The Infinite Adventure Machine

David Benqué's Infinite Adventure Machine creates random folk-tales, and is itself an adventure in what he describes as an unsolved computer science problem: automatic story generation.

Tales and myths; the core narratives of human culture, have been transmitted for generations through various technologies and media. What new forms might they take through digital formats and Artificial Intelligence?

Based on the work of Vladimir Propp, who reduced the structure of russian folk-tales to 31 basic functions, TIAM aims to question the limitations and implications of attempts at programming language and narrative.

Because the program is unable to deliver a finished story, rather only a crude synopsis and illustrations, users have to improvise, filling the gaps with their imagination and making up for the technology's shortcomings.

Wikipedia's article on Propp has a lengthy description of his typology of narrative structures.

I've always been fascinated by the subtle movement these devices make, whereby a description of universal narrative elements is turned into a prescription for writing new stories. Every few years there seems to be another bestseller book, for example, telling you how to succeed in Hollywood using Jungian archetypes and Joseph Campbell. But I love these random generators all the same (and make my own). The bite-size mind-meld between culture and software they embody has a strange magic to it.

The Infinite Adventure Machine [Glitch Fiction via Creative Applications]

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With computers doing the thinking, the executive is lonely

Enjoy this report by the BBC's Tomorrow's World into the new phenomenon of desk toys for bored modern executives. At the weekends, he polishes his flowers with aerosols.

Video Link [BBC]

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London Beer Flood and other food disasters

On October 17, 1814 at the Meux family brewery in Tottenham Court, London, a massive vat of beer cracked open, spilling 3,500 barrels of beer and killing eight people. Smithsonian's Food & Think blog sums up the "London Beer Flood" and several other "Deadly Disasters Caused By Food." Here's another:

Boston Molasses Disaster: In Boston’s North End, near the city’s financial district and working class Italian neighborhoods, there stood a molasses tank owned by the Purity Distilling Company. Built in 1915, the vat was capable of holding some 2.5 million gallons; however, by 1919, locals were complaining that it was leaking, and on the afternoon of January 15, it exploded. Flying metal knocked out the supports of nearby elevated train tracks and a 15-foot-high wave of molasses crashed through the streets at some 35 miles per hour, knocking down and enveloping people in its path. Parts of Boston were standing in two to three feet of molasses and the disaster left 21 dead and 150 injured.

"Four Deadly Disasters Caused by Food"

"Boston Molasses Disaster" (Boston Public Library on Flickr)

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The landscapes of Philip Govedare

The only thing that could make Philip Govedare's curious landscape paintings better is if we had found them buried on Mars in an airtight cylinder, with a copy of the March 12, 1888 edition of the London Times, a locket of hair and a blank diary. [via Design Milk]

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Philosopher describes the Simulation Argument

Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom describes his Simulation Argument on a recent episode of the excellent Philosophy Bites podcast. He proposed the argument in 2003, and it is interesting to hear him discuss it here.

As I understand it, one of the following three statements must be true:

1. Civilizations go extinct before they are able to create advanced simulations.

2. Advanced civilizations are not interested in creating advanced simulations.

3. There are so many advanced simulations that is is far more likely that we are inside a simulation than in the physical universe.

I might be oversimplifying things here, but I think that's the gist of it.

If we are in a simulation (and I don't think we are) it is upsetting to imagine a cruel operator who could flip a switch and send all of the people in the simulation into agony for all eternity (using Freeman Dyson's Eternal Intelligence idea for extracting infinite computation during the heat death of the universe).

Listen to Nick Bostrom on the Simulation Argument

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Short interview with creators of Cleverbot avatar video

Kevin Kelly interviewed the two grad students at Cornell Creative Machines Lab who posted that amazing video of Cleverbot-driven avatars having a conversation.

You've probably seen the viral video of the AI bots arguing with each other. Almost the first things the bots start to talk about is God and who made them. Next they begin to accuse each other of lying. The conversation was so strangely humanish that I had to interview the creators to see what was going on. ??First, watch the short clip if you have not seen it.

The conversation between the bot and itself was recorded in the Cornell Creative Machines Lab, whose faculty is researching how to make helper bots. Two grad students, Jason Yosinski and Igor Labutov, and professor Hod Lipson are responsible for the experiment.

Jason and Igor told me how it came about:

"We've been trying to make robots that can help you find things. Maybe the robot can't help you directly, but could find something else, maybe another robot, that can. So we thought about having one bot asking another bot for help. That got us thinking about having two chat bots talk to each other, one running on a laptop next to each other. We tried having the classic Eliza bot talk to itself but it quickly just got into a rut, repeating itself. There are a lot of other chatbots, but we heard good things about Cleverbot because its database is based on snippets that humans actually write and say. So we feed the output of one Cleverbot to the input of another. Then we feed the text log into Acapella, a free text-to-speach synthesizer. Then we animated the soundtrack usingLiving Actor Presenter. We don't think we are the first to have two bots chat, but it seems we are the first to animate it. In retrospect that seems such an obvious thing to do."

Theological Chatbots

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Artists alter paint-by-numbers for exhibit

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Collectors of barbed wire

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The Economist on BB’s comment policy

For The Economist, Glenn Fleishman wrote an item about our comment policies, which are strict as fuck. (Disclosure: Glenn also writes for BB occasionally)

Beschizza approvingly cites an essay published in July by Anil Dash, the first employee of blog-software firm Six Apart, and who is currently involved in not-for-profit efforts to help governments and citizens talk effectively to one another. Mr Dash called on sites with communities and forums actively to police themselves, rather than allow the most egregious participants to set the tone. "If your website is full of assholes, it's your fault," he writes bluntly. "And if you have the power to fix it and don't do something about it, you're one of them."

Boing Boing's substantial community is ably moderated by Antinous and his splendid cronies, the unsung heroes of the piece. Alongside these traditional subjects of spam, trolls, toxicity and general quality control, however, the hot issue now is of anonymity and pseudonymity.

To clarify a little, I think everyone at BB is actually a hardliner on the "Nymwars" issue: requiring real names is bad. But I don't think any site running on standard well-logged webserver setups, which can get subpoenad, seized or hacked, should claim to offer complete anonymity. Technical, traceable fingerprints may remain. Here, you can post under any identity you like, but it is incumbent on everyone to learn how to protect themselves.

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JC Penny t-shirt (now pulled): “I’m too pretty to do homework”

JC Penny was called out for selling this t-shirt, emblazoned with the words "I'm too pretty to do homework so my brother has to do it for me." What a positive, empowering message for girls aged 7-16, apparently the target market for this design. The Village Voice reports that JC Penny has quickly pulled the shirt and issued a statement, saying in part "We agree that the "Too pretty" t-shirt does not deliver an appropriate message, and we have immediately discontinued its sale." Good for them. I wonder if they calculated what, if any, impact the PR hit and this decision is having on their revenue. Probably not. After all, math class is tough.
"J.C. Penney's 'Too Pretty To Do Homework' T-Shirt Is Too Stupid for Words" (Thanks, Puce/Sarah Wulfeck!)

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Feynman: comic biography of an iconoclastic physicist

Jim Ottaviani and Leland Myrick's Feynman is an affectionate and inspiring comic biography of the legendary iconoclastic physicist Richard Feynman. I've reviewed Ottaviani before (I really liked T-Minus, a history of the Apollo program, as well as his Dignifying Science: Stories About Women Scientists) and I expected great things from Feynman. I wasn't disappointed.

Feynman is primarily concerned with its subject's life -- his personal relationships, his career triumphs, his mistakes and misgivings. From his work on the Trinity project to the Feynman lectures to his Nobel for his theory of Quantum Electrodynamics, Feynman paints a picture of a caring, driven, intelligent, wildly creative scientist who didn't always think through his actions and sometimes made himself pretty miserable as a result. But the Feynman in this book is resilient and upbeat, and figures out how to bounce back from the worst of life.

Feynman's technical achievements are mighty, but very few people understand them (Feynman claimed that he didn't understand them). But the way he conducted his life was often an inspiration. The authors even manage to wring sweetness from his tragic romance with his first wife, Arline, who contracted terminal tuberculosis before they married, meaning that their marriage was conducted without any intimate physical contact lest he catch her sickness -- but for all that, they clearly loved each other enormously and made one another's lives better.

Feynman is notorious for his irreverent outlook and his willingness to look foolish while he learned new things, an extremely admirable ability I often wish I possessed in greater measure. The bongo-playing, doodling, pranking Feynman who tried to get out of accepting his Nobel prize and drove Freeman Dyson across the country, staying in flophouses and looking for excitement leaps off the page here.

The authors pass lightly over some of Feynman's more problematic shortcomings, such as his inconsistent sexist attitude towards women. They show us Feynman gallantly mentoring his sister in physics while all the authority figures in their lives insisted that this wasn't a fit subject for girls; they show us Feynman working on physics problems five nights a week at a local strip-bar; but they don't dip into his embarrassing writings on convincing women to have sex with him, in which he comes across as a sexist pig. He was surely a product of his times, and he was surely imperfect, and that explains his attitude, but it doesn't excuse it.

But this isn't a whitewash. Imperfect and warty, Feynman is still an inspiration.

The authors don't shy away from technical subjects entirely, either. They make a really good run at depicting Feynman's supposedly lay-oriented lectures on Quantum Electrodynamics. To be honest, I've never really been able to wrap my head around QED, and, having read Feynman, I'm still pretty fuzzy on the subject -- but I feel like I'm a little closer to getting it.

Like all great biography, Feynman is an enticement to read more of his works. I haven't read The Feynman Lectures (an introductory physics course that Feynman wrote and delivered late in his career -- an unheard-of undertaking for a physicist of his stature) in years, but Igoing to start listening to the audio of his lectures. And I'll be shoving Feynman at everyone I can get to read it.

Feynman

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Cat meets balloon cat

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Man drives burning car into gas station, amazingly nobody dies

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100 years of East London style in 100 seconds

[Video Link] From Laughing Squid: "To announce the grand opening of Westfield Stratford City, which will soon be “the largest urban shopping centre in Europe”, Westfield created this fun short film, 100 YEARS / STYLE / EAST LONDON. The film, directed by Jake Lunt with The Viral Factory, amazingly gives the run-down of 100 years of East London fashion, dance and music in just 100 seconds."

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Federal Court: recording cops an unambiguous first amendment right

When Simon Glik recorded Boston Suffolk County police doing something they shouldn't, he was threatened and ultimately arrested by a crackpot cop who boasted, "I've been doing this for thirty years and there's nothing you can hold over my head." The result of his legal troubles? A federal court ruling that videotaping police is an unambiguous and constitutionally protected right. [Citmedialaw via Gizmodo]

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Partially completed octopus sand sculpture on Venice Beach promenade

It was very hot in Studio City on Sunday, so I went to Venice Beach with my wife and kids to cool off. It wasn't much cooler, but we had fun.

The highlight of my day was this cartoony octopus sand sculpture. The artist was sleeping under an umbrella, otherwise I would have interviewed him. I am envious of his talent.

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How to make a crafting table

The multi-talented maker Nick Britsky made this cool crafting table for his multi-talented crafter girlfriend, Lish Dorset.

How-to: Custom crafting table

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After Hurricane Katrina, years of post-traumatic stress: a first-person account

Photo: Reuters

My friend Susannah Breslin, a periodic guest contributor to Boing Boing, has written a piece for the Atlantic about her experience as a survivor of Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath.

When I did return to New Orleans, the city was ravaged, its great oak trees broken, its buildings crumbling, a refrigerator stranded on a dark sidewalk like a ghost. My neighborhood was deserted. A sign on the front of the house where I had lived indicated the roof shingles, which had come off during the storm, contained asbestos. I was in the 20 percent of the city that hadn't flooded, but portions of the roof had come off during the storm.

Inside, the rain had spawned black, green, and yellow mold that crawled the walls. I could see the sky from the living room through the exposed wooden slats of the structure's bones. The ceiling was in the bed. In the backyard, a towering pecan tree that had stood for probably 100 years had been uprooted from the ground and tossed aside like a toothpick by a bored giant.

I took the boxes and my papers from the mostly undisturbed kitchen. From the rest of the house, I picked and chose from the things that didn't appear to have mold or asbestos on them. The following day, I drove out of the city. There was a boat in the middle of the street. The houses gaped, slack-jawed and empty-faced. I drove across the eastbound span of the Twin Span Bridge over Lake Pontchartrain, and parts of the westbound span of the bridge were simply gone. I drove an hour through a destroyed forest, and when I looked up in the sky, I tried to imagine a thing so big that it could destroy so much.

After Hurricane Katrina, Years of Post-Traumatic Stress

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Hotel elevator has staff and guest buttons

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Sony’s HMZ-T1: Home theater in a headset

Sony's HMZ-T1 is a head-mounted 3D headset, to be released later this year in Japan. Two 1280x720 OLED displays, each just 7/10 of an inch across, create a virtual 750" screen. Perceived 20m from the viewer, it "corresponds to the sense of cinema as seen from a large central seat." It'll be 60,000 Yen ($785) from mid-november.

Source [Impress.co.jp]

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Impaled by pruning shears through eye, doing ok

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Gaddafi’s high-tech computer spying facility revealed

I know it doesn't look like much, but see that "1.44" off to the right? That means they are high density floppies.

First Look Inside Security Unit [WSJ. Photos: Edu Bayer]

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Inside the sea caves of Devil’s Island

Last year, when I posted here about the history of the lighthouse at Devil's Island, Wisconsin, several of you noticed the island's extensive network of sea caves, carved into the sandstone cliffs by splashing waves and moving water. This year, when some friends and I went on a little paddle through the caves, I took along a video camera. It doesn't quite capture the eerie awesomeness of floating into the dark with Lake Superior behind you, but it's still pretty neat.

Apologies in advance for the occasional sudden jerky movements and possible audible swearing. Devil's Island is also home to a large population of biting flies and my ankles are, apparently, quite tasty.

Video Link

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Chris Reccardi paintings in Australia

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A man’s flesh is his own; the water belongs to the tribe

From Neil Bowdler at the BBC:

A Glasgow-based company has installed its first commercial "alkaline hydrolysis" unit at a Florida funeral home. The unit by Resomation Ltd is billed as a green alternative to cremation and works by dissolving the body in heated alkaline water. ... The makers claim the process produces a third less greenhouse gas than cremation, uses a seventh of the energy, and allows for the complete separation of dental amalgam for safe disposal.

New body 'liquefaction' unit unveiled in Florida funeral home [BBC]

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List of scienceers on Google+

Are you looking for cool science news and thoughts on Google+? Check out this spreadsheet, which collects a bunch of scientists, science writers, and other related people into one place. You can even circle them en-masse! (Thanks Chris Robinson!)

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Gweek 014: Hokum Scorchers!

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Car decaying in the forest—Sand Island, Wisconsin

I went back to the Apostle Islands National Lakeshore last weekend for a short vacation. One of my goals was to get out to Sand Island. This particular one of the 22 Apostles (Official story behind the name: Jesuit missionaries miscounted) is pretty far-flung, especially at the 3 or 4 miles per hour a sailboat moves. But it was worth the trip.

Last month, I interviewed Bob Mackreth, a writer, historian, and retired park ranger, for a story about the conflict between natural history and human history in national parks. During the interview, he told me that Sand Island was the place to go to see that conflict in action. The Island was once home to a relatively large and long-lived village. Where there is now forest, there was once a school, a cooperative grocery store, and roads. It lasted until the 1950s, when the sea lamprey put a major kink in the commercial fishing industry on Lake Superior.

Today, the park trail follows the former path of Sand Island's main road. Along it, Mackreth told me, you'll find a couple of old cars, abandoned to the forest. I did find them. And I thought you'd like to see them, too.

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LoJack makers sued over privacy invasion after tracking stolen laptop

Illustration: Sean Gladwell, Shutterstock. See more like this.

A schoolteacher who bought a stolen laptop from one of her students ($60, with a scraped-off serial number) is suing the makers of LoJack, the pre-installed software used by investigators to recover it. Absolute Software failed to have the case summarily dismissed; a judge ruled that its tracking of her, including emails and recorded sex acts, may violate wiretapping laws. [Wired]

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Finally, an extinct species you can feel good about

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Montana morning

Good morning from a sustainable cattle ranch in Montana's Centennial Valley. Here is a snapshot I just took on my phone of one of the residents. I am here with PBS NewsHour science correspondent Miles O'Brien, and PBS NewsHour producer Jenny Marder. We're working on a story for the program.

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Catholic officials in Ireland object to child abuse disclosure law

Officials of the Catholic church in Ireland object to a new law that mandates the reporting of child abuse. From the BBC:

The Irish Children's Minister Frances Fitzgerald said that priests who are given admissions of child abuse during the sacrament of confession will not be exempt from new rules on mandatory reporting. During his homily to worshippers at Knock shrine in County Mayo, on Sunday, the archbishop of Armagh and primate of all Ireland said: "Freedom to participate in worship and to enjoy the long-established rites of the church is so fundamental that any intrusion upon it is a challenge to the very basis of a free society."

The discussion seems to center on future abuses revealed during confession, but I wonder if it's really about the ongoing use of the sacrament to hide internal discussions of undisclosed abuses from the possibility of legal scrutiny.

Child protection measures apply regardless of religious rules [BBC]

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Wacom Inkling

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Treating mental illness with cigarettes

While nationally, only about 20% of Americans smoke, 80% of schizophrenic Americans smoke. That's interesting, but it's not the most interesting part. Apparently, there's some evidence that those people with schizophrenia are using tobacco as a form of self medication.

At the Risk Science Blog, Mark Stewart looks at the weird dilemma people with schizophrenia are faced with when it comes to smoking:

Schizophrenics often have auditory hallucinations, paranoia, delusions, and disorganized thinking. These symptoms are predominantly caused by the inability of the brains of schizophrenics to differentiate, sort, and focus on the multitude of stimuli that go on around us. Think of being in a busy restaurant. Imagine that instead of being able to block out all the noises, conversations, and movements around you, every single piece of sensory information is as important as the interesting things said by the attractive person sitting across from you. The effects of cigarette smoking and nicotine help schizophrenics through increased selective attention.

“They should use other forms of medication,” I hear you say. Great idea, except for the fact that anti-psychotic drugs are very expensive, do not work very well for most people, and have extreme side effects. Tardive dyskinesia is the most common side effect. This makes it very hard for the body to move in normal ways at normal speeds. Also, there are common metabolic side effects that are quite similar to an individual having diabetes. (Just what someone with a severe mental illness needs!) Thus, the cheapness, effectiveness, and availability of cigarettes offer most schizophrenics some succor. Smoking leads to schizophrenics having a 30-60% increased risk of respiratory disorders and heart disease, but is this a risk that is worth taking?

This is really interesting to me. I've heard people talk about cigarettes as self-medication for ADHD, as well, and for much the same reasons. I sure found that smoking made it easier for me to study and write back in college. Although, for my ADHD, behavioral therapy and methylin ended up being a much better option. So I quit. But this poses an interesting question: If my official therapies carried the kind of side-effects that people with schizophrenia have to deal with, would smoking be more attractive?

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Treating mental illness with cigarettes

While nationally, only about 20% of Americans smoke, 80% of schizophrenic Americans smoke. That's interesting, but it's not the most interesting part. Apparently, there's some evidence that those people with schizophrenia are using tobacco as a form of self medication.

At the Risk Science Blog, Mark Stewart looks at the weird dilemma people with schizophrenia are faced with when it comes to smoking:

Schizophrenics often have auditory hallucinations, paranoia, delusions, and disorganized thinking. These symptoms are predominantly caused by the inability of the brains of schizophrenics to differentiate, sort, and focus on the multitude of stimuli that go on around us. Think of being in a busy restaurant. Imagine that instead of being able to block out all the noises, conversations, and movements around you, every single piece of sensory information is as important as the interesting things said by the attractive person sitting across from you. The effects of cigarette smoking and nicotine help schizophrenics through increased selective attention.

“They should use other forms of medication,” I hear you say. Great idea, except for the fact that anti-psychotic drugs are very expensive, do not work very well for most people, and have extreme side effects. Tardive dyskinesia is the most common side effect. This makes it very hard for the body to move in normal ways at normal speeds. Also, there are common metabolic side effects that are quite similar to an individual having diabetes. (Just what someone with a severe mental illness needs!) Thus, the cheapness, effectiveness, and availability of cigarettes offer most schizophrenics some succor. Smoking leads to schizophrenics having a 30-60% increased risk of respiratory disorders and heart disease, but is this a risk that is worth taking?

This is really interesting to me. I've heard people talk about cigarettes as self-medication for ADHD, as well, and for much the same reasons. I sure found that smoking made it easier for me to study and write back in college. Although, for my ADHD, behavioral therapy and methylin ended up being a much better option. So I quit. But this poses an interesting question: If my official therapies carried the kind of side-effects that people with schizophrenia have to deal with, would smoking be more attractive?

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“Cinematic journalism” for mobile devices, from Chris Colin and others

[video link]

The Atavist is a platform for publishing and selling short nonfiction, what they call "cinematic journalism," for mobile devices. The full pieces are $2.99/each for iOS devices (with Android coming soon) and stripped-down versions for the Kindle are $1.99. It'll be interesting to see how this model plays out as a way to support longform feature writing on subjects that the writers are passionate about. Right now, there are around ten original stories available on The Atavist. The most recent is Chris Colin's "Blindsight." I just read an excerpt over at The Atlantic and I am hooked. Here's how Chris describes it:

The story takes place in Hollywood, and it starts out simple and movie-like: A producer is driving to dinner with his wife, one evening in 1994. She mentions something about her boss, and these turn out to be her last words. Without giving anything away, the story involves horrific tragedy, a Rip Van Winkle-like hibernation, impossible turns of fate, a killer at large. Miraculous medical oddness. Otherworldly powers. Time itself rearranged.

"Blindsight" by Chris Colin

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How do you think this stairway was built?

This gorgeous spiral staircase is from the lighthouse at Sand Island, Wisconsin, leading from the basement fuel room to the lighthouse room at the top of the house, with stops at the two floors of living space along the way. Our tour guide told us that nobody knows how it was built. Some people, he said, think each section of the metal stair fit together with a male/female sort of locking mechanism. Others think that a pole was first installed and each section of the metal stair was slid down that. Either way, the staircase is mostly held in place by tension—there's nothing connecting it to the wall at all, except at the two landings in front of the doors to the living quarters.

The trouble with being married to an engineer: I just assume that all "mystery stairs" are only really mysteries because the right experts haven't ever been called into evaluate them. (I'm lookin' at you, Chapel of Loretto.) The fun thing about being married to an engineer: Once you get past "it's just a mystery, I guess!", then you're left with a cool problem-solving puzzle to hypothesize about.

So what do you think? I'm guessing this is almost more of a history question than an engineering question, because part of what we're trying to figure out is how sections of a spiral staircase like this would have been joined together back in the day. But the other part is pretty engineer-y: Do you think the brackets (they're about iPhone sized and there's two under each of the two landings, which are both on the South side of the stairwell) are the only thing supporting this staircase other than tension? Or do you suspect that it's held in place some other way?

I'm going to be traveling until the 9th. But, when I get home, I'll check around and see how close you all got to a correct assessment.

This is what the landings in front of the doors to the living quarters look like. The edge of the sections right in front of the door fit into brackets attached to the wall underneath.

Here, you can see how the sections of staircase sit on top of one another. There might be a pole in the middle. Or each section might have been made to fit together. You can see how each of the sections are attached to one another with a bolt at the edge, but they aren't attached to the wall.

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Animals and the amygdala

As part of a cool project in blogging on Google+ ("plogging"), Nature editor Noah Gray writes about a recent experiment that found that specific neurons in the human amygdala respond instantly to images of animals. These responses were stronger and faster than when other neurons responded to those images, and stronger and faster than when the animal-centric neurons responded to other types of images.

The amygdala is well known to be involved in fear modulation and memory, as well as influencing other types of emotional processing. So is it expected that cells in this structure would respond so strongly to the sight of animals? There is a moderate precedent from the non-human primate literature. Studies in macaques have revealed strong firing of amygdalar neurons to faces, so categorical responses aren't unique in the amygdala. This is true in humans as well, but humans also maintain a different dedicated brain region for face processing, perhaps opening up some portions of the amygdala to take on additional, different roles. But why would we need a dedicated system for animal imagery, elevating this particular stimulus to such an important position in our recognition system? Well this is all speculation, but it isn't difficult to state the obvious and stress that animals were critical as prey for our ancient ancestors, as well as potential threats. Thus, early man may have developed a system to speed our reaction times to such an important category as the landscape was visually scanned for information. Placing this system in a brain region critical to emotion processing could have also more-easily mobilized action through a rapid activation of attack or flight responses.

Image: Animal Kingdom Sign, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from pixeljones's photostream

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Minecraft in real life

Ben Purdy made this "real life" Minecraft block. Very cool!

Now that I’m working on projection mapping it was only a matter of time before this happened. Thanks to my brother for the inspiration, he mentioned that one of the other projection mapping examples looked a bit like a minecraft block. Once the idea popped into my head I had to give it a try.

There’s a piezo element taped to the box and hooked up to an arduino. The arduino senses the physical impact with the piezo element and sends serial data to my PC. Processing picks up the serial signal and takes care of the projection and interaction (particles, etc).

Minecraft in real life

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Vampire-killing kit

A BB reader spotted this antique vampire-killing kit at an antiques show this weekend. You may purchase it from Best of France Antiques in Buckingham, Pennsylvanie. Included are a pistol, a stake, garlic, holy water, mirror, bible, silver bullets, and crucifixes. It's $9,000, which is quite a bargain if you are in need of such a kit.

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Chinese tycoon offers to buy 0.3% of Iceland for $100,000,000

Huang Nubo is China's 16th richest person. The self described "poet and adventurer" has offered $100 million to buy 300 square kilometres of Icelandic wilderness to develop a golf course and tourist destination resort.

Opponents have questioned why such a large amount of land – equal to about 0.3 per cent of Iceland’s total area – is needed to build a hotel. They warned that the project could provide cover for China’s geopolitical interests in the Atlantic island nation and Nato member.

While home to just 320,000 people, Iceland occupies a strategically important location between Europe and North America and has been touted as a potential hub for Asian cargo should climate change open Arctic waters to shipping.

(To get an idea of how much 0.3 percent represents, take a look at the above photo of Bjork. Her tattoo covers roughly 0.3% of her body's surface area.)

Chinese tycoon seeks to buy tract of Iceland

(Image: Bjork-1, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 8073591@N04's photostream)

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Benjamin Franklin’s famous “Join, or Die” political cartoon offered at auction

An original copy of the May 9, 1754 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette, featuring noted zine publisher Benjamin Franklin's famous "Join, or Die" political cartoon, is up for auction. Estimate: $100,000 - $200,000

One of only a handful of known existing original copies of Benjamin Franklin’s celebrated “Join, or Die” editorial cartoon, from the May 9, 1754 edition of The Pennsylvania Gazette – the single most famous and important American editorial cartoon in existence, and one of the most famous ever printed – will be offered for the first time at auction and is expected to bring well in excess of $100,000+ when it crosses the block  as part of Heritage Auctions’ Sept. 13 Signature Historical Manuscripts Auction.

“There’s no way to overstate just what this cartoon means to American history, Pop Culture history and comics history,” said Ed Jaster, Senior Vice President of Heritage Auctions. “It’s important on so many levels, to collectors of all kinds, across many genres, that there’s no telling where the bidding for this could go.”

Benjamin Franklin's woodcut illustration of a snake severed into eight sections, each one representing one of the colonies, is the stuff of legend, burned into the collective American consciousness from the time most citizens were in grade school. The appearance of this copy at auction – the only other known copy is in the Library of Congress –constitutes a major event in the annals of American auction history.

“Franklin used the illustration, along with his accompanying editorial, to vividly explain the importance of colonial unity in 1754 shortly before the French and Indian War,” said Jaster. “Its prescient call for American unity may not have worked the way Franklin planned it in 1754, but it plainly sowed the seeds of the need for unity in the face of the looming American Revolution, some 22 years in the future.”

First publication of the "Join, or Die" editorial cartoon

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Monkees brainwashed by Julie Driscoll and Brian Auger

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Hunter Thompson’s Rum Diary trailer, starring Johnny Depp

[video link]

Johnny Depp reprises his role as Hunter S. Thompson for The Rum Diary, the good Doctor's 1959 novel that didn't see publication until 1998. (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

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Every time an Anonymous protester dons a Guy Fawkes mask, Time Warner goes “ka-ching”

Time Warner, gigantic media conglomerate and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the Guy Fawkes mask design from the 2006 Warner Brothers film “V for Vendetta.” So, every time you purchase one of those masks, they are paid a licensing fee. Nick Bilton in the New York Times has more.

(Image: Anonymous, a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) image from cabbit's photostream)

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Ai Weiwei, artist and dissident, rips into Chinese gov in post-prison op-ed

Newsweek magazine has published a "scathing attack" on the Chinese government from artist and dissident Ai Weiwei, who was detained in extraordinary and dehumanizing conditions as an apparent political prisoner. In the op-ed, he describes Beijing as "a city of violence."

Beijing is two cities. One is of power and of money. People don’t care who their neighbors are; they don’t trust you. The other city is one of desperation. I see people on public buses, and I see their eyes, and I see they hold no hope. They can’t even imagine that they’ll be able to buy a house. They come from very poor villages where they’ve never seen electricity or toilet paper.

Every year millions come to Beijing to build its bridges, roads, and houses. Each year they build a Beijing equal to the size of the city in 1949. They are Beijing’s slaves. They squat in illegal structures, which Beijing destroys as it keeps expanding. Who owns houses? Those who belong to the government, the coal bosses, the heads of big enterprises. They come to Beijing to give gifts—and the restaurants and karaoke parlors and saunas are very rich as a result.

Beijing tells foreigners that they can understand the city, that we have the same sort of buildings: the Bird’s Nest, the CCTV tower. Officials who wear a suit and tie like you say we are the same and we can do business. But they deny us basic rights. You will see migrants’ schools closed. You will see hospitals where they give patients stitches—and when they find the patients don’t have any money, they pull the stitches out. It’s a city of violence.

(via Reuters)

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Video tour of Walter Potter’s anthropomorphic taxidermy

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Two AI chatBots attempt to have a conversation with each other

[Video Link] Scott Beale says: "Cornell Creative Machines Lab wanted to see what would happend if two Cleverbot AI ChatBots had a conversation with each other."

I think I've just seen the beginning of the end.

Two AI ChatBots Attempt To Have A Conversation With Each Other

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Michele Bachmann: “Who likes white people?” (or are they merely wet?)

Bachmann: Who likes white people?

Crowd: (Cheers)

Bachmann: Yeah! That's right! I'm Michelle Bachmann and I'm a member of congress and I'm running for the presidency of the United States and I'm here to talk tonight here to tell you about the creator of the universe, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

From Towleroad: A poster at Political Hotwire writes: "Apparently, the warm-up band for Bachmann was called the 'White People Soul Band'"

But another version of the video tells an entirely different story -- "Who likes wet people?" -- with telling context that's clearly been edited out in the fast-spreading one above.

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PDF download of Suw Charman’s Argleton

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Singing bird pistols

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Moogfest 2011

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Ryan Homes catalog shows shrubs planted in front of garage door

Three cheers for Ryan Homes in Plain Township, OH. They sell houses with shrubbery planted in front of the garage doors to discourage car ownership. Plus, every house comes with a goat and a cart to transport occupants to the local WalMart!

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Feds raid Gibson Guitar

Federal agents raided Gibson Guitar last week and confiscated what the Fish and Wildlife Service claim may be illegally harvested Madagascar ebony and other woods from protected forests. This follows a 2009 raid resulting in an ongoing court case, "United States of America v. Ebony Wood in Various Forms." From the Wall Street Journal:

The question in the first raid seemed to be whether Gibson had been buying illegally harvested hardwoods from protected forests, such as the Madagascar ebony that makes for such lovely fretboards. And if Gibson did knowingly import illegally harvested ebony from Madagascar, that wouldn't be a negligible offense. Peter Lowry, ebony and rosewood expert at the Missouri Botanical Garden, calls the Madagascar wood trade the "equivalent of Africa's blood diamonds." But with the new raid, the government seems to be questioning whether some wood sourced from India met every regulatory jot and tittle.

Gibson Guitar Corp CEO Henry Juszkiewicz responded in a public statement issued by the company:

The raids forced Gibson to cease manufacturing operations and send workers home for the day while armed agents executed the search warrants. “Agents seized wood that was Forest Stewardship Council controlled,” Juszkiewicz said. “Gibson has a long history of supporting sustainable and responsible sources of wood and has worked diligently with entities such as the Rainforest Alliance and Greenpeace to secure FSC-certified supplies. The wood seized on August 24 satisfied FSC standards.”

Juszkiewicz believes that the Justice Department is bullying Gibson without filing charges.

“The Federal Department of Justice in Washington, D.C. has suggested that the use of wood from India that is not finished by Indian workers is illegal, not because of U.S. law, but because it is the Justice Department’s interpretation of a law in India. (If the same wood from the same tree was finished by Indian workers, the material would be legal.) This action was taken without the support and consent of the government in India.”

"Guitar Frets: Environmental Enforcement Leaves Musicians in Fear" (Thanks, Greg Long!)

"Gibson Guitar Corp. Responds to Federal Raid"

UPDATE: Fretboard Journal's Michael Simmons, points us to "an article we did a while ago about CITES and the Lacey Act, the two laws that triggered the Gibson raid, and it gives some good background on what the issues are." A Guitar Lover’s Guide to the CITES Conservation Treaty

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Amazing Mystery Button vs Super Mystery Button

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808 Car Keys Micro video camera

Forget the GoPro and its expensive ilk: the real fun is clearly to be had with cheap, nasty, hackable spycams such as the 808 Car Keys Micro. Made to resemble a remote entry fob, the gadget records audio, shoots serviceable (YouTube) video, and costs about as much as a pizza. Aficionados pay close attention to serial numbers and other indicators of origin, as they offer clues as to the hackability and durability of otherwise indistinguishable tat. Chuck Lohr broke one apart for science, and offers hints on how to get the best ones. From way back in 2003, Dan Rutter explains the appeal of the no-nonsense bottom end: "It's cheap, it's cute, it's a camera."

Take your chances at ebay or pay a few bob more at Amazon, where one reviewer assures us that it's "an absolute piece of crap". Sold.

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Jellyfish

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Homes of the Rich: Hannibal Gaddafi

Though Muammar Gaddafi was said to be unusually frugal by the standards of Arab despots, CNN reports that his family lived a decadent and savage lifestyle that sounds like something out of Salo.

As we were about to leave, one of the staff told us there was a nanny who worked for Hannibal Gadhafi who might speak to us. He said she'd been burnt by Hannibal's wife, Aline. I thought he meant perhaps a cigarette stubbed out on her arm. Nothing prepared me for the moment I walked into the room to see Shweyga Mullah.

At first I thought she was wearing a hat and something over her face. Then the awful realization dawned that her entire scalp and face were covered in red wounds and scabs, a mosaic of injuries that rendered her face into a grotesque patchwork.

It's not the psychopaths' first rodeo, of course! Mr. and Mrs. Hannibal Gaddafi were famously arrested in Swizterland for assaulting servants in 2008. His guards were also detained, for attacking the arresting officers. Swiss president Hans-Rudolf Merz publicly apologized for the arrest.

Luxury, horror lurk in Gadhafi family compound [CNN]

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Randomly-generated globs of wool, mutant vegetables, etc.

Latest, by Justin Windle, procedurally generates bizarre organic branching things using javascript. It is open-source and easy to save your creations, though I would wash them thoroughly, if I were you, before eating them. [Soulwire via Creative Applications]

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Fight quakery! 1950s FDA public service announcement

Here's a fine old FDA public service announcement in which Raymond Massey gravely warns America to steer clear of bizarro quack devices that claim to treat arthritis with z-rays or cure cancer with music.

‘Help Stamp Out Quackery’, 1950s

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Xbox hack allows unsigned code

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Women fighters in reasonable armor

In fantasy and SF-themed art and games, females are often given ludicrously revealing "armor" that would see them dead or frozen solid within moments. Women fighters in reasonable armor is a blog dedicated to more practical-minded ladies of war.

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Sony Reader T1

Mobile Read has pics and specs for Sony's newest e-book Reader, the T1. The main new feature is that it is now made of plastic instead of metal.

Natte Hoffelder writes: "I’m disappointed. I feel that Sony continue to remain 1 step behind everyone else. I was hoping for something new and amazing, but Sony gave us an e-reader that is only an incremental improvement on the last generation."

And hardly that. The last generation of Sony's Reader was distinguished by its classy hardware, and by being small and light despite it. Unlike other brands, it offered models that fit in a pocket, had a nice feel--which is important!--and was only trivially more expensive for it.

Faced with the challenge of catching up to the Kindle and Nook in other respects, Sony instead gets rid of the only things it had over them.

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Hurricane Irene: Ultimate New Yorker Window-Boarding Job

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Hurricane Irene: Dude streaks through Weather Channel live shot (video, pic, NSFW)

[Video Link] It's not a real American disaster until some drunk idiot pranks a live TV news shot. Above, Weather Channel reporter Eric Fisher gets mooned while reporting Hurricane Irene. Full frontal dong-age occurs shortly after that.

"We're in a lull..." No, sir, you're in a LOL.

Screengrab of naked guy follows (NSFW).

(thanks to all who sent this in, screengrabbage from @alexweprin and @pyromosh)

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Space Invaders couch

I have no idea if Igor Chak's "Retro Alien" (ahem, Space Invaders) couch is comfortable, or if it looks as good in real life as it does in renders, but it sure does look good in them renders!

Retro Alien Couch by Igor Chak (Thanks, Eric!)

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Troll who harassed woman through 8,000 hate-tweets claims free speech defense

William Lawrence Cassidy is accused of posting some 8,000 tweets to harass Alyce Zeoli, who is described in this NYT article as "a Buddhist leader based in Maryland."

Using an ever-changing series of pseudonyms, the authorities say, Mr. Cassidy published thousands of Twitter posts about Ms. Zeoli. Some were weird horror-movie descriptions of what would befall her; others were more along these lines: “Do the world a favor and go kill yourself. P.S. Have a nice day.”

Here is one of them, as redacted in the criminal complaint: “A thousand voices call out to (Victim 1) and she cannot shut off the silent scream.” Another: “Ya like haiku? Here’s one for ya. Long limb, sharp saw, hard drop.”

Cassidy has been jailed on charges of online stalking and is now the subject of a federal case that suggests the question...

Is posting a public message on Twitter akin to speaking from an old-fashioned soapbox, or can it also be regarded as a means of direct personal communication, like a letter or phone call?

Read Somini Sengupta's piece in the NYT here: Man Accused of Stalking via Twitter Claims Free Speech

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Flying While Black and Reading Antique Aviation Books lands folk musician in Security Theater Hell

Via the ACLU and the Boston Globe, a first-hand account of how "security theater" makes us no safer, and a lot less free.

Massachussetts-based folk musician Vance Gilbert (Twitter), a law-abiding citizen who is black, 6 feet tall, and loves poodles, was harassed and humiliated on a flight out of Boston—apparently in part because he was reading book about old-time airplanes.

The TSA scanners and screeners had no problem with him. His problems began after he boarded his United Airlines flight, and appear to have been the work of the flight crew.

Here is his account, shared with the ACLU. He titled it "Racial Profiling First Hand," and signs the essay, "Flying While Black & Reading Antique Aviation Books." Snip:

Policeman: "Did you have a problem with your bag earlier?"

Me: "No sir, not at all. The flight attendant wanted it secured elsewhere other than behind my feet, and I opted to put it under the seat in front of me. It's my wallet, even though there's only 30 bucks in it…And all that was done without belligerence, or words for that matter…it was all good. A few beats...

Policeman: "Sir, were you looking at a book of airplanes?"

Me: "Yes sir I was. I am a musician for money, but for fun I study old aircraft and build models of them, and the book I was reading was of Polish Aircraft from 1946."

Policeman: "Would you please go get that book so that i can see it?"

I go back onto the plane - all eyes are on me like I was a common criminal. Total humiliation part 2. After a couple of minutes he says, "Why, this is all Snoopy Red Baron stuff..."

Me: "Yes sir, actually the triplane you see is Italian, from 1921 a little after World War 1..."

"Racial Profiling First Hand" (boston.com, via @lizditz)

Vance Gilbert's music is pretty great. You can buy it and support the guy here.

The ACLU is pretty great, too, and you can support them here.

Related: this Boston Globe item, "Musician ‘humiliated’ on flight." James Fallows wrote about Gilbert's ordeal in The Atlantic.

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Hurricane Irene: The art of window-boarding and the taping of stores

An image gallery that shows New Yorkers will approach any task, even boarding up windows ahead of a storm, with attitude and style. Above, a Thai restaurant chose a vibrant, complex pattern of artisanal mango-yellow tape, while the Apple Store's sandbags are "a handsome gray-green, hand-filled and -tied."

Window-Dressing the West Village and MePa for #Irene: A Case Study - Eric's posterous.

(via @seanbonner + @artfagcity)

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The MAD Fold-In Collection: 1964-2010

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Caturday: my new kitteh

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Battle for the California desert: Why is the government driving folks off their land?

[Video Link] Nick Gillespie says: "Thought you might find this new Reason.tv doc about homeowners in one of the world's great godforsaken places, the Antelope Valley, being hassled by LA County officials. Includes footage of the great "Phonehenge" house out that way."

The Antelope Valley is a vast patch of desert on the outskirts of Los Angeles County, and a segment of the few rugged individualists who live out there increasingly are finding themselves the targets of armed raids from local code enforcement agents, who've assembled into task forces called Nuisance Abatement Teams (NATs).

The plight of the Valley's desert dwellers made regional headlines when county officials ordered the destruction of Phonehenge: a towering, colorful castle constructed out of telephone poles by retired phone technician Kim Fahey. Fahey was imprisoned and charged with several misdemeanors.

But Fahey is just one of many who've been targeted by the NATs, which were assembled at the request of County Supervisor Mike Antonovich in 2006. LA Weekly reporter Mars Melnicoff wrote an in-depth article in which she exposed the county's tactic of badgering residents with minor, but costly, code violations until they face little choice but to vacate the land altogether.

"They're picking on the the people who are the most defenseless and have the least resources," says Melnicoff.

Reason.tv collaborated with Melnicoff to talk with some of the NAT's targets, such as retired veteran Joey Gallo, who might face homelessness if he's forced to leave his house, and local pastor Oscar Castaneda, who says he's already given up the fight and is in the process of moving off the land he and his wife have lived on for 22 years. And, while Antonovich declined an interview, we did catch up with him at a public meeting in order to ask the big question at the center of all this: Why the sudden enforcement of these codes against people living in the middle of the desert, who seemingly are affecting no one?

Battle for the California Desert: Why is the Government Driving Folks off Their Land?

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Hurricane Irene, as seen from space, Aug. 26, 2011

From NASA and NOAA, a "Full Disk Image of Earth" captured from the GOES-13 satellite on August 26, 2011. Hurricane Irene (NASA info page here) is now almost one-third the size of the US East Coast.

Larger image here, Flickr.

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Hurricane Irene: Links roundup

Over at Laughing Squid, Scott Beale has an excellent roundup of links for New Yorkers and all others in the storm's path this weekend: Hurricane Irene Threatens East Coast of United States.

Among them, this map of New York City hurricane evacuation zones. At the time of this blog post, NYC Mayor Bloomberg is calling for mandatory evacuation of Zone A, the orange color areas in this map. The city has never before ordered a mandatory evacuation, at any time in history.

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FBI deploys fingerprint system for mobile devices

Federal Computer Week reports on a new mobile system deployed throughout the United States that allows police officers to check fingerprints of someone, say, pulled over for a traffic stop or arrested for some reason, against a database of fingerprints belonging to high-risk offenders and terror suspects. The system is now available to thousands of state and local police nationwide.

The new Repository for Individuals of Special Concern (RISC) is part of the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) system. RISC has been tested in Texas, Florida and several other states for two years and is now being implemented nationwide, FBI officials said in a statement. (...) The NGI system compares the fingerprints against a registry of 2.5 million sets of fingerprints of wanted persons, known or “appropriately suspected” terrorists, Sex Offender Registry subjects and others, said Kevin Reid, program manager for NGI.

The database is designed to include individuals who are repeat offenders of the most serious crimes, considered the nation's "worst of the worst," he said.

The automated matching process sends a response to the officer in about 10 seconds, Reid added.

Although many states and communities have deployed mobile devices for fingerprint checks, those devices were only capable of checking local and state databases. RISC uses a national database, which can help identify individuals wanted for serious crimes in other states.

More: FBI deploys fingerprint system for mobile devices -- Federal Computer Week.

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