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May 7, 2008
a day later » May 8, 2008

Surreal muscle magazine cover

muscle-mag.jpgWhen I saw this magazine on the newsstand, I thought it was a gaming magazine with a photo of a character in a video game. But I think it's a photo of a real human being. (Click on thumbnail for enlargement)
 

Mysterious "Full-Automatic Mahjong Table"

I admit it: I have no idea what this "Full-Automatic Mahjong Table" actually does, but the name is pretty evocative. I have a vision of a million tiny magnets on servos in the bowels of the table that auto-drag the tiles into place.

Automatic Mahjong table adopts the working principle of electricity, light and magnetism, and it is controlled by microcomputer programs. It can effectively achieve the automatic shuffling and dealing of Poker tiles, and automatic dice tossing in a quick and fair way, with stable performance, long period of non-malfunction, and adding entertainment interests. It used two diffentely colors Mahjong Tiles with magnetic.
Link (via Cribcandy)
 

Animal silhouette bookshelf dividers


Love these Japanese bookcase animal silhouette dividers -- $15 each, give or take. Link (via Cribcandy)
 

Drawing every single person in NYC

Jason Polan has set out to draw every single person in New York -- sounds crazy, but then, this is the guy who drew every work of art in the MOMA:
I am trying to draw every person in New York. I will be drawing people everyday and posting as frequently as I can. It is possible that I will draw you without you knowing it. I draw in Subway stations and museums and restaurants and on street corners. I try not to be in the way when I am drawing or be too noticeable. Whenever I have a new batch of drawings I will post them on this blog. If you would like to increase the chances of a portrait of YOU appearing on this blog please email me (art@jasonpolan.com) a street corner or other public place that you will be standing at for a duration of two minutes (I will be on the corner of 14th street and 8th avenue on the North-east corner of the street from 2:42-2:44pm this Thursday wearing a bright yellow jacket and navy rubber boots, for example).
Link (via Kottke)
 

Patriot Act gag-order on the Internet Archive clobbered by EFF and ACLU

A court case has forced the FBI to withdraw its gag order against the Internet Archive, brought down after the Archive was served with a Patriot Act "National Security Letter" warrant that asked for personal information about one of the Archive's users. The Archive, as a library, was reluctant to give out information on its patrons, so they contacted the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the ACLU, and eventually won the right to discuss the case:
The NSL included a gag order, prohibiting Kahle from discussing the letter and the legal issues it presented with the rest of the Archive's Board of Directors or anyone else except his attorneys, who were also gagged. The gag also prevented the ACLU and EFF from discussing the NSL with members of Congress, even though an ACLU lawyer who represents the Archive recently testified at a congressional hearing about the FBI's misuse of NSLs.

"This is a great victory for the Archive and also the Constitution," said Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU. "It appears that every time a national security letter recipient has challenged an NSL in court and forced the government to justify it, the government has ultimately withdrawn its demand for records. In the absence of much needed judicial oversight – and with recipients silenced and the public in the dark – there is nothing to stop the FBI from abusing its NSL power."

"A miscarriage of justice was prevented here because the Archive decided to fight the unlawful demand for information and unconstitutional gag," said EFF Staff Attorney Marcia Hofmann. "The big question is, how many other improper NSLs have been issued by the FBI and never challenged?"

Link (Thanks, Rebecca!)
 

Harvard Law School goes open access!

Harvard Law School just became the first law school to commit to open access (free publication with copy/share friendly licenses) in all its journals:

The faculty of Harvard Law School has unanimously approved a motion for open access: articles will be made freely available in an online repository. With the success of this motion, Harvard Law becomes the first law school to make an institutional commitment to open access to its faculty's scholarly publications. [full text of the motion]

The Berkman community is tremendously excited by the news, which resonates deeply with the Center's mission and helps set the stage for other academic institutions to establish open access policies. In February, Harvard University's Faculty of Arts and Sciences did just that, unanimously passing an open access motion spearheaded by computer science professor and Berkman faculty co-director Stuart Shieber. (In addition, Harvard College Free Culture has launched a free Thesis Repository!) Professor Shieber's work and leadership, along with that of Harvard library director Robert Darnton, paved the way for Berkman's own Terry Fisher and John Palfrey to bring this open access proposal to the Law School.

Link (Thanks, John!)
 

Craftsman's $8600 everything toolkit


This $8600, 1470 piece Craftsman toolset contains more pieces of precision metal than I could possibly use -- but it sure looks purdy all laid out there, doesn't it? Link (via Dvice)
 

Ancient wrist-mounted scrolling map -- Boing Boing Gadgets

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our John spotted this vintage wrist-mounted scrolling map from 1927, an antediluvian wrist-mounted GPS:

At first glance, this 1927 map watch is pretty nifty: an antediluvian GPS, don't you know. It was called the Plus Four Wristlet Route Indicator, a name so clunky, unmemorable and artless that it even sounds like the name of a modern GPS device. The idea was simple: the Wooster-esque motorist would putter around England, scrolling a tiny paper map loaded in his wrist as he went with two black knobs. If you took a turn, you simple slid out one map and inserted another one and continued on your way.

What ho! Ingenious! Except a complete road map only cost a few pence back in 1927, where as this device would have set you back around 5 quid. And just like modern GPS map providers, the real business model was in selling you additional maps.

Which leaves the design. I quite like it: it's cheap, but whimsical and adventurous, like something you might strap on your wrist to traverse Oz.

Link, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets
 

HOWTO make a cardboard playhouse

If this morning's Swedish cardboard playhouses gave you a nosebleed with their 370 Kroner pricetag (approx US$3,221,145.22), you can always make one yourself, with a set of plans like these:

It is easiest to start with a large cardboard box such as a refrigerator or other large appliance. I called my local appliance store and had them save me a box. I told them I was making a cardboard playhouse and they were more than happy to set one aside. If you can't find one large enough you can certainly construct one out of smaller boxes, it will just take more time to piece it together.
Link (via Craft)
 

Pre-Revolutionary Cuban advertisement art


LambdaCalculus379 sez, "This is a Picasa photo gallery of advertisements from 1950's pre-Castro Cuba. Many of these ads are beautiful examples of art from the era, and it would be a terrible shame to see these ads fade into obscurity. Ads range from things like department stores and movies to popular Cuban nightlife and iconic Cuban rums." Link (Thanks, LambdaCalculus379!)
 

Billboards measure decibel levels

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AEG-Electrolux has installed billboards outfitted with sensors to measure noise levels. So far, they've deployed them in London, Berlin, Madrid, Brussels, and Milan. The billboards are part of a "noise awareness" campaign that's actually a marketing effort for a new "silent" washing machine. The data is also viewable online. Link to AEG Noise Awareness Blog, Link to AEG Noise Awareness site, Link to more info and video at Laughing Squid
 

Giant eggs in Dutch city

Hofstraaaaa
Artist Henk Hofstra installed sunny-side up egg sculptures in Leeuwarden, Netherlands. The "Art Eggcident" will remain in the city square for the next six months. Link
 

Ira Isaacs, "poo porn" producer about to go on trial for obscenity, interviewed


Susannah Breslin interviews the 57-year-old scat video producer who is at the center of what may be the "most extreme obscenity trial in U.S. history." Of note: he compares himself to Picasso, Mozart, and Kafka, and does not consider his work to be pornography.

Snip from her intro:

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post entitled "The 2 Girls 1 Cup Defense," focusing on the case of Ira Isaacs, a Los Angeles based director of coprophagy and distributor of bestiality films who was indicted last summer by the Department of Justice's Obscenity Prosecution Task Force for various obscenity-related offenses. Not long after that post went up, I got an email from Mr. Isaacs himself. He said if I wanted to interview him, I could. So I did. That interview is now online at Radar Online: "But Is It Obscene?"
And snip from her Radar interview:
RADAR: How did you get started making these movies?
IRA ISAACS: When the Internet was happening, I wanted to enter it in some way, and I wanted to do something different. In the past, you needed a lot of money and people to make a movie. Until video cameras were invented. Then the Internet was a big breakthrough for distribution. So, I started making a lot of money with these fetish shock videos. I was distributing shock art films from Europe.

What do you mean by "shock art films"?
You talk about art? What is art? Art is what artists do. If it shocks you, it's art. One of the things art should do is make you think and question things. Shock art has always been something that has been a very popular thing through the 20th century and the 21st century. People used feces as shock art. There was a guy who shit in a can and sold it for the price of gold. [In 1961, Italian conceptual artist Piero Manzoni canned his feces in 90 tins and sold them for the price of their weight in gold.] So, the Internet allowed me to be an artist, to reach a lot of people. It allowed me to be on the edge, to do what I would never do as a fine artist. If you're going to paint, you've got to compete with Picasso. If you want to write a great classical music piece, you're competing with Mozart. I would never write anything like Kafka's The Trial. If I was going to make a mark, I was going to do it in some extreme shock way.

Link to Radar piece, and here's the post on Susannah's blog with more out-takes and background. (Photo, via Radar: Getty Images). [Ed. note to Susannah: you win at internet dumpster-diving, dude. Seriously.]

Previously on Boing Boing:

  • The "2 Girls 1 Cup" defense
  •  

    Andrews and Ueda at Roq La Rue Gallery in Seattle

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    Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery is holding an exhibition of new phantasmagoric paintings by Esao Andrews and Fuco Ueda. The show opens this Friday, May 9, and runs until June 7. Above left, Ueda's "Gumball" (acrylic and shell powder on canvas, 10" x 14"). Above right, Andrews's "Virile Influenza" (oil on wood panel, 18" x 24"). Link to exhibition page, Link to Ueda online gallery, Link to Andrews online gallery
     

    Some China firms outsourcing to USA to cut costs

    An article in the LA Times this week on businesses from China bargain-hunting on operational costs by outsourcing to the USA:
    Liu Keli couldn't tell you much about South Carolina, not even where it is in the United States. It's as obscure to him as his home region, Shanxi province, is to most Americans.

    But Liu is investing $10 million in the Palmetto State, building a printing-plate factory that will open this fall and hire 120 workers. His main aim is to tap the large American market, but when his finance staff penciled out the costs, he was stunned to learn how they compared with those in China.

    Liu spent about $500,000 for seven acres in Spartanburg -- less than one-fourth what it would cost to buy the same amount of land in Dongguan, a city in southeast China where he runs three plants. U.S. electricity rates are about 75% lower, and in South Carolina, Liu doesn't have to put up with frequent blackouts.

    Link (via neatorama, thanks Tian)
     

    Bad Star Trek porn, as if there were any other kind.

    The internet dumpster-divers over at Fleshbot found a real gem today. Link (NSFW).
     

    New Boing Boing t-shirt by Gama-Go!

     Images D Boingflat
    We are pleased to introduce the latest manifestation of the Boing Boing/GAMA-GO mindmeld: the Jackhammer Deathbot tee. Featuring artist Tim Biskup's unholy splicing of our friendly mascot Jackhammer Jill with GAMA-GO's dastardly Deathbot, this new t-shirt is made from 100% combed organic cotton. It's available for $28 in men's sizes small through XXL. Dig it! Link
     

    Little Brother tour-schedule: Chicago, Milwaukee, Seattle, San Francisco, NYC

    Sunday night, I fly to Chicago to kick off my three-week US book-tour for Little Brother, my new young adult novel. I'll be stopping in and around Chicago, Milwaukee, Seattle, San Francisco and (probably) New York. The schedule's still being firmed up, but Tor (my publisher) is keeping an up-to-the-minute schedule for each appearance. This is my first publisher-financed tour, and I'm incredibly excited! I hope to meet lots of you on the road! Link
     

    BBtv: Joel Johnson Wilderness Internet Experience


    Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson recently spent a week in the woods with a backpack full of electronics, to see if he could work on the internet in the wild using only solar power and his bare hands. This video reveals to the world, for the very first time, what happened to all those bears.

    Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video.

     

    Dear Virgin Media: if Net Neutrality is "bollocks" then you can get stuffed

    Last month, Neil Berkett (the new CEO of Virgin Media, one of my ISPs in London) announced that Network Neutrality was "bollocks" and that Internet services would have to pay for premium connections or be relegated to the "Internet bus-lane." In other words, rather than giving me the sites I asked for as fast as they could, Virgin would henceforth deliver the sites that paid bribes faster than other sites (Virgin tried to spin this by saying that the sites that paid would get priority traffic -- but how do you prioritize one service's packets without de-prioritizing other sites' packets?).

    I said then that I would resign my Virgin account over this, and now that I'm back in London, I've been able to look up my account number and send off the following letter (they have 28 days to respond, and I'll post their reply here too):

    Complaints,
    Virgin Media,
    PO Box 333,
    Matrix Court,
    Swansea SA7 9ZJ

    May 7, 2008

    To Whom it May Concern:

    We are writing to you today to cancel our Virgin Broadband account, having read the remarks of your new CEO, Neil Berkett, in which he described the idea of Net Neutrality as "bollocks," promising that any Internet service that failed to pay off Virgin to deliver its packets would be put into the "Internet bus lane."

    We contracted with Virgin Broadband to provide us with access to the Internet, on the implicit understanding that Virgin would supply us with the packets we requested at the highest speeds it could manage. We did not sign up to be used as tokens in a tawdry game in which Virgin demands back-handers from the world's websites in exchange for access to us. We want to access the Internet, not be traded to another inmate for two packs of cigarettes.

    We believe that this is a material violation of our agreement with Virgin, that Virgin has substantially altered the nature of the service we are paying for. Therefore in accordance with your own terms and conditions, para, J4, "If we and/or Virgin Media Payments break the terms and conditions of this agreement, you're free to end this agreement" we would ask you to terminate my contract without any penalties or fees.

    Sincerely,

    Link

    See also: Virgin Media CEO: Net neutrality is "bollocks," promises to breach agreement with customers

     
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