The Latest from Boing Boing

Shanghainese disco bunny steals UK govt official's heart, nicks his Blackberry Posted: 20 Jul 2008 04:22 AM CDT A top aide to UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown was seduced by a hot woman he met in a Shanghai disco, who came back to his hotel room. In the morning, his (unencrypted) Blackberry was gone. Crypto: 1, Penis: 0. The group stayed at the disco for at least two hours. One senior aide was approached by an attractive Chinese woman. The couple danced and later disappeared together. The security official said: "In these circumstances it was not wise. Nobody knows exactly what happened after they left. But the next morning he came forward and said: "My BlackBerry is missing." The prime minister's Special Branch protection team were alerted. Link (via /.)

Star Wars photoshopping contest Posted: 20 Jul 2008 03:25 AM CDT Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: Star Wars meets fine art. There are so many fantastic entries here -- I was very hard pressed to pick a favorite (pet, shown here). Other noteworthies: Thomas Kinkade with AT-AT, King Jabba VIII, Vitruvian Wookiee, Da Vinci's R2 plans, Napoleon Vaderpart and Vaderhol. Link

Laptop lounge chair Posted: 20 Jul 2008 03:18 AM CDT Robin Carpenter's (concept?) design for a laptop chair really strikes a chord with me. My house and office always seem to be a minefield of laptops balanced on chair-arms or stood on edge on the floor. I'd love to be able to pop the little guy down beside me and pick up the paper for a bit without risking sending him crashing to the ground. Link (via Cribcandy)

Survival Research Labs benefit for Todd Blair tonight in SF Posted: 20 Jul 2008 02:14 AM CDT Eddie Codel reminds us that tonight (Sunday, July 20) is the big benefit for SRL member Todd Blair, in San Francisco. You don't have to be there in person to help. Snip: Todd Blair, whom I've known since 1999 through Survival Research Labs, suffered a traumatic head injury last year at the Robodock SRL show in Amsterdam. I posted previously about it here. He's back home in the US slowly and arduously recovering. Traumatic brain injuries are probably the worst kind of injury a human being could suffer, and it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. To help offset Todd's massive medical and physical therapy bills, a fundraiser event is being held this Sunday, July 20th. It's not just an event, but a culmination of lots of work and dedication from Todd's friends and family with some unique creative twists. The event on Sunday will be the unveiling of the "gear wall". The 7' x 8' wall consists of 25 interlocking aluminum gears built by 25 friends and artists who have committed to raising a minimum of $500 each. Gearing up for fundraiser for Todd Blair [eddie.com] Todd Blair Benefit: The Wall [srl.org]

Cold Boot Encryption Attack - code release Posted: 19 Jul 2008 04:02 PM CDT Jacob Appelbaum, one of the security researchers who worked on the paper cold boot attack on encryption keys (featured in a previous BBtv episode, above) tells Boing Boing the code has just been released today at the [last] HOPE hacker con in NYC. It's up, it's signed, and here it is. Memory Research Project Source Code [Princeton.edu] Previously on Boing Boing: BBtv "Hacker HOWTO": Cold Boot Encryption Attack. Complete list of authors for the original paper, "Lest We Remember: Cold Boot Attacks on Encryption Keys": J. Alex Halderman, Seth D. Schoen, Nadia Heninger, William Clarkson, William Paul, Joseph A. Calandrino, Ariel J. Feldman, Jacob Appelbaum, and Edward W. Felten.

Murky Coffee's owner responds to espresso-over-ice kerfuffle Posted: 19 Jul 2008 04:09 PM CDT On July, I posted a funny rant from Jeff Simmermon of And I Am Not Lying who ordered a triple-shot of espresso over ice at Murky Coffee in Arlington, VA. He said the barista told him he couldn't have it, and the incident turned into a caffeinated remake of Five Easy Pieces. Here's an excerpt from lengthy and interesting response from Nick Cho, the owner of Murky Coffee: The customer in question, when told that it's our policy NOT to offer "espresso over ice," got angry right away. Regardless of how you feel about the merits of our policy, the fact that he got angry (in my opinion) is the crux of the matter. There are things in life to get angry about. There are matters that demand an elevated heart rate. This is not one of them. The other thing that's worth mentioning is that David, the barista in question, contrary to what many seem to believe, was NOT voicing his objection to the espresso over ice per se. He was admonishing him for his poor behavior toward the barista at the register, and toward our policy. Many have written me saying, "Once it's in the customer's hands, it's out of your hands." That's absolutely true. David was telling the customer that it wasn't okay that he'd act-out to the staff the way he was. As in the guy's own blog-recounting of the incident, David was interrupted before he could finish, and Mr. Simmermon proceeded to mock David, then following it up with the infamous dollar-bill. The guy admitted on his own blog that he "acted like a total dick here." He also writes, "But it's not like I didn't have probable cause." I'd hope that something like a coffeeshop policy about what we do or don't offer doesn't constitute "probable cause" for this sort of behavior. BY the way, Nick runs a great coffee podcast, called The Portafilter. Murky Coffee Follow Up

Early 20th c. George Eastman House photos now on Flickr Posted: 19 Jul 2008 03:54 PM CDT The 1910 autochrome of medieval cosplayers, cropped above, and the monkey-on-a-rhino gelatin print below are in a set of early 20th century photographs from The George Eastman House, which has joined the flickr commons. I spotted this on photographer Raul Gutierrez' blog (a regular source of joy for me), and there he wrote: Flickr Commons is a fantastic idea. My wish is that the whole thing could be taken further. Imagine an open source version of flickr dedicated to showing artwork and photography from public institutions in which users had the opportunity to contribute scholarly work or to group images into collections. George Eastman House's photostream [Flickr] I also loved this photo of Egyptian women in beautiful dresses; a woman in a fur throw with a corsage, and this stunning, simple portrait. Also, baby rhinos!

Profiles of two Japanese artists Posted: 19 Jul 2008 03:39 PM CDT On her Tokyomango blog, Lisa Katayama profiled two fascinating Japanese artists I'd never heard of: Yayoi Kusama (L) and Mariko Mori (R). Kusama lives in a mental hospital near her studio in Tokyo because psychiatrists don't understand how her complex brain functions (she's obviously a genius). She turns 80 next year, but that hasn't stopped her momentum of obsessive, repetitive dot-drawing. Dot dot dot dot dot. That's what she sees, so that's what she draws. Abused as a child, suicidal as a teen, and plagued with OCD for the ensuing half century and beyond, she has often claimed that her objective in life is to obliterate herself and her world through art. The dots, Kusama has said, symbolize disease: she often covers herself in them, and when that's not enough, she covers museum walls, random objects, and public statues in them as well. Of course, her art is so famous and cool that nobody objects. Walking into a Kusama-dotted room really feels like walking into an alternate universe. Mori isn't afraid to combine aliens with Buddhas or to experiment with materials and concepts normally unheard of in the art world. She spent part of her thirties voyaging to historic sites across the world in a time-traveling alien pod. When she got back, she created the Wave UFO, a giant teardrop-shaped spaceship that shows visitors their brainwaves as projections on the wall while they sit in Technogel lounge chairs. "The past, present, and future exist in harmony in her work," says Stover. "It represents the space-ageyness of Japan." Futurist Japanese Artists Show Us Life in the Next Century (Tokyomango)

Software to video meteors (and other stuff in the sky) Posted: 19 Jul 2008 03:20 PM CDT UFOCapture is a Windows application that helps you videotape meteors and other fast-moving stuff in space. You hook up a sensitive video camera to your computer, point it out your window, and while you slumber, the software saves all the good bits. It's full of falling stars! But wait a minute. There are even more videos from this same user. Does he waste every night looking at the sky? Does he goes through hundreds of hours of videos searching for meteors? Is this a hoax? No, he just uses a fantastic piece of software that automates mostly everything: the UFOCaptureV2! It's joined by the UFOAnalyzer and the UFOOrbit. The whole package automates the process of detecting unusual phenomena in the sky, and even attempts to automatically classify and analyze it. Check the samples of videos captured by the software: meteors, birds et al and, what I was quite skeptical when I first saw it, even sprites, elves and jets! Of course, it wouldn't be worth its name if it didn't also capture UFOs. The software is free for use for 30 days, and the price is more than worth it, as the developer actively adds features and corrects bugs, being also available in support forums. For less than U$5,000 one would be able to set up a system, and that's from scratch: the most expensive parts would be the high-sensitivity night camera and associated optics, and the dedicated PC. This is my favorite. What is it? Link (Forgetomori)

Photo of people flinching at a flying baseball bat Posted: 19 Jul 2008 03:03 PM CDT Not sure of the source of this photo posted on Arbroath's blog (a detail is shown here), but I imagine the looks of surprise on the people's faces are a goldmine for researchers like Paul Ekman, who study facial expressions and emotions. Flying baseball bat scares people (Arbroath)

More conversations with GM's fuel cell technology director, Chris Borroni-Bird Posted: 18 Jul 2008 05:32 PM CDT Chris Borroni-Bird is the director of Advanced Technology Vehicle Concepts at GM. He's leading the effort at GM to make fuel cell vehicles, based on a "skateboard" style chassis called AUTOnomy that incorporates the fuel cell, motors and electronics control. GMnext kindly invited me to visit with Dr. Borroni-Bird and have a discussion with him about "innovation, technology, energy, the environment, and their impact on the future of the automobile." He's a fascinating innovator with ideas that could change transportation around the world. I hope he succeeds. Here are more videos from our conversation. (Note: GMnext compensated me for my video appearance.) Link Chris Borroni-Bird and Mark Frauenfelder in conversation (GM Next)

Air Force defies Congress, spends anti-terrorism money on "comfort capsules" with "aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings" Posted: 19 Jul 2008 01:21 PM CDT From the WashPo: The Air Force's top leadership sought for three years to spend counterterrorism funds on "comfort capsules" to be installed on military planes that ferry senior officers and civilian leaders around the world ... Air Force documents spell out how each of the capsules is to be "aesthetically pleasing and furnished to reflect the rank of the senior leaders using the capsule," with beds, a couch, a table, a 37-inch flat-screen monitor with stereo speakers, and a full-length mirror.' Congress told the USAF twice that they could not spend the money on this frivolous project, but they did it anyway... Changing the seat color and pockets alone was estimated in a March 12 internal document to cost at least $68,240... Air Force documents about the SLICC, dated June 8, 2006, emphasize the need to install "aesthetically pleasing wall treatments/coverings" -- in addition to the monitor, footrests and a DVD player. The beds, according to one document, must be able to support a man with "no more than 50% compression of the mattress material." The seats are to swivel such that "the longitudinal axis of the seat is parallel to the longitudinal axis of the aircraft" regardless of where the capsules are facing, the document specified... The e-mails state that McMahon ordered that the seats be re-covered, and one e-mail complains that the contractor "would not swap out the brown seat belts for replacement blue seat belts." The changes delayed the project by months and added to its cost. Link (via /.)

Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets Posted: 19 Jul 2008 11:18 AM CDT Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we saw that the Duke Nukem trailer is the best thing at E3; that the Psystar case could be a mistake for Apple; and that LED candles can look nice after all. John took a look at the awfully-named Zen Krystal "sports" MP3 player and a GPS car-tracker that's making a liar out of a traffic cop; Joel saw Ubisoft distributing crackers' fixes for video games and a neat look at design trends in Apple's official iPod docks; and Rob procrastinated and went to the DMV. We learned the pros and cons of walled gardens; saw Sesame Street rescue a song ruined by use in an iPod ad; and watched the Fraunhofer institute wave an iPhone in sync with Radiohead's open-source music video. Radioshack is to redesign its stores; Nvidia and ATI/AMD aren't looking so hot in the courtroom; and there are Guitar Hero-style T-shirts for all the instruments under the spittle-flecked ceiling