a relatively young age, did not die rich. Perhaps he failed to do the math...

The reason for featuring (Joe) Vitale, (John) Gray, (John) Demartini and other successful self-help gurus in The Secret is, obviously, to convince watchers that these people became successful because they learned how to use the law of attraction in their favor. Never mind the years of trial and error, hard work and dumb luck, that got them to where they are now. Steve Salerno, author of the book SHAM: How The Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, wrote in his review of The Secret on Amazon: “One seldom encounters a better/worse example of the logical fallacy known as a posteriori reasoning. To take a successful person, look backwards at the attitudes they held on the way to becoming successful, then use those as proof-positive of WHY they’re successful, is as fundamentally silly as using the fact that Bill Gates and Ted Turner were college dropouts as justification for why you or your kids should drop out of college, too. (‘See? You’ll become a millionaire, just like they did!’).”

Link

UPDATE: My friend Adam Parfrey and Maja D'Aoust co-wrote a new Secret-busting book, The Secret Source, that's currently at the printer. Here's an excerpt:

Says teacher David Schirmer within The Secret:

"When I first understood The Secret, every day I would get a bunch of bills in the mail. I thought, “How do I turn this around?” The law of attraction states that what you focus on you will get, so I got a bank statement. I whited out the total, and I put a new total in there. I put exactly how much I wanted to see in the bank. So I thought, “What if I just visualized checks coming in the mail?” So I just visualized a bunch of checks coming in the mail. Within just one month, things started to change. It is amazing: today I just get checks in the mail. I get a few bills, but I get more checks than bills.”

Another thing Mr. Schirmer received in the mail was notification from the Australian Securities and Investments Commission in July, 2007, that he would be investigated for false promises made to investors who lost tens of thousands of dollars entrusted to a revered teacher from The Secret."

Adam adds "What's different about Maja's and my book from (Schmidt's critique that you link to above) is that we explore the original gnostic and hermetic writings that spun out the alchemical, Rosicrucian, New Thought movement and Prosperity Consciousness ideas that "The Secret" grabs from in a selective and reductionist way." Here's more from our book:

Here, too, we must keep in perspective that fact that the acquisition of wealth is not necessarily a “benefit,” and wouldn't solve one’s deepest problems. In the ancient alchemical and Hermetic teachings, we are taught the opposite, not to go about getting everything we want, but rather, to frustrate our desires by not giving in to them. Carl Jung extrapolates on this Hermetic concept in his works on psychology and alchemy. It is precisely the frustration of desires that creates enough tension and heat to power the calcinatio stage of the alchemical operation itself:

The necessary frustration of desirousness or concupiscence is the chief feature of the calcinatio stage. First the substance must be located; that is, the unconscious unacknowledged desire, demand, expectation must be recognized and affirmed. The instinctual urge that says “I want” and “I am entitled to do this” must be fully accepted by the ego ... As a rule, life reality, if faced, provides plenty of occasions for the calcinatio of frustrated desirousness ... when denied, it becomes enraged. This is the psychological homologue of the “Divine Wrath” that roasted Christ. Reality often generates fire by challenging or denying the demanding expectations of such desires. Denied justification, the frustrated desire becomes the fire of calcinatio ... the fire of calcinatio purges these identifications and drives off the root.

On a personal level, the expectation of easy riches combined with a sense of absolute entitlement indicates stunted psychological growth and a sense of failure if desires remain unfulfilled. And it should go without saying that the Prosperity Consciousness message, that everyone is entitled to fulfill all their consumerist desires without restriction gnores the fact that our small planet has its physical limitations and is currently in the throes of potentially cataclysmic reactions against its six billion six hundred million human occupants, whether prosperous or not.

Link

[926AM PT] Using abundant quantities of the liquid fuel source shown above, a very dedicated group of Apple fans have documented steps they took to unlock the Apple iPhone's chains to AT&T: Link.

They implemented both hardware and software changes, and in doing so, proved that the device can be modified to permanently function with other network carriers.

Snip from Apple Insider post:

Calling their project Finding JTAG after the Joint Test Action Group standard used to test access ports on circuit boards, the hobbyists claim to have refined a surefire but dangerous ten-step process that allows the iPhone to use an unmodified SIM card from T-Mobile or other GSM cellular networks.

More in this AP account:

George Hotz, 17, confirmed Friday that he had unlocked an iPhone and was using it on T-Mobile's network, the only major U.S. carrier apart from AT&T that is compatible with the iPhone's cellular technology.

While the possibility of switching from AT&T to T-Mobile may not be a major development for U.S. consumers, it opens up the iPhone for use on the networks of overseas carriers.

"That's the big thing," said Hotz, in a phone interview from his home in Glen Rock.

Here's the Finding JTAG group's website: Link. (thanks, Jason Tester, via David Pescovitz!)

[1016AM PT] Reader comment: A.V. says,

In the last PC Magazine, AT&T has promised to "pursue" anyone who unlocks their iPhone... don't they have to allow unlocks by FCC law?

Mike

Engadget just confirmed that there is, in fact, a working software hack to unlock the iPhone.

Bo Stewart says,

The unlocked iPhone on ebay: Link.

BoingBoing reader Mike Miner shares the infographic above with all Boingdom and says, "If this keeps up one more day, LOLcharts are next." Image created by Emma Segal of Toronto.

Update: BB reader Nelson fulfills the prophecy. "A link to a cheezburger flowchart on my photobukkit."

Update 2: Brian Van Nieuwenhoven shares the epic LOLcat flowchart below. If only it contained steampunk, or papercraft Star Wars iPhone cozies.

Previously on BB:

Flowchart skull

Flowchart: RIAA Lawsuit Decision Matrix

Flowchart: Is it f*cked up? What to do, if so.

Infographic: Criteria for proper tactical usage of phrase "Oh, Snap!"

Flowchart: Medieval sexual decisionmaking for penitentials

Panflute flowchart

More in this Cornell university newspaper account: Link (Thanks to several people for this one).

Reader comment: Pamela sez, "I think NCState has Cornell beat: Link."

* martini
* absinthe
* i claudius drinking game
* beer
* bruisin ales
* champagne
* drinks planet

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

Image above: Manuscript for "The Green Goddess," an homage to absinthe by Aleister Crowley. You can buy prints of this scan here. You can buy the book here: Amazon Link.

Scott sez, "This week's short story on [science fiction short-story podcast] Escape Pod is The Sundial Brigade, a short story from the Glorifying Terrorism collection. That book was originally written to protest the 2006 UK Terrorism Act. As Steve notes in the intro, the book is sold out, so this is a great chance to listen to a story you might not be able to read otherwise." Link (Thanks, Scott!)

See also: Glorifying Terrorism - Brit sf writers break the law

Update: Leah sez, "I just wanted to let you know that contrary to the item posted on 'Glorifying Terrorism' being sold out, there are about six copies still available at Bakka-Phoenix Books in Toronto -- we'll be happy to send them out to anyone who's interested in getting a physical copy of that story."

Today on the Something Awful Photoshop Phriday contest: grindhouse-style posters for breakfast cereals. Link

See also: Movie posters redone in "grindhouse" style

Today I happened upon a display of Nid Kelly's ceramic robots at a shop in Melbourne. Kelly's robots have a rough, textured finish, but they look like plastic at first glance -- it was a small and delightful shock to pick one up and realize it was clay, not vinyl. The underlying forms are just great, real essence du robot, and the whimsical decor makes a great counterpoint to the serious, nearly Soviet robot shapes. Link

Last weekend was Bat's Day in the Fun Park, the annual goth day at Disneyland. I attended last year and had a ball -- thousands of goths converged on the Happiest Place on Earth, trying not to grin as they ambled through the environs in their fishnets and white makeup. It looks like this year's event was even bigger -- the LA Weekly has a slideshow of shots, and Flickr's Batsday tag is a clicktrance's worth of goodness. Link (Thanks, Scott!)

(Photo credit: Main event gathering, a Creative Commons-licensed photo, ganked from dj drüe's Flickr photostream)