Apple is holding an invite-only press event Wednesday, September 1, in San Francisco. Above, a snip from the invitation that went out to journalists. If only we had some clue what this is all about? Look at that guitar. Just look at it. It's trying to tell us something. What does it mean?
Anyway, Boing Boing will be represented, and we'll be providing some sort of live color commentary from the goat rodeo.
Apple is live-streaming this one, for the first time in many years, too—so you can watch along from wherever you are at apple.com. As long as you aren't using a Windows box or an Android phone:
"Viewing requires either a Mac running Safari on Mac OS X version 10.6 Snow Leopard, an iPhone or iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or higher, or an iPad."
Do join us in the morning. I'll be there in person, and Rob will no doubt be lending his acerbic wit and gadget-savvy to make our coverage worth tuning in to.
O.K. now on to business... Here are the Convention on Biological Diversity's three basic objectives:
1. The conservation of biological diversity
2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources
They also have - or had rather - a goal, a biodiversity target, which was the following:
In April 2002, the Parties to the Convention committed themselves to achieve by 2010 a significant reduction of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level as a contribution to poverty alleviation and to the benefit of all life on Earth.
And from the comments from that previous post, there were many great titles. Some lend themselves more to an essay type humour piece, whereas others were just funny as one-liners. It was tough choosing, but I'm going to go with two titles. One is a tweak, but seems to involve a subject matter near and dear to Boing Boing readers, plus should be good for a funny list (from edthehippie). The other seemed to win the popularity contest, and is definitely a title with great potential and hopefully providing some creative space for folks who like to write a little more than one sentence (from artiefx0).
Anyway, without further ado, here are the titles!
CHAPTER TITLES FROM MY UNICORN PHYSICS TEXTBOOK
and
AN OVERVIEW OF ANIMALS THAT WOULD EXIST IF THE WORLD WERE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE AWESOME THAN IT ACTUALLY IS
Game on! (Note: please use the keyword "unicorn" or "awesome" to let me know which piece your comment is alluding to).
Jon sez, "What do you get when you combine just about every breakfast cereal character you know into one magnificent being? Something that's part Cap'n Crunch, part Sugar Bear, and 14 other parts. Can you name them all?"
The creator is selling prints of this frankenmascot, too!
From This is Pizza's review of Marcello Pizzeria & Ristorante in Vancouver, BC, this magnificent pizza-oven/hellmouth (thanks to Makeblog for the hellmouth comparison!).
[Image courtesy General Atomics. An artist's rendition of Predator B, the unmanned aerial drone patrolling the US-Mexico border for human and drug trafficking, and other threats.]
Beginning this Wednesday, the entire 2,000 miles of border between the United States and Mexico will be patrolled by unmanned aerial drones. Three drones are already patrolling portions of that border, and a fourth Predator begins operations tomorrow out of Corpus Christi, TX, completing the full stretch of la frontera.
The news came in a Department of Homeland Security announcement yesterday, along with word that 1,200 additional National Guard troops will be deployed "to provide intelligence surveillance and reconnaissance, and immediate support to counternarcotics enforcement."
They carry equipment including sophisticated day and night vision cameras that operators use to detect drug and human smugglers, and can stay aloft for up to 30 hours at a time.
All of this is part of $600 million legislation signed by President Obama earlier this month to increase border security before midterm elections in November, and in response to the ever-escalating drug war in Mexico. Just today, at least 8 people were killed when attackers hurled Molotov cocktails into a bar in Cancun, a popular tourist destination. The attack is presumed to be cartel-related.
Perhaps the most gruesome of those recent revelations was the discovery just last week of a mass grave filled with 72 murdered migrants, including a pregnant woman, who were all executed by a dominant cartel, the Zetas.
The incident took place just 100 miles from the US border.
We've featured Brian McCarty's terrific toy photography many times on Boing Boing. He's a master at setting a perfect scene and using just the right perspective to trick me into thinking that the strange vinyl characters on my shelf come alive when I'm not looking. Brian's photos are now collected in a wonderful hardcover book appropriately titled Art-Toys. The book includes more than 100 photos, each on its own page, featuring toys designed by Mark Ryden, Gama-Go, Frank Kozik, FriendsWithYou, Tim Biskup, Amanda Visell, Attaboy, and dozens of other artists. BB pal Douglas Rushkoff wrote the intro. I really dig the back-of-the-book "behind-the-scenes" snapshots that reveal the time, detail, and love that goes into every one of Brian's photos. Art-Toys by Brian McCarty(Amazon)
KQED's QUEST looks at the ultra-rare albino redwood trees: "Only a few dozen albino redwood trees are known to exist. They are genetic mutants that lack the chlorophyll needed for photosynthesis. But how and why they survive is a scientific mystery." Albino Redwoods, Ghosts of the Forest
Archaeologists at Ikiztepe, Turkey unearthed two glass obsidian blades they believe were used for neurosurgery 4,000 years ago. Why do they think these were tools for Bronze Age brain surgery? Because they found scarred skulls there too. New Scientist interviewed excavation director Önder Bilgi:
What makes you think they were used for surgery?
We have found traces of cuts on skulls in a nearby graveyard. Out of around 700 skulls, 14 have these marks. They could only have been cut with a very sharp tool. At this time, 4000 years ago or more, it could only have been an obsidian blade. The cut marks show that a blade was used to make a rectangular opening all the way through the skull. We know that patients lived at least two to three years after the surgery, because the skull has tried to close the wound.
Have you uncovered any clues to why this surgery was performed?
There seem to be three main reasons. The first is to relieve the pressure of a brain haemorrhage; we found traces of blood on the inside of some of the skulls. The second is to treat patients with brain cancer, as we can see pressure traces from the cancer inside some of the skulls. And the final reason was to treat head injuries, which seem to have been quite common. The people of Ikiztepe got their copper from mines in the local mountains, and we think they had to fight other local people for access to it.
Behind the gate of this shrine in Kyoto, I ate something delicious.
There was a festival going on at the time. Girls were dressed in traditional yukata, with paper fans sticking out of their belts in the back. People were walking up the steps to the orange shrine, and we followed them. There was a little bit of praying going on, but mostly people were buying food from the dozens of vendors, or playing carnival games (like cork guns and goldfish scooping).
I smelled lots of good things being cooked by the vendors. Something especially mouth-watering was beckoning me to follow it to its source. It was frying noodles. Yakisoba (yaki = fried, soba = noodle). But it was more than that. The woman running the grill was also wrapping the noodles in omelets, squirting a dark reddish brown sauce on top, and sprinkling it with flakes of something. I placed my order (500 yen, I think) and she prepared a giant yakisoba omelet, handing it to me on a paper plate along with a pair of wooden chopsticks. I took it into the tent set up behind the grill and sat down at one of the tables. I already knew it was going to be tasty, but after one bite, I went into a sharklike feeding frenzy. My God it was good. The noodles were salty and peppery, with a bit of sweetness, and the flakes were some kind of dried fish that enhanced the flavor. I didn't bother slowing down to savor it, as my reptile brain had taken over, commanding me to devour the irresistible concoction that had been set before me. Before I had a chance to think of taking a picture of it, it was gone.
Since returning home, my thoughts have often returned to that omelet. I wanted another one. Yes, I know that it is impossible to step into the same river twice, and that the combination of my hunger level, my mental state, the ingredients and preparation that went into making the omelet, and the festival environment on that day could not be replicated. Still, I wanted to se if I could make a reasonable copy here in Los Angeles.
In the comments, several people explained that this was a rolling shutter effect. You can get something similar panning many DLSR cameras too quickly back and forth, causing a "jello" effect on solid objects. Commenter knodi shared a still of his propeller showing the same effect. You can get the same trippy effect in video based on the frame rate, as seen in Steve Talkowski's video above.
Cleveland, Ohio is slowly starting to honor its most important son. No, not Drew Carey (although BB loves him too). In 1933, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, two boys from Jewish immigrant families who lived in the Glenville neighborhood of Cleveland, created Superman. This month, Smithsonian magazine tells the story behind the superhero, and what some citizens are doing to show their pride. The image above, from Jim Bowers/CapedWonder.com, is a fence at the address of Joe Shuster's old house. From Smithsonian:
Shortly after Siegel and Shuster died in the 1990s, a... struggle for recognition of Superman’s creators took place in Cleveland. Michael Sangiacomo, a comic books critic and a reporter for Cleveland's The Plain Dealer, called on the city to honor Siegel and Shuster. Nothing came of it. Every few years he would trot the idea out again, writing an article calling on Cleveland to honor the pair. “I pointed out that the Siegel house was here [the home of Joe Shuster had been torn down], and that is the home of Superman, and the city should do something.”
In his will, Siegel asked that half of his ashes be donated to the city of Cleveland; his widow also wanted to donate some of his belongings to the city, such as his typewriter. She visited Cleveland to find a home for them, and Sangiacomo escorted her around town. “Nobody wanted them,” he remembers. “It was a low point. I felt horrible for her and mad at the city...”
Sangiacomo and (comic writer Brad) Meltzer decided to raise money to restore the house. Melzer uploaded a video of himself at the house that went viral. He followed by sponsoring an auction of comics-related art, raising over $100,000 in the process. Sangiacomo and Meltzer formed the nonprofit Siegel and Shuster Society, and asked the Glenville Community Development Corporation to take charge of restoring the house, in partnership with the Grays.
Perhaps the most gruesome of those recent revelations was the discovery just last week of 
What makes you think they were used for surgery?
