Sho sez, "A Japanese TV show designs a 5'6" Wacky WallWalker, weighing about 154 lbs, to climb down a 110-meter skyscraper. The first try is not exactly successful, but a second attempt comes up with better results. Both videos are highly entertaining for the 8-year-old in all of us."

This is no ordinary reality show -- they've got enough cameras deployed to catch the merry mayhem from every conceivable angle. I love the school-group of little kids on one storey who are captured gasping and giggling as the WallWalker plummets past them. Link (Thanks, Sho!)

Cortejo sez, "Irony Chan is trying to figure the terminal velocity and weight of a Balrog. She has gotten quite far." Link (Thanks, Cortejo)

Documents on Wikileaks show that the German Bavarian government had planned to release trojans -- malware -- designed to allow them to intercept Skype calls. The leaked documents include wrangling over the pricing and payment for the malicious software. The docs were leaked by the German Pirate Party.

The offer dating September 4th 2007, replies an inquiry by Bavarian officials on the possibility of Skype interception, introduces a basic description of the cryptographic workings of Skype, and concludes that new systems are needed to spy on Skype calls.

It continues to introduce the so-called Skype Capture Unit. In a nutshell: a malware installed on purpose on a target machine, intercepting Skype Voice and Chat. Another feature introduced is a recording proxy, that is not part of the offer, yet would allow for anonymous proxying of recorded information to a target recording station. Access to the recording station is possible via a multimedia streaming client, supposedly offering real-time interception.

Another part of the offer is an interception method for SSL based communication, working on the same principle of establishing a man-in-the-middle attack on the key material on the client machine. According to the offer this method is working for Internet Explorer and Firefox webbrowsers. Digitask also recommends using over-seas proxy servers to cover the tracks of all activities going on.

Link (via /.)

This 1500 volt proto-taser glove was spotlighted in the September, 1935 ish of Modern Mechanix:

MORE punch than can be found in a box-glove is contained in a new electric glove invented by Cirilo Diaz of Cuba for use by police while handling rough characters or in quelling riots. Persons contacted by an officer wearing the glove receive a 1,500-volt shock, sufficient to remove all traces of fight. A half-pound battery worn on the belt supplies the power, all wiring being concealed beneath the coat.

Link

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels over the years: a shot from inside the Haunted Barrel Works spook-house in Toronto's Centreville on Centre Island. The Haunted Barrel Works was my first-ever spook-house, and I love it for all its cheesy, graffiti-spattered, malodorous glories, especially the "hippie" mannequin with his anachronistic "Roachdale or bust" sign. Link

John Lupien forwarded me a ton of photos of these beautiful motorcycle sculptures made from watch parts. Unfortunately, he didn't know the artist's name -- and it doesn't appear anywhere on the pics, nor did my googling turn up any likely leads. Who made these things? What's the URL? Where do I buy one? Leave your answers in the comments.

Mystery solved!: These come from the Brazilian artist Jose Geraldo Pfau Kings -- many thanks to Miss Cellania! Link (Thanks, John!)

Update: Here's more (unattributed) work from the same artist -- thanks, Perry!

Love these modded steampunk Nerf guns -- you'd be sure to outclass all the other cubicle warriors with your foamy blunderbuss. Link (Thanks, Brett!)

Striking writers for The Colbert Report and The Daily Show masterminded a brilliant comedy mock-hearing on the Hollywood writers' strike, including an arch (and brilliant) meta-moment where they disrupted their own hearing with nonsensical grandstanding from seeming participants.

On one side, in shirts, was the striking Writers Guild of America, played by "Daily Show" writers Rob Kutner, Tim Carvell and Jason Ross. On the other side, in suits, was the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, played by "The Colbert Report" writers Michael Brumm, Peter Grosz and Tom Purcell.

Crashing out of the starting gates, the shirts argued it would cost the suits less than 1% of their total revenue to give the writers everything they wanted. For Paramount Pictures, that comes to $4.6 million, or "half the amount it takes to get Reese Witherspoon into a movie."

"I ask you," one writer noted, "which is more important to a movie -- a script, or half of Reese Witherspoon?"

The studio suits thought for a second.

"Which half?"

Link, Video link

Sarah "Buffy" Michelle Gellar is vowing to finish her film adaptation of the brilliant and twisted American McGee's Alice video game -- I'd pay money to see that. Talk about three great tastes that taste great together!

But Gellar said that she hasn't given up on developing the game as a movie. "It's still my project, and I'm still working diligently. So to all those Alice fans, I'm not giving up. Because I believe there is such a beautiful, crazy, cool, twisted story to be told there."

Calling the movie "the frustration of my life," Gellar joked: "I'll do it if I have to get down and write it myself one of these days. I may have to."

Link (via Wonderland)

Zing spoons are spring-loaded cutlery intended to give you the tactical advantage in food-fights. Link (via Gizmodo)

Here's a delish-sounding recipe for "Red Eye Rice Treats" -- caffeinated vegan rice-krispie squares that give you the pep you need to make it through the day:

6 cups puffed brown rice [any puffed rice will do, really]

1 cup peanut butter [I scored a few jars of White Chocolate Peanut Butter & Co for cheap, so I used up the rest of mine: creamy might be your best bet, no matter what]

1 cup brown sugar corn syrup [or brown rice syrup, organic light corn syrup…if you want maple syrup, I’d recommend going the half/half way by mixing it up with granulated sugar or rather fine other sugar]

1/2 t pure vanilla extract

1 t instant coffee crystals, crushed into a fine powder with the back of a spoon [up this a bit if you want a stronger coffee flavor, 2 t maximum to avoid overwhelming the other flavors]

1/3 cup carob powder [if you’re a hater, I’m sure cocoa powder would be a fine substitution here]

You could probably substitute agave syrup for the corn syrup (blending it with something?) to get a super-low-GI version. Link (via Craft)

A campaign is afoot to build a memorial to Voytek, a soldier-bear who fought alongside the Polish army at the Battle of Monte Cassino, carrying ammunition. After the war, Voytek lived out his days in the Edinburgh Zoo, occasionally visited by his old army buddies who tried to slip him the cigarettes and beer he'd come to enjoy while serving in the army.

When Polish forces were deployed to Europe the only way to take the bear with them was to "enlist" him.

So he was given a name, rank and number and took part in the Italian campaign.

He saw action at Monte Cassino before being billeted - along with about 3,000 other Polish troops - at the army camp in the Scottish Borders.

The soldiers who were stationed with him say that he was easy to get along with.

"He was just like a dog - nobody was scared of him," said Polish veteran Augustyn Karolewski, who still lives near the site of the camp.

Link (Thanks, Grey!)

(Image: Iranian.com)

Issue 7 of Sean Tejaratchi's seminal clip-art zine CRAP HOUND is just about to hit the stands, thanks to the good folks at Portland's Reading Frenzy, a zine store par excellance. CRAP HOUND plunders its graphics from hundreds of sources and then features them in gorgeous, endlessly fascinating mosaics and layouts. Issue 7's theme is CHURCH AND STATE, and judging by the cover, it looks like a doozy.

Crap Hound #7: Church & State, 96 pgs., 2 color cover, b/w interior, offset printed, suggested retail price of $12. This is the first all new issue of Crap Hound in 9 years! A pure but lucky coincidence makes this issue particularly apropos, as we're in an election year with a candidate declaring his intention to rewrite the constitution according to "God's standards"!

Link

See also:
Crap Hound -- seminal clipart zine -- is back!
Crap Hound No. 6 - clip art magnificence

Ken sez, "The Village Voice has a great overview of a uber-nanny NYPD's deputy commissioner (of counterterrorism, natch) attempt to fast-track a piece of legislation that would make mere possession of many sensors, from Geiger counters to asbestos detectors, illegal without a police permit. Send you to jail, illegal, too. Luckily, dozens of university researchers, public-health professionals, and environmental lawyers were somehow alerted and showed up at the city council session, blocking the quick enactment with old-fashioned argument and analysis. The commissioner is still dead set on taking away your ability to test for pollutants without a license (it's For the Children?!), but they pledge to 'accommodate all the concerns' as they draw up the new bill."

When the Environmental Protection Agency promised that the air surrounding Ground Zero was safe, Vallone said, independent testers proved that such assurances were utterly false. Would these groups really have to get a permit before they started working? "It's a good question, and it has come up prior to this hearing," Falkenrath replied. "What I can assure you is that we will look extremely carefully at this issue of the independent groups, and get the opinion of the other city agencies on how to handle that, and craft an appropriate response." And if people use these detectors without a permit, Vallone asked, do we really have to put them in jail? Afraid so, Falkenrath answered.

Councilman John Liu was considerably less impressed. Why, he asked, should a community group like Asthma-Free School Zones have to tell anyone, much less the police department, that they're testing for air pollution? "We have no interest in regulating air-quality sensors around schools," Falkenrath promised. "That's not what this is about."

Link (Thanks, Ken)

(Image: PICT4460.JPG, a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Gothick_matt's Flickr stream)

HarperCollins has released a free MP3 of Neil Gaiman reading his Hugo- and Locus-winning story "A Study in Emerald," which mashes up Sherlock Holmes and Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos -- a story that transcends mere gimmick and is poignant, and engrossing. I first heard Gaiman's reading of the story in the audiobook edition of Gaiman's excellent collection Fragile Things and had to pull over to give it my full concentration. Gaiman's a great reader and an even better writer. Link, MP3 Link (Thanks, Chris!)

Adam "Ape Lad" Koford's Laugh-Out-Loud Cats are now available in book form. "I'm selling signed and drawn in copies on my blog, or unsigned and undrawn in copies via Lulu," says the author/illustrator. Link.

Recently and related posts on BB:

* BBtv - Ape Lad: The True Hollywood Story of Aloysius Koford
* BBtv -- Laugh Out Loud Cats: The True History

Kate Black made this notebook. She has just one for sale on Etsy for $24. It's called "The Dollar's In The Shitter.

The US Dollar is worth so little now, it's cheaper to bind books with banknotes than art papers.

This book is made with two 1 dollar bills, actual US currency.

The interior covers and spine reinforcements are emerald green batiked paper.

The textblock is made from 60lb, bright white drawing paper. The paper has a good amount of tooth and can handle ink, pencil and many other media.

- 5.5" x 2.125" (14 cm x 5.5 cm)
- 140 pages.
- Bound with forest green waxed Irish linen thread.

This book opens completely flat, for ease of use.

Link (Thanks, Jenny!)

Now is your chance to own a fantastically awful waxwork from one of the world's worst wax museums. Louis Tussaud's House of Wax in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, UK, is auctioning off 75 wax heads from its collection. The auction will take place at Keys on February 12. According to The Telegraph, each disembodied head is expected to go for between £50 to £80. Seen here, from left to right, John Travolta, Bob Hope, Tom Jones, and Shirley Bassey. Link

found zen 3
garbage scout
big happy funhouse
superfluous
eavesdrop
swap meat

previously on web zen:
found zen 2
found zen 1

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

Club Littlegun has photos of some very curious antique guns, including this pistol ring. I saw one of these for sale years ago at an antique shop in Aspen. The owner told me that they were popular among Nazis and the Mafia. I can't remember exactly how much it cost, but it was in the thousands. Club Littlegun also has photos of a belt gun, a watch gun, a crucifix pistol, a pen pistol, a hand cannon, and many other unique firearms.
Link (via Damn Data)

Researchers from Duke University think it may be possible to develop a composite material that would make objects acoustically "invisible." The idea is that sound waves approaching an object wrapped in the material would bend around the object and then keep going. The idea was inspired by the recently-developed "invisibility cloak" that bends microwaves. From National Geographic News:

The most obvious use of an acoustic cloak would be hiding submarines from enemy sonar—sound waves that are used to locate underwater objects.

But the advance could also be used in architecture—in music halls and theaters, for instance.

"Right now . . . the acoustics are built into whatever you're doing structurally," (Duke professor Steve) Cummer said. "So you probably have a set of tradeoffs, structurally and acoustically."

But with acoustic cloaking technology, "a giant beam that might be important structurally and bad acoustically could be rendered acoustically invisible."

Link

Previously on BB:
• Invisibility cloak is one step closer after science demo Link

Lothar Windels from the Rhode Island School of Design created this "Joseph Felt Chair 2" in 2003 -- made from "voluptuous folds of heavy red and gray felt." Link (via Cribcandy)

Clever smugglers are cloning FedEx, WalMart, Department of Transport and even US Border Patrol vans, filling them with dope, people, and cash, and driving 'em around with near impunity:

Savvy criminals are using some of the country's most credible logos, including FedEx, Wal-Mart, DirecTV and the U.S. Border Patrol, to create fake trucks to smuggle drugs, money and illegal aliens across the border, according to a report by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement...

A fake U.S. Border Patrol van was found to be carrying 31 illegal aliens in Casa Grande, Ariz. An alert agent recognized that the "H" in the van's serial number is a letter used only on U.S. Border Patrol Jeep Wranglers. It should have been a "P."

Link (via Kottke)

I hope this storm in Southern California dies down so I can take my daughter to Anaheim for the Monster Jam on Saturday, which features this cool Donkey Kong truck. Link

TieGuys.com sells these awesomely nerdy Star Trek neckties. They're $17.50 each except for the blue one with Kirk, Spock, and Bones, which goes for $24.95.
Link (via Neatorama)

doktor tchock says: "Chunklet has uncovered a recording of David Lee Roth's isolated vocal tracks from "Runnin' With The Devil." Link

(If the above player is blank, here's the YouTube link)

Here's the long awaited fourth installment of the hilarious (and educational!) tutorial series, You Suck at Photoshop.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• You Suck at Photoshop #2
• Funny tutorial: "You Sucjk at Photoshop"
• You Suck at Photoshop, Episode 3

Artur Bergman says:

"Wikiscanner hacker Virgil Griffth told me a while ago about his latest data mining project, to visualise the relationship between books and SAT scores. Today he released his findings at Booksthatmakeyoudumb.

He does this by cross referencing the 10 most popular books at every college, as given by Facebook, and the average SAT score. He then presents it all in this nifty little visualisation."

Link (Thanks, Chaya!)

Uw Moeder posted three hours of MTV from 1983 (with Mark Goodman as VJ), including commercials, on two Google videos. Link

Two medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have installed pot vending machines. They're accessible 24 hours a day and monitored by security guards. From Thrillist:

After cinching up your doctor's consultation, hit an AVM location to get your prescription approved, fingerprint taken, and a prepaid credit card loaded with your profile: dosage (3.5 or 7 grams, up to 1oz a week) and strain preference (choice of five, including OG Cush and Granddaddy Purple, the mildly hallucinogenic forebear to Prince). Then day or night, all you do is hit a machine and walk away with enough vacuum-sealed, plastic-encapsulated cheeba to adequately treat your illness.

Link

Chris Spurgeon says:

With the melting of the northern polar ice cap, the coming decades are sure to see a mad dash to claim the territories (and natural resources) of the far north. But since the laws governing the polar regions are a crazy mish-mash of international treaties, centuries-old customs, indigenous tradition, and conflicting national claims figuring out who has rights to what is no easy chore.

Iceland's University of Akureyri is taking on the task, offering the world's first graduate program in Polar Law. Graduates will gain expertise in everything from the Law of the Sea to climate change to Inuit legal customs. Could be a smart career move for a budding attorney looking for some legal adventure.

(Image from a Polar Law workshop) Link

Here's a neat extreme slow motion video of a cigarette lighter ignition.
Link

Researchers at the University of Sunderland and Durham University have developed a wonderfully whimsical looking "prototype cognitive helmet" that "bathes the brain with infra-red light and stimulates the growth of brain cells."

Its creators believe it could reverse the symptoms of dementia - such as memory loss and anxiety - after only four weeks.

Dr Dougal claims that only ten minutes under the hat a day is enough to have an effect.

"Currently all you can do with dementia is to slow down the rate of decay - this new process will not only stop that rate of decay but partially reverse it," he said. Low level infra-red red is thought to stimulate the growth of cells of all types of tissue and encourage their repair. It is able to penetrate the skin and even get through the skull.

Link

The original art for the over of Robert Crumb's Mr. Natural #1 sold at auction last month for $101,575, "making it the first Crumb original - and the first underground original from any artist - ever to break the $100K barrier."

“Top-shelf underground art, by such outstanding artists as Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, Larry Welz, Spain Rodriquez, and S. Clay Wilson, is undoubtedly on a growth track in the hobby right now,” [Ed Jaster, Vice-President for Dallas-based Heritage Auction Galleries] said. “Now that Crumb has set the new standard, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see other artists reach this lofty pinnacle within a few years. It’s clear that our clients have both the desire and the resources necessary to make this happen.”

Link

Next time you're all lost in the supermarket, you can count on Robovie to help you find your way.

In a series of demonstrations conducted from January 22 to 24, a souped-up version of ATR’s Robovie humanoid robot monitored people as they passed through a 100 square meter (1,076 sq ft) section of the Universal Citywalk Osaka shopping center. Relying on data from 16 cameras, 6 laser range finders and 9 RFID tag readers installed in and around the area, the robot was able to watch up to 20 people at a time, pinpoint their locations to within a few centimeters, and classify each individual’s behavior into one of 10 categories (waiting, wandering, walking fast, running, etc.).

Whenever Robovie spotted people who looked disoriented, the child-sized droid wheeled up to them and asked, “Are you lost?” If so, the robot provided simple directions to the destination and pointed the way. If not, the robot proceeded to recommend nearby shops and restaurants.

Link