Mike Fontanelli wrote a great introduction to cartoon great and unrepentant hippy hater Al Capp and his Dick Tracy parody, Fearless Fosdick. The post includes the first 20 pages (scanned in high res) of the first Fearless Fosdick story, "The Poisoned Bean Case."
"The Poisoned Bean Case" is, simply put, one of Capp's masterpieces. It seems to be a special favorite with fans too, both for its astronomical body count and its sheer outrageousness. Believe it or not, this blood-drenched parody ran in family newspapers in the fifties, in Eisenhower's America, on Sundays, no less!
In the following brilliantly demented pages, no one is spared Capp's merciless needle. From the venality of the justice system to the crookedness of the media; from the corruption of big business to the fickleness and stupidity of a complacent populace. The diabolical plot, which concerns product tampering, presages the 1982 Tylenol case by some 30 years.
As a cautionary note to readers encountering this story for the first time: you are hereby warned. It's impossible not to get swept up in the maelstrom of fury that's about to be unleashed. "The Poisoned Bean Case" doesn't so much unfold, as simply detonate! For comics fans who like their irony dark, raw and relentless- we proudly present Al Capp at or near the peak of his powers...
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
New research shows that the electromagnetic signals emanating from mobile phones can alter your brainwaves. Indeed, the latest studies suggest that mobile phone transmissions can even affect behavior. In one study, scientists from the Swinburne University of Technology monitored the brainwaves of folks with Nokia phones, er, strapped to their heads. They noticed that the cell phone transmissions boosted alpha waves. In a separate experiment, researchers from the Loughborough University Sleep Research Centre observed that sleep-deprived subjects with phones on their heads showed a dampening of delta waves that are markers of sleep. For hours after the phones were turned off, the test subjects exhibited difficulty falling asleep. From Scientific American:
Although this research shows that cell phone transmissions can affect a person's brainwaves with persistent effects on behavior, (Loughborough University's James) Horne does not feel there is any need for concern that cell phones are damaging. The arousal effects the researchers measured are equivalent to about half a cup of coffee, and many other factors in a person's surroundings will affect a night's sleep as much or more than cell phone transmissions.
"The significance of the research," he explained, is that although the cell phone power is low, "electromagnetic radiation can nevertheless have an effect on mental behavior when transmitting at the proper frequency." He finds this fact especially remarkable when considering that everyone is surrounded by electromagnetic clutter radiating from all kinds of electronic devices in our modern world. Cell phones in talk mode seem to be particularly well-tuned to frequencies that affect brainwave activity. "The results show sensitivity to low-level radiation to a subtle degree. These findings open the door by a crack for more research to follow. One only wonders if with different doses, durations, or other devices, would there be greater effects?"
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Cabinet Magazine posted a great feature on the secret history of Cybex-like exercise machines. Apparently, the first "gym" filled with mechanical fitness contraptions was built by Swedish physician Gustav Zander in the late 19th century. The article was written by Carolyn de la Pena, author of The Body Electric: How Strange Machines Built the Modern American. From Cabinet:
(Zander's) mechanical horse was an early version of the Stairmaster, a contraption for cardiovascular fitness designed to imitate a "natural" activity. His stomach-punching apparatus evokes contemporary "ab-crunching" machines. What makes Zander so important, for anyone trying to trace the Cybex family tree, is what happened when his machines, created in a European cultural context, immigrated to the US in the early twentieth century. They are prototypes of the workout equipment now ubiquitous in American life...
His machines offered, Zander explained to an American audience, "a preventative against the evils engendered by a sedentary life and the seclusion of the office." In fact, Zander claimed, there was no treatment quite so appropriate for these emerging white-collar men (and their wives) as his mechanized system. While doctors' pills and potions might be easier to procure and quicker to ingest, the "increased well-being and capacity for work" gained by those who used his machines, he argued, was "rich compensation for the time bestowed on them."
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
The Sky Factory deals in fake skylights and windows. Their SkyCeilings and Luminous Virtual Windows are photos of the outside that fit into standard ceiling or window grid systems. Fluorescent and LED backlighting is also available. It's like having a piece of Vegas in your own home! Seen here is a backlit Luminous SkyCeiling installed in a medical procedure room. Link
Previously on BB Gadgets:
• Sky Factory SkyCeilings Link
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Beyond The Beat Generation is a fantastic Internet radio station that plays obscure 60s rock, from mod to acid rock to merseybeat to psychedelia. The reason I like the station so much is that I've never heard of most of the groups on the playlists. From the "What is this all about" page:
Vernon Joynson Ruined My Life - Jeffrey Lewis
By the time I was about 19 years old I was well obsessed with 60s rock, and I thought I had totally mined the depths of it for cool psychedelic stuff just because I had Syd Barrett's solo albums, the first 13th Floor Elevators album, some Moby Grape and some Love. I even had a radio show at my college which I advertised as being "obscure psychedelic 60s music" although at the time "obscure" meant to me that I'd play Jefferson Airplane songs which were never on regular radio, etc. When I went to London for the first time, doing a study-abroad semester in Ealing in spring of 1996, I spent a lot of time hanging out in the TVU school library - just for fun I typed "psychedelic" into the library search computer and a book called "The Acid Trip: A Complete Guide to Psychedelic Music" written by one Vernon Joynston, came up. Excited at my luck, I located it on the shelves and took it home.
Have you ever had an experience that was so life changing and mind blowing you can't even remember it? I honestly have no recollection at all of what my first thoughts were when I started flipping through this book, a beautiful hardcover 136-page volume, packed with over 200 album cover reproductions, many in full color, and descriptions/comments on all the albums. All I know is that my paltry little world of music knowlege, that I thought was so extensive, was completely exploded - I had no idea WHATSOEVER that there existed a VAST realm of rare and insane albums that were long out of print, were known by nearly no one, and were seemingly beautiful and strange beyond anything I had hoped really existed. I took that book out of the library over and over again, and (after nervously researching the possible penalties for theft, thoughtful wus that I am) I eventually just never returned it and smuggled it back to the States with me when I returned home that May.
Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
The Stanford Medical Center is using stereophotography to document gorgeous Italian anatomical waxwork sculptures from the 18th and 19th centuries. Clement Susini (1757-1814) created more than 2,000 of the sculptures to educate medical students. A team from Stanford University Medical Media and Information Technologies (SUMMIT) collaborated with colleagues from the University of Bologna and 3D photographer Bernard Makinson to document the sculptures, currently stored at the Museo delle Cere Anatomiche Luigi Cattaneo. The team has put the first test photos on Flickr as both anaglyphs and "mono" photos. The former are quite spectacular when seen through red-blue glasses. Link to the project page, Link to the anaglyphs, Link to the "mono" photos (Thanks, John Stafford!)
Previously on BB:
• Incredible human dissection photos on Flickr Link
Phil sez, "Dark Roasted Blend has posted a collection of illustrations from early Soviet science fiction, most by Yury Markov. Stunning artistry!"
Link
Since last summer, the FBI has been on the lookout for two men who were seen taking a deep interest in a car-ferry in Seattle. The men were believed to be terrorists, plotting to blow up the ferry.
Actually, they were tourists who'd never seen a car ferry and thought it was cool.
Last summer, the FBI launched an international search for two men after crew members and riders on a Washington State Ferry reported their unusual behavior – namely that they were taking pictures below deck, in areas that don't hold much interest for most tourists.
A ferry captain snapped their photo, which was passed along to the FBI.
Turns out the men, both citizens of a European Union nation, were captivated by the car-carrying capacity of local ferries.
"Where these gentlemen live, they don't have vehicle ferries. They were fascinated that a ferry could hold that many cars and wanted to show folks back home," FBI Special Agent Robbie Burroughs said Monday.
Several large UK retail firms are due to launch a database containing details of staff who've been accused of "stealing, forgery, fraud, damaging company property or causing a loss to their employers and suppliers."
This is intended as a closed, privately-run addition to the police background checks already offered by the state-run Criminal Records Bearau.
Crucially, the new database will include details of people who, due to lack of evidence, have never been formally charged. So if someone is fired due to a grudge with their boss or wrongly suspected of an offence, they could end up blacklisted for life with no way to find this out or, if they do find out, no way to appeal.
Inventor and hacker Mitch Altman demonstrates the "brain machine," a device that stimulates your mind's eye. Mitch also invented TV-B-Gone, a sort of secret kill switch for kills television sets ("the only TV remote you need!").
And Lee Zlotoff, the creator of TV's MacGyver reveals plans for a MacGyver film project.
A curator at NY-MOMA had to euthanize a living leather jacket made from human mouse stem-cells -- the art-work had grown out of control and threatened to overflow its containment unit.
One of the central works in the exhibition “Design and the Elastic Mind” at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (until 12 May), Victimless Leather, a small jacket made up of embryonic stem cells taken from mice, has died. The artists, Oron Catts and Ionat Zurr, say the work which was fed nutrients by tube, expanded too quickly and clogged its own incubation system just five weeks after the show opened...
Ms Antonelli says the jacket “started growing, growing, growing until it became too big. And [the artists] were back in Australia, so I had to make the decision to kill it. And you know what? I felt I could not make that decision. I’ve always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I’m here not sleeping at night about killing a coat...That thing was never alive before it was grown.”
Using a sphere of ice (as opposed to a cube) in your whiskey-rocks is nice because the round ice melts more slowly than the square stuff (better surface-area/volume ratio). Now a Japanese company has introduced a mold for making a perfect, seamless ice-sphere:
Taisin has introduced a mold that seamlessly creates a perfect sphere, no chipping and shaving required. Simple place a chunk of ice into the metal press and, as it melts, the device will close around the ice forming a ball, which is then released by the flick of a switch.
The Ice Mold, available in 55, 65, 70, and 80mm mold sizes, can make 30-40 ice balls an hour.
Spheres of ice are preferred by serious on the rocks drinkers because the reduced surface size means that the ice melts at a slower pace, keeping your drink
A Chinese company is launching an independent GPS service with a secondary, encrypted signal that can be used (presumably) by the military. There's a couple interesting applications for this -- for example, you could spoof the unencrypted GPS and foil guerrillas or enemy fighters while your forces remained correctly geolocated. You could even locally spoof GPS signals to give persistently wrong info about the location of sensitive installations while ensuring that your own people had good location data. Of course, this all goes to pieces if the adversary has a second GPS keyed into a rival system like Galileo or the US system.
In presentations April 23 here at the Toulouse Space Show, these Chinese officials nonetheless said their global Compass/Beidou system would be fully compatible with the U.S. GPS, European Galileo and Russian Glonass global navigation constellations.
Like GPS, Galileo and Glonass, Beidou/Compass would be free of direct user charges but also feature an encrypted signal for authorized users only, presumably including the Chinese military.
Chengqi Ran, vice director of the China Satellite Navigation Project Center, said the secure Beidou/Compass signal would be "a highly reliable signal dedicated to complex situations."
The upcoming Paper Wars exhibit in London's Craze Gallery features giant, elaborate materiel and artillery made from paper, scissors and gluesticks.
...[T]his exhibition, organized by PostlerFerguson, takes their paper AK-47 kit (first published in 2007) as a point of departure and asks participants to respond by altering the object. Featured artists include Ben Wilson, El Ultimo Grito, Oscar and Ewan, Pixelgarten, Hiroko Shiratori, Paul Wysocan, BASE23/DC|DE and more.
Andrew sez, "Just when you think plushy creations can't get more weird, here comes a macabre soft toy creator in the UK who recreates roadkill. Currently you can choose from Twitch the Racoon or Grind the Rabbit complete with toe tags, tyre marks and cute giblets spilling from their split innards. Other sick creations are in the pipeline."
Link
(Thanks, Andrew!)
The New York Times fashion and style section has a nice piece today on the aesthetic influence of steampunk on fashion and art:
Devotees of the culture read Jules Verne and H. G. Wells, as well as more recent speculative fiction by William Gibson, James P. Blaylock and Paul Di Filippo, the author of “The Steampunk Trilogy,” the historical science fiction novellas that lent the culture its name. They watch films like “The City of Lost Children” (with costumes designed by Jean Paul Gaultier), “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen” and “Brazil,” Terry Gilliam’s dystopian fantasy satirizing the modern industrial age; and they listen to melodeons and Gypsy strings mixed with industrial goth.
They build lumbering contraptions like the steampunk treehouse, a rusted-out 40-foot sculpture assembled last year at the Burning Man festival in Nevada and unveiled last month at the Coachella music festival in Southern California. They trawl eBay for saw-tooth cogs and watch parts to dress up their Macs and headsets, then show off their inventions to kindred spirits on the Web.
And, in keeping with the make-it-yourself ethos of punk, they assemble their own fashions, an adventurous pastiche of neo-Victorian, Edwardian and military style accented with sometimes crudely mechanized accouterments like brass goggles and wings made from pulleys, harnesses and clockwork pendants, to say nothing of the odd ray gun dangling at the hip. Steampunk style is corseted, built on a scaffolding of bustles, crinolines and parasols and high-arced sleeves not unlike those favored by the movement’s designer idols: Nicolas Ghesquiere of Balenciaga, Alexander McQueen and, yes, even Ralph Lauren.
Link
(Thanks to all the dozens of people who suggested this!)
A reader writes, "In preparation for the release of his newest book The Word of God, respected New Wave SF writer Thomas M. Disch (The Brave Little Toaster, Camp Concentration) has revealed himself to be God and is now taking questions from the faithful at his blog."
Dear G_d: Could you clarify the order of Creation? There are two different lists in Genesis, and people have died over interpretation. Please guide your humble flock.
PS: What did you do on the 8th Day?
The Aardvarks came first. Then the others, in alphabetical order. Except some of the really cute ones, like the panda, wheedled their way to the head of the line. And the zebra just stood there feeling this would be his lucky day.
Andrew sez, "IEEE Spectrum reporter Josh Romero did a short video piece about the microfiche-to-MIDI machine that I showed at the Bay Area Maker Faire. The machine converts light from a microfiche machine into MIDI signals, which are then played through an old Casio keyboard. The machine is used by the band Microfiche in a few of their songs."
Link
(Thanks, Andrew!)
Behold, the prizewinning toilet-paper wedding dress, conceived of, designed, and modelled by Vicky Heir of Christchurch, NZ.
Expo manager Peta-Marie McLeod said the designers were allowed to use two four-packs of the double length Cottonsofts toilet tissue -- about 16 normal rolls -- to make their dresses.
David sez, "Someone put a plastic bag over the camera cluster on one of Google's Street View cars, and the resulting imagery seems to have made it right through to Google Maps."
Of course, maybe the bag just blew over the cameras.
We can be quite sure this is a plastic bag too, because it actually says “plastic bag” on it. Unfortunately we’re not familiar enough with Alaskan plastic bags to tell you exactly what shop it’s from.
The saboteurs must have been extremely quick on their feet of course, as the bag appeared without any warning while the car was travelling at speed along College Road.
FolioSF has just published the French edition of my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, translated by Gilles Goullet under the title "Dans la dèche au Royaume Enchanté." It's available in fine stores throughout the French-speaking world, and, of course, on Amazon.fr.
Link
(Zander's) mechanical horse was an early version of the Stairmaster, a contraption for cardiovascular fitness designed to imitate a "natural" activity. His stomach-punching apparatus evokes contemporary "ab-crunching" machines. What makes Zander so important, for anyone trying to trace the Cybex family tree, is what happened when his machines, created in a European cultural context, immigrated to the US in the early twentieth century. They are prototypes of the workout equipment now ubiquitous in American life...
The Sky Factory deals in fake skylights and windows. Their SkyCeilings and Luminous Virtual Windows are photos of the outside that fit into standard ceiling or window grid systems. Fluorescent and LED backlighting is also available. It's like having a piece of Vegas in your own home! Seen here is a backlit Luminous SkyCeiling installed in a medical procedure room.
Taisin has introduced a mold that seamlessly creates a perfect sphere, no chipping and shaving required. Simple place a chunk of ice into the metal press and, as it melts, the device will close around the ice forming a ball, which is then released by the flick of a switch.
Dear G_d: Could you clarify the order of Creation? There are two different lists in Genesis, and people have died over interpretation. Please guide your humble flock.
Expo manager Peta-Marie McLeod said the designers were allowed to use two four-packs of the double length Cottonsofts toilet tissue -- about 16 normal rolls -- to make their dresses.
FolioSF has just published the French edition of my first novel,