Scott Beale points to this series of very funny ads from a car dealership in Oregon.

Photographer Dave Bullock, whose work I've blogged here many times before, says,

When I opened up this month's National Geographic I was filled with amazement and a bit of envy. World class technical photographer, Peter Ginter, shot these really outstanding shots of CERN. His technique is unmatched.

Link.

Reports are circulating today that Pakistan's central telecommunications authority (PTA) ordered ISPs to block access to Youtube on Friday.

According to an official notification sent out by the PTA to major ISPs, the ban was supposed to be imposed on a specific URL, featuring a 04:58-minute-long trailer from Dutch politician Geert Wilders’ controversial anti-Islam movie. The video had been uploaded to the website on January 28, 2008, and had remained largely unnoticed by the internet-savvy community in Pakistan.

Link to a regional news report, Reporters Without Borders has more.

Amy Cottrell says,

I just taped a large "zombie walk" yesterday in north Texas. It was in honor of the 40th anniversary of Night of the Living Dead. There were over 100 people dressed as zombies walking down a busy street in front of a mall. I got some great pics and a video, which I posted here. They were actually walking up to a local horror con, which had George Romero and the entire Living Dead cast as guests. A good time was had by all.

I'm a few days late in pointing to this on the blog, but earlier this week, the AP ran a story about new security measures planned for Amtrak, including random screening of selected passengers' bags. The short version: brown people on trains should probably brace themselves for [more] impromptu frisking:

Amtrak passengers will have to submit to random screening of carry-on bags in a major new security push that will include officers with automatic weapons and bomb-sniffing dogs patrolling platforms and trains, the railroad planned to announce Tuesday.

The initiative is a significant shift for Amtrak. Unlike the airlines, it has had relatively little visible increase in security since the 2001 terrorist attacks, a distinction that has enabled it to attract passengers eager to avoid airport hassles.

Link (via Ned Sublette)

Jerry Beck, who co-edits the Cartoon Brew blog, found a disturbing thing in the supermarket recently. "This officially licensed item is wrong on so many levels," he says, and right he is. Link.

This eight-foot-tall animatronic model of Gort, the robot from The Day The Earth Stood Still, is currently up for auction on eBay. According to the ad, "the robot hasn't been activated in years." So be careful! Current bid is $4051. From the auction listing:

Specifications:

* Created by Fred Barton Productions, Inc., hand assembled in the USA.
* Originally purchased from FBP, Inc., in 2003. Since then it has been on public display.
* Full size fiberglass reproduction. High quality, durable construction.
* Originally equipped with tilting visor with sound effects.
* Animatronics controlled by an infrared remote control.
* Dimensional specifications were obtained from the original robot.
* The original infrared controller is included.

Link

Oric sez, "The director of a Norwegian museum claimed yesterday to have discovered cartoons drawn by Adolf Hitler during the Second World War."

William Hakvaag, the director of a war museum in northern Norway, said he found the drawings hidden in a painting signed "A. Hitler" that he bought at an auction in Germany...

He found coloured cartoons of the characters Bashful and Doc from the 1937 Disney film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, which were signed A.H., and an unsigned sketch of Pinocchio as he appeared in the 1940 Disney film.

Link

John's been spelunking in filmstrips from the Goodwill, putting up high-res, color-corrected scans of strips ranging from "a 1935 travelogue of Alaska, A very racial one called "The Jap His Honorable Self' and much information about WWII-era Philippines, Marianas, Bon, Bali and Marshall Islands." Link (Thanks, John!)

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels over the years: this shot of the brick wall near the rear exit of the London Zoo in Regent's Park. I love the signage from three different eras, and the erupting thick black wires that look like they've been dipped in gutta percha -- it's my favorite kind of London streetscene, walls that have been scarred and repurposed as the technologies of municipal living changed. Link

Carissa Knits has a great free pattern for making a hip R2D2 beanie, complete with little wooly monocle turret:

Want a handmade Halloween costume this year? Have a geeky friend whose birthday is right around the corner? Or perhaps you are that geeky friend. That's okay. Be proud of who you are. Shout it out loud without saying a word. Knit this hat and wear it everyday, everywhere.

Link (Thanks, Wendi!)

Philip sez, "John McKeever of Northern Ireland has made a boffo origami tessellation of a Space Invader."

This is a variation of Fujimoto's box-pleated tessellation, folded from a 70 x 52 cm piece of kraft paper. . It's a very laborious way of making a pixel image.

Link (Thanks, Philip!)

danah sez, "This is a video of students marching seven miles in Texas to cast their votes on the first day of early voting."

Texas Republicans have worked overtime to make it harder for key Democratic voting groups to vote and be represented fairly. The redistricting games they've played are infamous. And for the Prairie View A&M University precincts, they put the early-polling place more than seven miles from the school.

So what did the students in this video do? They shut down the highway as they marched seven miles to cast their votes on the first day of early voting.

Link (Thanks, danah!)

djBC, the mashup artist responsible for the amazing, illegal Beasties/Beatles "Beastles" albums, has produced a great albumof authorized mashups, in collaboration with Big D & the Kids Table, called "Strictly Mixed and Mashed." The best work on the CD sounds like vintage Trojan reggae crossed with -- well, a djBC mix. Link

See also:
New album of Beatles/Beasties mashups - drop-dead awesome! -- UPDATED
Meet the Beastles
Mash-up Friday: Hiphop vs. Philip Glass = Glassbreaks Wu Orleans: mashup of Wu-Tang Clan plus dixie jazz tunes
Santastic II: Xmas mashups from djBC and friends

Pingmag's got a lovely feature on Japanese packaging design that imitates natural materials, such as fake printed cardboard bamboo sheaths, plastic fake "bamboo" bottles, and other natural/plastic hybrid packaging techniques.

Bamboo is naturally divided into sections and here it ingeniously functions as the mould and the container for the jelly as well. Efficient! Amazing! Perfect!

But to temper the delight: There is an extra tool required to make the yokan slip out of its container. This involves additional effort.

In contrast, the plastic replica is easier to open.

Link

More research in the ongoing struggle to understand why French people are skinnier than Americans, despite the chocolate, wine, cheese, pastry and pate: Cornell researchers say it's down to the different cues that French people and Americans use to tell them when to stop eating. The French stop when they're full, Americans stop when the plate is empty (or the TV show ends).

"Furthermore, we have found that the heavier a person is -- French or American -- the more they rely on external cues to tell them to stop eating and the less they rely on whether they felt full," said senior author Brian Wansink, the John S. Dyson Professor of Marketing and director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the Department of Applied Economics and Management, now on leave to serve as executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion until January 2009.

Link

Here's a smart way to cope with the mountain of books beside the bed: easy-sew pockets that slip between the box-spring and the mattress and hang down on the side of the bed.

I am constantly tidying up my night table that has piled books, phone, clock, tissue box, converter, pictures, some carnations in a vase, where are you suppose to put all this stuff? Well, in this little bedside pocket of course! Oh so basic. Long embroidered cloth, folded over and sewn. Tuck in between the mattresses and there's your pocket. Stick your water bottle, converter, book, whatever.

Link (via Craft)

Elizabeth McGrath, the incredible sculptor-of-the-strange who I interviewed for BBtv late last year, has created two new limited edition creepycrafts in honor of Saint Patrick's Day. The green bat pin, named Seamus O'Shay, is $35 and comes in a hand-sketched box. The lucky rabbit knife and green mouse butcher knife (mouse size, in fact) are $25 and meant to "cut all the bad luck out of your life." Link

Previously on BB:
• Liz McGrath, creator of creepy creatures, on BBtv Link
• Liz McGrath show in Los Angeles Link

Ah, I see, the one for Obama precedes hillaryismomjeans. If someone sprouts a McCain, to this also I shall gladly link. (thanks, commentsers)

UPDATE: Jesus, there's a whole slew of 'em. OK I'm done.

Hypnotically holzeresque reload fun for the whole fam: HILLARY IS MOM JEANS. (via sfslim's twitterstream.)

Scott Beale says, "I made a quick stop by WonderCon 2008 today and while there shot a few photos." Link.

Sighn says:

I just want to let you in on a project I'm working on. A hand cut edition of 1 million. No joke, this will probably take the next 30-60 years to finish.

I am now planting a tree for every piece sold off my site. I'm also planning a 24 cut-a-thon this summer, where I will see how many I can cut out in one day.

Link | Video

The Day After
Jasmina Tešanović

22.2.2008

The day after: the streets are suspiciously clean. The local government has taken care to obscure the shame of the rioting, because obviously, it has echoed around the world and Serbia is once again the leading news in the foreign press.

The Serbs, with their legitimate right to mourn for the loss of Kosovo, were transformed into vandals who loot their own city. They broke into many foreign shops, stealing off with the foreign branded goods, made by those powers which gave away Kosovo. It's a greedily practical turn to the famous "inat" and spiteful defiance that Serbs generally offer the world community.

Images and footage of the broken windows, burned flags, demolished embassies, and drunken teenage patriots is cruising the world on YouTube. Our newly elected president, who wisely and rather obviously retreated to Rumania during the ruckus, asked for decent behavior and peace last night.

Other participants of the rally have no such regrets. The truest "heroines" of this charade are two young blondes filmed by candid camera and posted on YouTube in a long snippet called "Kosovo for tennis shoes."

These wannabe global consumers are relentlessly looting sports clothes from broken windows and dragging them in heaps through a town in chaos.

Donnie Hoyle teaches patch tools and levels in episode 7 of his funny "You Suck at Photoshop" tutorial. Link

This beer-barrel R2D2 sculpture comes from Deviant Art's Amoebabloke, who's hoping to find a buyer who isn't just a rich collector. Link (via Gizmodo)

The Bell System produced this great musical 15-minute short film to promote its presence at the 1964 World's Fair in New York. The film features monotonic voice-overs declaiming the virtues of tomorrow's telephone systems, along with earnest folk-singing about the miracle of telephony, as well as a ride-through on the Bell System Ride. Link (via Paleofuture)

Sculptor Brian Jungen builds eerily cool dinosaur skeletons out of cut-up stacking plastic lawn chairs. Link (via Make)

This week's New Scientist is a special issue about music, featuring an article titled "The Music Illusion" by Daniel Levitin, author of the popular book This Is Your Brain On Music. Sadly, the article is behind the magazine's paywall. But the magazine has posted links to five interesting auditory illusions that are quite a trip.
Link (via Further: Strange Attractor & beyond)

RottenNeighbor.com lets you add "rotten neighbors" to a Google map. I see nothing but trouble coming from this.

Here are a few descriptions that users have written about their neighbors (I removed the names) :

hot neighbor, San Diego, CA

hot guy ignores me. i tried being sweet. i tried being assertive. i tried downright full on suduction. he just blows off my advances like he dose not even know i am hitting on him, but really i know he is just mentally torturing me, that is why i am warning you all. i should just get over him but he is sooo hot!

The **** Family, Frisco, TX

**** and **** need to leave Frisco with their tail between their legs. they have caused two homeowners to go into foreclosure because they won't pay the rent. the people have caused many people heartache and frisco would be better off without them. Go back to Tarrant County **** ****!

drug addicts, Akron, OH

a guy named **** lives here with a poor excuse for a spouse & 2 unfortunate children. he's a bad meth abuser & smokes crack. keep your children away from this house

Horrible Neighbors Everywhere, Glastonbury Center, CT

Too many whining and complaining *****y neighbors throughout building. They need to mind their own business and go about their lives... Seriously, if you don't like condo living then get the f--- out!

noisey during sex, Honolulu, HI

there is some lady in my building who has loud sex on saturday afternoons. she lives on the pool side of our building and it is embarrassing hearing her loud moans while the kids are down at the pool.

mean old lady with no life!!, Austin, TX

this women has nothing better to do then yell at myself and y famil, thinks she owns the block, tries to get us in trouble with the police, city hall, etc. you name it she has tried it!! the women has no life, hateful, nasty, even does things to little kids!! physco!! we are her whole mission in life and that is really sad!!

home wreaker

a 22 year b**ch lives here, she'll lay down with anyone, especially if he's married, established, and as old as her father. keep clear

From the site's "About" page:

RottenNeighbor.com is here to help. It's the first real estate search engine of its kind, helping you find troublesome neighbors before you sign the paperwork on your new house, condo or apartment. RottenNeighbor is the largest site anywhere in the world covering the neighbor space, and we're certain you'll agree that the value it offers is unmatched anywhere else!

Use RottenNeighbor to:

* Get access to detailed maps of states, counties, cities and neighborhoods, all searchable by zip code

* Find important neighborhood information by searching the site's user-provided data

* Help others by uploading your own good or rotten neighbors to our database

Link

Melissa Bowman of Lithia, Florida claims that her two-year-old son James's Elmo Knows Your Name doll kept repeating the phrase "Kill James." The doll can be programmed with new names and certain phrases via PC. The toy's manufacturer, Fisher-Price, has offered to replace the doll and will check into the alleged malfunction. From TBO.com:

With a squeeze of its fuzzy belly, the Sesame Street character now says, in a sing-song voice, "Kill James." "It's not something that really you would think would ever come out of a toy," said Melissa Bowman, James' mother. "But once I heard, I was just kind of distraught."

The Elmo Knows Your Name doll, which connects to a computer to learn certain phases and names, recently ran out of battery power, Bowman said.

About an hour after she put new ones in, "I noticed exactly what it was saying," Bowman said. "And my son was repeating exactly what it was saying."

Link (via Fortean Times)

Previously on BB:
• More from Evil Elmo Link
• Immolate Me Elmo Link
• Tickle Me Elmo fur coats Link

UPDATE: In the comments, Maurice Reeves kindly posted a link to the video report from TBO.com with footage of the "Kill? James?" Elmo. Link

Law students at the University of Ottawa's Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic (CIPPIC) have created a great, 5-minute video explaining time-shifting and Canadian copyright law. In light of recent efforts to reform Canadian copyright law, this is perfect, informative material to show to your friends. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Tom Spina Designs created this Han Solo in Carbonite desk for a client. I would be incredibly productive with a desk like this. Just sayin'. Link (Thanks, John!)

Two security researchers demonstrated a way to crack cellular phone encryption during this week's Black Hat security conference in DC:

David Hulton and Steve Muller demonstrated a new technique for cracking the encryption used to prevent eavesdropping on global system for mobile communications (GSM) cellular signals, the type of radio frequency coding used by major cellular service providers including AT&T, Cingular and T-Mobile. Combined with a radio receiver, the pair say their technique allows an eavesdropper to record a conversation on these networks from miles away and decode it in about half an hour with just $1,000 in computer storage and processing equipment.

Hulton, director of applications for the high-performance computing company Pico, and Muller, a researcher for mobile security firm CellCrypt, plan to make their decryption method free and public. In March, however, they say they'll start selling a faster version that can crack GSM encryption in just 30 seconds, charging between $200,000 and $500,000 for the premium version.

Who will be the customers for their innovative espionage technique? Hulton and Muller say they aren't sure yet. But they plan to offer the method to companies that will integrate it with radio technology, not sell it directly to the law enforcement and criminal customers who will undoubtedly be interested in putting it to use. "We're not creating the technology that does the interception," Muller says. "All this does is crunch data."

Link (thanks, JGB!)

This clip from a 1960s UK TV special, The Music of Lennon & McCartney has guest performances of three songs. My favorite is the jazzy drums and keyboard instrumental version of "A Hard Day's Night" by Alan Haven and Tony Crombie, complete with shots of mod gogo dancers' boots kicking in time to the wild riffs.

Link | (Here's Part 1.)

forget the film, watch the titles
the trailer mash
how it should have ended
weebl and bob at the goovies
guerilla drive-in (image above)
wholphin
illeanarama

previously on web zen:
movie zen 2006
movie zen 2005
movie zen 2004

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

Katy Horan is a Brooklyn, NY-based artist whose lovely paintings of rituals, witches, healers, and animals are "meant to be the long lost folk art from an imaginary world." Above left, "Healers" (acrylic and gouache on wood); above right, "Candle" (watercolor and gouache on paper). Link (via Juxtapoz)

The folks who created the amazing security camera screen saver (now available for Windows), are working on a real-life version of the "superplonk" reality filtering system that author Charles Stross introduced in his terrific novel, Accelerando.

In Accelerando Charles Stross writes about a lot of interesting concepts we are just starting to work on. It was one of the most important books for me in 2007. it shows how close science fiction and science get in these days.

My favorite feature is "superplonk." It remixes the environment and filters annoying persons, objects and sounds. That’s an augmented reality version of what I practice today with special earplugs. But soon that should be possible with modified hearing devices and slim head mounted displays.

One experiment in my ongoing surveillance series simulates superplonk with images of network cameras. Via motion detection I am reconstructing a place’s image without people and cars. All moving objects are becoming ghosts. Only people and cars who are standing still are becoming visible. Movement makes you invisible. Jan covers this topic in his master thesis, too.

Link

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Middle Finger. Today on Boing Boing tv, two short videos from the Ministry of Unknown Science: first, an internet kung fu classic in which mysterious combat masters fell their foes with obscene gestures. Next, an infauxmercial for a speech therapy institute where people is learning for to talk more good with words and mouths. Special thanks to Timothy Walker of TMOUS.

Link to Boing Boing tv episode with downloadable video, and discussion.

Make's Phil Torrone got to take a tour of the MAD Magazine offices and he shot, like, a zillion photos of all the cool junk there. I remember visiting New York as kid and looking up at a Madison Avenue street sign and thinking, "Hot damn, MAD Magazine is around here somewhere -- I wonder if I could talk my Dad into taking me up there for a visit." For me, the dream died on the streets of Manhattan, but Torrone is living it. Link (Thanks, Phil!)

Charles Booth's groundbreaking "Poverty Maps" of London from 1886 to 1903 used survey data to visually represent the quality of life for Londoners across a city that was characterized by enormous economic disparity. The LSE maintains an archive of the maps, zoomable and overlaid with the contemporary London map. The maps are colored from black ("Lowest class. Vicious, semi-criminal.") to yellow ("Upper-middle and Upper classes. Wealthy.") Link

John Naughton's Observer column last Sunday lit into the music industry, chasing the statement by the head of the British Phonographic Institute (the UK's RIAA) that "For years, ISPs have built a business on other people's music." This is part of the music industry's blustering demands for ISPs to censor and monitor the Internet to protect the record companies' business-model (because protecting a couple of multinationals is more important than the free speech and privacy of every Internet user in the world).

An analogy may help to illustrate the point. Millions of people use the telephone network for questionable, illegal or unethical purposes. But we would regard it as unthinkable to impose on phone companies a legal obligation to monitor every conversation.

Any legislation in this area has to reflect the broad public interest - which is in ensuring the widest possible internet access by facilitating competition between ISPs without shackling them with undue regulatory obligations. The government must not be allowed to cave in to the special pleading of the music business. The green paper should be subjected to intense scrutiny, and a good place to start would be the public meeting on 19 March organised by the Foundation for Information Policy Research (see tinyurl.com/2d9u4y for details).

Link

In May, 1959, Popular Science reported on the advent of argon-filled, airless factories for new materials fabrication, and the novel "space suits" that would be worn by the workers.

EXOTIC metals that can survive the heat barrier of hypersonic flight soon will be mill-worked at a white-hot 4,000 degrees in a forbidding atmosphere of argon gas, similar to that inside an incandescent light bulb.

Men working in this out-of-the-world gas-chamber metal mill will wear “space suits,” trailing umbilical cords plugged into air-breathing and exhaust manifolds.

Should a lifeline break, a man might live a minute or two—as helpless as if he were out in space or under water without an oxygen supply. Crash doors will provide a quick escape. But in case he is injured or some obstacle gets in the way, he will have an emergency air capsule to keep him alive until rescue comes.

Link

Prosecuting Music Piracy, a RIAA training video for prosecuting attorneys, has leaked onto the net -- it focuses on busting counterfeit CD vendors, and talks about how prosecutors should also use music piracy as a charge against drug dealers with large music collections:

Starring ex-prosecutor Deborah Robinson and Frank Walters, an ex-Maryland State trooper, it was made to "assist in the training of U.S. prosecutors responsible for handling music piracy cases."

It includes footage from "surveillance" videos and, "techniques on how to identify illegal sound recordings and highlights," not to mention, "examples of how illegal music is sold."

And here's the kicker.

It even claims to provide instructions on, and we quote, "qualifying an RIAA investigator as an expert."

So that's where Doug Jacobson and MediaSentry acquired their skills!

Link

The Saudi government is set to execute an illiterate woman for the crime of "witchcraft." She "confessed" to the crime after being beaten by the religious police and then fingerprinting a confession she could not read.

The illiterate woman was detained by religious police in 2005 and allegedly beaten and forced to fingerprint a confession that she could not read.

Among her accusers was a man who alleged she made him impotent...

When an appeal court decided she should not be executed, the law courts imposed the death sentence again, arguing that it would be in the public interest.

Link (via Making Light)

From the May, 1933 ish of Popular Science: a bunch of amusing faces you can make by arranging your hands just so, while clutching various props. Link

Hero Ha is an adorable three-year-old Korean kid who likes to stand around in his diaper with a giant guitar slung over his shoulders, performing truly excellent renditions of Beatles songs. Here he is singing "Hey Jude." Link

Rumors abound about a new "exclusive" Disney World theme park that would only admit 2,000 people at a time for "adult" fun. Lots of similar ideas have been floated over the years, including a villain-themed park across the lagoon from the Magic Kingdom, with an evil, lurking castle to counterpoint the frosted confection that the "good" side sports. Best part of this rumor is that it holds that the new park will incorporate elements form the Pleasure Island Adventurer's Club, a nightclub/cabaret/immersive play that's one of my favorite things at the park.

There were a few missing details in Jim's report, but enough has leaked out that tells me this is similar to an idea that's been on the table since the mid-90s. Imagineer Tony Baxter talked about a related concept back in 1998. I know a certain camp in Imagineering has been itching to try it out, the only question being East or West coast.

What strikes me about this 'boutique experience' is how 'adult' all the attractions sound. Plus the evening hours is clearly targeting older guests. More than anything this might be Disney's attempt to win back some of the Vegas (aka High-Roller) crowd they hope to see return with a couple of the luxury hotels that will be opening in and around the WDW resort over the next few years.

Link

Here's a lovely idea for improving an old coffee table: 8-bit pixel-art Mario mosaic!

I decided to take an old table my grandfather made that had a stain on the top of it and tile it myself. Luckily my parents were tiling their bathroom so I got to use a nice industrial cutter :)

Link (via Craft