Photo gallery of vintage Soviet arcade machines
Connal Hughes and Anjel Van Slyke's photos of a 1980s-era Soviet arcade machine reveal that even light-hearted recreation was a grim affair behind the iron curtain.
Museum of Soviet Arcade Machines (Thanks, Rachel!)
Cory Doctorow at 11:21 AM Thu 
Here's Jay Shafer of Tumbleweed Houses taking you on a tour of his clever, 100-square-foot house, which reminds me of a wooden, super-luxury first-class plane-seat on the flagship airline of some oil-soaked, cash-infused land.
Living in the Smallest House in the World (Thanks, Pddro, via Submitterator!)
Bizarre animation shorts by artist Joe Seigenthaler
I'm happy that Amy Crehore alerted me to the macabre animation of artist Joe Seigenthaler.
See more of Seigenthaler's work after the jump.
Mary, a pregnant Consumerist reader, says that TSA screeners at O'Hare forced her to use a full-body scanner, refusing her repeated requests for a full-body pat-down.
— Cory • Comments: 14
Police detonate suspicious toy pony
From the Orlando Sentinel:
A “suspicious” toy pony was blown up after it was found abandoned in the middle of a cul-de-sac near an Orange County elementary school this morning.For some reason Orlando and Cincinnati are mother lodes of wonderful stories.The FurReal pony, an expensive, life-like toy, was investigated as a possible explosive device after someone called Orange County deputies to report it. A robot inspected the toy before a pack of explosives was placed near the stuffed animal and detonated.
(Via Cynical-C)
(Video link) Well-made mashup of The Matrix and The Big Lebowski. (Via Blame it on the Voices)
That Sinking Feeling: spooky new photos of the Titanic
A new expedition to the Titanic offers a fresh view of the deteriorating shipwreck, photographed 4 kilometers down by unmanned submarines operated by RMS Titanic Inc. and the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Massive collection of animated gifs as 10-minute video: "Cache Rules Everything Around Me"
Evan Roth of Graffiti Research Lab, F.A.T. assembled his entire animated gif collection to play in ten minutes, set to "Night Ripper" by Girl Talk. The resulting video is titled "Cache Rules Everything Around Me." (via Evan Roth)
Baby monkey rides a piggie, backwards
Someone should really let the monkey know he's doing it wrong. Video Link
(via alexismadrigal)
The government of China plans to require that anyone buying a mobile device first register their personal details. China isn't the first: many European and Asian countries already have similar measures in place to prevent anonymous use of cellphones and mobile data devices.
— Xeni • Comments: 7
I haven't read Secret Historian: The Life and Times of Samuel Steward, Professor, Tattoo Artist, and Sexual Renegade yet, but it sure sounds amazing—BB mod Antinous just hipped me to it this morning. The new book by Justin Spring new book chronicles the contents of an archive he discovered in San Francisco a few years ago, including a thousand-page diary belonging to Samuel Steward, a man of many identities....
That, from the New York Times review (which ran with a terrific title)....including several that the subtitle of the book omits: pioneering sex researcher, collector of celebrity conquests, drug addict, masochist, Catholic (briefly), Navy enlistee (even more briefly), conquistador of vast provinces of America's pre-Stonewall homosexual subculture. Most fortuitously, he was apparently a graphomaniac who documented his long, dark, exuberant, sad, dangerous life in journals, an unpublished memoir, reams of letters, poems, erotica, semifictionalized short stories and even a 746-entry card catalog of his sexual history, scrupulously maintained over five decades and in some cases ornamented -- perhaps for future biographers? -- with what Spring decorously calls "DNA-verifiable" evidence of his liaisons.
All told, Steward is reported to have had sex with 807 different people, a total of 4,647 times, including Rock Hudson and Rudolph Valentino. Regarding those impressive numbers, Adam at Butt Magazine opines,
However, the true value of his promiscuity lies not in the number of loads blown, but in what those loads can teach us. (...)Video trailer for the book follows (it's work-safe, and fascinating.)At times he was Samuel Steward, drunken professor, obscure literary figure and pen pal to the stars. He was also an author, first of serious fiction - Angels on the Bough - and later acclaimed memoirs - Dear Sammy: Letters From Gertrude Stein and Alice B. Toklas. George Platt Lynes, Alfred Kinsey and Tom of Finland all counted him as a friend. As a tattoo artist he went by Phil Sparrow. He mentored Ed Hardy and inked the Hells Angels. He even engraved 'LUCIFER' on Kenneth Anger's chest. In his dirty work he was the ripped Greek hustler Phil Andros. This particular alter ego dealt in filthy stories, pumping out titles like Shuttlecock and $tud, and attracting the attention of literary heavyweights like Christopher Isherwood.He was all of these things and more. Mr. Steward was also a sex researcher and self-proclaimed whore. Perhaps his most important occupation, however, was that of historian. For in the cache of his remaining belongings exists an individual history unparalleled in its meticulousness.
Twelve US soldiers face charges over a secret "kill team" reported to have blown up and shot Afghan civilians selected at random. The soldiers allegedly collected their victims' fingers as trophies. (thanks, Antinous) — Xeni • Comments: 18
Lustful Court and other fun or unfortunate street names
Folks who live on Lustful Court in Macon, Georgia are lobbying for their street to be granted a name change. The county commissioners have suggested that the residents submit a petition. Yoshonda Patterson told the Associated Press "she thinks the name gives people the wrong idea about the neighborhood on the east side of Macon."
Also in the news this week, the UK's Bladder Lane and Butt Hole Road. And then there's the classic unfortunate street name used in England in the Middle Ages -- Gropecunt Lane -- "believed to be a reference to the prostitution centered on those areas," according to Wikipedia.
Last year, I reviewed Peter and Max, the excellent novel based on Bill Willingham's Fables graphic novels. I've just got through listening to the Brilliance Audio unabridged audiobook, read by nerd icon and kick-ass voice-actor Wil Wheaton. Highly, highly recommended: Wil's interpretation makes this feel more like a radio drama than an audiobook.
— Cory • Comments: 11
Above are stills from a lovely biomechanical bug animation by Autofuss. It's titled "The Experiment" and you can watch it here. (Thanks, Stacey Ransom!)
Fake unfinished concrete wallpaper
ConcreteWall is a Norwegian company that sells wallpaper silkscreened to look like unfinished concrete in a variety of textures. I guess it's more "street" than drywall over 2x4s?
ConcreteWall.no (via Beyond the Beyond)
Instant Elements: Tom Lehrer's "Elements Song," with Google Instant (video)
Internet video memegenius Joe Sabia does it again: Tom Lehrer's paean to the periodic table, interpreted through Google Instant, which launched earlier today.
Watch: Video Link.
You may recall Joe as the guy behind Pulp Wave Fiction, a previous video riff on a Google product.
Tea Party multi-level marketing scheme
The mellifluously named TeaPartyBizOpp.info (presumably the .com was taken?) is a pyramid scheme that recruits disgruntled wingnuts to "Get Paid To Stop Liberal Tyranny!" by "helping raise funds to defend our freedom."
TeaPartyBizOpp.Info is a for profit fundraising company - Our mission is to help raise funds to finance conservative causes, that defend our freedom, and help fight Liberal Tyranny. There are two ways we do this one is selling subscriptions to our monthly newsletter (Stopping Tyranny), and the other is our home based business opportunity - where you get paid to refer others to become subscribers to (Stopping Tyranny), your subscription comes with a home based business opportunity. You get paid on your efforts and the efforts of everyone in your organization. (The business opportunity is entirely optional), and you can make money just by selling subscriptions to our newsletter, you don't have to recruit others into the opportunity if you don't want to - it's all up to you).(Thanks, Fipi Lele!)
Death Star/TIE-fighter ear tattoo
Tattoo artist Jacob Walsh got this fabulous bit of space-battle tattooed on his ear: "I have the severed hand of Luke, still clutching to his lightsaber on my right arm. It needs a bit more work but I'd say it's about 90% completed."
Let's Hear It For This Cool Star Wars Ear Tattoo (via Geekologie)
Dupont cellophane ad, 1955: potato chips taste better in plastic!
What's better than fried potatoes? Fried potatoes in petroleumcellulose-based packaging!
Chips are better 'cause they're fresher in Cellophane
Missed Connections personal ads from Dragon*Con attendees
Creative Loafing gathers up the best of this year's Craigslist "Missed Encounters" messages from Dragon*Con in Atlanta, the awesome nerdfest that ran last weekend:
You - WOW blond wizard. Me - ancient wizard. You were pressing awfully hard into me during our photo. Just wondering if there was a lingering interest. Put your robe color in Subject Line of first email...Dragon*Con missed connections warm the heart (via MeFi)I can't figure out why I left without getting your contact information. I know your name is Dan, and you make leather jackets. You were the best Wolverine I've ever seen. We talked for a while, just standing in the crowd. I wish I could find a picture of us. Hopefully, I'll see you at another convention soon. :)
I was dressed up as Eddie Riggs and saw you in the Marriott Saturday night. You invited me over and we talked about our costumes with your boyfriend (?). He was dressed as Eddie as well but I was getting the feeling that he didnt want me around. My friend took some pictures of the three of us together and I got a couple of pics of you and your Eddie. I'd like to get the chance to talk with you some more if you're interested. If nothing else I'd like to send you copies of the photos we got. Hope to hear from you soon.
Alien vs Predator Interstellar Swinger Party (Dragon Con - Sheraton). Full Alien or Predator costume required. All single women and couples will be accepted. There will be limited spots for single men. I will send out the time and room number to all who qualify.
"At any moment, Justin Bieber uses 3% of our infrastructure. Racks of servers are dedicated to him. —A guy who works at Twitter." The original tweet by Dustin Curtis is here, and Mashable has a related item up here. — Xeni • Comments: 9
John's Phone: the minimalist anti-smart-phone
John's Phones sell no-frills mobile phones that send and receive calls and pretty much nothing else (though there's a place to keep your pen). Warren Ellis likens it to a phone from minimalist Japanese housewares/clothing company Muji.
John's Phones (via Warren Ellis)Finally a separate unit with no frills and conditions. A simlock free phone with large keys, an address book, a pen and over three weeks time standby... John's Phone is simple and easy for young, old, holiday, grandfathers, grandmothers, athletes, national and international business traffic.
Even bugs display individual differences in behavior—with some acting consistently aggressive and others consistently shy. Or, as pourmecoffee puts it, "Some insects are jerks."
— Maggie • Comments: 6
WSJ vs. NYT on NMA: Taiwanese CGI geniuses take on NYC newspaper war
The Taiwanese tabloid animators recently profiled in Wired have done it again: a CGI retelling of the war between the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. Animated Arthur Sulzberger, and Rupert Murdoch striking a Michael Bay action-movie pose, flanked by helicopters.
Hey, kid. Wanna buy a bag of cereal marshmallows?
I'm not sure which is more magical and wondrous: That it is apparently possible to buy a bag of the little, perfectly stale marshmallows normally only found mixed with terrible cereal, or that one buys bags of little, perfectly stale marshmallows care of a company called Discount Herbals. That odd business plan leads to such cognitively dissonant quotes as:
Cerealmarshmallows.com is positive that once you have tried our products, the results you experience will prove that no other herbal or vitamin nutritional supplements compare.
I haven't decided yet whether I think this is a joke site. Part of me (the part that wants to buy a bag of little, perfectly stale marshmallows) hopes it's not.
Via rstevens
My favorite new one-note-samba image blog: Turtles Eating Things. There's a Facebook Fan page, too. I like turtles. (via @seanbonner and @quarrygirl)
Video shows asteroid discoveries since 1980
Maggie Koerth-Baker at 6:38 PM Wed
Just in case I wasn't already in awe of the scientific progress made during my own lifetime, Lauren Submitterated (it's a verb now) this video showing the mind-blowing numbers of asteroids that have been discovered since 1980. Created by Scott Manley—and with some very lovely music, I might add—the video shows new discoveries in white, then changes their color to reflect position in relation to the inner solar system. Earth crossers are red. Earth approachers are yellow. All others are green.
Manley's included a lot of good information about what the patterns of where and when new asteroids appear in the video tell us about astronomy over over the last 30 years.
Notice now the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit, most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You'll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons. Similar clusters of discoveries can be tied to the other outer planets, but those are not visible in this video.
As the video moves into the mid 1990's we see much higher discovery rates as automated sky scanning systems come online. Most of the surveys are imaging the sky directly opposite the sun and you'll see a region of high discovery rates aligned in this manner.
At the beginning of 2010 a new discovery pattern becomes evident, with discovery zones in a line perpendicular to the Sun-Earth vector. These new observations are the result of the WISE (Widefield Infrared Survey Explorer) which is a space mission that's tasked with imaging the entire sky in infrared wavelengths.
Keita Takahashi, the gaming visionary responsible for Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, is reported to have departed Namco Bandai this week.
(via BB Submitterator, thanks Toma) — Xeni • 1 Comment
HeroRats are rodents who have been specially trained to sniff out unexploded landmines. The Dutch organization Anti-Personnel Land Mines Detection Product Development (APOPO), first referenced on BB in 2004, use Pavlovian conditioning to teach the rats to detect the scent of TNT and then send them to Mozambique for final testing and deployment. From CNN (image Goooutside/Wikimedia Commons):
"Giant rats put noses to work on Africa's land mine epidemic"Their olfactory senses are superb. They're native to Africa, so tropical disease is no problem, and they rarely weigh more than the 3 to 10 kilograms required to trip a mine, (APOPO chief of mine action and human security Havard) Bach said. It also helps that the mine-sniffing rats are not bonded to individual trainers or prone to ennui, as dogs are, he said.
"If you compare them to canine mine detectors, it's pretty much the same in terms of sensitivity and capability," Bach said, noting that dogs are better equipped to work in brush or high grass that might conceal a rat.
"Rats are not going to oust dogs in this industry, but it's a very positive complement," he added. "You could say they work for peanuts."
In 1988, Batman joined the War On Drugs to fight an Ecstasy-fueled killer and the pusher who got him high. Erowid has scanned several pages of the issue, Detective Comics #594. "Batman Ecstasy-Villain Commentary" (via Dose Nation)
Fake commercial for "Burn a Quran Day"
(Video Link) The talented D.C. Douglas wrote, produced, and voiced this fake commercial making fun of Koran-burning hate mongers.
What the Fuck Should I Make For Dinner? offers meal suggestions with links to recipes.
Vice interviews famed psychedelic chemist Alexander Shulgin
Pihkal: A Chemical Love Story, by Alexander Shulgin and Ann Shulgin is one of the strangest books I've ever read. Alexander Shulgin is a well known psychedelic chemist, and he has synthesized hundreds of drugs, which he and his wife Ann have taken and written about in Pihkal (Phenethylamines I Have Known and Loved) and in their follow up book, Tihkal (Tryptamines I Have Known and Loved). Fortunately for Alexander, he has a Drug Enforcement Administration Analytical License that allows him to possess, identify, and analyze drugs that would land other psychonauts in the slammer.
Vice recently sent Hamilton Morris ("VBS’s resident expert in all substances mind-bending") to the Shulgins' home in Northern California for a video interview.
After spending days, weeks, months poring over the work of psychonaut-in-chief, Alexander Shulgin, Hamilton Morris mustered up the chutzpah to give him a call and request an interview. The result is this: an epic love-fest on the man who birthed Ecstasy in a test-tube. Hamilton visits the Shulgin residence (in San Francisco, naturally) and tempers his fanboy freakout with a rare and intensive look at the home and laboratory that caused the balls of millions to trip.
SiHKAL: Shulgins I Have Known and Loved - Hamilton's Pharmacopeia | VBS.TV
What happens when you hang 100 $1 bills in a tree?
(Video link) Amy (with the help of her friends Ben and Brian) attached 100 $1 bills to a tree on a public street. She says she did it "just to see what would happen." A lot of passers by didn't notice the tree. A lot of them noticed the tree but kept walking. A lot of them took one bill. A few took more than one.
What would have happened if Amy had attached $100 bills to the tree instead of $1 bills? (Via Cynical-C)
Google launches "Google Instant"
A big press event today from Google: the launch of "Google Instant," described as "a new search enhancement that shows results as you type."
We are pushing the limits of our technology and infrastructure to help you get better search results, faster. Our key technical insight was that people type slowly, but read quickly, typically taking 300 milliseconds between keystrokes, but only 30 milliseconds (a tenth of the time!) to glance at another part of the page. This means that you can scan a results page while you type.More here about the new service, on Google. Coverage: Wired News, CNET, Gizmodo.
What fun might we have with this? A "Google Instant" alphabet, charting what term results when one types in each leter of the alphabet? Numbers, too: "4" is for 4chan.
New time-lapse video of Japan by Samuel Cockedey
Samuel Cockedey, a French photographer based in Tokyo, has uploaded another one of his mesmerizing time-lapse short films. This one is called inter // states, and it's best to watch it in HD full-screen here.
The sound track is a piece by Paul Frankland, aka Woob, called "Paradigm Flux."
Here's an interview with Cockedey abut his time-lapse process.
(Via Pink Tentacle)
A black man who worked for a Tyson chicken plant in Alabama sued his employer for discrimination, after being passed up for promotion in favor of white workers from another plant—and after being referred to regularly and derogatorily as "boy" by his supervisor, as were other black co-workers. An appeals court in Atlanta, GA ruled that calling an adult black man "boy" in this context was "nonracial." Notably, the NYT article skips the euphemisms. Core values, anyone? (via David Carr)
— Xeni • Comments: 58
Warez raids in Europe hit close to Wikileaks
Police in Europe shut down 49 servers and detained 10 people in 13 countries in a coordinated raid against an online movie-pirating network, according to a statement today from the Belgian prosecutor's office.
In Sweden, police raided seven locations including one in a suburb of Stockholm containing servers used by file-sharing website The Pirate Bay and WikiLeaks, the whisteblowing website.More: AFP, and AP.
This is a fire tornado that emerged from a brush fire on Sunday near Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano. National Geographic posted a gallery of amazing shots of these strange blazing whirlwinds. "Fire-Tornado Pictures: Why They Form, How to Fight Them"
Advertise • Policies • Comment Policy
J/K to scroll posts • 100 latest comments
Mark
Read free sample chapters from my new book, Made By Hand.
Cory
Latest novel: For the Win
[Donate a copy to a library or school]
Australia: World Science Fiction Convention/Melbourne Writers Festival, Sept 2-5
Germany: Little Brother tour, Sept 13-23
Netherlands: PICNIC/Bits of Freedom (Dutch Makers launch), Sept 23-25
Xeni
Check out Boing Boing Video's YouTube channel, full of video goodness.
Rob
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States and other countries.
