Arrow bookends

By David Pescovitz at 6:47 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

These cool mid-century arrow bookends just sold on eBay for $75. What a deal! They're brass and blackened steel. I love the design.
Arrow Bookends (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

AT&T billing site makes jokes about company's participation in warrantless wiretapping?

By Cory Doctorow at 6:16 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Reid sez, "I, unfortunately, have an AT&T cell phone. I check my bill every few weeks. Today, I went to log in, and was greeted by a terrific new advertisement for their online billing system. It's as if their marketing department thinks that warrantless wiretapping is funny or something. " Link, Link to screenshot (Thanks, Reid!)

Pretend cops bully videographer, videographer wins

By Mark Frauenfelder at 4:43 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Rogier van Bakel says:

Watch the London community support officers (they're not real cops, but deputied volunteers who fancy themselves real ones) as they confront a videographer who has the temerity to take footage of a public street. It starts with a sudden gloved hand over the camera lens, then it's "give me a good reason why you're filming," then it's on to "papers please"; and when the guy behind the camera, sensibly enough, asks under which law he's not allowed to film there, the bully-boy hisses "shut up." Twice.

Pretend cops bully videographer, videographer wins

Make a lensless microscope

By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:12 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

In Make, Vol. 14, Thomas Zimmerman wrote about how to make a lensless microscope. In this episode of Make's Weekend Projects, Kipkay provides a video step-by-step. Make a lensless microscope

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets

By Joel Johnson at 3:12 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets — a site which we suspect you'll enjoy reading even if you often find gadgets tire- and irksome (so do we!) — we spotted these top-notch crank-powered greeting cards from Hallmark, of all people; hacked sunglasses that block CCTV cameras; a book about making LEGO weapons; a human-powered party bike, complete with lights and sound system; and the Venture Bros. era-appropriate love of fancy chairs. A team of Israeli art students made a wooden coffee grinder shaped like a cuddly tumor; a crappy newspaper made a crime spree by stupid kids the fault of Grand Theft Auto; ICANN unveiled a new plan for top level domains, putting me only $100k away from owning http://cluster.fuck. Rob documented BBG's first word coinage; John exposed a traumatic misunderstanding of the nature of lumberjack hibernation; I got off my ass and started rounding up deals again. One of Pixar's own made a cute Wall•E in LEGO. (And I'm going to see it tonight. I'm pumped!) AT&T may actually be adding MMS to iPhone, which for the first time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple. Nokia released some new phones, which for the second time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple. Then there were the sexy stormtrooper boots, our enthusiasm over which only slighted muted by the acknowledgement that every stormtrooper was a clone, then brought back into vibrant excitement when reader Rob Cockerham invented the term "Fett footish." There was a Steampunk sonic rifle. Despite indications to the contrary, use of the term did not cause the internet to implode. Yet. Helio, a company that thought it could build a business by buying expensive phones and selling them to poor teens has — surprisingly — been sold for scrap. Perhaps they'd have been better selling buckets for making dogsicles. Once again, someone made a dot-matrix toaster, but only in their mind. (Hey, MAKE:RS! You can do this!) World of Warcraft added a real-world security dongle to protect you from gold farmers stealing your account. Yahoo hiked domain prices in a fairly scummy manner. And someone made a lamp from dishes which looks an awful like the stuff I used to make on the lathe when I was sequestered in wood shop for seventh-grade homeroom.

Flooded London photo exhibit

By Mark Frauenfelder at 2:29 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Squint/Opera's photography exhibit "depicts imaginary scenes in London in 2090, when rising sea levels have inundated the city." They made it look like fun! Flooded London

King Abdulaziz Center for Knowledge and Culture

By Mark Frauenfelder at 2:17 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

A building fit for a king -- in this case, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.

In competition with some of the world’s greatest architects, Snøhetta has won the competition about designing Saudi Arabia’s new Cultural Center. Saudi Aramco – the world’s largest oil company – is the client.

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz set the cornerstone for the Cultural Center which will house a museum, library, theater, cinema and more. The building reflects the history of oil in Saudi Arabia and is different from the country’s architectonic traditions with its abstract and spectacular form.

Along with five other internationally know architect offices, Snøhetta participated in the competition and was chosen in preference to famous names as Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas.

Saudi Arabia’s new Cultural Center

(Apocryphal?) anecdote about Fahrenheit 451

By Mark Frauenfelder at 2:01 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

From one of my favorite blogs about books, Bookride, a "tall tale from the trade":

A similar tale is set in 1965 in a provincial bookshop where trade is slow. The dealer has a sale of the books upstairs, lesser books but useful stock--even after severe reductions there are 10,000 books left. Rather than haul them down to the dump he decides to give the whole lot to the young girl who comes in on afternoons when he is out doing house calls, fishing, watching cricket etc., She graciously accepts them and says she will arrange to have them out as soon as possible. He sets off to a local auction and on his return is greatly surprised to find all the books have gone. The girl explains that a guy came in from a movie company needing 10000 books - for the book burning scenes in Fahrenheit 451 that they were filming nearby. She only charged £1 per book.

Tall Tales from the Trade

Earth's most extreme lifeforms

By David Pescovitz at 12:12 pm Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Earth is filled with incredibly strange creatures, from thermophiles like the one seen here that can survive in temperatures up to 121 degress Celsius to the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans that thrives in 2000 times more ionising radiation than would fry a human. New Scientist features a survey of ten "extremophiles." The headline is a bit off though, reading: "The most extreme-life forms in the universe." Of course, studying these unusual organisms could give scientists insight into what life might exist on other planets, but all of the creatures in this article are found right here at home. From New Scientist:

There's hardly a niche on Earth that hasn't been colonised. Life can be found in scalding, acidic hot pools, in the driest deserts, and in the dark, crushing depths of the ocean. It has even found a toehold in the frigid polar regions and in toxic dumps.

"Life on Earth has radiated into every conceivable – and in some cases almost inconceivable – ecological niche," says Chris Impey of the University of Arizona in Tucson, US.

The very existence of these hardy organisms hints that life might be able to eke out an existence in the cold, dry climate of Mars, the icy, acidic conditions of Jupiter's moon Europa, or in countless other spots beyond our solar system.

Extremophiles

Ex-Marine on Information Technology in Iraq

By David Pescovitz at 11:54 am Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Tyler Boudreau, who served in the Marine Corps infantry for more than a decade, wrote a fascinating personal story for Industry Standard about digital technology on the battlefield. It's an interesting story about how IT can get in the way of human initiative and common sense. Boudreau's book, Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine, will be published in September by Feral House. From the article:

Unfortunately, high-speed communications and bold initiative do not always go hand in hand. With such an abundance of information available simultaneously at all levels, micromanagement can creep unnoticed into the chain of command and pull it apart. For example, if a general is able to follow an ongoing firefight through email and IM, and he is inclined to believe he knows what's best for the units in contact, then he very well might start directing those small units from afar, consequently eliminating the need for his colonels, captains, and sergeants to do any thinking of their own.

I witnessed this firsthand in al Anbar.

Article: I.T. vs. Initiative, Buy Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine

Trippy film of Neolithic monument

By David Pescovitz at 11:24 am Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Near At the village of Avebury is a Neolithic stone circle and henge that's older than Stonehenge. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the roughly 5,000-year-old Avebury monument is approximately 421 meters in diameter. Filmmaker Ric Kemp shot a lovely psychedelic 8mm film at the site with a spaced-out soundtrack by Neil Mortimer, produced by Mark Pilkington. Avebury Monument

Milt Stein's Supermouse -- better than Carl Barks?

By Mark Frauenfelder at 9:05 am Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says:

Funny animal comics don't get enough respect.

Many incredibly talented artists worked in funny animal comics... some, like Kurtzman and Frazetta, went on to fame in other genres. Yet the only artist working in this field that most people are familiar with is Carl Barks. Uncle Scrooge comics are fine, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. In the 1940s and 50s, there was a wealth of funny animal comics all drawn in completely unique styles. I have to admit that comics aren't my strong suit, but when I see a comic like this one, I want to know more about the people responsible for them.

Here is Supermouse Comics number 4, drawn by Milt Stein. Little is known about Stein's career. Tom Sito points out that he was an animator at Famous for a time, and he worked on Tubby the Tuba for Dr. Alexander Shure's Westbury Long Island Company, the tradtional forerunner of NY Tech's Computer Animation Program. He committed suicide in 1977. Milton Knight adds, that Stein "animated some very expressive scenes at Terry in the early 40s (the girl mouse puppet in Down With Cats). And in the 60s, he animated the humorous characters on an independent TV pilot that Jerry Beck likes to include in his "Worst" ASIFA shows, titled Cosmic Raymond. I think Stein was one of the most neglected artists of all time; and he drew far better than Barks!"

Supermouse Comics number 4

Interview with editors of Architecture of Change

By Mark Frauenfelder at 8:43 am Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

PingMag interviewed Kristin Feireiss and Lukas Feireiss, editors of Architecture of Change: Sustainability and Humanity in the Built Environment. The houses and buildings featured in this book are stunning.

Designed with the utmost sustainability in mind, the New Monte Rosa-Hut by Studio Monte Rosa/ETH Zuerich is located in the middle of a nature reservation next to a glacier in the Swiss Alps. Energy-wise it's 90% self-contained and self-sufficient, featuring a metallic surface consisting of photovoltaic panels and a spiral-shaped glass band that follows the sun, conducting passive energy inside. From the Architecture of Change book by Gestalten publishers.

PingMag interviews Kristin Feireiss and Lukas Feireiss

BBtv: Klaus Pierre at The Beach

By Xeni Jardin at 12:58 am Friday, Jun 27 • Comments • Share

Klaus Pierre, a French/German actor-waiter-whatever, aspires against all odds to become America's next great action hero. In today's episode, he takes his skills to the beach, and encounters a true Hollywood action hero, Matthias Hues.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and instructions for subscribing to the BBtv video podcast feed.

Previous Klaus Pierre episodes on BBtv:

Klaus Pierre: Super Pretty Action Hero Star

Klaus Pierre: Red Carpet Botox Dreams

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America: Pirate Musical of Epic Fail

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America, studies Savate

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America at Coffee Shop.

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America, studies Swordfighting

Point Break and heartbreak