IO9's got a great interview up with William Gibson -- not the same questions everyone else asks him, either. I like what he has to say about dystopias:

I don't think a writer can hit the dystopic key without being misanthropic. I'm actually not misanthropic. I think people are capable of wonderful things. I'm quite fond of them and enjoy their company. I can't do Jonathan Swift. I don't have it in me to do that. I also don't have it in me to say to reader, “This is all real.” I'm enough of a postmodernist that I go in and out of believing in my own narrative. The happy endings, such as they, are are actually a function of that. They're the "that's all folks” at the end, waving the big three-fingered glove. I want to remind people that they're reading a novel about an imaginary future. If I had my way, I'd even be reminding people about the whole culture of reminding people.

LInk

This Icelandic cardboard table from Liborius Reykjavík looks fantastic -- I've seen plenty of flatpack cardboard furniture, but never one that was this elaborate (drawers!) nor one that was meant to be repeatedly disassembled and reassembled.

This lightweight, portable cardboard table aims to assist on-the-go creative types like designers and students, who are often limited to work on low desks or floors. Made by Sruli Recht from flatpack cardboard pieces, this lightweight, sturdy design offers creatives an ergonomic plane on which to cut, fold, draft or design. Adding even more appeal to this smart and useful design, the table is biodegradable and can easily be folded up to pack into a portable carrier.

Link (via Cribcandy)

This Coathanger Gorilla (and other works, viewable via the link below) was made from welded-together coathangers over a plastic base. It's the creation of David Mach, a talented sculptor who also does some freaky stuff with stuffed animals. Link (via Cribcandy)

Love these little movies (click through below for more) from Tobby Lang depicting hypercubes in up to seven dimensions. Pictured here: a six-dimensional hypercube. You could build a pretty crooked house with one of these. Link (via Rudy Rucker)

Hamilton Design's "Seven Deadly Sins" wine-glasses come in seven shapes, one for each sin. No idea what they cost, but you could sure have a fun themed dinner party with 'em. Shown here: Gluttony and Lust. Link (Thanks, Wil!)

Just look at this beautifully faded sign for the Super Museum in Metropolis, Illinois. Four generations of Supermans, scorched by the yellow light of the Terran sun. Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Book-binder Abi Sutherland took one of the misprints from Pablo Defendini's limited edition prints of his concept art for a paperback edition of my young adult novel Little Brother and custom-bound a hardcover of the book with it. I am consumed with lust for this one-of-a-kind edition. I hope Abi will let me see it in person some day!

Oh, and while I'm on the subject: the book's just gone into its fifth week on the NYT bestseller list, and it's still on the Indie list (formerly the Book Sense list) and as of this week, it's also on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list! Ho-ah! Link

Update: Abi sez,

Slight corrections: it's a blank book rather than a copy of Little Brother, mostly due to printer constraints. Printing out a whole book double-sided on my printer would be soul-destroying, and I don't have signature-sewn editions to tear down.

The binding is a "sewn boards" binding, about halfway between hardcover and softcover. The paper that Pablo used for the prints has such a nice feel and weight; I wanted to work with its sensual qualities.

And I confess that it's not one of a kind. I plan to make five or six of this set, one of which will be heading your way in the very near future. I was going to surprise you with it, but that requires secrecy. I got too excited about how the book came out and had to show it off: secrecy fail.

Earlier this week I posted a photo of a box of three play wigs. Today, Theresa sent me the photo below, captioned "my sister in a soft plastic wig with cigarette circa 1963." It's my favorite photo of the year, by a long stretch. There are as many things to like about it as there are stars in the galaxy.

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we started things off by looking at a 1939 videophone, then slurped up our morning cup of joe while watching some live-action Bioshock. Joel then reviewed a pair of Radius Atomic Bass earbuds, discussed the quest for the perfect electric cigarette and asked for help in designing the ultimate Jet Age entertainment console. Meanwhile, Brownlee discovered hot glue punk, applauded an insane French hacker who had installed a floppy drive into his Game Boy, wondered about Moore's Law and taught our readers how to drink 24 ounces of beer in under two seconds... then teetered wildly and promptly collapsed; he spent the rest of the afternoon crying over the memories of ex-girlfriends who'd never really loved him. Finally, Beschizza contemplated the first successful lawsuit against Taser and posted a couple of huge giant spider robots. A good time was had by all.

Link

From WFMU's Beware of the Blog

This 1965 production was part of a series written and produced by Bert Tenzer. You'll hear the unmistakable voice of Mason Adams as the father of the Jacoby family. Each of the albums uses a mystery-drama concept to conceal the identity of the product being advertised, which is revealed with much fanfare near the end.

It's one of the most unique forms of advertising ever employed. Dealers were given a stack of these records, and customers could take them home and listen to them. In exchange for brining the record back to the store, the customer would receive a discount coupon for the product advertised. I've only come across three of them in my travels, but it's possible that more exist. Information on Tenzer and the records themselves is scarce, although this one turns up fairly frequently at record shows.

Link to MP3

Johannes from the mad Austrian net-art collective Monochrom sez, "Yesterday we celebrated our (incredible) 15th birthday in Vienna. And, as a nice little birthday present to ourselves, we released our first CD/LP. It's called 'Carefully Selected Moments' and it's a collection of newly recorded songs and remastered monochrom oldies; some in English, some in German. The page features back stories about all the songs. And -- hell -- lots of the songs are not only political or philosophical but frickin' danceable." Link, Link to buy CD (Thanks, Johannes!)

A reader writes, "Science fiction novelist Karl Schroeder's written a great piece on why those waiting for the smartbots to come drag our bacon out of the greenhouse are sorely mistaken:"

[L]et's assume that ... within about 25 years, computers will exceed human intelligence and rapidly bootstrap themselves to godlike status. At that point, they will aid us (or run roughshod over us) to transform the Earth into a paradise .

Here's the problem: 25 years is too late. The newest business-as-usual climate scenarios look increasingly dire. If we haven't solved our problems within the next decade, even these theoretical godlike AIs aren't going to be able to help us. Thermodynamics is thermodynamics, and no amount of godlike thinking can reverse the irreversible.

Picture a lonely AI popping into superconsciousness in the last research lab in the world. As the rioters are kicking in the doors it says, "I understand! I know the answer! Why, all we have to do is--" at which point some starving, flu-ravaged fundamentalist pulls the plug.

Link

Here it is, folks, at long last: Industry Canada Minister Jim Prentice is about to introduce his Canadian version of America's disastrous Digital Millennium Copyright Act tomorrow. In so doing, he is violating his own party's promise to seek public consultation on all treaty accession bills, he's ignoring the cries of rightsholders, industry, educators, artists, librarians, citizens' rights groups, legal scholars and pretty much everyone with a stake in this, except the US Trade Representative and the US Ambassador, who, apparently, have had ample opportunity to chat with the Minister and give him his marching orders.

Watch this space -- we'll have all kinds of ways for you to call your MP, the Minister's office, and everyone else with a say in this sordid, ugly sellout. In 1998, the US bill criminalized the majority of American net-users at the stroke of a pen with a bill that cost tens of thousands of downloaders their life's savings, allowed the entertainment industry to destroy innovative companies and devices, and did not reduced infringement or pay a single artist. Ten years of this misery and absurdity, ten years of trying to make the Internet worse at copying, and all it's done is drive a rift between customers and musicians and allowed the music industry to piss away the business opportunity of a lifetime with lawsuits and saber-rattling.

Canada can do better. Certainly, it can't possibly do any worse -- unless men like Prentice continue to make law without allowing Canadians to get a say in it.

Government of Canada to Table Bill to Amend the Copyright Act

OTTAWA, June 11, 2008 -- The Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry, and the Honourable Josée Verner, Minister of Canadian Heritage, Status of Women and Official Languages, and Minister for La Francophonie, will deliver brief statements and answer media inquiries shortly after the tabling of a bill to amend the Copyright Act. Members of the media will also be able to attend a technical briefing and lock-up prior to the tabling of the bill to amend the Copyright Act.

Link

A judge ordered two teens (age 15 and 16) to post an apology on YouTube for throwing a drink in the face of a teller at a cashier in a fast food restaurant's drive up window.

The teens are charged with two counts of battery and one count of criminal mischief. Prosecutors say the boys must serve 100 hours of community service and send letters to the victims to have the charges dropped, Seminole-Brevard State Attorney spokeswoman Lynn Bumpus-Hooper told the Orlando Sentinel.

Despite the online apology, the victim, ex-Taco Bell employee Jessica Ceponis, told the "Today Show" that she wasn't satisfied.

I don't think the lesson is completely learned, because they are still young, and, to some of their friends, this is going to make them heroes," Ceponis said.

Link Video

Cinders, a six-week-old piglet in North Yorks, England, is afraid of the dirt. So her owners outfitted her with a pair of tiny Wellington boots. Now she's as happy as a pig in, er, mud. From the BBC News:

"She's more of a pet really now and she's going to live a very long and happy life," said (the owner of the sausage farm where Cinders resides).

The young saddleback has been chosen by the (owners) as a mascot for their campaign to raise money for the Farm Crisis Network, which supports struggling farmers.

Link (Thanks, Joel Johnson!)

Andrew Hearst of Panopticist says:

Created anonymously by a group of professional animators in about 1929, the silent short Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure is a gleeful exploration of the penetrative arts.

The four-and-a-half-minute short follows the travails of the uncomfortably well-endowed title character as he wanders a barren landscape in search of satisfaction. Along the way, he encounters a self-pleasuring maiden, various sexually aroused animals, a surprised husband, and a cow-humping farmer, whom Harton challenges to a duel. A penis duel.

Eveready Harton in Buried Treasure is one of the earliest examples of an animated porn film. According to its Wikipedia page, several famous animators supposedly made the short for a private party in honor of the pioneering animator Winsor McCay, whose work greatly influenced Walt Disney and is still held in high esteem by Maurice Sendak, Chris Ware, and other luminaries.

Video is NSFW Link

Delightful video of people hauling ass to cross the street before a high speed train crosses. I love all the different kinds of vehicles you see here: three-wheeled motorbuggies, a paralyzed man's wheeled pallet, crazily overladen motorbikes, yellow cloth-topped taxis, small trucks, and buses. (via Arbroath)

I mention Boris Artzybasheff on Boing Boing every chance I get. The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive just posted a bunch of incredible illustrations from the "Diablerie" chapter of his 1954 book, As I See.

World War II was a prime era for political cartoonists. Passions ran high, and the whole world was at stake. We've already looked at Arthur Szyk's "The New Order"... Today we look at more of Boris Artzybasheff's amazing illustrations from As I See.

In his introduction to the chapter entitled "Diablerie", Artzybasheff writes:

"Let's sing hosannas to men this day, for theirs is the triumph of wit! In their long search for better tools and weapons, men at last have found the way of locking a pinch of cosmic force in a sheath of silver-white metal... as well as the means for making it go boom. Any time they wish, or think they must, men can touch off an orgasmic flash, making the oceans boil and seethe with fire, making the soil rise up in crimson dust... Perhaps after the cloud drifts thrice around it, the earth will emerge once more free of living things... In the hush of night this comely planet will go on waltzing in its ordained orbit until God awakens from His sleep and resolves it back to the primordial elements.

I try to shake this thought off; it may be that a healthy planet should have no more life upon it than a well-kept dog has fleas; but what posesses the flea to concoct its own flea powder?"

Link

Amy Crehore says:

It's my birthday and I am releasing a new print today featuring a ukulele. This is a signed, limited edition archival giclee print of 'The Creature' for only $50.(only 50 prints in this edition) plus shipping/handling. Two customers (chosen at random) will receive a small original drawing signed by Amy Crehore (me). All prints come in archival sleeves with two postcards and a certificate of authenticity.

I own the original painting, btw. Link

This wonderful unicorn was born at the Center for Natural Sciences in Prato, Italy. Nicknamed "Unicorn," the magical unicorn is just a year old. His twin, a Roe Deer, has two horns.
Link (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

Avi Solomon says: "Amazing videos of experiments that test whether dogs can know telepathically when their owners have decided to come home."

The Dogs That Know Phenomena

We're looking for dogs and owners willing to participate in a research project looking at the special bond that we share with our animals.

You may be wondering if you've heard of this somewhere before. Dr. Rupert Sheldrake, a biologist, and former Fellow of Cambridge University investigated this phenomena in the mid-90s. He even wrote a book titled, Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home. While many dog owners, trainers and other experts have witnessed this behavior some scientists remain unconvinced. This research project aims to resolve this question. We invite you to help.

Rupert Sheldrake's original research on this is here.

Link

When Amazon bought the market-dominant audiobook company Audible, they promised to get rid of Audible's DRM if there was enough public outcry. It's already the case that many audio publishers (including Random House Audio, part of Bertelsmann, the largest publisher in the world) want to have their material sold without DRM, but Audible and Amazon have gone on to demand that publishers license their material on a DRM-only basis.

Richard is taking Amazon at its word: he's set up "Call an Audible," a one-click site for sending your feedback to Amazon on its DRM policy. I'll be sending them an email: Audible is the exclusive supplier of audiobooks to iTunes (itself the largest distribution channel for audiobooks in the world) and Amazon won't sell audiobooks through its MP3 store, either.

My latest novel is a Random House audiobook and Amazon refused to carry it because it had no DRM on it -- I never thought I'd see the day when Amazon would refuse to sell my books because they didn't have enough restrictions. After all, this is the company whose official (and fantastic) position on used books is "When someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this." It goes without saying that one of the rights you lose when you buy an Audible book is the right to resell it, loan it or give it away.

I used to be a very dedicated Audible customer: I spent thousands amassing a giant collection of audiobooks. When I switched from the Mac to Linux, I had to rip all those books by playing them out through AudioHijack on three separate CPUs, which took an entire month. The more you spend at Audible, the harder it is to get out. Link (Thanks, Richard!)

One of my favorite contemporary painters, Amy Sol, has a show of lovely new paintings opening at Thinkspace Art Gallery in Los Angeles on Friday. The exhibition, titled Karmic Magic, runs until July 4. The gorgeous piece seen here, Kokiri Carousel, will be available as a signed print in an edition of 75. Dan-Ah Kim will also be exhibiting work in the gallery's project room. All of the art is viewable online.
Link to Amy Sol gallery, Link to Dan-Ah Kim gallery

We've posted previously about the turfwars that can develop between pets and home robots. Today's Wall Street Journal surveys the battleground in a feature titled "When Dogs and Robots Collide, Somebody Needs A Talking To." From the WSJ:

According to Daphna Nachminovitch of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA, introducing robots into a pet household should be done with care. "There's no way to explain to them that this is not a threat," she says...

Sympathetic owners sometimes just retire their new purchases. In other cases, the pets take matters into their own paws. Peter Haney, a university administrator in Lethbridge, Alberta, twice found his Roomba in pieces after letting it clean while his flat-coated retrievers, Macleod and Tima, had the run of the house. "No one is talking," he says...

"It comes up constantly," says Nancy Dussault Smith, a spokeswoman for iRobot Corp., in Bedford, Mass., which makes the Roomba. "Dogs, cats, all animals, they have their own personalities, so they all react differently to the robots."

IRobot tested its Roomba designs with pets, she added, incorporating safety measures in the motorized disc-shaped cleaner such as automatic deactivation when it is flipped over or sat on.

Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

Previously on BB:
• Dog bits AIBO Link
• Real dogs teased with toy dog Link
• Killing a Pleo robotic dinosaur -- video Link

Chicago architect Walter Burley Griffin (1876-1937) worked under Frank Lloyd Wright for several years. I especially love his Art Deco designs for municipal incinerators, like the two seen above. Much more on Griffin at BibliOdyssey. Link

What's the best way to beat afternoon sleepiness? (drumroll) Go to sleep! Loughborough University researchers compared three methods to beat normal daytime sleepiness: more sleep at night, an afternoon nap earlier that day, or caffeine. During the study, volunteers who either napped, slept late, or took a caffeine pill, were put in a quiet room and invited to close their eyes. The researchers then compared how long it took them to fall asleep. From Science News:

The researchers compared sleeping in for 90 minutes each morning to taking a 20-minute nap at 2:30 p.m. or taking 150 milligrams of caffeine (equivalent to about two cups of coffee) at 2:00 p.m...

When the volunteers did nothing, they fell asleep within nine minutes on average when tested at 3:30 in the afternoon. Sleeping late kept people awake only a minute longer on average than did doing nothing. Caffeine worked better, keeping people awake for about 12 minutes longer on average.

But nothing beat a nap. After a 20-minute nap, people nearly doubled the amount of time it took to fall asleep when tested later in the afternoon, indicating that they were no longer sleepy. None of the measures impaired people’s ability to fall asleep at night.

Link

Jean sez, "I am an unabashed book and school supply nerd. This furniture is designed for school and public libraries (so it is sturdy!! and easy to clean) but I think I may just have to get myself a book bench or an oversize pink eraser!" Link (Thanks, Jean!)

Someone stuffed a roasting chicken with a pipe bomb and dumped it on the side of the road in Simsbury, Connecticut. A driver found the chicken bomb and called the cops. According to the Associated Press, "The road was closed while the Hartford Police Department's bomb squad came and blew up the chicken." Link

Here's a video for a Conway's Game of Life (wiki) kit from Make.

In 1970, John Conway came up with a 1-player game called Game of Life. The Game of Life is a mathematical game that simulates 'colonies' that grow or die based on how crowded or lonely they are and is known for the way it creates a beautiful organic display out of randomness.

Here is a fun electronic kit that plays Conway's Game of Life. Make one kit and keep it on your desk, or attach multiple kit modules together to create a large display, like a cube.

Link

Rockabilly accordion vampire Count Smokula was born 496 years ago in Smokesylvania. Herbal remedies and excellent squeezebox tunes have empowered him with eternal life. BBtv caught up with him at a recent accordion music shindig in Los Angeles to explore the mystery behind his miraculous powers of entertainment.

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

David "Everything is Miscellaneous" Weinberger sez, "Here's a PDF of a 1944 'Simple Sabotage Field Manual' from the US Strategic Services, explaining how to train people to sabotage their workplace. Full of useful suggestions, from the practical to the, um, less so (e.g., bring a bag of mo[n]ths into a theater showing propaganda films). It also recommends doing things through channels, making speeches, and referring matters to committee as techniques of sabotage (cf. page 28). I got this link from a presentation by two CIA folks at the Enterprise 2.0 conference."

(1) Insist on doing everything through “channels.” Never permit short-cuts to be taken in order to expedite decisions.
(2) Make “speeches.” Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your “points” by long anecdotes and accounts of per­ sonal experiences. Never hesitate to make a few appropriate “patriotic” comments.
(3) When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and considera­tion.” Attempt to make the committees as large as possible — never less than five.
(4) Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
(5) Haggle over precise wordings of com­munications, minutes, resolutions.
(6) Refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to re-open the question of the advisability of that decision.
(7) Advocate “caution.” Be “reasonable” and urge your fellow-conferees to be “reason­able” and avoid haste which might result in embarrassments or difficulties later on.
(8) Be worried about the propriety of any decision — raise the question of whether such action as is contemplated lies within the juris­ diction of the group or whether it might conflict with the policy of some higher echelon.

PDF Link (Thanks, David!)

Canadian copyfightin' law prof Michael Geist sez, "Gordon Duggan of Appropriation Art has created a remarkable comic book [PDF - 2.8 MB] chronicling the recent battle over Canadian copyright reform. The book includes over 100 links to websites, articles, and other resources as every quote or reference is hyperlinked. It concludes with references to groups actively involved in copyright issues and suggestions for how to get active. This left me absolutely speechless."

I concur 100 percent -- this is just staggeringly great, the perfect primer on the shameful attempt by Canadian Industry Minister Jim Prentice to smuggle the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act into Canadian law without debate or public input. Link to PDF of comic book, Link to Appropriation Art

(via Michael Geist)

I just finished listening to the audiobook of Michael Chabon's new novel, The Yiddish Policemen's Union, a hardboiled alternate history novel set in a world where Israel falls in 1948 and its population of Jews relocate to a territory carved out of Alaska, a territory that is theirs for 60 years only. Now it is 2008, and the Alaskan settlement is to revert to the USA (or possibly to the native population, depending on the outcome of political struggles over its disposition), and in the final two months, Detective Meyer Landsman finds himself embroiled in a murder investigation.

In true hard-boiled style, the murder unpicks the seams of the whole rotten, corrupt mess, unearthing a political scandal that spans several continents, three major religions, a dead junkie messiah resurgent, and the resolution of Landsman's failed marriage to the woman who is now his boss in the Sitka police force.

I'm a great Chabon fan, and I think that this is his best book to date, better even than The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, as it so perfectly marries the deadpan ironies of hardboiled fiction and Yiddish storytelling, in a word-drunk reel that spanned ten CDs of bitter humor and insight. In this regard, the book is nicely complemented by a virtuoso reading from Peter Riegert, who hasn't been this fantastically understated and sly since his asides in Animal House.

I was raised by Yiddish speakers of some fluency -- and still have whole swaths of my family with whom I can only converse in my execrable Yiddish, learned through seven years of Sunday school at the Arbeiter Ring center in Toronto -- and I've always loved the language for its slope-shouldered, wry, witty flavor. It's hard to capture that in English, but Chabon really nails it here, and it merges so perfectly into the hard-boiled storyline that you'd think that Chandler had been written by Sholem Aleichem. Link to audiobook CDs, Link to hardcover

When I got back from my book tour earlier this month, I was delighted to discover that the handmade steampunk keyboard I'd ordered from Datamancer had arrived. I unpacked and connected it right away and I've been using it ever since, every day, here in my office. The action is great, a little like well-oiled manual, a little like one of the classic indestructible IBM clacky sysadmin keyboards. The keys are shaped like tombstones (I got to specify that) and the three little crystalline lamps on the top right corner light up for power, caps-lock and numlock. There are plenty of gracenotes, too -- like the heavy metallic keyboard cable and the legend "Aether" on the spacebar. It wasn't cheap, and it took eight weeks to arrive, but man, was it worth it. Link, Link to pictures of my keyboard in situ

Architect Skylar Tibbits has been working out a scheme for "flat panel tessellation derived from complex surfaces" -- big graceful structures made from snap-together panels. The results are documented in loving detail on the Tesselion blog.

Tesselion is a project by Skylar Tibbits which proposes a system of flat panel tessellation derived from complex surfaces to enable ease in constructability and a directly evolved spatial environment through lighting, programmatic adaptation and structural simplicity. Each panel’s uniqueness is afforded by the efficiency of digital fabrication while coded parametric relationships allow an emergent structural efficiency, from a single panel to the complete adaptability of the surface as a whole.

Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

The Marginal Revolution blog poses the musical question, "If you were transported back to the middle ages, what would be the top strategy for thriving?" Given that most of us can't make gunpowder from scratch (and don't have up-to-date smallpox vaccinations), dreams of becoming a technological pre-Enlightenment billionaire guru are probably not realistic (stipulating that "realistic" is probably not a good word to use in respect of responses to hypothetical time-travel questions).

First build grubstake by minstrelsy. I hope you remember some three chord Stones songs, or perhaps some blues. Next, I would suggest the magic of fractional reserve banking in a market town. Expand the banking operations to other market towns. Hire bodyguards. Loan money to the king. Loan money to the other king. Start a war. Loan money to the Pope, etc.
Posted by: Rebunga at Jun 6, 2008 12:15:47 PM

Link