The 1982 cyberpunk cinema classic Blade Runner remains one of the most influential science fiction movies of all time, and tops many a nerd's favorite films list.

Today on Boing Boing tv, Boing Boing Gadgets editor Joel Johnson visits the studio of artist and futurist Syd Mead, who designed the film's dystopian look and feel. We learn about the "erotic machine" he dreamed for the replicant Zhora (this breast-shaped dreampod was cut from the script when director Ridley Scott ran out of dough), the 1 2 3 *4* alternate opening scenes designed by Syd (one of them, which involved shoveling dead bodies, was deemed "too Holocaust"), what really lights up those building facades, and many more secrets.

Syd explains he envisioned the world of Blade Runner as a place "you wouldn't want to be for too long," and describes the challenges of designing for "a love story with moralistic underpinnings... if we could actually make people, would we treat them like dishwashers? Just use them up and throw them away?"

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Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and how to subscribe to the BBtv video podcast.

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If you like this BBtv episode, you might want to pick up:

BLADE RUNNER: THE FINAL CUT [Amazon]

VISUAL FUTURIST: The Art & Life of Syd Mead DVD [sydmead.com]

And more Syd Mead books on Amazon.

Previous episodes in BBtv's Syd Mead trilogy:

Joel Johnson interviews Syd Mead: part 1.

Joel Johnson interviews Syd Mead: part 2.

(Footage from the movie Blade Runner courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment / Warner Home Video; Artwork courtesy of Syd Mead Inc.)

Chris Borroni-Bird is the director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts at GM. He's leading the effort at GM to make fuel cell vehicles, based on a "skateboard" style chassis called AUTOnomy that incorporates the fuel cell, motors and electronics control.

GMnext kindly invited me to visit with Dr. Borroni-Bird and have a discussion with him about "innovation, technology, energy, the environment, and their impact on the future of the automobile." He's a fascinating innovator with ideas that could change transportation around the world. I hope he succeeds.

Here are more videos from our conversation. (Note: GMnext compensated me for my video appearance.) Link Chris Borroni-Bird and Mark Frauenfelder in conversation (GM Next)

Scott Hoffenberg, who lives in my hometown of Boulder, Colorado, is growing a vegetable garden in the space between the sidewalk and the street on University Avenue. A neighbor complained about the trellises and fencing in the parkway, and Hoffenberg has been ordered to remove them or face a $2,000 per day fine.

[L]ast month, an enforcement officer from Boulder’s Environmental and Zoning Enforcement office showed up and said a neighbor had complained about the garden.

“She said to take it all down — the tomato cages, the trellises, the posts, the basketball hoop, everything,” Hoffenberg said.

...

Hoffenberg has until July 14 to take down the trellises and fencing. At that point, Arthur said, he could be cited, and a judge could impose a fine. Or the city could remove the impediments, since they’re on public property, Arthur said, if they’re not able to reach a compromise.

Boulder, curbside gardeners spar over right-of-way (Boulder Daily Camera) (Thanks, Nina!)

Amy Critchett and the Survival Research Laboratories crew (a legendary group of machine artists) tell Boing Boing:

SRL crew member Todd Blair [above, in earlier times] suffered a severe brain injury while striking the set of a Survival Research Laboratories show last September in Amsterdam. While liability insurance is being disputed we are doing all we can can to support Todd and his wife through his recovery.

WHAT: 25 gears, each sponsored by an artist or an organization, each made into its own unique piece of art, will be assembled to create a kinetic sculpture at The Wall: Unveiled

Gear Makers include: Mark Pauline/SRL, Kal Spelletich, The Flaming Lotus Girls, Laurel True/True Mosiacs, The Shipyard, ZeroOne Festival, Jon Sarriguarte/Form and Reform, RE:Search Publications, Fringe Exhibitions and more

The Wall: Unveiled will include art, performance, food, family crafts and fun. $5 to $500 minimum donation at the door. All donations are tax deductable. All ages welcome.

The Wall: Unveiled, Sunday, July 20, 2008, 3 p.m. to 8 p.m., Rhythmix Cultural Works, 2513 Blanding Ave Alameda, CA 94501.

Details at www.toddnow.org.

Image above, Todd at the SRL Robodock show in Amsterdam, before the accident. Below, the gear created by artist Jon Sarriugarte for the Todd Blair benefit Gear Wall. Images via SRL and Mr. Blair's support website. Previously on Boing Boing:

SRL crew member injured in post-show accident

SRL: update on injured crew member

San Francisco: benefit for SRL's Todd Blair on Saturday

Wednesday: Dorkbot-San Francisco Todd Blair benefit

A University of Florida researcher is designing a flying saucer that uses plasma and surrounding air as its fuel to generate lift. The aircraft's skin will be studded with electrodes that ionize the air, converting it into plasma. Mechanical and aerospace engineering associate professor Subrata Royh hopes to have a six inch working prototype in the next year.

Using an onboard source of energy (such as a battery, ultracapacitor, solar panel or any combination thereof), the electrodes will send an electrical current into the plasma, causing the plasma to push against the neutral (noncharged) air surrounding the craft, theoretically generating enough force for liftoff and movement in different directions (depending on where on the craft's surface you direct the electrical current)...

Theoretically, Roy says, the flying saucer can be as large as anyone wants to build it, because the design gives the aircraft balance and stability. In other words, this type of aircraft could someday be built large enough to ferry around people. But, Roy says, "we need to walk before we can run, so we're starting small."

The biggest hurdle to building a WEAV large enough to carry passengers would be making the craft light, yet powerful enough to lift its cargo and energy source. Roy is not sure what kind of energy source he will use yet. He anticipates that the craft's body will be made from a material that is an insulator such as ceramic, which is light and a good conductor of electricity. "In theory you probably should be able to scale it up," says Anthony Colozza, a researcher with government contractor Analex Corporation who is stationed at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland and helped Roy draw up the original plans for powering the saucer. The choice of a power source that is powerful, yet lightweight is "probably going to be the thing that makes or breaks it."

Flying saucer (Scientific American)

UPDATE: As several commenters point out, saying that the saucer uses air as fuel, as I did in my post based on the SciAm articl, isn't really correct.

Snip from an article in today's New York Times about a slew of designers and firms developing new models of airships. These passenger-carrying aircraft float on the wind, rather than being propelled solely by fuel (more precise explanation here). And, ah, hopefully they don't blow up in the sky or whatever.

As the cost of fuel soars and the pressure mounts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, several schemes for a new generation of airship are being considered by governments and private companies. “It’s a romantic project,” said Mr. Massaud, 45, sitting amid furniture designs in his Paris studio, “but then look at Jules Verne.”

It has been more than 70 years since the giant Hindenburg zeppelin exploded in a spectacular fireball over Lakehurst, N.J., killing 36 crew members and passengers, abruptly ending an earlier age of airships. But because of new materials and sophisticated means of propulsion, a diverse cast of entrepreneurs is taking another look at the behemoths of the air.

Mr. Massaud, a designer of hotels in California and a stadium in Mexico, has not ironed out the technical details, nor has he found financiers or corporate backers for his project — to create a 690-foot zeppelin shaped like a whale, with a luxury hotel attached, that he has named Manned Cloud.

And, heh, my favorite quote here:

“A dirigible is something magical,” said Jérôme Giacomoni, who was 25 when he founded Aerophile with a friend. “But most of the ideas are crazy.”

Why Fly When You Can Float? [NYT]
Image: Jean-Marie Massaud.

Update: most LOLlable comment in this thread, #4 posted by Chris the Tiki guy...

[I]f they're exploring whale shapes, why not other aquatic creatures, like the seacow? That way people can point and say "Oh, the huge manatee!" (...) [I]f Helium is in short supply, I doubt we'll be launching very many lighter-than-air craft any time soon, unless we can figure out how to make hydrogen just as buoyant but less explode-y.

Image: found floating (snort) around on the internet, provenance unknown Something Awful Dot Com's Photoshop Phriday.

Here are the top 10 most-viewed TED Talk videos from June 2006 to May 2008)

Jill Bolte Taylor's stroke of insight

Jeff Han's touchscreen foreshadows the iPhone and more

David Gallo shows underwater astonishments

Blaise Aguera y Arcas demos Photosynth

Arthur Benjamin does "mathemagic"

Sir Ken Robinson says schools kill creativity

Hans Rosling shows the best stats you've ever seen

Tony Robbins asks why we do what we do

Al Gore on averting a climate crisis

Johnny Lee demos Wii Remote hacks

You can also watch the Top 10 TED talks highlights video.

Some great photos of guerilla gardening in Tokyo from Kirainet.com.

Look at the girl in the picture, she is planting some tomatoes in little corner between two roads in the middle of Tokyo. Isn’t it amazing? She cares about that little place of land lost in Tokyo’s immensity, and what is more amazing is that she doesn’t seem worried about people or dogs destroying her tomatoes and her lavender.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Guerilla gardening in London
• LA Times on guerrilla gardeners

Julius von Bismarck's Image Fulgurator is a device that senses the flash of other people's cameras going off and projects an image or message onto whatever they are taking a photo of, such as the Checkpoint Charlie sign in Berlin. Link (Thanks, Phil!)

Today on Boing Boing tv -- a sneak preview of Heavy Load: A Film About Happiness, a new documentary about a UK punk band whose members include people who have developmental disabilities.

'70s punk star Wreckless Eric describes them as "a triumph of dysfunctionalness," and even Kylie Minogue (they've covered a hit song of hers) has become a fan.

The band says their mission is...

...to demonstrate that disability rocks. There are few genres left in music that have yet to be defined. Heavy Load have unwittingly created a brand new one.

The band is also behind a campaign called "Stay Up Late" which advocates for the right of cognitively disabled people to be allowed to go out, supervised, to live music shows and -- well, stay out late enough to actually see and hear the show. Again, from the band:

We play gigs all over the country and we have noticed that something strange happens at 9.00pm – people start to go home. Heavy Load are fed up with people with learning disabilities leaving club nights and gigs early because their staff finish their shifts at 10pm. This means they are missing out.

If this happens to you: You need to talk about this with your friends, support workers, family and advocates. Our ‘Stay Up Late’ campaign is to make managers and staff know that we want them to plan ahead and talk to us about what we want to do...

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and BBtv podcast subscription info.

The full-length documentary premieres on the US cable network IFC on June 23rd, 9PM ET/10PM PT, and again on 24th June. (Special thanks to BB's Mark Frauenfelder, and to the film's director, Jerry Rothwell)

Yesterday, the US Post Office issued this wonderful commemorative sheet of 16 Charles and Ray Eames stamps. I bought 10 sheets.

Honoring the husband-and-wife design team of Charles and Ray Eames, this commemorative sheet of 16 stamps was designed by Derry Noyes of Washington, DC, and represents the breadth of their extraordinary body of creative work, which includes architecture, furniture, film and exhibits.

Link (via Finkbuilt)

Here's a video of Nathan Myhrvold's absolutely terrific March 2007 presentation at TED.

Nathan Myhrvold talks about a few of his latest fascinations -- animal photography, archeology, BBQ and generally being an eccentric genius multimillionaire. Listen for wild stories from the (somewhat raunchy) edge of the animal world.

Link

My friend and Wired writer extraordinaire Gary Wolf has been researching people who self-experiment . He recently discovered a fascinating "champion of self-experimentation" named Seth Roberts, an emeritus professor of psychology at UC Berkeley.

Does standing up a lot during the day reduce susceptibility to colds? Go ahead and doubt it; I did. But Roberts has data to back it up, and while it would be foolish to believe that standing up a lot during the day would eliminate colds across an entire population -- foolish, that is, without experiments to prove it -- Roberts' own practice of standing up a lot has a lot more empirical back-up than many of the more "sensible" things we naively believe.

Here's anther one: for a long time Roberts had a problem with his sleep. He woke too early, could not go back to sleep, and then was tired in the morning. He tried different ways to cure this problem until, through a combination of coincidence, experiment and analysis of the data, he discovered an expected correlation: his problem disappeared when he skipped breakfast. He cured his early awakening by not eating until 11 a.m.

The idea that skipping breakfast may reduce early awakening was, wrote Roberts, "a new idea in sleep research." Strangely, Roberts was not hungry in the wee hours when he was troubled by early awakening, which lead him to suspect that it was not discomfort that roused him, but rather some glitch in his sleep cycle caused by anticipation of food.

You can download a PDF of Roberts' paper, Self-experimentation as a source of new ideas: Ten examples about sleep, mood, health, and weight.

Link

The LA Times reports on the guerrilla gardening movement, in which people make and maintain gardens on property that's not theirs.

Shown above, a photo by Gina Ferazzi of a batch of "seed bombs," used by guerrilla gardeners to quickly plant seeds on the sly.

Scott is a guerrilla gardener, a member of a burgeoning movement of green enthusiasts who plant without approval on land that's not theirs. In London, Berlin, Miami, San Francisco and Southern California, these free-range tillers are sowing a new kind of flower power. In nighttime planting parties or solo "seed bombing" runs, they aim to turn neglected public space and vacant lots into floral or food outposts.

Part beautification, part eco-activism, part social outlet, the activity has been fueled by Internet gardening blogs and sites such as GuerrillaGardening.org, where before-and-after photos of the latest "troop digs" inspire 45,000 visitors a month to make derelict soil bloom.

Link (via Ramshackle Solid)

From the Private Islands Blog:

French explorer and adventurer Xavier Rosset is about to embark on a 300 day trip to live alone on a remote tropical island in the South Pacific. His adventures will be filmed and used for a 52 minute documentary.

Xavier’s only luggage will be a Swiss army knife, machete[,] video camera, and a solar panel for charging the camera. He will spend 10 months alone on an island to develop another way of life through an exciting adventure, a return to the elemental sources. Xavier will survive alone on an island without human interference and without polluting emissions.

The ambition of this documentary is to make a reflection on our lifestyle, our current system and our relationship to nature. And the most important thing is to put the dream and emotion at the heart of adventure natural.

He will find timber to build a shelter, feed on the rudimentary fishing, plants and the harvesting of rainwater to survive.

Reminds me a bit of one of my favorite books, An Island to Oneself, about a man who lived off and on for years on a tiny South Pacific island.

Link

Freeman Dyson, professor of physics at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, reviewed two books about global warming for the New York Review of Books. His lengthy review is loaded with fascinating insights and ideas. Here's one highlight:

At this point I return to the Keeling graph, which demonstrates the strong coupling between atmosphere and plants. The wiggles in the graph show us that every carbon dioxide molecule in the atmosphere is incorporated in a plant within a time of the order of twelve years. Therefore, if we can control what the plants do with the carbon, the fate of the carbon in the atmosphere is in our hands. That is what Nordhaus meant when he mentioned "genetically engineered carbon-eating trees" as a low-cost backstop to global warming. The science and technology of genetic engineering are not yet ripe for large-scale use. We do not understand the language of the genome well enough to read and write it fluently. But the science is advancing rapidly, and the technology of reading and writing genomes is advancing even more rapidly. I consider it likely that we shall have "genetically engineered carbon-eating trees" within twenty years, and almost certainly within fifty years.

Carbon-eating trees could convert most of the carbon that they absorb from the atmosphere into some chemically stable form and bury it underground. Or they could convert the carbon into liquid fuels and other useful chemicals. Biotechnology is enormously powerful, capable of burying or transforming any molecule of carbon dioxide that comes into its grasp. Keeling's wiggles prove that a big fraction of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere comes within the grasp of biotechnology every decade. If one quarter of the world's forests were replanted with carbon-eating varieties of the same species, the forests would be preserved as ecological resources and as habitats for wildlife, and the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be reduced by half in about fifty years.

It is likely that biotechnology will dominate our lives and our economic activities during the second half of the twenty-first century, just as computer technology dominated our lives and our economy during the second half of the twentieth. Biotechnology could be a great equalizer, spreading wealth over the world wherever there is land and air and water and sunlight. This has nothing to do with the misguided efforts that are now being made to reduce carbon emissions by growing corn and converting it into ethanol fuel. The ethanol program fails to reduce emissions and incidentally hurts poor people all over the world by raising the price of food. After we have mastered biotechnology, the rules of the climate game will be radically changed. In a world economy based on biotechnology, some low-cost and environmentally benign backstop to carbon emissions is likely to become a reality.

Link

The great film director, producer, and actor Sydney Pollack died today at 73 years of age, at his home here in Southern California. Here is an obituary in the New York Times. I met him briefly in the course of producing tech conferences during the web 1.0 boom. He had some truly inspired ideas about narrative in the digital age, and the clash between old Hollywood vs. new. He seemed a generous and kind person. Image: NYCArthur.

BB co-founder and Make editor in chief Mark Frauenfelder talks to robot builder Daniel O'Connell about his experiment in the uncanny valley, a tricycle-riding mini-me he calls "My Dummy." Shot at Maker Faire Bay Area 2008.

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

Empty Gesture says: "CNN Story of guy that walks around with a rat on top of a cat on top of a dog. The guy is pretty funny and goofy, takes in donations, but in general does it to show that people should be able to get along if a dog, cat, and rat are able to." Link

Joshua Klein's TED presentation about how he taught crows to drop coins into a peanut vending machine of his own design was my favorite talk at the conference.

Hacker and writer Joshua Klein is fascinated by crows. (Notice the gleam of intelligence in their little black eyes?) After a long amateur study of corvid behavior, he's come up with an elegant machine that may form a new bond between animal and human.

Joshua Klein will hack anything that moves -- his list includes "social systems, computer networks, institutions, consumer hardware and animal behavior." His latest project, though charmingly low-tech, has amazing implications for the human-animal interface.

Right now, Klein is working at Frog Design as a Principle Technologist, while developing mobile/social applications, health care-related systems and other tools that improve people’s lives. He's the author of the novel Roo'd, which was the first modern book (after Tarzan) to be ported to the iPhone.

"Klein envisions a new symbiotic relationship between these intelligent birds and the humans that encroach on their habitat. ... Why not turn a longstanding rivalry between man and crow into something that profits both species?"

Link

Make Magazine senior editor Phil Torrone guides us through the wonders of Maker Faire 2008 in San Mateo.

First, we learn about "fuzzy logic," soft electronic circuit components, with Star Simpson -- the 20 year old MIT student arrested for a "fake bomb" at Boston's Logan Airport in 2007 when authorities mistook her interactive LED t-shirt for a terrorist device. Her trial is scheduled for May 23, by the way, so she wasn't able to answer our questions about that ordeal just yet.

Next up, also from MIT -- Ed Baafi introduces us to the fabulous "fab lab," where complex fabrication technologies are made easy.

Then, Phil shows us affordable laser etching to personalize your iPhone or laptop.

Inventor and hacker Mitch Altman demonstrates the "brain machine," a device that stimulates your mind's eye. Mitch also invented TV-B-Gone, a sort of secret kill switch for kills television sets ("the only TV remote you need!").

And Lee Zlotoff, the creator of TV's MacGyver reveals plans for a MacGyver film project.

Link to Boing Boing tv episode, with discussion and downloadable video.

Grab your LED throwies and your laser tagging units, comrades, and join the revolution. Today on Boing Boing tv, a sneak peek at a new documentary film on the subversive public art collective known as Graffiti Research Lab, who develop and distribute "open source technologies for urban communication." The voices you'll hear in today's episode -- GRL founders James Powderly and Evan Roth.

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

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From their statement, redacted by the "U.S. Dept. of Homeland Graffiti"...

From their origins in the trash room of a non-profit in Manhattan to their emergence as the instigators of an international art movement, Graffiti Research Lab: The Complete First Season documents the adventures of an architect and an engineer who quit their day jobs to develop high-tech tools for the art underground. The film follows the GRL and their network of graffiti artist collaborators (and commercial imitators) across four continents as they write on skyscrapers with lasers, mock advertisers with homemade tools, get in trouble with The Department of Homeland Security and make activism fun again. Primarily using video footage from point-and-shoot digital cameras (“The Pocket School”) and found-content on the web, the movie’s visual style draws as much from the art of the power point presentation and viral media as conventional documentary cinema.

Narrated by GRL co-founders, Roth and Powderly, The Complete First Season makes a humorous and insightful argument for free speech in public, open source in pop culture, the hacker spirit in graffiti and not asking for permission in general. The film was premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2008. Available 24/7 on The Pirate Bay.

Part two of today's episode documents GRL's hijinks at Maker Faire 2007. That event's 2008 edition is coming up next week.

GRL was mistakenly credited with the Boston Mooninite LED Terror Freakout; while their work no doubt inspired the street marketing team responsible for the Aqua Teen Hunger Force debacle, Powderly told Boing Boing the day it happened that GRL was not involved.

Link to more info about the DVD and where you can download a torrent -- or, see it at the premiere, May 4, at New York's MOMA.

I like Sarah Ross' line of leisure jogging suits made to counteract anti-sleeping benches.

Archisuit consists of an edition of four leisure jogging suits made for specific architectural structures in Los Angeles. The suits include the negative space of the structures and allow a wearer to fit into, or onto, structures designed to deny them.

Link (via CRAFT)

In the 1960s, Leon Berry built an insanely incredible pipe organ. He dubbed it the "Beast In The Basement." Berry outfitted the Beast with a slew of electromechanical special effect sounds too, from birds chirping to a Chinese gong. John Brownlee has more on this amazing instrument over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Link to BBG, Link to YouTube clip (via MAKE:)

I'll be interviewing Douglas Rushkoff in IRC in 90 minutes if you'd like follow along and ask questions of your own. We'll post a transcript later. Transcript after the jump! [Details]

Join us tomorrow at 8PM Eastern as we hold a live discussion with author, teacher, and documentarian Douglas Rushkoff in the #boingboing IRC channel, to talk about some of the work he's doing to move his studies in a "'new' direction," to focus less on the tech/media sphere and towards the nature of money and corporatism — and whether that's a new direction at all! (He's already started discussing this with other like-minded people on his new discussion board, Corporatized.net.)

Also, I just realized tomorrow is tax day. Fitting!

I'll be moderating the interview — I'm really looking forward to asking some questions I had about his fantastic comic series Testament — but I hope to incorporate your questions for most of the discussion. If you can't be on IRC for the talk, feel free to leave questions for Doug in the comments of this post. If you are following in real-time, you can also send me questions via private messages in IRC. If you can't make the talk live, we'll be posting a transcript.

Boing Boing IRC: Bringing You 1996's Web Technologies Today!

More information about connecting to Boing Boing IRC via a dedicated client. There is also a Java chat applet with which you can connect.

Here's a set of free instructions for making your own stylish and functional "row counter" bracelet, a kind of wearable fashionable abacus:

The principle is simple - the smaller beads represent 1s, and the bigger beads represent 10s. When each row is knitted (or crocheted), simply move one small bead through the encircling beaded ring to the other side of the bracelet.

When you complete the 10th row, move all the small beads back to the 'start', and move one large bead, representing 10, through the ring.

Move small "1" beads through the beaded divider ring one by one as you complete rows, until you reach the 20th row, at which point you move all 9 small beads back to the 'start' of the bracelet (which is marked by a charm), and move a second "10" bead through to mark 20 rows - and so on!

Link (via Craft)

Calpernia Addams is the star of the subversive new competitive dating show "Transamerican Love Story" -- following on Mark's post, this seems like an apropos moment to point to her hilarious how-not-to video about rude questions transgendered people are often asked. The video's a little long, but it's full of great material, and highly edumacational. Thumbs up.

When you're done with that -- brace yourself, whore, you're about to get a stunning. (thanks, Andrea James!)