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Provided by: boingboing.net762010-09-04 15:31:38blogs / boingboing.net /: Video artist and viral genius Joe Sabia, whose work we've featured before on Boing Boing Video and the Virgin America in-flight Boing Boing TV channel, shares word of a project he just completed for the energy drink company behind Zombie Blood Energy Potion. "Red Light Fright was highly experimental, highly speculative, and the results were hilarious," Joe says. "We basically loaded an intersection with zombies, intentionally blew a right light, and received a ticket in the mail with a ton of photos showing branded zombies in action. No arrests, no manhunts for us (we hope). just good, safe clean fun." Did the zombies really get the parking tickets? Are they real zombies? Are they real parking tickets? He won't tell me. REDLIGHTFRIGHT.COM...

Provided by: boingboing.net772010-09-04 13:13:07blogs / boingboing.net /: Kamill1 sez, "My first attempt at an automata, I think it turned out pretty well! Super fun build. A little wink to Jake Von Slatt, sitting down to play the pipe organ. Huzzah!" Steampunk Automata "Orchestra Von Slatt", Completed Friday, Sep 3 2010 (Thanks, kamill1, via Submitterator!) Wooden automata -- hand-crank animations Pirate theater automata built from Legos* Twisted-wire junk-sculpture automata from Zimbabwe Hand-cranked undersea automata made from twisted wire -- no welds ... Automata for sale -- papercraft, DIY and wooden Video: The Trons, homebrew automata band Gadgets...

Provided by: boingboing.net782010-09-04 13:13:00blogs / boingboing.net /: Sanka: because your old man beats you when he's got the jitters. Has his old man been hitting the coffee again?...

Provided by: boingboing.net792010-09-04 13:18:16blogs / boingboing.net /: Parenting advice from another era: give your squalling children a pipe to smoke! Right up there with "Speak roughly to your little boy and beat him when he sneezes." Smoke Duke of Durham...

Provided by: boingboing.net801970-01-01 00:00:00blogs / boingboing.net /: A first look at Ian McShane as Blackbeard (standing between Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz) in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides comes our way via some set photos posted by PopSugar ! There's a few more of Depp and Cruz at the link as well. Opening in 3D, 2D and IMAX 3D theaters on May 20, 2011, the Rob Marshall-directed film also stars Geoffrey Rush, Kevin McNally, Astrid BergTeri Buhl at Forbes reports on a sign of the times: "An executive at a billion-dollar Connecticut hedge fund was arrested on felony charges of allegedly running a huge year-round pot farm inside her home. But her boyfriend says the cops have it wrong, that they're goat farmers, not dope farmers." (Image: A CC-licensed photo by Flickr user r0bz.)...

Provided by: boingboing.net812010-09-04 04:14:38blogs / boingboing.net /: Teri Buhl at Forbes reports on a sign of the times: "An executive at a billion-dollar Connecticut hedge fund was arrested on felony charges of allegedly running a huge year-round pot farm inside her home. But her boyfriend says the cops have it wrong, that they're goat farmers, not dope farmers." (Image: A CC-licensed photo by Flickr user r0bz.)...

Provided by: boingboing.net822010-09-04 03:45:29blogs / boingboing.net /: A bill introduced this week in Canada's House of Commons would give US Department of Homeland Security officials "final say over who may board aircraft in Canada if they are to fly over the United States en route to a third country." (via @ioerror)...

Provided by: boingboing.net832010-09-04 03:50:41blogs / boingboing.net /: "Many people will approach this as, 'Oh, it must be safe, the government has thought about this and I'll just submit to it. But there really is no threshold of low dose being OK. Any dose of X-rays produces some potential risk."—David Agard, UCSF biochemist and biophysicist, one of a number of scientists concerned about potential health hazards of those new back-scatter scanners at airports. (NPR)...

Provided by: boingboing.net841970-01-01 00:00:00blogs / boingboing.net /: Sam Rockwell stars in this indie comedy as an unsuccessful man who takes on a new job as the coach of a high school girlsAn error was ecnountered attempting to get the RSS data: An unknown error occurred. For some uplifting weekend reading, I suggest Mary Roach's excellent Boing Boing special feature "Death In Space." From the intro: The U.S. has plans for a manned visit to Mars by the mid-2030s. The ESA and Russia have sketched out a similar joint mission, and it is claimed that China's space program has the same objective. Apart from their destination, all these plans share something in common: extraordinary danger for the explorers. What happens if someone dies out there, months away from Earth? Swedish ecologists Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak and Peter Mäsak are the inventors of an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation and burial, called Promession. The technique entails freezing a body, vibrating it into tiny pieces, and then freeze-drying the pieces, which can then be used as compost to grow a memorial shrub or tree. "Death In Space"...

Provided by: boingboing.net852010-09-03 23:16:13blogs / boingboing.net /: Matt Staggs of Suvudu interviewed James Howard Kunstler (The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century) about his forthcoming novel, The Witch of Hebron, which is anther novel set in the same universe as his end-of-cheap-energy novel, World Made by Hand (which I liked and reviewed here). Staggs: Both World Made by Hand and The Witch of Hebron take place in the world of The Long Emergency, which you’ve written about in the non-fiction title of the same name. Could you very briefly explain what the Long Emergency is for our readers? Kunstler: The Long Emergency is the culminating crisis of modernity, growing out of the limits to growth, resource scarcity, and the collapse of the complex systems that keep us going — everything ranging from industrialized farming to oil-based transportation to electronic communication. It can also be described as the crisis of over-investments in complexity — resolving in a traumatic wave of sudden de-complexifying. Staggs: Reading your novels, I find myself in some ways envious of the sense of community enjoyed by the residents of Union Grove, yet I remain aware of – and wary of – the incredible loss of life that our world would experience following a collapse of our oil-based infrastructure. On the whole, would you imagine that we’d gain or lose more in such a world? Kunstler: It’s part of the tension of the story that we are constantly having to measure what’s been gained against what’s been lost. The losses are perhaps more obvious: comfort, certainty, and the whole prosthetic nimbus of technology that we are so used to. The gains are perhaps more subtle: making your own music, enjoying the sounds, scents, and sensations of nature much more directly, the blessed absence of cars and other motor-driven annoyances, unmediated relations with family, friends, and community members, a reconnection with the elemental ceremonies of birth, death, the harvest, the coming of spring, etc. Interview with James Howard Kunstler, author of The Witch of Hebron...

Provided by: boingboing.net862010-09-03 23:41:39blogs / boingboing.net /: For some uplifting weekend reading, I suggest Mary Roach's excellent special Boing Boing feature "Death In Space." The U.S. has plans for a manned visit to Mars by the mid-2030s. The ESA and Russia have sketched out a similar joint mission, and it is claimed that China's space program has the same objective. Apart from their destination, all these plans share something in common: extraordinary danger for the explorers. What happens if someone dies out there, months away from Earth? Swedish ecologists Susanne Wiigh-Mäsak and Peter Mäsak are the inventors of an environmentally friendly alternative to cremation and burial, called Promession. The technique entails freezing a body, vibrating it into tiny pieces, and then freeze-drying the pieces, which can then be used as compost to grow a memorial shrub or tree. "Death In Space"...

Provided by: boingboing.net872010-09-03 22:20:38blogs / boingboing.net /: To make up for the research kittens. Note: This starts out somewhat depressingly, with the body of a female octopus that died after reproducing—as all octopuses, male and female, do. But it quickly gets past that, and on to the wee, baby octopuses, floating around the sea. Turn off the sound to block out the sad song, and focus on that. From jenniel, via Submitterator...

Provided by: boingboing.net882010-09-03 21:51:17blogs / boingboing.net /: Panels from "Unraveling," part 2, by Jordan Crane What Things Do is a stunningly good webcomics site, launched by comics artist Jordan Crane and featuring some of the best independent comics artists around, including Gabrielle Bell, Abner Dean, Sammy Harkham, Jaime Hernandez, Kevin Huizenga, Ted May, John Porcellino, Ron Regé Jr., Steve Weissman, and Dan Zettwoch. Many of the artists here seem to have been mildly influenced by Tintin's Hergé (and Joost Swarte). This is not a big surprise, since Jordan Crane selects all the artists for his site, and Crane himself shows a little Hergé in his work. (I can't think of a better artist than Hergé from which to draw inspiration.) The comics in What Things Do all have the same yellow-gray color scheme (with a few exceptions) that give the site and elegant cohesiveness. The comics are large clear and readable. In addition to showcasing the work of contemporary cartoonists, What Things Do, runs "decades-old work" from worthy but not-so-famous cartoonists, as well as articles about comics. What Things Do: excellent webcomics...

Provided by: boingboing.net892010-09-03 21:52:14blogs / boingboing.net /: "In order to study the way that experience can influence the brain, there has been a great deal of research done on the visual cortex of the kitten." Oh, this is going to end badly, isn't it? This short documentary from the 1970s explains, in depth, some research that I mentioned earlier this year in a BoingBoing article on fetal senses. Long story short: Kittens are born blind and do a lot of their sight-linked brain development in the first few weeks after birth. Because of this, they make a handy model for studying how the brains of human fetuses form neural connections and how our sense of sight develops in the womb. It's important research that has helped medical science better understand how to care for premature human babies, besides adding valuable details to our understanding of the brain, in general. Unfortunately, because kittens are adorable, said very important research looks almost comically evil when filmed. Seriously, this video is one "Thittens" joke away from working as a segment of Look Around You. So, thanks, blorgggg (Thorgggg?), for sending this video in via Submitterator. I'm sure the Moderators will be thanking you (and me) as well. I do ask that, as we get into the inevitable discussion on animal research, you remember that the scientists involved did not raise kittens in completely dark rooms for sociopathic shits and giggles, but because they thought the potential benefits of the research outweighed the (mostly temporary) damage done to the kittens' visual abilities. You may disagree with that calculation—and you're welcome to do so. In fact, I think that complex discussion about ends and means in specific studies is valuable. And interesting. Far more so (on both counts) than simply labeling anyone who uses animals for research as a for-kicks abuser of fluffy baby kitties....

Provided by: boingboing.net902010-09-03 21:29:53blogs / boingboing.net /: Daniel Raeburn has done the world a favor by creating free PDF versions of his outstanding self-published journal about comic books, The Imp. Though he published only four issues (I have them all in hard copy) Raeburn's journal is regarded as a masterpiece of comic book criticism. Each issue covered a single subject: Daniel Clowes in Vol 1, Jack Chick in Vol 2, Chris Ware in Vol 3, and Mexican "historietas perversas" in Vol 4. The Comics Journal called The Imp “One of the very best things to come out of comics.” Here's what This American Life creator Ira Glass said about The Imp: It was clearly the work of an obsessed person, in the very best way possible. A really smart obsessed person. There was a kind of Talmudic completeness to the whole thing, in a way that journalism rarely even aspires to. Not much journalism tries to be so emotional, and funny, and analytical, and thorough. There’s really very little like it out there. The closest you get is one of those big stories they used to do in the old New Yorker, where at the end you feel like there’s nothing else that needs to be said on the subject. I read it admiringly and jealously. In the years since I read the Chris Ware issue I’ve actually become friends with Chris Ware, real friends, we talk all the time, and probably a third of what I know about Chris still comes from that issue of The Imp. It was that complete and emotionally insightful. Download The Imp here...

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