Last week, I wrote about Britain's high-security Fareham Shopping Centre, a high-value target where photography has been banned for "security reasons" -- this is the site where a pair of middle aged grandparents were banned for life as "terrorists" for taking a picture of their grandchildren.

Now, crack operative Matthew Fowler has penetrated the security perimeter around this facility with a hidden camera and smuggled out a reel of strategic photographs of the mall, including this (upside-down) map, which, incredibly, shows the location of the local Boots outlet and the Woolworth's store! With this kind of high-value intel, the Fareham Centre will be ours!

Agent Fowler has also provided us with a riveting walk-through video that reveals many key tactical elements of the structure, from the sort of chairs provided in the food court to the kind of tennis-shoes you need to wear if you want to blend in with the native population.

Tremble, Fareham Shopping Centre! I know not where you are, and care less, but still, you will be mine! Hahahahahahahaahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaha! Hahahahahahahahahaha! Link to images, Link to video

See also: UK mall bans grandparents for trying to photo their grandkids

This footage from an Indian traffic cam depicts some of the most skillful, hair-raising, gutsy and balletic lane-changing and merging I've ever seen. It's like watching a hive-organism coordinate some kind of distributed intelligence dance. Link (via Making Light)

China Daily reports that a cab driver has been ripping off his fares by employing a man to hide in the cab's trunk and steal stuff out of the luggage.

About halfway home, the driver received an “urgent call” and told Lei that he would have to drop her off and turn back. He waived her fee, unloaded her luggage and helped her get another taxi.

When she returned home, Lei discovered that her notebook computer had been removed from her luggage and called police.

After a month-long investigation, police determined that the driver had hid somebody in the trunk specifically to steal luggage. Both the driver and the “trunk man” were arrested.

Link

Warren Ellis's profane and angry take on the Three Laws of Robotics is good reading -- especially if you envision the future as an organic process where "laws" are emergent phenomena arising from lots of individual, uncoordinated actors (e.g., the Internet) instead of a centrally planned affair contrived by Wise Men in white robes (the Foundation).

2. Robots do not want to have sex with you. Are you listening, Japan? I don’t have a clever comparative simile for this, because frankly you bags of meat will fuck bicycles if they’re laying down and not putting up a fight. Just stop it. There is no robot on Earth that wants to see a bag of meat with a small prong on the end approaching it with a can of WD-40 and a hopeful smile. And don’t get me started on that terrifying hole that squeezes out more bags of meat.

Link

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels -- this decor-encrusted dashboard of a Singapore taxi. This is apparently an infamous cab among the locals (at least everyone I showed it to immediately recognized it), and it's quite a contrast from the usual super-neat and tidy S'pore cab. I enjoyed the hell out of it, though. Link

Link (via Digg)

Elizabeth sez, "Almost all apartments have coat closets. Very few have TARDISes. For the New Year, my roommates and I converted our normal coat closet into our very own time-travelling space ship disguised as a blue police box. And now we can bask in the glow of the time vortex held within whenever we want to. Pictures, and a description of the creation process, are on my blog." Link (Thanks, Elizabeth!)

Mike Huckabee may have won the Iowa primary, but does he really think that Canada's Parliament resides in a "national igloo?" Rick Mercer's comedic Canadian TV show "Talking to Americans" (asking people on the streets of US cities nonsensical questions about Canada to see if they call shenanigans or whether they become genuinely alarmed at the idea that, say, the Canadian elderly are set adrift on ice floes instead of being sent to retirement homes) caught Huckabee on video during his days as governor of Arkansas and asked him to send a message of support to Canada and its struggling "national igloo," a notional ice-sculpture scale replica of the White House in which the Canadian Parliament meets and debates.

Huckabee gave a stirring endorsement to the igloo, presumably after ascertaining that the igloo was not used by homosexuals. Link

Freddie Freelance sez, "German Justice Minister Brigitte Zypries has drawn a line in the sand on the Internet connection data that Germany's requiring be collected since January 1st & hold for 6 months. From Heise Online:"

"Connection information can assist in the prosecution of terrorists and organized criminals but cannot be used to help the music industry pursue its rights under civil law," said the SPD party politician in an interview with Focus, the German news magazine. "Any government that tries to broaden its scope will lose all credibility."

Link (Thanks, Freddie Freelance!)

Peter from the DefectiveByDesign campaign sez,

Yesterday, Viviane Reding, European Union commissioner for information society and media, issued a report sanctioning a "transparent" DRM framework for the EU. This irresponsible and senseless report comes just as Sony BMG have announced that they would join Warner Music Group, EMI, and Vivendi's Universal Music Group in selling DRM-free music downloads in the United States. That Reding would take this moment to propose that the European Union seek to impose DRM on European citizens is both senseless and irresponsible.

Join us in demanding that Reding retract her statement and issue a new report stating that the EU will neither endorse nor sponsor the creation of any DRM technology scheme.

Link (Thanks, Peter!)

A new show of Erik Otto's mixed-media artwork opens tomorrow, January 5, at San Francisco's Gallery Three. Otto's captivating work draws from his experiences in graffiti, animation, commercial art, graphic design, and set production. The exhibition, titled "The Calm Before The Storm," runs until February 2. All of the pieces are also viewable online. Seen here, "What Lies Ahead" (mixed media on wood panel, 50" x 32"). Link to online gallery, Link to Gallery Three

If only all software instructional videos were as funny and useful as this one, called "You Sucjk at Photoshop." I hope the creator, Donnie Hoyle, makes more of them. Link (Thanks, Gord!)

The NY Public Library has scans of an 1804 book from China that shows 22 engravings of common punishment methods of the day.

Shown here: a malefactor enduring the "punishment of the wooden collar." Can anyone translate the Chinese characters on the collar?

Link (Via BibliOdyssey)

CNN Europe reports that members of a Czech art group are in trouble for hacking a television broadcast and inserting a phony video of a nuclear explosion.

On June 17, viewers of a Czech television channel watching a Web cam program monitoring weather in various Czech mountain resorts could see a nuclear explosion taking place in the Krkonose or Giant Mountains in the northern Czech Republic.

Link (Via Spluch)

Every time I post a link to the Daily Mail, I get a bunch of email from UK readers telling me that the Daily Mail is a horrible fascist newspaper that would instantly putrefy any fish you wrapped in it, but I still enjoy some of the articles in it -- such as this speculative piece on what it would be like to be the last human on Earth.

Some areas of rural Britain would be worth avoiding, not least because a potent threat to our survivor would come from Britain's two dozen or so remaining nuclear reactors, mostly dotted around the northern and eastern coasts.

If their staff vanished, and as back-up power supplies failed, a real danger would be that one or more would go into meltdown as cooling pumps failed.

The equivalent of several Chernobyls could render big areas of the country uninhabitable. With prevailing winds as they are, it would perhaps be best to head for the westernmost parts of the country or even try to escape Britain altogether.

Assuming our survivor avoided this radiation fall- out, hygiene would be an issue - if he chose to remain in the city, he would find the lack of mains sewage and drainage a problem after only a few days, as the pumping stations failed, while rivers would probably be too polluted to bathe in.

The only hot water would come from a stove, and washing oneself and one's clothes would be a chore (fortunately the world's shops are full of many, many lifetimes' worth of clean clothing).

As for our survivor's health, the lack of any other people to spread infectious diseases would be a blessing, but the risk of accidents would be a constant worry - even a broken limb could quickly prove fatal if the injury was not dealt with correctly.

The best last-human-on-Earth novel I've read is Earth Abides, by by George R. Stewart (cover shown above). Link (Via Spluch)

Kevin Kelly is giving away True Films, his must-have book of documentary recommendations as a free, ad-supported, PSD, using Adobe's new service that lets you embed Yahoo ads into Acrobat files.

This is the third version of a guide I have been developing for the past 5 years. It takes the 200 best documentaries I have reviewed on my website True Films and puts them into one handy book. For an explanation of why I bother to order the content of a website into a book see the previous entry.

In True Films, I cover only true films: documentaries, factuals, non-fiction, reality-based series, and some instructional how-to. You can get a sense of what I like from the site. I love documentaries that 1) surprise me, and 2) inform me.

Each review is a rave review; that is, I only review films I love and believe others will enjoy. Merely good films are left unmentioned. I also include what no other film review source does: I provide 4 to 5 screen shots from each documentary to give you an idea of what the texture of the film is. And I only review documentaries that can be seen easily on DVD or tape at consumer prices (either as Netflix rentals, legal downloads, or online purchase). Documentaries available only in theaters, or as high-priced "educational films" are regrettably ignored. Earlier editions of this book have been available on Amazon, Lulu, and as a cheap download from my site. But with this new version 3.0 I am trying something new. I am offering this 200-page full-color guide (perfect as a companion if you have Netflix) as a FREE download. It's in PDF format, but with a twist. To help offset the significant bandwidth costs of these downloads (I hope my server can take the wave), I have appended advertisements to the PDF book. Here is how the ads work: If you choose to see the ads, they will appear in a gray sidebar on the right, adjacent to the pages of the book, just outside the frame of the page.

Link

Joel Schlosberg says:

Otto Preminger's rarely seen, never-released-on-video psychedelic comedy Skidoo (previously on Boing Boing) will be airing on Turner Classic Movies on January 5 (late night January 4), as part of TCM Underground.

I've been waiting for years to see this. Link

Here's my second post today about parks in Florida: a sign in an Orlando park erected to refresh visitors' memory of the City Code forbidding them to "lie or otherwise be in a horizontal position on a park bench."

Tacky Fabulous points out, "Somebody must have tried the 'I wasn't laying down - I was just positioned horizontally' excuse."

I know - you're saying to yourself, "But wait a second! Didn't Orlando hover near record high rates for murders in the year 2007? Shouldn't there be a sign, instead, that reads: "Please do not impale with bullets or otherwise inflict death blows on other beings?" The answer is yes, but people who commit homicides tend to start as people who recline on park benches. It's textbook.

I also like the part prohibiting people from "remaining" in "bushes, shrubs, or foliage." Link

Brian figured out how to hack together a damned fine trashcan meat-smoker for less than $50:

So there you have it, a working smoker made from easily available parts.

Here's what I spent:
Trash Can w/ lid: $12.00
Electric Hot Plate: $13.00
Grating: $10.00
Wood Chip Box: $10.00 (actually, I already had this, but they are cheap if you need to buy one.)
Temperature Gauge: $9.00

So for just over $50, you can build a smoker.

Link

Andy Switky of IDEO shares these great vintage photos of a situationist prank waypoint mapping project. Andy writes:

I spoke at a conference in Wuxi about a month ago and hung out with great folks from the London College of Communication. We got to talking about GPS for some reason, and one of them remembered a couple pictures he picked up at the Ordnance Survey, the UK mapping equivalent of the USGS. The pictures are from the early 1950s and presumably show "waypoints".

Link to image 1, Link to image 2 (Thanks, Lyn Jeffery!)

TechEBlog says: "Tim converted his garage into a full-functional one-lane bowling alley (Brunswick A-2 pinsetter), complete with black lights for the 'cosmic' effect." Link

Jeff's family got the plans for their 1950s ranch house and faithfully recreated it in gingerbread.

Using elevations from a recent renovation, my wife constructed the sides and the girls set out to decorate. I, being the professional photographer in a previous life, was tasked with documenting the finished model. As we are a multicultural family, matzot was used for the hipped roof and garage doors.

Link (Thanks, Jeff!)

Cow farts contain methane, a greenhouse gas. Kangaroo farts do not. So scientists in Australia are going to transfer intestinal bacteria of kangaroos into cattle and see what happens.

According to the government of Queensland, almost 14% of all greenhouse gas emissions from Australia come from cow farts, so this seemingly silly idea could actually make a big difference.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!)

Inspired by the never-ending news of new and ridiculous restrictions on flying, Grig Larson has written a grimly funny little science fiction vignette about what a world in which flying was really "made safe" would be like:

When she gets to the counter, a uniformed woman takes her booklet, and compares it to her ID. She asks for a fingerprint scan. Uh oh! There's a problem. Jill can't remember what finger she used! But the lady helps her out, and within minutes, she's approved to go into the disrobing chamber. The lady gives her a neck tag, stamps Jill's forehead, and sends her on her way past the many guards down a hallway.

Jill knows what to expect. Helpful pictograph signs show her what she will be doing when she gets to the disrobing room. At the end of the hallway, she steps into a free closet, and strips down naked. Don't forget those earrings and hair bands, Jill! Jill remembered that the safety of her personal belongings could never be guaranteed, so she came wearing nothing she couldn't afford to lose. She puts her belongings in a plastic bag, and seals it nice and tight. She sees herself in the mirror. Oh my, Jill. You have been gaining a little weight, haven't we? Better lay off those desserts at the buffet when you're in Los Angeles, Jill!

Link (Thanks, Grig!)

The Guardian asked kids to send in monster drawings for a contest. Will the Cloverfield monster be as cool as these monsters?

"This creature lives down the plug hole and eats all the dead skin and soap from the bath. It has suckers to help it move and a sticky tongue. It is blind and comes out at night. If you happen to see it, it turns into gas and you will faint and won’t remember the next day." -- Saffron Summerfield, 9

Link (Thanks, Jason Louv!)

If you are in Miami, pop open your Charles Fort umbrellas before venturing into Bill Baggs park: it's raining iguanas there.

It was raining iguanas at Bill Baggs Thursday morning. There were a couple underneath buttonwood trees and a third beneath a sea grape. All were about 30 yards from the beach, in the coastal hammock.

"We have found dozens on the bike path after a major cold snap," said Yero. "When they warm up in the sun, they come back to life."

Link (Thanks, Rian Fike!)

Today's Boing Boing tv episode: I take a trip into the alternate reality of pop surrealist artist Tim Biskup. And it's definitely a trip. Then, sculptor Chris Yates demonstrates how he makes a Diesel Sweeties wooden Red Robot from start to finish, slightly faster than normal.

Link to BBtv video and comments

Previously on BB and BB Gadgets:
• Boing Boing hoodie by GAMA-GO with Tim Biskup artwork Link
• Tim Biskup profile Link
• Video of Tim Biskup painting the Helio Ocean mural Link
• Chris Yates's Katamari Damacy homemade model Link
• Diesel Sweeties' R. Stevens Reviews the Wacom Cintiq 12WX Link
• Diesel Sweeeties' Music Snob t-shirts Link

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: the impressive array of plugs at each seat in the meeting rooms at the European Broadcasters' Union (the Eurovision Song Contest people) in Geneva, Switzerland. There's receptacles for British/South African, Continental, Swiss and US/Japanese plugs, at 220, 240 and 110 volts. I used to have to travel to the EBU semi-regularly for DRM standards-body meetings that were incredibly painful -- but at least I could always plug in my laptop. Link

Today's the anniversary of Thomas Edison's vicious electrocution of a live elephant in order to prove the dangers of Nikola Tesla's alternating current and the safety of his competing direct current.

When the day came, Topsy was restrained using a ship's hawser fastened on one end to a donkey engine and on the other to a post. Wooden sandals with copper electrodes were attached to her feet and a copper wire run to Edison's electric light plant, where his technicians awaited the go-ahead.

In order to make sure that Topsy emerged from this spectacle more than just singed and angry, she was fed cyanide-laced carrots moments before a 6,600-volt AC charge slammed through her body. Officials needn't have worried. Topsy was killed instantly and Edison, in his mind anyway, had proved his point.

A crowd put at 1,500 witnessed Topsy's execution, which was filmed by Edison and released later that year as Electrocuting an Elephant.

Link

Doktor Tchock sez, "Myspace and Boom! Studios teamed up to release each issue of the new comic North Wind simultaneously with the release date for brick and mortar stores. Issue 1 is up now and you'll be able to grab the .cbz of each issue of the 5 issue mini-series in the following months. An interesting approach to digital distribution."

Boom! does a fine line in zombie comix (see Zombie Tales Vol 1 and Death Valley) and they've got a really net-savvy approach to pushing the ole funnybooks.

I've been saying for years that comics publishers should -- at a minimum -- put up downloadable comics after they disappear from the stands, so that people who are coming to the serial after it starts can catch up. The trade paperbacks help here, but usually there's a 2-3 issue gap between the collection and the singles. That means that if you're not a Comics Person and you walk into a bookstore and buy the first collection of Thrilling Underwear Pervert Stories (issues 1-6) get hooked, and decide to brave a comics store for the first time to pick up issue 7, you'll generally find that they're up to issue 9 or 10, and that 7 and 8 aren't for sale and can't be ordered.

The result? You go back to the bookstore in a couple months and look for the collection -- maybe. If you remember. The alternative? The publisher could spend approximately $0.00 and post downloadable singles 30 days or even 60 days after they hit the stands. Now when you go to the store and say, "Have you got TUPS #7?" the Comic Book Guy can smile and say, "Nope, but you can get it free online, and when you've read it, come on back here and I'll sell you #8. By the way, did you know that new comics come out every Wednesday? We usually get a lot of people in on Weds, spruce up the store, set out some collections of other comics you might not have heard of. Also -- would you like me to set aside future TUPS issues for you? As well as collections?"

Yes, a few cheapskates might opt to substitute downloads for singles. But those cheapskates are likely either retired people, students, or other people of limited means -- and if they come into money (say, by graduating and getting a job), they'll be back with their wallets. In the meantime, it's not as if the people who buy their issues in Mylar bags are going to give up on collecting -- Action Comics #1 has been floating around online since the mid-Nineties and the value of the physical object hasn't dropped as a result.

And by optimizing the experience for spenders -- people who drop $25 on a collection in a bookstore that you might be able to convert to weekly comic-store customers -- you churn in fresh customers while still providing a good, low-cost way to get into the medium for kids and students. Link (Thanks, Doktor Tchock!)

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we looked at this "Love Mattress" concept design which many rightfully pointed out would be a pain to keep clean, some boring earbuds with a slick birch wood shell, a new media streamer from Archos that can't quite do HD for some reason, a clever new conical power strip, an attractive, expensive new glass monitor from Dell (I know!), a tribute to Classic Space LEGO with extra greebles, a hot rock for cooking, coupons from the gubbermunt for digital TV convertor boxes, an upcoming game and guitar that lets you learn to play with a Guitar Hero-like system, Belkin's new RockStar headphone hub, and a brief notice that the new Indiana Jones-themed LEGO sets are now on sale. And some deals (although nothing special).

Photographer Mark Story took photos of people who were born in the 19th century and are still alive in the 21th Century. My own grandmother comes close to making it. She'll be 107 in April.

The photographs for this portrait series were taken in various locations around the world between 1987 and 2005.

The Gerontology Research Group estimates there are 250,000 centenarians (people 100 years and older) currently living in the world. In rare instances, people live to 110 years and beyond, inspiring a new demographic label: supercentenarian. The Gerontology Research Group, through rigorous investigation of records, acknowledges about 65 supercentenarians, and estimates that about 350 are alive worldwide today.

The idea to photograph people who have lived in three centuries evolved over the course of the project. First, I was simply interested in taking portraits of people who appear worn beyond their years by living extraordinarily hard lives. Those experiences drew me to centenarians, and on to supercentenarians and their stories.

Link (Via Ursi's blog)

In this fascinating three-part story, Steve of "The Sneeze" looks into the history of a face that his father has been drawing for the last 60 years. Steve told Drawn!:

My father has been drawing this same ‘face’ on my birthday cards and cakes for as long as I remember. I recently started pressing him for info about this face that he’s been drawing for 60 years and it all unfolded with a completely unexpected and satisfying ending.

The interview with his father is funny and heart-warming. Link

Release 2.0 editor Jimmy Guterman was greeted by this helpful message after he upgraded to the latest version of Adobe Creative suite.

Adobe pushed out an upgrade of its Creative Suite. I installed it, as prompted. This is what happens when I try to run any element of the Suite after the install.

Click on the modal dialog box and the program closes. For extra redundancy, there's a second error message that reads "licensing for this product has stopped working." But I am impressed that I wasn't merely able to get the programs to fail, but that I got them to fail "catastrophically."

Link

Bob Staake is a talented and delightful children's book illustrator. I've written about him on Boing Boing before.

Staake once told me that he still draws with a mouse and an ancient copy of Adobe Photoshop 3.0 (on Mac OS 7, I seem to remember). Here's a video to prove it.

This is one guy who won't be switching to a Cintiq anytime soon. It reminds me of Hunter S. Thompson using his IBM Selectric and a fax machine to submit his stories in the 21st century.

No matter -- Staake is an absolute wizard at what he does, and watching his odd drawing process is really something to behold, at least for and Adobe Illustrator die-hard like myself. Link to Staake's website (Via Drawn!)

"We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run." - Roy Amara (1925-2007)

Roy Amara, engineer, forecaster, and longtime president of Institute for the Future, died on Monday. At age 82, Roy still made regular visits to IFTF and attended our conferences, always offering sage advice and brilliant bits of insight. Several months ago, I had lunch with Roy and we talked at length about synthetic biology, an emerging field we agreed will likely have a profound impact on our world. At IFTF, we always make a point to look back at history before starting any forecast. As part of his personal interest in the future of synthetic biology and healthcare, Roy told me he was taking a look way back, reading Charles Darwin's diaries from beginning to end.

Roy's career began in 1952 at the Stanford Research Institute where he worked on the development of the ERMA computer. During his 18 years at SRI, he directed research programs on interactive computing, decision analysis, and worked closely with Doug Engelbart on the proposals that led to Engelbart's history-making Augmentation Research Center. In 1970, he left SRI to become president of Institute for the Future, a not-for-profit research group that helps companies, governments, foundations, and other institutions think about the long-term future. At IFTF, Roy established our Ten-Year Forecast, now in its 35th year. In 1977, he led one of the first studies on the possible impacts of global climate change.

This year is IFTF's 40th anniversary. We'll miss Roy as we celebrate where his dedication, generosity, and foresight has led us.

Melanie sez, "Apparently some guests of Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion have been complaining about the "offensive" ad-libbed lines spoken by the interactive staff in the foyer of the building so someone has decided that the staff will now undergo acting classes and memorize a script of lines to speak to riders."

Truth be told, those macabre remarks that all of those "butlers" and "maids" have made to Disneyland & Walt Disney World guests over the years were never actually scripted. They were just ad-lib lines that got laughs that -- over time -- then became the pro forma dialogue used in the Foyer and the Portrait Gallery.

Well, that's all about to change. According to my sources at WDI, in order to prevent squeamish guests from being offended by semi-improv-ed remarks like "Please follow the blood red carpet into the Foyer," the Imagineers have now written an official script for the Mansion's entrance area. What's more, the cast members who work at both the Anaheim & Orlando versions of this attraction will soon supposedly be asked to attend acting classes. Where they will then be taught the official staging & blocking for this new script.

As you might imagine, once the news of this proposed change started making the rounds among Disney cast members who work at the Mansion, the grousing began. As one Disneyland vet put it:

"Half the fun of working in the entrance area at the Mansion is that you got to play a character of your own devising. You could put a silly or sinister spin on the butler or the maid. It was all up to you. But now with this official script and the new blocking, that's all going to change. It won't be nearly as fun as it used to be to work at the Mansion."

Link (Thanks, Melanie!)

A security guard at the Fareham Shopping Centre in the UK accused a middle-aged couple of terrorism and banned them for life when they took out a camera to take a picture of their grandchildren. After the press jumped on the story, the manager of the mall said that they weren't terrorists, but that taking pictures of their grandchildren in the mall did pose a "security risk" and that they could come back provided they didn't take any pictures.

Malls get all kinds of tax- and zoning-deals in order to set up shop in the middle of town, often displacing public streets and squares. Then their owners turn into ban-happy authoritarians who set out all kinds of ridiculous policies and repeat an endless mantra of "private property" without ever acknowledging the public largesse on which they depend.

The couple were on a four-day break from their home in Spain and wanted to surprise their family by arriving at the centre, in Fareham, Hants, while they were shopping.

But when they went to take a photo, a security guard pounced and ordered them out.

The guard then insisted that cameras were banned because of the risk of a terrorist attack - and barred the bemused couple for life.

Speaking from her home in Malaga, Spain, Mrs Sparshott, 51, said: "I couldn't believe it. I was so shocked.

"He said we had committed an act of terrorism.

"At first I wanted the ground to swallow me up whole because it was so embarassing - but then I got really angry."

When I was in high-school, the Intercon security staff for College Park in Toronto -- the mall across the road -- banned more than half the student body and many of the faculty, for arbitrary and imaginary reasons. I remember one day I was in the line to buy my lunch when a security guard came up and issued me a lifetime ban "for hanging around, not buying anything." The irony of my having to interrupt him to collect my change and receipt was apparently lost on him (and the mall management, who wouldn't return my call).

These behemoths take our handouts and take over our streets -- the least they can do is behave like good neighbors. Link

(Image: Thumbnail of a photo copyright Solent News)

Mitsubishi has erected a tall, skinny, hollow tower filled with elevator shafts for testing high-speed lifts:

The 173m-high (567ft) structure is called Solae and dominates the skyline of Inazawa City...

The 5bn-yen ($50m;£25m) project will allow Mitsubishi to test new drives, gears, cables and other lift systems.

Link (Thanks, Geoff!)

BB pal Kirsten Anderson is the author of one of my favorite art books of the last decade, Pop Surrealism: The Rise of Underground Art, and proprietor of Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. Kirsten just started a new art blog, Right Some Good, that already has turned me on to several incredible painters I wasn't familiar with. At left is a piece by Spanish Chilean artist Victor Castillo. At right, a ghost ship by Jacques Moiteret of Seattle. Link

Last summer, I posted that the first microrobotic fly had actually flown. Built by Harvard University professor Robert Wood and his colleagues, with funds from the US military ('natch), the 60 milligram robofly boasts a three centimeter wingspan. Its wing motions are based on those of a real fly. The robotic fly project was first, er, launched at Berkeley a decade ago. I'm delighted that I have one of the early resin fly models from that phase in my cabinet of curiosities. The new issue of Harvard Magazine profiles Wood and features the video of the fly at lift off. From the article:

Wood figures he is still only one-third of the way toward his goal of creating an autonomous flying robot. But the next step should be at least as rewarding, considering that it will include a focus on control of the insect—the reason he first got involved in the project years ago. His fly now runs on electricity transmitted via thin wiring from high-voltage amplifiers, but he aims to add an on-board power source. Initially, he hopes for five minutes of flying time, which will be extended as the battery options improve.

Eventually, he hopes to program insect robots to work in a group. “We want a human operator to be able to take out his batch of flies and say, ‘I want you guys to search for carbon dioxide’—a survivor breathing in a collapsed building,” he explains. From there, Wood sees the possibility of building group behaviors into a swarm: a means of pursuing his interest in the study of emergence, which examines how simple organisms such as ants can produce complex group structures.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

Previously on BB:
• Robofly takes off Link
• UC Berkeley's micro-mechanical flying insect Link

Scientific American features a look back at "The Year in Robots." Seen here is Toyota's robot violinist. Our mechanical overlords were busy last year, crawling through a collapsed mine in Salt Lake City, driving themselves through a mock urban setting to win military money, and dancing with toddlers. From Scientific American:

This sampling merely scratches the surface of the past year's advances in robotics that whet the appetite for what's to come: Early next year, for instance, researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder will benchmark robotic devices to precisely mix and measure medications used in treatments such as chemotherapy. The robotic Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit are currently hunkering down in anticipation of the harsh Martian winter season but will soon resume their exploration of the Red Planet. And Scandanavian research firm Sintef is developing artificially intelligent equipment to help offshore oil and gas drilling platforms run more safely and efficiently.

Link

On Christmas Eve, the Quintana family of Meadow Lake, New Mexico, were happy to see the Virgin Mary appear on their living room wall. From WMTW:

Quintana said her husband was putting a special texture on the wall. The spray bottle he was using broke twice, which meant the texture couldn't be wiped off fast enough. This is how it dried.

"I feel like it's telling us something, like it's protecting us," Quintana said. "It's like a miracle."

Link (via Peculiarosities)

Holz Toys's wooden digger toy sports two levers that allow kids to actually scoop up sand and move it around.

The best addition to the sandpit you’ll ever see. The children were all desperate to have a go and it was fascinating to see how quickly and intuitively they grasped the concept behind the twin lever action. In no time at all sand was being meticulously moved from one corner of the sandpit to the other and back again. Needs a cover if to be kept outside permanently. Length 115.cm.

Link (via Babygadget)

SomethingAwful's Bob "BobServo" Mackey has created this fantastic (and eerily believable) set of RIAA liner notes for this year's CDs. Link (Thanks, Adam C!)

Boing Boing tv episode:

Austrian tech-art-pranksters Monochrom introduce us to Scott Blake, renowned bar code artist. We then observe Scott wandering the streets of Vienna collecting bar codes to properly memorialize the late Austrian pop star, Falco. He's a very big deal over there.

See also: Monochrom's Human USB Hack

Link to BBtv video and comments.

Davis sez,

I recently purchased a new HD monitor, but when I installed it, I lost the streaming capabilities on Netflix's website. When I tried to troubleshoot the issue, I had to agree to let Netflix "reset my DRM" by destroying my Amazon.com files. After talking with Netflix's technical support, I learned that the real issue had to do with the HD capabilities of my PC setup. Because Hollywood wants to punish people for using technology that is outside of their protocol, they are denying me access to low resolution internet videos until I downgrade my monitor to standard definition.

As if DRM isn't evil enough already, I now have to give up access to files I've already bought and even then might not be allowed access unless I have specific approved HD equipment that allows Hollywood to control how I consume my media content. I understand that content owners want to be able to charge for their content, but something is wrong when their DRM won't even allow you to pay to use their product.

Link (Thanks, Davis!)

Bruce Sterling returns again to the WELL's public "Inkwell" conference for his annual state-of-the-year public interview, in which anyone can join in. It's off to a rollicking start, with plenty of chewy, sometimes gnomic Sterlingian pronouncements:

Some people still think that there's an "Islamo-fascist tyranny" somewhere that hates our freedoms and can organize Islam-dom into a coherent fascist state... There's just no way. Al Qaeda and the Taliban aren't true "fascists." Fascists can at least make trains run on time. Even Communists were better-organized. The mujihadeen have no organized army and no industrial policy and they don't know where to find any. Because God was supposed to handle all that for them. You're supposed to die nobly in a crowd of unwitting strangers, and then God's supposed to make that all better. That's the big plan.

But when you blow up the china shop, God doesn't reassemble the plates for you. Being faith-based doesn't trump reality.

It's pretty good news that Al Qaeda is getting tired and losing its charisma. They've held center stage more than long enough.

I think "we" in the largest sense, planetary civilization, world culture or whatever, we're closer to a consensus idea of futurity than it's been since, say, 1997. It's a green futurity. People don't like it much, but they know it's coming anyway.

Ten years ago, there was a little Belle Epoque era of good feeling there when the "Washington Consensus" held its sway... and the thought among opinion-makers of the time was, you know, let the dot-com Long Boomers run that show. Everybody knew that what they were saying and doing didn't make much sense -- but at least there was plenty of pie there for the Formerly Free World.

Now the Americans have clearly lost the thread... the Americans are really just horribly out of it, they're like some giant fundie Brazil, nobody takes their pronunciamentos seriously or believes a word they say... Whereas the world is much more seriously global now. China and India are real players, they're part of the show and they matter.

Serious-minded people everywhere do know they have to deal with the resource crisis and the climate crisis. Because the world-machine's backfiring and puffing smoke. Joe and Jane Sixpack are looking at four-dollar milk and five-dollar gas. It's hurting and it's scary and there's no way out of it but through it.

Link

Here's an exciting idea from the May, 1934 edition of Modern Mechanix: raise frogs in your backyard for fun and profit!

No frog farmer need search for a market, his crop is virtually all sold before it is raised. I could sell one hundred times my present production in a single week, and am expanding my ponds so, eventually, I expect to have 1000 acres utilized solely for giant bullfrog culture. I sell tadpoles at five to ten cents each by the hundred. They are used to stock farms and for aquarium purposes.

Frog Meat Is Delicious

Bullfrogs, that cost me less than one cent per year to feed, wholesale at $3.00 per dozen in large quantities. Smaller frogs, of which only the legs are used, sell for as high as seventy cents per pound. Each frog gives a pound of delicious white meat that has a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab. The whole frog is used, the front quarter being just as delicious as the legs.

Link

In August 1936, Science and Mechanics magazine ran a little feature (with photo supplied by Pabst!) of this handsome beer-can table made from 420 soldered-together tins, created by Bernard Dier of Chicago. Link