Alan Feng's lecture on the theory of war as conducted in Starcraft is part Sun Tzu, part Von Clausewitz, part Leibniz: "This course will go in-depth in the theory of how war is conducted within the confines of the game Starcraft. There will be lecture on various aspects of the game, from the viewpoint of pure theory to the more computational aspects of how exactly battles are conducted. Calculus and Differential Equations are highly recommended for full understanding of the course."

Introduction to Starcraft and Competitive Gaming (Thanks, Buffalo Danger!)

This squeaky cabinet door sounds so much like Chewbacca's plaintive wail that I'm left wondering if it isn't the source of the original foley effect.

Guys Cabinet Door Sounds Exactly like Chewbacca! (via Neatorama)

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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What day of the week do you dislike the most?

I ask folks this question from time to time and more often than not, the reply is usually "Monday."

When asked the reason, most would say "because I have to go back to work or school."

Typical answer yet interesting. If one dislikes Monday because of school or work then why does one continue to go back to work or school? I believe that folks like this are probably in the wrong job or studying the wrong course and probably should look for something that enables them to enjoy Mondays - and every other day for that matter. Those who genuinely enjoy work or school probably wont give "Work or School" as the reasons they dislike Monday.

Quality Not Quantity
I watched an extremely moving documentary about a girl called ashley who had a medical condition called Progeria where her body aged 13 times faster than a normal human being. The condition is said to affect 1 in 8 million newborns. A person with the condition normally dies at the age of 13. She just had her 14th birthday and she knew that she was going to die any day. She said that she was prepared to die and that she had lead a great life up until now - it was all about her experiences, the friends she was able to meet and being happy. Living a longer life was not important. The quality of life over quantity was more important.

Death Is A Reality
We watch the news and see people dying left right and center - people being stabbed, run over or just plain dying in everyday accidents. Many folks who see/read about others dying don't usually think much about it - and the folks who died probably didn't think too much about it either.

I was talking to my estate agent at the time we purchased our house - I asked him how I should go about writing my will - he looked at me as if I started to grow horns and said that people don't usually write their will until they are about 60. I was thinking to myself "apart from being a liar, this estate agent is an idiot too."

This may seem the obvious but the thing is, none of us have been given a guarantee that we are going to live until we are golden. One could live in the "safest" part of the world, be healthy and still have their life cut short by a knife, bullet or drunken driver. None of us know when we are going to die but there is one thing that we do know for sure - we all will die someday - could be in another 30 years time, could be tomorrow morning. Death is a reality that we must all understand - its the final piece of our jigsaw puzzle that we all will collect.

(more after the jump)

i want candy
name that candy bar
nunu chocolates
deep fried creme egg
lollipop cat (shown above)
mexican sugar skulls
battenberg simulator
cake wrecks
tangerine sherbet
liz wolfe

previously on web zen
candy zen

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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Been living in Japan for about 10 years now and love it. I'm surrounded by culture that I've been passionate about since a wee lad and despite the recession that we're supposed to be in, business for my start up is booming - couldn't ask for more.

Apart from the smoking, there used to (but not anymore) be something that used to get on my nut - the fun and games of looking for an apartment.

Upfront costs
The upfront costs of renting an apartment is honestly not amusing at all.

First up there exists something called "gratuity fee" or Reikin.
Since the dark ages, citizens have been paying the landlord a gratuity fee for letting them live in the landlords apartment. This gratuity fee can be up to 2.5 times the monthly rent and to make the situation even more amusing - you don't get this money back - none of it, Sweet FA, absolute squat.

Then there is key money known as Shikikin. Key money can be up to 3 times the monthly rent and is used as a deposit which the landlord uses to clean up the place when you leave. S/he usually tries to use as much of it as possible so when you move out so its like "thanks for staying with us for the years, here is a slap in the face and get out of here you stinking rat."

Apart from the gratuity fee and key money, one has to not only pay the landlord an average of 2 months rent upfront, one also has to pay the estate agent up to a months rent for introducing the place too. So an average case recap on the costs presuming that the monthly rent for a cozy apartment is 200,000 yen or roughly 2000 USD.

Gratuity fee: 4000 USD
Key money: 4000 USD
Upfront rent: 4000 USD
Estate agent fee: 2000 USD
Initial cost: 14,000 USD

No foreigners or pets
(more after the jump)

Leo sez, "An international contest: Scientists dance in order to interpret a doctoral thesis by prancing about. One the winners was : 'Cerebral activation patterns induced by inflection of regular and irregular verbs with positron emission tomography. A comparison between single subject and group analysis'"

The 2009 AAAS/Science Dance Contest (Thanks, Leo!)

Diane Lacey from this year's Hugo Award committee sez, "The Hugo Awards, presented during Anticipation this year in Montreal, celebrate the best in the field of science fiction and fantasy. In order to participate in this year's nomination you must either be a member of Anticipation, registered by January 31st or have been a member of last year's Worldcon, Denvention. The Hugos awarded at Anticipation will be for works released in 2008. The nomination period will be closing at the end of February. Mailed nomination ballots must be postmarked no later that February 28, 2009. Nominations can also be made online."

A list of likely eligible works is the Locus list (you can also vote for the Locus Award there).

And hey, I've got several eligible works!

Nominating Ballot for the 2009 Hugo Awards and John W. Campbell Award (Thanks, Diane!)

Now this is a pretty promising step on the path to open government: the new stimulus bill has a requirement for RSS-based disclosure of funds dispersed:

For each of the near term reporting requirements (major communications, formula block grant allocations, weekly reports) agencies are required to provide a feed (preferred: Atom 1.0, acceptable: RSS) of the information so that content can be delivered via subscription.

Raw Thought: RSS Hits the Big Time

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio show As it Happens did a great job covering the new British law that makes it a crime to take a picture of a police officer or a building, where that picture might be useful in "planning an act of terrorism." First, they interviewed Peter Murray, Vice-President of the National Union of Journalists, who, predictably, worries that his members will find themselves with arrest-records as terrorists for violating the law.

But then, they talked to Peter Smyth, Chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, who also thinks the law is ridiculous -- and this is just stupendous. Smyth says that there's no evidence that terrorists use photographs to plan attacks, admits that this is an invitation for scared officers to abuse the law, and says that it will needlessly create conflict with journalists and the public.

The program tried to locate someone -- anyone -- who supported the law, but no one was forthcoming.

FEB 16, 2009 - As It Happens

MP3 link

My photos from the National Union of Journalists demonstration at New Scotland Yard

This week on Quirks and Quarks, the national science radio program on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, there a fantastic segment on the neurology of gambling -- sticking the heads of gamblers in fMRIs and having them play games of chance illuminates an awful lot about why our brains make us gamble. It turns out that the reward system that lights up when we get a near-miss in a game of skill (which makes sense) gives us the same reward when we have a near-miss in a game of chance (but only if we get to make a choice in the game, such as picking our lotto numbers, even though this has no influence over the outcome of the game).

One of the mysteries of gambling is that even when we should know we're going to lose, we somehow think we're going to win. Dr. Luke Clark, from the Department of Experimental Psychology at the University of Cambridge, may have discovered one of the reasons why. Using MRI, he studied brain activity in people gambling, looking particularly at "near misses" in which a loss seems close to a win. He found that the brain activated the same reward system that is activated in a real win, despite the fact that people report that these near misses are unpleasant.

Losers With Winners' Brains

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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Apart from blogging about life in Tokyo, I also extensively cover Japanese subculture and give talks about this subject at conferences around the world.

The first thing to learn are the definitions of a "3D Woman" (on the left of the screen) and a "2D Woman" (the two ladies on the right of the screen). As you can see, "3D" refers to humans while "2D" refers to 2 dimensional illustrations.

While there are many folks who prefer warm blooded humans, some just prefer the 2 dimensional - so much in fact that they would rather marry one.
A petition will be submitted to the Japanese government upon the collection of one million signatures asking for law to be passed making it legal to marry a 2 dimensional character. The petition is filled under Human Rights and can be seen online here.
The online petition comes with the following blurb:-

We don't have interest in the 3D world. If possible, I want to become the husband of a 2D character.
Does not look like this matter can be solved with today's science and technology so at least make it legal to marry a 2D character.
If this law is passed then I want to marry Asahina Mikuru.

There are currently 41,000 blogs and sites that have covered this news but only 3,170 people have signed the petition...

As for the 2 dimensional ladies on the screen - photo taken at one of the subculture or "otaku" events in Tokyo and you can see all previous event coverage in the Events category.
And for folks wondering about the 3 dimensional lady - her name is Hiromi and you can see more photos that I took of her last year in the Japanese Idols category.

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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Why is the iPod in grave danger? Because you cant stick Lego men on top of it.

During the Nuremberg Toy Fair I spotted the new version of the uber geek Lego Mindstorms NXT22 and some danish bricks gadgets like the Lego Camcorder, a colorful photo camera and this MP3 player. The cam and the photo camera seems ready to be marketed but seem that the Lego designers still got a lot of work to do on the MP3 player and its speakers…

Via Modellismo Hobby Media

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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Photo of a netted golf practice ground discovered in yet another uncharted evening after-dinner walk.

Golf is a popular and yet expensive sport to play in Japan - I'm guessing that its due to popular demand that one has to pay a bladder and a spleen to get membership to a golf club.

Meiji Golf is a site dedicated to the buying and selling of golf club memberships. They list a price of 65,000,000 yen (about 698,586 USD ) to be a member of the Koganei Country golf club.

Folks who have just laughed at the piffling 65,000,000 yen should check the requirements before laughing - no women or foreigners allowed - only Japanese males over the age of 35.

Folks here are so keen on the sport that you often see them practicing in public.

You may want to read the rest of this article which has more photos and shows how balls get back to the vending machine in my Golf in Japan article.

Greg sez, "Last week I started reading Widdershins by Oliver Onions [Ed: a public domain text in the Gutenberg Archive]. The first story stuck in my head and I did an illustration for it. It turned out pretty good so I thought it would be cool to do one illustration for each of the nine stories in the book. I just finished the third illustration and I am curious as to whether other people think I am adding or detracting from the stories. 1. The Beckoning Fair One 2. Phantas 3. Rooum"

Picture Gallery - 2009 - Greg Elmensdorp (Thanks, Greg!)

Information Week's Internet Evolution's just published my latest article, "Media-Morphosis: How the Internet Will Devour, Transform, or Destroy Your Favorite Medium" -- a noodle on the factors that led to the demise of newspapers, the transformation of music, and the potential destruction of big budget movies and mass-market publishing (and what can be done about the last one):

Big-budget movies (BBMs) require a lot of capital and rely on studios controlling the rate and nature of distribution of the finished product. If you're going to recoup your $300 million box-office turd, you need to move a hell of a lot of DVDs, TV licenses, foreign exhibition, Happy Meal toys, and assorted "secondary" revenues.

Let's be realistic here: Nothing anyone does is going to make it harder to get movies when you want them, where you want them, and at whatever price you feel you should pay for them (including free). And the harder you crack down on Internet movie-downloading, the more attractive you make buying pirate DVDs from criminals on the street -- a virtually zero-risk transaction that directly displaces DVD purchases.

What's more, no one has yet successfully crowdsourced a movie that looks and feels like a BBM. There are lots of fabulous 9-minute YouTube Inc. videos, and plenty of lovely and promising machinima flicks, but no one's yet built the kind of purely escapist, high-production-value feature that we flock to the cinema to see every summer.

Now, maybe film studios can do what Magnolia Pictures is doing -- distributing day-and-date releases to satellite, pay-per-view, cinema, DVD, and foreign film outlets -- and recapture a lot of the money that is squirting between the fingers of the tightly clenched release-window fist. But if it's not enough, commercially motivated BBMs might simply die.

Note that movies as a genre won't vanish. There's plenty to love about 9-minute YouTubes and the quirky features that come out of indie production houses. There's never been a time when more moving pictures were being produced and viewed than today. Many of these things are economic propositions, and many are not -- they're a lot more like stage shows than they are like films. They cost less to produce, they reach smaller, more targetted audiences, and they represent an admirable diversity of voice and point of view. But they're not Big, Culturally Relevant Media in the way that a real classic BBM can be.

Media-Morphosis: How the Internet Will Devour, Transform, or Destroy Your Favorite Medium

This "future of news" news report from 1981 invites us to imagine sitting down with our morning cup of coffee and getting the news from our computers (it only takes two hours to transmit the day's paper, at $5/hour on the dialup network).

This is pretty much the epitome of what's wrong with corporate futurism: it assumes that things will change in a way that enhances the corporation's ability to get the job done (which, of course, it does), but without changing things in ways that enhance the world's ability to clobber the corporation's bottom line.

Other examples:

* The Internet will enable us to deliver pay-on-demand movies to our viewers' homes (but it won't let them get those movies without paying for them)

* The Internet will enable us to save money on our long-distance trunks (but it won't let callers bypass the tariff-based telephone system altogether)

* The Internet will enable the police to coordinate international investigations (but it won't let criminals coordinate their activities to evade the police)

Add your own to the comment thread, below: entirely notional, valueless prizes will be awarded for especially juicy examples!

How the Future of Online News Looked in 1981 (via Futurismic)

Update: Mark did this back in January (I was away that weekend!), but I still want to hear your answers!

A Nigerian scammer is accused of posing as the central bank of Ethiopia and bilking Citibank out of $27,000,000:

To carry out the elaborate scheme, prosecutors in New York said on Friday, the man, identified as Paul Gabriel Amos, 37, a Nigerian citizen who lived in Singapore, worked with others to create official-looking documents that instructed Citibank to wire the money in two dozen transactions to accounts that Mr. Amos and the others controlled around the world.

The money came from a Citibank account in New York held by the National Bank of Ethiopia, that country’s central bank. Prosecutors said the conspirators, contacted by Citibank to verify the transactions, posed as Ethiopian bank officials and approved the transfers.

Nigerian Accused in Scheme to Swindle Citibank (via Making Light)

Instructables user Thatkidwithayoyo has a fine formula for making a corsage out of the universal medium of exchange, duct tape:

I didn't want to buy in to the wasteful "buy, wear for a few hours, throw away" corsage culture, so I decided to make a more economical, longer lasting, and greener alternative.

This instructable will teach you how to make duct tape flowers and then use those flowers to make a corsage. The flowers and corsage will last forever and are waterproof, recyclable, hypo-allergenic, and just plain cool! They are also cheaper than a normal corsage and don't require a trip to the florist.

How to Make a Duct Tape Corsage and Flowers (via Craft)

Over on Boing Boing Offworld, our Brandon's found Jumpman, a hypnotically nostalgic and mesmerizingly fun retro-game. The creator, Runhello, sez, "The thought was to kind of take all the things that have become possible in games in the last 29 years-- physics, 45 degree angles, a z axis-- and bring the new technology into an early-80s-style platformer while at the same time changing the platformer's basic nature as little as possible. The hope is to try to make you believe that every 2600-era platformer would have looked like this if only you'd pulled the camera back about 4 feet."

Gimme Indie Game: Runhello's Jumpman

Discuss this on Boing Boing Offworld

In November 2007, Reason magazine's Radley Balko published a long investigative story on Steven Hayne, a doctor who for the last 20 years has done the vast majority of Mississippi's forensic autopsies. Critics say Hayne and his sidekick, "bite mark expert" Michael West, cornered the market by doing ungodly numbers of autopsies, and by telling prosecutors what they wanted to hear -- possibly putting innocent people in prison in the process.

Three months after the article ran, two men in Mississippi -- Kennedy Brewer and Levon Brooks -- were released from prison after DNA testing exonerated them for raping and killing the daughters of their girlfriends. Both convicted in the early 1990s, the two collectively served more than 30 years in prison. Tests pointed to a third man, who confessed to both crimes. Brooks and Brewer were both convicted based primarily on testimony from West and Hayne, who claimed to have found bite marks on the little girls that could only come from the accused.

Balko has now found another case from about the same time with remarkably similar facts. Only this time, there's an incredible, damning video of Hayne and West's "examination." Jimmie Duncan was accused of raping and killing his girlfriend's daughter, 23-month old Haley Oliveaux. Prosecutors brought her body to Hayne, who claimed to have seen bite marks no other doctor noticed. He then called in West, who did the exam depcited in the video. In the video, West takes a dental mold of Jimmie Duncan's teeth and pushes it into or scrapes it across Haley Oliveaux's body some 50 times.Other forensic experts say the video shows not only medical malpractice, but criminal evidence tampering.

West and Hayne have testified in thousands of cases in Mississippi and Louisiana. Jimmie Duncan was convicted of capital murder for the rape and murder of Haley Oliveaux. He is still on death row in Louisiana.

STRONG WARNING: The article contains extremely disturbing photos and a video excerpt of the "bite mark exam" on Haley Oliveaux. Article w/ video and photos | Original feature on Hayne | Archive of Blako's investigation of Hayne and West

Rob Cockerham of Cockeyed.com made a contraption that launches hot soap suds into the cold air. The Quest to Create Hot Air Soap Bubbles

I wrote an article for PC.com on my idiotic blunder of signing up with freecreditreport.com. In short, don't go there. If you want a truly free credit report use annualcreditreport.com, not freecreditreport.com.

I clicked on the large bright orange button that said "Get your Free Credit Report & Score!" and was presented with a form. I filled it out. I hesitated for a second when the site asked for my credit card number, which it stated was "required to establish your account," but the site assured me that my "credit card will not be charged during the free trial period." Having done this before (or so I thought), I went ahead and entered the information. A shopping cart receipt indicated that the total was $0.00.

I got my credit report, looked it over, and forgot about it. A week later I was looking at my checking account register online and I noticed a $14.95 charge from a company called CIC*Triple Advantage. I didn't recall buying anything from a company with that name, so I entered "CIC*Triple Advantage" into Google. The search results made my eyes bug out of my head. This was the name of the billing entity for freecreditreport.com. The thousands of search results were full of words like "deceptive practices," "scam," "ripoff," "unauthorized billing!" and "beware!" In fact, all the top results were either from people complaining that they'd been conned into signing up for a $14.95 monthly credit monitoring service without their permission, or they were about how to cancel the service.

When is a free credit report not a free credit report? When it's from freecreditreport.com

The Materials Research Society holds "Science as Art" competitions at their big meetings. Researchers enter unusual and striking images of their nanoscale lab creations. The Society have a slew of the entries posted to their Web site for use as screensavers or desktop wallpaper. Discover's Aaron Rowe grabbed some of them to create a slideshow quiz. For example:

This tiny rose (above) was made by mixing an exotic element with hydrazoic acid. That element was discovered in Germany, is a soft and silvery metal with a low melting point, and was used to lubricate the bearings of aircraft during World War II. What is it?

"World's Smallest Puzzles" (Discover), Download MRS Desktop Images (Materials Research Society)

Eric Wilhelm of Instructables informs us, "Some of the Instructables and Squid Labs crowd are putting on an art show tonight (2/20/09). The Joydick will be in there." The SF Media Labs event, titled "40% Off," takes place at the ABCO Art Space, 3135 Filbert Street, in West Oakland. From the event description:

40% Off is an artistic response to the new economy. Recently laid off? Lost 40% of your wealth? Benefits clipped? Come see recent works from the newly jobless. Pontificate on the value of art, and how it is affected by the market, or just come to enjoy the space and beer."

SF Media Labs (sfmedialabs.com), "An Art Show for the New Economy" (Instructables)

Effunia created this 3.5-inch tall critter named Basil the Miniature Mushroom. She also has an Etsy shop where you can buy her creations.

A (semi) naked, 9-month-old baby plays a synthesizer. Nuff said. synthtube.com (thanks, Alex Ringis)

I am moving to Eugene, Oregon, because I am in love with a girl.

I'm also in love with my dog Porter who, as an English Bulldog, has a not-impossible chance of dying in the cargo hold a jet (even one heated and pressurized; bullies have breathing issues). So I'm gonna lash him in to the passenger seat of a rented minivan, test out my new awkwardly large Pioneer GPS unit, and bop across the country from Brooklyn listening to my first audiobook ever. (Ender's Game, which I've never read. I know.)

Along the way, I'll be doing the things one does when hauling ass on the interstates—gulping coffee, then slathering umeboshi plum paste on my teeth to try to counteract the acidity; asking truckers where to find the best chicken-fried steak with cream gravy, America's perfect food; falling asleep in the mountains to die in flames at the bottom of a ravine, my organs shimmering on my outsides like a grotesque Nudie Cohn suit—and I'll be recording them all on the video machines.

I have to cut through Kansas City to drop off an old Kustom amp that my buddy Jason had to leave when he moved back home. And I hope to be rolling into Oregon by the weekend. But along the way, I've got a little time to sightsee and visit. What should I see? Want to meet up?

Over at the MAKE blog, Gareth Branwyn writes about this lovely "Box of Clouds" viewer:

Digital artist Kim Laughton made this cloud viewer out of an old keychain photo viewer. The backlight of the LCD screen was removed so you have to hold the box up to the light to see the clouds drifting by inside.

Box of Clouds

Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

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Robots that serve cocktails. That's the premise behind the Roboexotica festival in Vienna, Austria, which unites two things cherished by nerds around the globe -- alcohol and DIY robotics.

Eddie Codel and Monochrom's Johannes Grenzfurthner were there, and shot video of the proceedings (and the drinkings, and the fallings, and the weirdness) for us to enjoy. So, enjoy. And do not drive or operate heavy machinery after doing so.

Did I mention that this video includes hot milkmaids from the Alps who serve you free booze, and a nude male robot that urinates delicious beer or something?

We don't have maker credits for all of the amazing devices shown, but here is the website for Robovox (the big guy who talks), and some of the robots featured were created by students of the University of Applied Sciences in Graz, Dept. of Information Design. Monochrom co-curates the festival with shifz.org.

The logo of the Skull and Bones consists of a skull and crossbones, along with the number 322. According to one theory, 322 symbolises the year the society was founded (1832) and indicates that it is the second chapter of a German secret society, supposedly the Bavarian Illuminati. (Source: Wikipedia)

The New York Times reports that Geronimo’s heirs have filed a lawsuit against the Skull and Bones in federal court in Washington. They want the Yale secret society to return Geronimo's skull and other remains, which they say were stolen by George Bush's grandfather, Prescott S. Bush, in 1918.

A longstanding tradition among members of Skull and Bones holds that Prescott S. Bush — father of President George Bush and grandfather of President George W. Bush — broke into the grave with some classmates during World War I and made off with the skull, two bones, a bridle and some stirrups, all of which were put on display at the group’s clubhouse in New Haven, known as the Tomb.

The story gained some validity in 2005, when a historian discovered a letter written in 1918 from one Skull and Bones member to another saying the skull had been taken from a grave at Fort Sill along with several pieces of tack for a horse.

Wikipedia entry on Skull & Bones.

www.time-lapse.fr posted a time-lapse video of snails in his yard. He writes:

Every evening, after my automatic water system stops, all the snails who where hidden behind flowers go out and go on the grass to make parties, eating and drinking !

Seeing them move at high speed put me in their timeframe, making their movements seem more purposeful. (Via Unique Daily)

UPDATE: Phil Torrone says, "And it's over - Scholastic and Klutz will credit Evil Mad Scientist's BristleBots." Lenore from Evil Mad Scientist writes,

Pat Murphy of Klutz will be sending out a note shortly to let everyone know that Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories will be receiving acknowledgment in the next printing of Invasion of the BristleBots as well as on the Klutz website. This is good news for us, and it seems like Klutz is really learning from this experience about how to work with the maker community. The online response to this situation has been overwhelming and I am glad that such an incredibly vibrant discussion was able to take place. I am truly impressed by and grateful for the support we have received."

More at Make Blog.

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Phil Torrone of MAKE points to a developing story about a DIY project called "bristlebots" developed by the maker-hackers at Evil Mad Scientist laboratories -- a similar character, um, mysteriously popped up later in a children's book published by Klutz / Scholastic. PT has a blog post up with lots of detail about the case, which you should read. A personal note from him:

it's not about copyright, trademarks or patents, it's about ethics - klutz saw an original idea in 2007 called "bristlebots" from evil mad scientists and are now claiming they developed the *exact* same project, design and name "bristlebots" all in secret and all in the same year. really. now they are "genuinely surprised".

one google search for "bristlebot" has all the prior works and the original post/video from 2007. i'd like folks not to get stuck on the legal arguments - think about what type of company they'd like scholastic and klutz to be. let's help them resolve this in a fair way. here's my suggestion to them... a new statement.

"in light of the interest in invasion of the bristlebots and evil mad scientist's project we've added a special note on the next printing of the book and on our web site".

it means nothing legally, but it's the ethical thing to do.

evil mad scientists (windell and lenore) and pioneers in open source hardware all they usually ask for us credit with their projects. the first instance of "bristlebots" was from them in 2007 - yes, it's a silly toothbrush robot, but that's not the point - klutz and scholastic are jumping in to the world of makers and should at least credit something when it's clear where the idea (and name) came from.

I am not a lawyer and all of that, but that's not the point. Shame on you, Scholastic and Klutz. That's a douche move.

Here's the video from Toy Fair 2009 - the book includes "BristleBots"...

And here's the video from 2007 from Evil Mad Scientists (over 2 million views).

All I can say is, it's about goddamned time:

Creators of the original Singing Tesla Coils, the crew of ArcAttack uses high tech wizardry to present music in a whole new light.

ArcAttack employs a unique DJ set up of their own creation (an HVDJ set up) to generate an 'electrifying' audio visual performance. The HVDJ pumps music through a PA System while two specially designed DRSSTC's (Dual-Resonant Solid State Tesla Coils) act as separate synchronized instruments.

These high tech machines produce an electrical arc similar to a continuous lightning bolt which put out a crisply distorted square wave sound reminiscent of the early days of synthesizers. The music consists of original highly dance-able electronic compositions that sometimes incorporates themes or dub of popular songs.

Joe DiPrima and Oliver Greaves are the masterminds behind the design and construction of the Tesla Coils while the music is developed by John DiPrima and Tony Smith.

ArcAttack! (Thanks, Mary!)

Wagner James Au sez, "I just published a short interview with the Purchase Brothers, the Toronto guys who made that great 'Escape from City 17' movie featured on Boing Boing last week. They explain more how they did it, and what they spent their $500 budget on. As it turns out, that's 500 *Canadian* dollars, so even less than most of us first assumed."

He said all of the visual effects were done from scratch. Many of the elements (the background, the gunships, etc.) were extracted from Half-Life 2, then graphically enhanced, and incorporated into the live action with “a lot of complicated tracking and rotoscoping.” Though the movie itself was made independently of Valve Software, the developers and publishers of the Half-Life franchise, David said the game company got involved with its promotion, plugging its premiere on Valve’s user community channel, Steam News.

The brothers plan to release part two of City 17 in 6-8 weeks, though the storm of attention over part one has delayed that somewhat. “We have been getting a ton of emails and phone calls, which has slowed things down,” said David. Judging from the brief teaser clips at the cliffhanger end of the first video, a spunky heroine joins the team — as do hordes of headcrab zombies. (The Purchases promise to reveal details about their cast after that goes online.)

Interview With David Purchase, Co-creator of Escape From City 17

• Guest blogger Mat Honan railed against the evils of Microsoft Word. Word.

• Ricoh's CX1 is a point and shoot you can believe in.

• A dubious image of the new Mac Mini surfaced.

• Rob determined that a head-mounted camera is best used as an eyepatch.

• Dell launched an attack on Psion's "netBook" trademark; a former Psion staffer remembered his company's glory days.

• Solar-powered batteries! But will they work well? Commenters say no.

• A lady made wonderful SD-card sized memory books.

• We bathed with Nintendo Entertainment Soap.

• We saw a disappointed critique of Windows Mobile 6.5.

• There was the USB Cat Bar, which has to be seen to be believed.

• Pet harnesses by Solvit let your pup ride in comfort and safety.

• Soundshelves put the speaker inside the shelves, not simply on them.

• A strange black-and-white LED video array.

• Wondered who would get 4G first.

• There was the cuddliest box Brownie ever.

• You can now buy Android apps.

Three cheers for Terry Pratchett on receiving a knighthood, joining the ranks of genre authors like Sir Arthur C Clarke who've pleased the Queen enough to get daubed with the magic scimitar.

Author Terry Pratchett has been knighted by the Queen at Buckingham Palace for services to literature.

Sir Terry, 60, was named in the New Year Honours list.

Best known for his hugely popular Discworld series of comic fantasy novels, he has sold more than 55 million books worldwide.

In 2007 Sir Terry was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's disease and has since campaigned to raise awareness of the condition.

Novelist Pratchett becomes a Sir (Thanks, boeotian!)

(Image: BBC)

$300,000 is the starting bid on this eBay listing for a three-bedroom home built in a 15,000 sqft cave in Festus, MO, formerly a roller-rink/concert venue that entertained the MC5, Ike and Tina Turner and Ted Nugent. Sounds like a hell of a place to live (and you gotta feel for the family that's losing their dream). It's got three freshwater springs and there are fourteen waterfalls on the property. Yowza.

On May 19th, 2008, the City of Festus approved our occupancy inspection for the cave. Officially, this completed our project. There are still projects that can be started, completed and developed. Plenty of room in our 17,000 square foot home.

This is now where we live, work, raise our family and celebrate life! Here are a few of the details about the place: Historic, regionally famous cave: 15,000 square feet, divided into three main chambers.

The front chamber houses the main part of the 3-bedroom finished house.

The middle chamber holds the laundry room, storage, and a spare bath. The middle chamber made a great party room. 80 feet by 80 feet.

The back chamber still has the stage where Ted Nugent, Bob Seger, Ike and Tina Turner, the MC5 and many other bands performed.

Property: 2.8 scenic, partially wooded acres provide excellent privacy and the feel of the country right in the middle of town, just several blocks from shopping, dining, and other conveniences.

Energy efficiency: Geothermal and passive solar keep the home comfortable year-round without a furnace or air conditioning. In spite of the vast size of the home, our energy costs here run about the same as they did in our 800 square-foot starter home. The home naturally stays a little cooler than the average above-ground home, but we found that we acclimated quickly and easily.

Unique Cave Home over 15,000 sf. Beautiful setting

Caveland US (Thanks Fipi Lele!)

You sit down at your computer. You blog, "Research published in the journal Psychological Science suggests that, while frequently annoying, the use of the second person in fiction compels readers to form more vivid identification in literature." You save the blog post.

In these experiments, volunteers read sentences describing everyday actions. The statements were expressed in either first- ("I am..."), second- ("You are...") or third-person ("He is..."). Volunteers then looked at pictures and had to indicate whether the images matched the sentences they had read. The pictures were presented in either an internal (i.e. as though the volunteer was performing the event him/herself) or external (i.e. as though the volunteer was observing the event) perspective. Yours, mine, ours: When you and I share perspectives (via Futurismic)

Tomek Pietek created this anatomical cycling gear -- not sure if it ever went into production or just existed as a portfolio piece, but it's sure striking. Finally, a good use for elasticated athletic wear!

Muscle - Skin suit (via Street Anatomy)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Rob's found these delightful mini-scrapbooks bound in the husks of old SD cards:

"I discovered some old smart media memory cards from an ancient digital camera," writes Sheila at Cheeky Magpie. "You know, the kind that was as big as an air conditioner and took photos about as well? The memory cards have little memory and even less usefulness these days so I was going to pitch them. But I hate just throwing things away."

So she made this from the contents: a permanent hard copy of the thoughts therein. Upgraded them to SD format, too!

Handmade SD card-size memory books

Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Love Mikero's Charles Darwin/Shepard Fairey/Barack Obama mashup graphics -- collect the whole set!

Sample Darwin graphics (via Thoughts from Kansas)

Cops in Northern Ireland have finally solved the mystery of "the worst driver in Ireland," a man called Prawo Jadzy who had rackedup many infractions but had never been brought to justice because he'd given a string of fake addresses:

"Prawo Jazdy is actually the Polish for driving licence and not the first and surname on the licence," read a letter from June 2007 from an officer working within the Garda's traffic division.

"Having noticed this, I decided to check and see how many times officers have made this mistake.

"It is quite embarrassing to see that the system has created Prawo Jazdy as a person with over 50 identities."

The officer added that the "mistake" needed to be rectified immediately and asked that a memo be circulated throughout the force.

The mystery of Ireland's worst driver (via William Gibson)

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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So, you've been getting along well with your new Japanese business client but suddenly get told that they are not interested in doing business with you after meeting them on your arrival in Japan.

Well it could have been due to many a reason. One of the reasons could be that you started to eye up your clients lover secretary. It could also have been because you stepped in poo and didn't wipe off before leaving steaming skid marks all over your clients office carpet. Another reason could be because you slipped and stabbed a pencil in your clients left knee.

The most likely reason however is because you didn't hand over your business card properly and to do business in the land of the rising sun, you just need to know how this is done. Luckily, there is being a tutorial floating around the Tubes which you can see below.

Do also remember that you need to learn how to bow properly too - this flash tutorial (click on the thumbs at the bottom) will help you - I've seen people bow down to 90 degrees but 45 degrees for gratitude and apologies is acceptable. The photo is a collection of some business cards collected during my work in Japan - see more designs of Japanese business cards in my previous "Meishi" article.

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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Ladies and Gentlemen, are you fed up with the side effects of breast enlargement medication? Does that third eye that sprouted up on your left knee really bug you after taking your latest prescription? Well we has some good news for you. Watch the video below (is in English with Japanese subs) to learn how Dr Tomobechi managed to enlarge a woman's bust size by 3 centimeters just by getting her to listen to particular ring tones over the period of 10 days - was on the Discovery Channel so it must be true.

And as for the first picture - its a bra for men which you can buy at Rakuten for 29USD - for men who are happy with their breast size. Thanks Henry!

Danny Choo is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. Danny resides in Tokyo, and blogs about life in Japan and Japanese subculture - he also works part time for the empire.

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A collection of Japanese Bento boxes that will starve you - because they are just too adorable to eat - See more pics at Ai Bento.

Thought I forgot Tweet Week? Well, I sort of did, but it's because I've been busy today getting ready for my move to Eugene, Oregon. (More on that tomorrow!) But in the meantime, let me give out some more stuffs. Up first is a NeatReceipts, a scanner designed specifically to get your documents, receipts, and business cards in order and slurped into your PC or Mac. (I've actually got one in here for review, but this whole moving thing has got me in the weeds.)

Tonight I'll also give away a SleepTracker Pro watch that monitors your night thrashings and wakes you at the most opportune time for restfulness. (I did review that and liked it quite a bit.)

Haven't put in your entries for Tweet Week yet? Here's how: Follow us on Twitter and you'll be entered to win. Here are our accounts again; Each follow is an entry: • @joeljohnson; @xenijardin; @beschizza; @brandonnn; @doctorow; @johnbattelle; @frauenfelder

(By the way, it's been awesome to get to know so many new people over the last few days. I am a very lucky person to be able to get to know so many quick and clever people. The lesson: It's easy to make friends when you give away prizes!)

A quick heads up: over at Offworld we've got the first look at the just-launched official T-shirts for Noby Noby Boy, the also-just-launched new PS3 game by Keita 'Katamari Damacy' Takahashi. The shirts are again being manufactured and sold by Portland software design house Panic -- the same studio that teamed up with Takahashi for his Katamari shirts, all of which are gorgeous.

Head over to Offworld to see all the designs and let us know which one you're grabbing (I am terminally frozen in analysis paralysis between the brown, fuschia and gray).

Only on Offworld: your first look at Panic's Noby Noby Boy T-shirts

Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

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In today's episode of Boing Boing Video, director Zack Snyder and visual effects supervisor John "DJ" Des Jardin give us a preview of the forthcoming movie "Watchmen" (Wikipedia, IMDB, trailer). On March 6, the hallowed graphic novel deemed "unfilmable" will hit theaters.

Will the long-awaited adaptation of writer Alan Moore and artist Dave Gibbons' dark eighties comic soar, or stink? The more intense the fandom around a classic, the more intense the fear that a filmmaker will screw it up, and few titles are as revered as this one. From what we saw during this preview with fans at the Apple store in Santa Monica, I am inclined to be very optimistic.

Both Snyder and Des Jardin spoke with us about the challenges of bringing "Watchmen" from novel to CG-driven feature form. In today's episode we explore that challenge through the making of one character: Dr. Manhattan. The filmmakers contended with interesting creative and technical obstacles, which involved the fact that Manhattan is (a) pretty much nude, and (b) luminous. Actor Billy Crudup plays the stoic, white-eyed protagonist, and they used a sort of LED bodysuit to create the melded "real"/CG persona we see on screen. Blue superhero man-junk was a subject of serious discussion.

Snyder revealed that a 3 hour and ten minute long director's cut of "Watchmen" will come out in July. A DVD will follow in the fall, which he described as the "Crazy Ultimate Freaky Edition" to include extras such as "Tales of the Black Freighter," the death of Hollis Mason, extra scenes with Dr. Manhattan on Mars, and more. MTV News has an item with details.

The event at which this Boing Boing Video episode was taped was a part of Apple's ongoing "Meet The Filmmaker" series hosted at Apple Stores throughout the US. The series is free, and this one was packed with trufans clutching copies of the comic, or wearing "Watchmen" smileyface shirts. It was fun to see fans get a chance to ask questions directly. There will be another event with members of the cast at the Apple Store SoHo on March 5.

Apple also has some cool "Watchmen" content offered through iTunes (trailers, cast video journals, a cool iPhone/iPod touch application available in the App Store, and so on.) And you can search for "Meet the Filmmaker" in the iTunes store for a podcast series which includes the raw audio feed from this event (I think it's about 2 hours long?) as well as podcasts from other "Watchmen" events.

As an aside: Des Jardin was the associate visual effects supervisor on Matrix 2 and 3, with John Gaeta, who has appeared in previous original video episodes on Boing Boing (parts 1, part 2).

Special thanks to all the Boing Boing friends on Twitter who submitted questions for Snyder and Des Jardin. Many of these made it into the episode!

And one more goodie: lots of photos at the Official Watchmen flickr stream.

Update: Wil Wheaton says the movie is "awesome," and here's his review, sans spoilers.

Jim Leftwich made this playlist of great movie themes using SeeqPod

When you are feeling blue, you should visit this website. FMYLIFE.COM or follow @fxxxmylife on Twitter. "Capsule-sized doses of schadenfreude to help you feel better about your life any time you need it," says our pal Nate Torkington. (Thanks, @Gnat!)