FoxxFur at Passport to Dreams Old and New has created a PDF template for printing out your own MAPO stickers. MAPO (MAry POppins) is the Disney division responsible for fabricating many of the limited and one-off mechanisms and infrastructural gubbins that make up the Disney Parks' underpinnings, and each of their products ships with a MAPO sticker proclaiming its origin. These stickers are highly sought-after souvenirs, especially among cast-members (employees) at the parks. FoxxFur's template can be used to produce your own stickers and add them to things that need a little exotic back-story.
MAPO manufactured basically everything that ended up in Disneyland or Walt Disney World between 1964 and 1990 - they must have printed these things out by a thousands because they're stuck to props, motors, figures, power junction boxes, chain lifts and practically everything else you can think of in the World's Fair attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Horizons, and dozens of others.
As you can imagine, MAPO stickers are prized possessions amongst cast members, who are apt to peel the nearest one off the first available prop. The backstages of Mansion and Pirates are full of tiny rectangles of less-aged areas where MAPO stickers have absconded the premises. Here's mine. It's direct off the actuator frame for Herbert Hoover, which was being thrown away:
The problem is that as time goes by and the gap between the shuttering of MAPO and our own age widens, these stickers are becoming increasingly uncommon and most of the good ones have already been thrown out - attached to props in, say, Mr. Toad's Wild Ride - or gone home with Cast Members with an eye for history. This is problematic in that these stickers represent Disney history - Disney history that's vanishing out the Utilidor exit year by year.
Through the years, Ray Bradbury attended several major space mission events at JPL/Caltech. On Nov. 12, 1971, on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit at Mars, Bradbury took part in a symposium at Caltech with Arthur C. Clarke, journalist Walter Sullivan, and scientists Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. In this excerpt, Bradbury reads his poem, "If Only We Had Taller Been."
The Space Shuttle Enterprise (OV-101) floated to its "retirement home" today, Wednesday June 6, 2012: the Intrepid Sea, Air and Space Museum in New York City. The museum's Space Shuttle Pavillion will open on July 19. The arrival of Enterprise was planned for 24 hours earlier, but weather delayed. During its voyage by water, the barge carrying Enterprise moved too close to the Jamaica Bay Bridge and clipped the Shuttle's wing. Ouch. But, you know: sadly, it's not like they're gonna need that wing for space travel now.
Special thanks to photographer C.S. Muncy, who is pretty intrepid himself—we understand these terrific shots cost him quite a sunburn.
The Solar Impulse plane project president and pilot Bertrand Piccard lands after a 19-hour flight from Madrid at Rabat's International airport, June 5, 2012. The plane landed in Morocco on Tuesday, completing the world's first intercontinental flight powered by the sun to show the potential for pollution-free air travel.
I subscribe to Medgadget's RSS feed because it's a universe of gadgets I would never see otherwise, and these gadgets have names and functions that alternately mystify and send shivers up the spine. Case in point, this "Radial Reload Colon Cutter/Stapler."
Endo GIA Radial Reload with Tri Staple Technology side1 Covidiens Endo GIA Radial Reload Colon Cutter/Stapler Goes DeeperAccording to Covidien, “Radial Reload allows surgeons to cut and securely staple colon tissue up to 2 cm deeper into the pelvis than Ethicon Endo-Surgery Inc.’s Contour Curved Cutter Stapler during low anterior resection (LAR) procedures.”
James Salsman sez, "I've been working for decades on a free speech recognition-based game to teach English reading and pronunciation, and this year it is going to happen, thanks to Google's Summer of Code and the One Laptop Per Child contributors' program. But to make it really useful (and on as many mobile devices as possible) we need to raise just a little more money. We have secured funding for two of the three other engineers who want to help finish the project, but we still need to money for the third and to collect sufficient exemplar pronunciation recordings and create engaging graphics, animations, and game content to support English learners of all ages and experience levels. Please help!" Here's his Kickstarter.
— Cory
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A Chinese property developer called Minmetals Land Inc secretly built a copy of a picturesque Austrian village called Hallstatt, building it in Guangdong province, the white-hot center of the Chinese manufacturing revolution, on a site 60km from Hong Kong. The Austrians are both proud and miffed, though the argument that ancient designs of buildings, or characteristic layout of ancient villages are somehow the property of their temporary residents is a bit odd -- sort of like claiming that because your town has a gothic cathedral, no one else should be able to reproduce its centuries-old design without your permission.
The original is a centuries-old village of 900 and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a housing estate that thrives on China's new rich. In a China famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard.
The Chinese Hallstatt features a church spire, a town square ringed by pastel-colored buildings and angel statues. They're among architectural flourishes inspired by the original, a centuries-old village of 900.
For $150, Etsy seller Nerdalertdesigns will whip you up one of her clever, furry Ewok/Wookiee dresses (you wear it with the bandolier for Wookiee, with a cute hat for Ewok).
with this purchase, you will receive one fuzzy vintage cut dress and one pair of matching shoe covers. you will also receive the accessories to transform your outfit into chewbacca (faux leather, hand painted bandolier) or an ewok (ultra suede hoodie with fuzzy ears)
a fantastic outfit for any fangirl!
This week, Boing Boing is presenting a series of essays about movies that have had a profound effect on our invited essayists. See all the essays in the Mind Blowing Movies series here. -- Mark
Mind Blowing Movies: El Topo (1970), by Antero Alli
[Video Link]
The first film to truly blow my mind was Jodorowsky's El Topo, which I saw soon after its release in the early '70s. Up until then I assumed that all films were made for entertainment purposes only. However, as a twenty-something, former acidhead living in Berkeley, California, my young mind was freshly imprinted to remain open to the symbolic levels of existence. Whether the "meaning" behind things whispered cosmic secrets to me or whether I made it all up mattered very little; what mattered to me was the freedom to not take everything so literally.
In the first ten minutes of this movie, I saw right away that if I viewed El Topo in any literalist way, I would experience it as a mediocre spaghetti western, softcore quasi-snuff film. But after I shifted into a more symbolist way of seeing, the film unfolded before my eyes like an animated magical Kaballah.
The main character was now The Ego on a spiritual journey to encounter and defeat four "masters," which revealed themselves to me as Body, Heart, Intellect, and Spirit. In this story, the Ego defeats the first three masters but is unexpected and indirectly defeated by Spirit. The Ego undergoes a death and awakens underground inside a hollow mountain filled with deformed humans that I saw as the Subconscious filled with distorted repressions of our human condition. Here, the Ego undergoes a series of initiatic encounters that leave him humbled and transformed. That's not the end of the movie but really, the beginning -- it just got better and better after that.
The Art of Manliness makes a good case for carrying tampons in your camping/survival kit, with ten woodlands uses for them, ranging from sterile field dressing to kindling to blowgun-dart fletching. They call it "Tactical Adventure Medical Preparedness Outdoors Necessity (T.A.M.P.O.N.)."
Yes, I have a tampon in my mouth — don’t laugh! As a last ditch water filter, you can make an improvised Survival Straw from the plastic housing and cotton from a tampon. As you can see in the photos below, just tear off a bit of the cotton and stuff it into the plastic housing. I find it better to leave a little bit sticking out to make the housing pieces wedge tightly together.
Of course, it goes without saying that a tampon might also be useful if you or someone you know is menstruating.
In this hidden-camera investigation by Striscia, a doctor or therapist is filmed sexually molesting a patient. When later confronted by a journalist, he is at first accommodating. Then it begins to dawn on him that his career, and life as a free man, is about to end. Then, all fail breaks loose. [Liveleak via Reddit -- Redditor rhymez0r made a full translation]
Domestic airlines in the United States are failing financially. Fine. Sure. We knew that. But here's the kicker: They've been financially failing for 40 years, almost the entire time they've been popular. And that? Is fascinating. Back at the turn of the 20th century, a lot of the first electric utilities and long-distance railroad companies went bankrupt, because people couldn't figure out how to make a profit in an industry with huge, fixed overhead costs. This is some evidence that the kinks haven't totally been worked out on that, even today. (Via Matt Yglesias)— Maggie
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Check out this cod piece. Author William Gibson found it in Masset, BC, Canada. The head of a 145-pound cod, meant to be worn as a great helm. Nothing intimidates your enemies quite like wearing the head of a fish on your head.
EDIT: Mr. Gibson emailed to say that the photo comes from a local bed and breakfast ... "That thing is in the very excellent Copper Beech House bed & breakfast in Masset, BC, run by the Canadian poet Susan Musgrave. We're here because Doug Coupland recommended it, and it's awesome."
In a series called Hagiographies, an Italian artist called Igor Scalisi Palminteri reinterprets the pantheon of saints by repainting religious statuettes as superheroes. They're really very well done.
MAPO manufactured basically everything that ended up in Disneyland or Walt Disney World between 1964 and 1990 - they must have printed these things out by a thousands because they're stuck to props, motors, figures, power junction boxes, chain lifts and practically everything else you can think of in the World's Fair attractions, Pirates of the Caribbean, Haunted Mansion, Space Mountain, Horizons, and dozens of others.
From 2009, an unsourced, but delightful re-creation of MST3K's Crow T Robot and Tom Servo, executed in Lego.
The original is a centuries-old village of 900 and a UNESCO heritage site that survives on tourism. The copycat is a housing estate that thrives on China's new rich. In a China famous for pirated products, the replica Hallstatt sets a new standard.
with this purchase, you will receive one fuzzy vintage cut dress and one pair of matching shoe covers. you will also receive the accessories to transform your outfit into chewbacca (faux leather, hand painted bandolier) or an ewok (ultra suede hoodie with fuzzy ears)
a fantastic outfit for any fangirl!
Yes, I have a tampon in my mouth — don’t laugh! As a last ditch water filter, you can make an improvised Survival Straw from the plastic housing and cotton from a tampon. As you can see in the photos below, just tear off a bit of the cotton and stuff it into the plastic housing. I find it better to leave a little bit sticking out to make the housing pieces wedge tightly together.
In a series called