Russian Roulette 2 - 자! 당신 차례입니다. (via OhGizmo)

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

If you've never given much thought to all the cool things you could do with an abandoned silo, well...you didn't grow up in Kansas, did you? Personally, I had a great plan for a scuba-through aquarium (with whales!) that really could have gotten off the ground if someone had ponied up the seed money back when I was 5.

With a recent architectural design contest to revamp a couple of former sewage treatment plan silos into cultural landmarks, the Amsterdam City Council seems to be going for something a bit more practical than my old grain silo dreams. The ArchiCentral blog has some great renderings of the entry by NL Architects, which includes a "Cultural Silo" (with theaters, gallery space, and a restaurant), and a "Climbing Silo" (with a 40-meter/131-foot-high artificial cave for rock-wall climbing enthusiasts...of which, apparently, Amsterdam has many).

BTW: The headline here, a quote from the NL Architects spokesman, roughly translates from architect-speak into English as, "This project is going to be kick-ass!"

What would you do with a retired silo? I still think the aquarium idea would be "abstract mysterious" as all hell.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

The CDC released the first photos of H1N1 this morning. FACT: If you tilt the computer screen at just the right angle and slightly cross your eyes, you will see a pig riding a sailboat.

Seriously, though, these are some gorgeous shots. I may spend the next 10 minutes before the coffee kicks in just listening to that amino acid sequence MP3 and staring at these photos.

A worthy addition to the subgenre of videos of the Super Mario theme being performed on various instruments by young people who were too young to have played the NES games as kids. These musical game-historians give me hope for the future, they truly do.

Mario Theme on Balalaika (Thanks, Putinoid!)

1913 Scripps-Booth Bi-Autogo (Thanks, Dave!)

Critter Pirates 2

The theme for MAKE Vol. 18 (on newsstands and in bookstores on May 18) is about building a sustainable future at home. The articles include geeked-out gardening tips (like an Arduino-controlled automatic indoor garden called the Garduino, micro-irrigation, and worm composting) and lots of energy related projects (like how to make a Tweet-a-Watt so you can twitter your electricity usage, and other ways to measure and reduced power usage in your home).

One of the projects in the magazine I'm looking forward to making myself is the solar powered hot tub heater. Eric Muhs, the author, built a 3' x 3' plywood box, painted it black, drilled a couple of holes in a corner, and dropped a 100 foot coil of cheap black vinyl hose inside. The ends of the hoses go into the water, and a solar-powered pump moves water through the coils. The cool thing Eric's design is that the pump stays off when it's dark or cloudy, preventing the system from cooling the hot tub water.

Eric says, "On a sunny day, it works great, and the water returns to the tub 2 or 3 degrees hotter than it left. That may not sound like much, but it adds up. The basic rule of thumb of this system: if it's the kind of day when your parked car is hotter than the outside air when you get in, you'll get heat."

Make Vol. 18 -- building a sustainable future at home

Click for larger size. (Thanks, Sebastian, Mark K., and Stefanie.)

You're going to pre-heat to 500F. But how do you know when the stone is ready? You could give it maybe 30 minutes and hope for the best. Or, splurge a little. A $45 infrared digital thermometer is not only a fun toy, it's the perfect way to assess surface temp from a safe distance.

Open the oven and quickly shine the beam onto the stone every 15 minutes. Any more often than that will a) let more heat escape, and b) lower your spirits. Compared to when I pre-heated the pizza stone all by its lonesome, getting the stone up to 470F when surrounded by the brick house took 30 minutes longer. Makes sense, you've just added twice as much ceramic or terra cotta to the mix.

Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

I invented a desk in which the books I had to study were arranged in order at the beginning of each term. I also made a bed which set me on my feet every morning at the hour determined on, and in dark winter mornings just as the bed set me on the floor it lighted a lamp. Then, after the minutes allowed for dressing had elapsed, a click was heard and the first book to be studied was pushed up from a rack below the top of the desk, thrown open, and allowed to remain there the number of minutes required. Then the machinery closed the book and allowed it to drop back into its stall, then moved the rack forward and threw up the next in order, and so on, all the day being divided according to the times of recitation, and time required and allotted to each study.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

A Stanford team that's studying the public's knowledge of, and response to, H1N1 flu, has a survey and they're looking for willing participants to fill it out. Here's team member Marcel Salathé:

There is a possibility that the situation might develop into a pandemic if the virus continues to spread around the globe. The news media report excessively about this threat, and while health officials urge people to stay calm, there is an increased level of anxiety in the population.
Models have predicted that when a disease breaks out, changes in behavior in response to an outbreak, and in particular in response to information about an outbreak, can alter the progression of an epidemic. While this makes intuitive sense, there is no good data to test such a hypothesis. One of the major problems is that emotional reactions and behavioral response to an epidemic is generally assessed quite some time after the epidemic has fizzled out."

Short version: They're trying to figure out whether the info dump about H1N1 flu that you're getting from the media and the Web might really be enough to educate us all right out of a pandemic. I know that theory has come up in the comments threads on my previous flu postings. Let's help find out it if it works!

Take the survey here

EDIT: Marcel Salathé answers a couple of reader questions from the comments thread here. First, about when the results will come out and how you can see them:

There are a number of options. We will collect data while the epidemic runs its course - how long that's going to take is unpredictable, so I cannot really say more about the timeline - we just don't know yet. But we're constantly monitoring the data, and once we start finding interesting patterns we will certainly publish those quickly and make them open access. Feel free to publish my Stanford email address, and people who want to the results can send me an email."

Second, are Boing Boing readers completely screwing up the data by virtue of their savvyness? Salathé says it's a concern, but he doesn't think it will mess things up too badly, and he needs the volume of response more:

I am relatively confident that once we have a large enough sample we will get a good feeling for the average level of concern in the population. Yes, it might be that the ones responding to the survey are not the ones most panicky. On the other hand, one could also make the argument that people who are absolutely unruffled and calm might not be bothered to take the survey either. There can always be bias in any direction. In principle, any online survey has the potential for bias (by the fact alone that the survey is online) - but with a large enough sample one can avoid most of the problems regarding bias."

Boing Boing also isn't the only large-volume return place Salathé has published the survey link, so he's confident his results won't be all-BB, all the time. He does say that if you've got suggestions on more places to publish the survey link that are likely to be BB's polar opposite, you should contact him.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

As with every spring, the rains fall, the sun shines, and I remain hopelessly inept as a gardener. Or, maybe, "inept" isn't quite the right word. "Lazy" and "impatient". There, that's the ticket. So, despite fantasizing repeatedly about the wonderful life we would lead if only we got around to putting in some vegetables this year, my husband and I have never gotten around to putting in some vegetables. At best, we keep the lawn mowed and free of vehicles on blocks.

But that may be changing because, last week, Baker brought home a copy of The All New Square Foot Gardening guide, a book written by a retired engineer, which manages to make home veggie patches appealing to both my laissez-faire approach to plant life, and Baker's (who is, himself, an engineer) tendencies towards efficiency-obsession and Maker glee. The book promises to help you grow more, in less space, with less work. OK, I'm game.

The basic idea is that most people try to garden like they're making a miniature farmstead---with wide rows, hills and furrows, plowed into the earth of your backyard. And, frankly, all that adds up to a pain in the ass. Tilling sucks. Your dirt probably isn't ideal for growing things. You get weeds that need to be dealt with every day. The watering process wastes water and usually ends up with some plants drowning and other plants parched. And all you want is a freakin' salad.

Square-foot gardening, on the other hand, is all about eliminating those problems. Instead of tilling the dirt and pumping in fertilizer, you build a big box, put a liner on the bottom, and fill it with a mixture of peat moss, vermiculite and compost. Great soil. And no weed seeds to sprout up.Because you make the box small enough to reach everything without stepping in the dirt, your soil stays aerated. Because you don't have to weed, you can grow plants from fewer seeds, closer together, with each box broken down into neat, anal-retentive grids. The idea of a garden that can be plotted out on graph paper is already making Baker salivate.

The watering solution is particularly slick. Instead of moving around a sprayer that never seems to successfully dampen the full area you've aimed it at (and chucks water onto places that don't need it), you hook up a pipe system to your box and screw in the hose. Plant stuff than needs lots of water closer to the pipe, and stuff that needs less further away. Then you can turn the water on (at a lower pressure than you'd use for spraying) and let it trickle down.

I'll be honest, as the wife of an engineer, I end up poking a lot of fun at the hyper-planning, "let us sit down and work out the numbers before we toast that bread" mindset. But it's all in fun. I promise. You engineers can be as detail-oriented as you want to be, as long as you keep offering up great solutions like this.

Image of a nicely gridded-up square foot garden courtesy shygantic, via a Creative Commons license.

In this episode of Make: Talk, we'll be joined by Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen, authors of The Urban Homestead. Kelly and Erik grow food, keep chickens, brew, bike, bake and plot revolution from their 1/12th acre farm in the heart of Los Angeles. They are keepers of the popular DIY blog, Homegrown Evolution. Their first book, The Urban Homestead, a primer on urban self-reliance, was released by Process Media in May of 2008. The New York Times magazine called it "Home Economics as our great-grandparents knew it."

We'll also present some news from the world of making, and our favorite tricks, tips, and tools of the week. Be sure to call in for prizes that we'll award during the program! The number is (646) 915-8698.

Below is the show player, where you can listen to the live program on Friday, and to past episodes.

Make: Talk on BlogTalkRadio

(Download the MP4 here, or watch on YouTube.) Today's edition of Boing Boing Video is an animated short by Giles Timms -- "Manifestations" stars a cartoon critter named Mr. Chip who seeks anime love in a psychedelic, ever-morphing virtual world. The music is by Welsh composer Ceri Frost. Mr. Chip also stars in a mini Flash game which you can play here.

RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic).

BBV: Where are you based, and what do you do?

Giles: At the moment I live in Santa Monica, LA and attend the Animation Workshop at UCLA's Department of Theater, Film and Television. So I'm a student in the MFA program, but I also work freelance, such as the recent Deathcab for Cutie "Grapevine Fires" video with Walter Robot Studios.

BBV: What is the story behind this lovely animation?

Giles: That it's important for us to find love in this world, whoever and wherever we may be. And that love can exist between the most unlikely of characters, such as the cartoon creature Mr. Chip and the Tadahiro Uesugi inspired girly girl. Love knows no boundaries.

BBV: I love the cute little boxy central character. Who is he, and what's his story?

Giles: The little green guy is Mr. Chip. He originally appeared as the central character in a mini puzzle flash game that I made. Mr. Chip is quite small and unassuming, but he has the heart of a lion and isn't afraid to go after what he seeks. And he can be very resourceful in a MacGyver sort of way. It was these qualities that led to his development as the main character in Manifestations.

(Interview continues after the jump)

ArtWerk drew this map of Europe, titled "Where I Live." Be sure to read the lively debate over at Flickr, both in the annotated notes and the comments.

Beeld 14: Gameboom. (Brandon)

Andrew Alter of Trossen Robotics says:

I was working on my mech Hagetaka [a bipedal combat robot] the other night and made the mistake of grabbing at the robot to stabilize it while it was moving, and managed to graze my finger in one of the joints. It drew blood and immediately reminded me that working with these types of servos was an entirely different ballgame than your standard hobby servo. With that in mind, we put together a little demonstration video of just how powerful these servos can be! Enjoy!

America's civil war has its front lines in Manhattan, in the DMZ where the Free States (separatist militiamen), the USA and its military contractor, Trustwell (a stand-in for Halliburton or Blackwater) all clash. For years, Matty Roth, a roving reporter who has an on-again/off-again relationship with Liberty News (think Fox News) has cataloged the human cost of the manipulative, cynical profiteering on all sides of the conflict, but now he's even more in the thick of it than ever.

It's election season in the DMZ. New York will elect its own governor and become independent -- supposedly. In reality, it appears that the fix is in, with the USA prepared to install a "Paul Bremer wannabe" as a puppet ruler. Then Parco Delgado, a street-fighting charismatic (derided as "a cross between Al Sharpton and Che Guevara") throws his hat in to the ring, declaring himself to be the real choice of the people. Matty is swept up in populist fervor (only slightly dimmed when he discovers that the Delgado Nation has hired his estranged mother, a left-wing political operative, to run the campaign) and breaks with Liberty News just as an unsuccessful assassination attempt puts Delgado in hospital.

A story about the limits of democracy and the power of populism, about the role of the press and the bravery of the voter, Blood in the Game furthers the fantastic work that Wood has done thus far on his story set in an utterly plausible America at war with itself. This is the kind of storytelling I read comics for.

DMZ Vol. 6: Blood in the Game

DMZ Vol. 5: The Hidden War

DMZ Vol. 4: Friendly Fire

DMZ Vol. 3: Public Works

DMZ Vol. 2: Body of a Journalist

DMZ Vol. 1: On the Ground

• Lisa reviews the Flip UltraHD. But which pocket cam should you buy?

• Xeni checked out Tricaster, the future of budget broadcasting.

• The Plantronics Voyager Pro is a bluetooth headset for suits with serious requirements.

• Luxeed's U5 keyboard works on Macs.

• What would Wii do without soap? Speaking of Wii, Energizer-branded inductive Wiimote chargers are out soon.

• HP's new MediaSmart home server cuts the price, and some corners.

• THEY WANT YOUR POD.

• Would you like a letter-size touch tablet from Apple?

• A diseased light fixture, courtesy of 3D printing technology.

Videogames should be more violent, not less.

Recently on Offworld, Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol takes the occasion of J.G. Ballard's death to argue that, with his future of boredom -- of calm consumer choices and deadened emotions -- realised, that videogames are an ideal safe excursion to violence and excitement, outlets for Ballard's "vast systems of competing psychopathies."

Elsewhere we took a longer look at WINDOSiLL (above), the latest Flash creation from Vectorpark artist Patrick Smith, and its magical hyper-real surreality -- certainly one of the most physically expressed worlds in recent game memory.

We also saw fantastic footage of Q-games' latest PixelJunk game, showing off the interplay of its realistically modeled particle/fluid mechanics, saw Bandcamp's hidden Defender stats-graph easter egg, watched Infinite Ammo's gorgeous paper-cut planar-platformer Paper Moon in motion, and cut paper of our own to assemble adorably lethal Team Fortress 2 models.

Finally, we launched a 'One Shot' series of single-serve art doses with Katamari-head jellybeans, a Super Mario graveyard, and a Nintendo Entertainment System mouse, dug on Dr. Mario Dunnys, and showed off easily one of the best bits of press swag ever put to paper, with a neo-futuristic Space Invaders Extreme print signed by original game creator Tomohiro Nishikado himself.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

One person outside: But two people "inside": That's the gist of the chimera, a human being who carries the DNA (and sometimes the body parts) for two. It sounds crazy, but it happens. In fact, doctors think it probably happens more often than we realize. Unless there were some reason to test the DNA from cells in different parts of your body, you could easily be a chimera and never know it. Happy Freaky Friday, everybody.
So how's it happen? In this excerpt from my book, Be Amazing, I explained how chimeras happen, and how confusing it can be to be one.

First: Get That Meddling Sibling Out of Your Way
Imagine you're a fertilized egg, just a few days old. There you are, floating around the womb and minding your own business, when, BAM! You run smack into another just like you. Well, not just like you. But certainly close enough to be a threat. Now, you have a choice. You can roll over and let yourself be born as just another fraternal twin, or you can stand up for your individuality and absorb the interloper. Naturally, you do the smart thing, and nine months later your parents take home one healthy baby.

Then: Discover That They Aren't As Dead As You Thought
Like a horror-movie villain locked into a three-picture contract, your twin never really died. Instead, she'll end up hiding in plain sight--within your very cells--rendering you a chimera, a single human who carries the genetic makeup of two different people. Most of the time, there aren't any outward signs that your body is harboring a stowaway. But when you do notice, things get a little crazy. Take Karen Keegan, who discovered her chimera-ness at age 52. When Keegan needed a kidney transplant, she and her two adult children underwent DNA testing to figure out which kid's kidney would be the best match for mom. Surprisingly, the tests showed neither. In fact, according to DNA, Keegan's children weren't her children at all. The case confounded doctors for more than two years until, in 2000, the docs finally realized that Keegan's blood cells carried different genes from the cells in her ovaries---the long-absorbed twin was found.

Perhaps you're wondering whether chimeras can incorporate twins of two different sexes. The answer is yes, and the results are often much stranger. In 1998, Scottish doctors reported treating a teenage boy for an undescended testicle. But when they put the kid under the knife, no second testicle could be found to pull down. Instead, where the ball should have been, doctors discovered an ovary and fallopian tube. Chimera strikes again.

For some fun further reading, check out the story of Lydia Fairchild. Like Karen Keegan, Fairchild's chimeric nature was discovered after DNA tests said she wasn't the mother of the children she was pretty sure she remembered giving birth to. Unlike Keegan, however, Fairchild's kids were still young and the initial DNA test almost cost her custody.

Much like Professor Xavier of the X-Men, illustrator Michael Rogalski is locked in deadly, psychic battle with his evil, chimeric twin.

Chul An Kwak at Seoul Design Week 2007 (via Neatorama)

REMIX now ccFree

It's the first ShatnerCon with William Shatner as the guest of honor! But after a failed terrorist attack by Campbellians, a crazy terrorist cult that worships Bruce Campbell, all of the characters ever played by William Shatner are suddenly sucked into our world. Their mission: hunt down and destroy the real William Shatner.

Buy Shatnerquake

I just got back from chaperoning a high school trip to Costa Rica. While there, some of the kids put together a make-shift Diplomacy game out of a pizza box top. Playing gave the kids and me fun lessons in leadership and negotiation.

Here's a little Android mobile phone app that turns your handset into a metal-detector, using the compass as a magnetometer. Not super-accurate or sensitive, but possibly useful for grubbing in the beach looking for your car-keys.

Use Your G1 As... A Metal Detector? (via Waxy)

Now, you may say that the US has no business telling Canada what sort of copyright laws it should have, and you'd be right.

But as Michael Geist points out, the idea that Canada is a pirate nation is just wrong -- even using the US copyright lobby's own numbers, Canada is a model citizen.

Not only is Canada not even remotely close to any other country on the list, it has the lowest software piracy rate of any of the 46 countries in the entire Special 301 Report. Moreover, it is compliant with its international IP obligations, participates in ACTA, has prosecuted illegal camcording, has the RCMP prioritizing IP matters, has statutory damages provisions, features far more copyright collectives than the U.S., and has a more restrictive fair dealing/fair use provision.

This talk is a 30,000-foot view of why our work is important. I'm going to argue that the Internet is the main value creator here - not our ability to digitize everything, not high speed networking, not massive storage - the Internet. With this perspective, maybe you'll you go back to work with a slight attitude adjustment, and maybe one or two concrete things to do.

In the big picture, We're building interconnectedness. We're connecting every person on this planet with every other person. We're creating new ways to share experience. We're building new ways for buyers to find sellers, for manufacturers to find raw materials, for innovators to rub up against new ideas. We're creating a new means to distribute our small planet's limited resources.

Let's take a step back from the ducts and splices and boxes and protocols. Let's go on an armchair voyage in the opposite direction -- to a strange land . . . to right here, right now, but without the Internet.

After treating lab-cultured human pre-adipocytes with the tea extract, the authors found that fat incorporation during the genesis of new adipocytes was reduced. According to Winnefeld, "The extract solution induced a decrease in the expression of genes associated with the growth of new fat cells, while also prompting existing adipocytes to break down the fat they contain."

Our friend Bonnie Burton Burton has a terrific new book out called Girls Against Girls: Why We Are Mean to Each Other and How We Can Change. In it, Bonnie explains the "mean girl" syndrome, and why even nice girls sometimes can be mean to other girls. I'm saving it for my daughters.

Written for all teen girls, this insightful book discusses different types of girl-on-girl cruelty, why it happens, and how to deal with it. With details on various forms of abuse common between girls—including betrayal between friends, cyberbullying, hazing, and the silent treatment—this useful guidebook will help teen girls understand why they show aggression to each other, cope with difficult situations, gain confidence, and work together as teams, while also suggesting when to get help from adults when situations get out of hand. It includes quotes and inspirational stories from famous role models who have had firsthand experience with girl meanness, such as Jane Wiedlin, founding member of the Go-Go's; Jenny Conlee, bandmember of The Decemberists; and Tegan, bandmember of Tegan and Sara.

Seattle artist Kim Graham made herself a pair of horsey legs, and now she's making more to sell. They'll cost you about $1000 with the optional spring loaded hooves.

Digigrade leg extensions (Via TYWKIWDBI)

The Mt Holly Mayor posted some photos of signs his friend made for a fellow named Ed who is out of work. Ed says the signs are working!

My pal, and frequent Mt. Holly tourist, Todd Norem (noremipsum.com) created these media appropriate and proven effective outdoor boards for his client Ed who reported at least a 800% increase in gross income on days his media ran.

We talked, and I learned her name was K. and asked her about the shelters in town. She rattled off the names of homes that I know are where abused women and children escape to when their lives are in danger.

None of the shelters had rooms for her and her children.

Then it dawned on me that maybe I could do more than give her $30 and hope someone else gives her another $30 so the young family can find a place to sleep tonight. I asked her if we could share her photos and her story so that somewhere, some of you might be able to help.

K's eyes are perpetually brimming with tears. She's tiny and her hands are chilled. Baby M is sleeping under a blanket on her chest. The two younger children, D and Little K, are relatively quiet considering their ages. At 7 and 9, they could be tearing up the sidewalks, but they're not.

When I explain to K about my blog and that I hope that maybe someone out there reading might have a way to help, she thinks it's a good idea and says it's okay to take the pictures. "It can't be any more embarrassing than what I'm doing now," she says.