Tim Lindemann is a glassblower who sculpts a wide range of tropical sea-dwellers, including this fellow, the mighty lionfish. Link (Thanks, Oscar!)

See also:
Glass jellyfish sculptures
Glass octopus sculpture

The Dvorak Zine has a free comic that narrates the storied history of the miserable QWERTY layout and its superior cousin, Dvorak, which practically no one uses, despite that fact that QWERTY is slow, gives you RSI, and is the keyboard layout most frequently employed by baby-eating sociopaths.

Seriously, the comic makes a great case, after the fashion of all people who do stuff that is empirically better but that no one else does (eating healthy food, taking regular exercise, and yes, switching to free software, cough cough).

I type QWERTY really goddamned fast, and it's really baked in for me. I even have dreams in which I type in QWERTY. My old roommate was a Dvorak convert and he tried to bring me over to the side of sweet reason more than once, without success, I'm afraid. Maybe it's time to try again. Link (Thanks, Andrea!)

Rachel sez, "I found these paperweights earlier this year and thought they were amazing, i would love to buy one someday!They are made by artist Richard Satava, a master glassblower who was introduced to glassblowing in 1969 while attending Ocean High School in Pacifica, CA." Link (Thanks, Rachel!)

See also: Glass octopus sculpture

Today we looked at AK-47 and speaker jewelry, a counter-top hybrid microwave, a tape-shaped GPS tracker, an inexpensive metal yo-yo, Om smacking down the Nokia N81, a trip to the candy convention, and reused products for retail. I made a video review of the Fujitsu U810 after I skimmed the deals.

From OK Future:

One could reasonably infer from this sign that the Koreans have a major problem with men peeking into women’s toilet stalls.

Link

Over at O'Reilly Radar, Brady Forrest writes about the upcoming Flickr Places.

Flickr's soon-to-be-released Places (Radar post) feature will let you explore countries and cities in a new way. You'll also be able to search for interesting photos by tag in its place. The screenshots above show chicken in China and the United States. You can really see the cultural differences.

Link

Old-school bOING bOING pal Jim Leftwich points to startling new high definition video of the moon released by the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NHK. The images were taken by the lunar explorer Kaguya on Halloween. Breathtaking. I would love to see this footage at full resolution on a huge screen. From JAXA:

...It is the world's first high definition image data acquisition of the Moon from an altitude about 100 kilometers away from the Moon.

The image taking was performed twice on October 31. Both were eight-fold speed intermittent shooting (eight minutes is converged to one minute.) The first shooting covered from the northern area of the "Oceanus Procellarum" toward the center of the North Pole, then the second one was from the south to the north on the western side of the "Oceanus Procellarum." The moving image data acquired by the KAGUYA was received at the JAXA Usuda Deep Space Center, and processed by NHK.

Link

In the latest episode of Make Weekend Projects, Bre Pettis and William Gurstelle show you how to make a compressed air cannon that shoots rolled up T-shirts. Link

The BBC reports that when Italian police searched a Mafia boss' hideout, they found a list of ten rules for proper mafioso etiquette.

1. No-one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.

2. Never look at the wives of friends.

3. Never be seen with cops.

4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.

5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife’s about to give birth.

6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.

7. Wives must be treated with respect.

8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.

9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.

10. People who can’t be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.

Compare it to Gene Autry's Cowboy Code (from 1930), which I think is just about the best set of rules for living a good life that I ever seen:

1. The Cowboy must never shoot first, hit a smaller man or take an unfair advantage.

2. A Cowboy must never go back on his word, or a trust confided in him.

3. A Cowboy must always tell the truth.

4. A Cowboy must be gentle with children, the elderly and small animals.

5. A Cowboy must not adovcate or possess racially or religiously interolerant views and ideas.

6. A Cowboy must help people in distress.

7. A Cowboy must be a good worker.

8. A Cowboy must keep himself clean in thought, speech, action and personal habits.

9. A Cowboy must respect women, parents and his nations's views.

10. A Cowboy is a patriot.

Link (Via The Day The Tried to Kill Me)

Being a mere human is not sufficient for piloting a F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. You must also don a helmet to augment your skills and senses. Link (Via The Day The Tried to Kill Me)

Enjoy this video of a very large and beautiful scale model plane of a Lockheed Constellation taking off and landing. In the air, it looks like the real thing. Link (Via Finkbuilt)

Ruth says: "Sent to me by a friend whose husband is on location in South Africa right now - Awesome!"

Amy Crehore's latest wonderful painting "Deja Vu Waltz" (oil on stretched linen, 24"x24") will be exhibited in the "GREEN" art show on Saturday, November 17 from 7pm-10pm at the Robert Berman Gallery (Bergamot Station, 2525 Michigan Avenue C2, Santa Monica, California).

Over 40 artists were invited to participate in the upcoming exhibition GREEN, curated by publisher/designer Mark Murphy. GREEN will feature original paintings, (24' x 24' and 24' x 36') that look to explore human interaction with nature. Link

MAKE senior editor Phillip Torrone reviewed NOVA's Judgment Day: Intelligent Design on Trial.

When the advocates of Intelligent Design during the trial said that the book “Of Pandas and People” had nothing to do with creationism, they lied; it turned out the original drafts were all about Creationism. After the drafts were subpoenaed (thousand of pages) it was discovered that a simple search and replace was used to change the text from creationism wording to something, well, less creationism sounding. It was changed because the Supreme Court in 1987 ruled it was unconstitutional to teach creationism in public schools. When I say “search and replace” I really mean they found examples of where the words didn’t exactly get changed enough. You can see it here…

Wherever the word “creationists” appeared it was replaced with “cdesign proponentsists” - that’s merely creationists without the “reation” and with “design” and “proponents” replaced in.

Link

Last week Wired editor Chris Anderson published a list of PR folks who'd spammed him with inappropriate news releases. On his Long Tail blog, Anderson said that all the addresses on the list were blacklisted forever from his inbox.

As a result, one PR firm is now bragging to clients and prospective clients that it is not on Anderson's blacklist. This has prompted a flame war between PR firms.

Silicon Alley Insider has published some of the emails:

5:25pm
From: Adam Handelsman, 5WPR EVP
To: Steve Blinn

Your email to my client is disgusting and I want you [and employee John Chapman] to take notice... I have instructed every one of my staffers (80) to personally target your clients. I will pay them an entire month’s fee as a bounty for every client they take from you. I am also personally calling CEO of your clients, and forwarding your BS email around the industry.

Great move moron... this is war!

Link (Thanks, Charlie!)

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says: "Here's a really cool exhibit we have going on at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive. I've posted the whole exhibit online, along with a catalog and commentary. Check it out."

You may not know his name, but you've seen his work... Woody Woodpecker, Snow White, Betty Boop, Mr. Magoo, and Mickey Mouse were all brought to life by the same remarkable man- Grim Natwick.

Grim was mentor to Chuck Jones, Walter Lantz, Marc Davis and Richard Williams; and no other animator had a greater impact on the artform. Grim's first animation was for William Randolph Hearst's Krazy Kat Studio in 1917. His last credit was on Richard Williams' "The Thief & the Cobbler" in 1995. Natwick's career spanned the entire 20th century, and it defined the whole history of animation.

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive has mounted an exhibit of artwork from Natwick's personal collection. Included are gag drawings depicting life around the cartoon studio, caricatures of co-workers, and the preliminary sketches that give us a peek behind the creation of some of the greatest cartoons ever made.

The online exhibit catalog consists of five articles:

Introduction: Grim Natwick's Scrapbook

Part One: Early Years In New York (Hearst, Fleischer)

Part Two: The Golden Age of Animation (Iwerks, Disney, Lantz)

Part Three: The Modern Era (UPA and beyond)

Part Four: The Greatest Animator Who Ever Lived (Studio Gag Drawings)

At New Scientist's Last Word blog, a reader posed the question of how one might reduce the unpleasant shock if they're about to be tased (bro). There are quite a few interesting answers. Apparently being high on meth seems to help. As might wearing a chainmail "shark suit."
Link

Joshua Glenn of the Boston Globe interviewed me to put together an entertaining audio slideshow about the little icons in the beginning of BBtv episodes. Link

A couple of days ago, I reviewed Winsor McCay's Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, a gargantuan and lovingly produced book designed, edited, and published by Ulrich Merkl.

Joshua Glenn of the Boston Globe has created a slideshow with audio commentary that show McCay's influence on cinema.

With Merkl's aid, I've produced a Brainiac audio slideshow demonstrating the influence of Winsor McCay's imagination and sense of humor on "L'Age d'Or," "King Kong," "Dumbo," "Mary Poppins," and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" -- which, as you know, Merkl argues in "Rarebit Fiend." Stats: 3 1/2 minutes long, 57 fabulous images, one narrator who hates the sound of his voice.

Link

This masterpiece is the work of Australian illustrator Biddy Maroney. You can see more of her work via the Jacky Winter Group, an agency that represents a group of talented Aussie artists, or at Maroney's own Web site.
Link to Jacky Winter Group, Link to Biddy Maroney site (via Drawn!)

San Francisco performance-installation artist Jill Miller, best known for spending six weeks in a Northern California forest "Waiting For Bigfoot," has a provocative new surveillance-themed exhibition opening November 17 in San Francisco. For "Collectors," Miller trained for three months with a private investigator. Then, she and her assistants conducted spied for six months on art collectors in the Bay Area. The show, at 2nd Floor Projects, consists of video, photography, text, and sculptures Miller created during that surveillance period. From the Collectors site:

(Miller) worked on real cases, learning various components of the profession, from vehicle outfitting to location reconnaissance to moving surveillance (vehicular and pedal). Miller began this project out of her interest in the ways that the legal system protects (or challenges) an individual’s right to privacy. Driven by this curiosity, she learned how to conduct surveillance within the legal limits of the law. Once familiar with the field, Miller (and a team of two artist assistants) executed her own plans for surveillance under the advisement of the private investigator. Only this time, instead of working on randomly assigned cases, Miller turned an eye onto the art world itself, spending six months undercover doing surveillance on the San Francisco art world’s most elusive community: art collectors. Miller estimates she did surveillance on ten houses, focusing on five of them in depth.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Artist Jill Miller's Waiting For Bigfoot project Link
• Jill Miller's performance art video mashup Link

At the end of the 17th century, more than 200 people in Salem, Massachusetts were arrested and 20 executed. Their alleged crime? Practicing witchcraft. Smithsonian magazine's new article "A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials" summarizes the story behind the intolerance and injustice that erupted into absolute hysteria. From Smithsonian:

Several centuries ago, many practicing Christians, and those of other religions, had a strong belief that the Devil could give certain people known as witches the power to harm others in return for their loyalty. A "witchcraft craze" rippled through Europe from the 1300s to the end of the 1600s. Hundreds of thousands of supposed witches—mostly women—were executed. Though the Salem trials came on just as the European craze was winding down, local circumstances explain their onset.

In 1689, English rulers William and Mary started a war with France in the American colonies. Known as King William's War to colonists, it ravaged regions of upstate New York, Nova Scotia and Quebec, sending refugees into the county of Essex and, specifically, Salem Village in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. (Salem Village is present-day Danvers, Massachusetts; colonial Salem Town became what's now Salem.)

The displaced people created a strain on Salem's resources. This aggravated the existing rivalry between families with ties to the wealth of the port of Salem and those who still depended on agriculture. Controversy also brewed over Reverend Samuel Parris, who became Salem Village's first ordained minister in 1698, and was disliked because of his rigid ways and greedy nature. The Puritan villagers believed all the quarreling was the work of the Devil.

Link

Cartoonist Lars Martinson reminisces over a a shower he had to use in Japan. It sounds like something out of a bad dream.

It was an imposing metal unit, and its operation required the use of five different cranks and knobs. That evening my girlfriend provided the necessary explanation:

“Turn this knob to start the gas. Then turn that knob to “high”, and then push and turn this knob, and hold it down. While holding it down, turn this crank. [*click, click, click*] Okay, look in the little window. Can you see the blue flame?”

I looked in the window: “No.”

“You need to get the angle right. Look again.”

I scrutinized the inside of the metal box from every possible angle, but still didn’t see it. Wait. There’s something, but it looks more like a reflection from somewhere, or a dying ghost. “You mean this little thing?”

“Yes, that’s it. Now turn this knob to here. Okay, if the water gets too hot or cold, adjust that knob over there. NEVER turn it past this point, or you’ll get burned. Enjoy your shower.”

So I took my first shower in my new home. The funny thing was, with five different knobs, there was still no way to adjust the water pressure. It was either barely on, or off.

During the course of my shower, occasionally an arm, thin and yellow as an egg noodle, would squeeze through the crack in the door, check the water temperature, adjust the knobs accordingly, and then slip back out.

Link

Bert says: "I read a local Maine newspaper article about a guy who, over many years, collected rolls of undeveloped film from cameras found in antique stores. He finally had them developed and ended up with several hundred images that he's placed online." Link

Rob sez, "Local Chicago architecture critic and condo board member at the Marina city towers (most of you coasters will recognize the buildings from the cover of Wilco's YHF) covers from the inside the board's desire to copyright all aspects of the building - including the name. He points out that they only own the top 2/3rds of the building, did not design or construct the building, are claiming assertion under state law - it goes on from there. Needless to say even smart people can be dumb sometimes and that part of the fallout of this whole RIAA mess is that people are now of the mind that they can use copyright as some form of supplemental income for something they didn't even make and is wholly within the public sphere."

Serving on a condo board can be a thankless, high-pressure job. That's the only excuse I can think of for the declaration, equal parts loony and arrogant, of the board of the Marina Towers Condo Association:

"Because of the architectural significance of our building, the Condominium Association holds a common law copyright on the use of the Association name and building image. This means that under Federal and Illinois law, advertisers, movie makers and others cannot use the Association name or image without first obtaining express written permission from the Association . ."

Link (Thanks, Rob!)

At $400, I probably won't be buying one of these gorgeous glass octopus sculptures from Plantation anytime soon, but if I had $400 to burn, this would be a fun way to do it! Link (Thanks, Matt!)

Royal VKB's "Balancing Bowls" are two-sided melanine snack-bowls that rock from side to side, and are balanced to tip over when one side has precisely 100g (or 250g for the large size) worth of nosh loaded into it, providing a built-in snack-measurement system. They also look great! Link

Etsy seller Stray's "Barbie Trapped in Carbonite" sculpture is perfectly demented and just the thing for transitioning the kids from unrealistic Dream House play to unrealistic space-empire play. Link (via IZ Reloaded)

After a lot of searching, I've found the perfect bathroom radio for my place: the Henry Kloss Tivoli Audio PAL. I don't have an electrical outlet in the bathroom, and so I was looking for something battery powered, with decent reception, water-resistance, and an input for an MP3 player. The Tivoli's got all of that (including a built-in, replaceable NiMH battery that delivers 18h of playback per charge), and is just plain beautiful to look at, besides. It sounds great, and managed to tune in a number of weak/ multiphase FM channels that the other radios in the store couldn't get at. It also goes plenty loud -- surprisingly so, for such a little package -- without distortion which is just the thing for staying tuned into the news while the shower is going. It comes in a variety of handsome colors, and would work just as well on the porch, poolside, or back yard. Link

Klein Und More's tin toy cars are a refreshing, minimalist, two-dimensional, whimsical take on the venerable tin toy. Stamped out of a single flat sheet of tin, with the mechanisms exposed down one side, these toys poke fun at their ancestors while honoring them. They make a satisfying, visceral vroom when you let them go, and the funnycar swing of their pistons makes them all the more charming. I just saw them in a shop window and instantly bought two of them -- they've got the kind of heft and finish that seduces me in an instant. Link

This week's short story on the horror podcast Pseudopod is The Western Front, by Patrick Samphire, and it's something you should really download and give a listen to. This is Pseudopod's Memorial Day story, and, accordingly, it's set in the muddy, bleak, hopeless trenches of WWI, told in a series of letters and diary entries by a fresh, idealistic British lieutenant. The lieutenant's journey from idealism to disillusionment is standard enough, but I did not expect the redemption he finds in the story's brilliant conclusion. Samphire has written a genuinely fresh and moving account of war, and it's haunting without descending into the merely graphic or grotesque. Link, Link to podcast feed

Today on Boing Boing tv:

What would you wear in outer space? Fashion designers, space entrepreneurs, and intergalactic travel advocates gathered to answer that question recently on a runway (the couture kind) near Los Angeles International airport. BBtv's Xeni Jardin was there, with two pro fashionistas providing live critique and comic relief: Nony Tochterman of Petro Zillia, and Oren Shepher of Spear Collection.

"Space Style 2007: A Giant Leap for Couture" took place during the TRANSFORMING SPACE, an annual conference hosted by the California Space Authority (CSA) and the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI).

Link to video and more about the event.

Below: BBtv guest fashion analysts Oren (left) and Nony (right) glimpse the future of spacewear, and they're not sure quite what to make of it.

This new Guinness ad was shot over a week in a remote Argentine village -- it depicts a falling-dominoes cascade that expands to include falling suitcases, book-cases, flaming bales of hay, junker cars, crutches, and many other objects winding through the hills of the town. It's a lovely bit of filmmaking. Link (Thanks, Stuart!)

See also:
"Falling dominoes" in Half-Life
Bird killed for knocking over dominoes
Domino PCs tumble -- video
Star Wars rube goldberg machine
Ultimate rube goldberg machine
Rube Goldberg style contraption video
Rube Goldberg machine built out of sticks and stones
Japanese Rube Goldberg videos
Fun Rube Goldberg style promo website
Mesmerizing Rube-Goldberg Honda ad

My latest Locus column is online: "Creative Commons" explains the fundamentals of using CC licenses for people who are interested in the idea but haven't tried it yet. I get a lot of email from people asking just how you apply licenses to your work.

After you check off a few boxes on the Creative Commons license form, you'll get a page with the license for your work. This consists of a short block of computer code you paste into your book, image, web page, or what-have-you. This code displays a graphic badge showing the license you've chosen, with a link back to the license and a block of hidden "machine readable" text. This is text that search-engines can use to figure out which files are shared, and under which terms (you can limit searches on Flickr, Google, or Yahoo to only show Creative Commons licensed results).

Additionally, the machine-readable version links to two other versions of the licenses — a "human readable" plain-language version that can be understood by anyone, and a "lawyer-readable" version of small print that says the same thing in legally binding terms.

Creative Commons licenses are international — over 80 countries have their own CC projects — and something licensed under CC in the USA can be combined with Israeli, Indian, Brazilian, Spanish, British, South African and German CC works without violating the terms of any of their licenses.

Link

This homebrew speaker was hacked together from some legos, wire, magnets and a plastic cup -- according to the build-log, it "performs very well"!

I didn't expect a high quality of the sound from this made-from-scratch speaker but it performs very well, better than I expected.

A speaker is just a magnet, a coil, frame and a cone or any material that can make the air vibrate. Here is the bill of materials that I used to build this speaker:

# List of materials 1 Magnet (neodymium magnet works great)
# 1 Business card
# Wire 32 or 34 AWG (you may use 30AWG)
# Paper bond
# Tape
# Glue
# Scissors
# Ballpoint pen
# Lego bricks or wood.
# Ruler.

Link (via Digg)

DarkReading has a nice little featurette on the three largest botnets online -- Storm (230,000 members per 24h period), Rbot (40,000), and Bobax (24,000), along with a sketchy report of a new humongous "P2P botnet" in the offing:

"We're investigating a new peer-to-peer botnet that may wind up rivaling Storm in size and sophistication," says Tripp Cox, vice president of engineering for startup Damballa, which tracks botnet command and control infrastructures. "We can't say much more about it, but we can tell it's distinct from Storm."

Link (via /.)

See also:
StormWorm botnet lashes out at security researchers
Eavesdropping on a botnet
Economics of Malware
Botnet turf wars
Botnets will eat the Internets