Ed Bear

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• Commented on Homemade globe
  I've always wanted a globe done with something like NASA's Blue Marble map - no borders etc, just a photo-accurate cloudless globe. I suppose I could do it with the tools presented here, but this isn't my skill set at...
• Commented on Hitler: football coach?
  Obvious trolls are pretty obvious, one would think....
• Commented on What MP3 player should I buy?
  Somehow I'd never managed to hear about Rockbox before today - just installed it on my old Sansa E260. Very deeply awesome. Thanks to all for mentioning it....
• Commented on Hallowe'en is safe, your kids are safe, the only scary thing is the warnings
  Got an actual staple in a chocolate bar once, but it was a factory error, not human depravity. I sent it back via the mail with an explanation and got a "sorry for your inconvenience, not that we admit to...
• Commented on Aurora Monster Model kits reborn
  I haven't thought about these for probably 35 years! Serious blast from the past - I'm glad to see someone is preserving them in some way....
• Favorited Santa Claus Conquers the Martians gets the Mystery Science 3000 treatment from Cinematic Titanic on Boing Boing
• Favorited Steampunk typewriter key jewelry -- Boing Boing Gadgets on Boing Boing
• Favorited Steve Martin on being funny on Boing Boing
• Commented on Bruce Sterling on our global psychosis, ca. 2009
  Mr. Gibson says: "As 2009 opens, our financial institutions are deep in massive, irrational panic. " He's rather badly wrong right at the outset - the current distress about as irrational as being upset by your liver cancer. There's a...
• Commented on "Citizen videos" spread online showing BART police officer shooting unarmed man to death
  "Every year, law enforcement becomes more and more corrupt. " I think things like this have always gone on, but in the past it would have been the words of several police officers against those of a few people they...
• Commented on DIY biohackers in the news
  Warming yourself with a couple of balls of subcritical uranium has at least a clearly defined Bad Outcome - it's not at all obvious what baroque series of unlikely events would have to happen to bring forth the extreme scenarios....
• Commented on DIY biohackers in the news
  Speaking as someone else who has spent many an hour doing work which would be broadly classed as "genetic engineering" by the criteria of this article, the notion that people are going to be creating superbug variants or bringing back...
• Commented on PJ O'Rourke on Disney's Future Schlock
  Institutional futurism is never really about the future anyway. One level of Disney's 1960-style House Of The Future was really about what was supposedly stable - Dad still read the paper in his chair, and Mom ruled the (shiny new)...
• Commented on Santa Claus Conquers the Martians gets the Mystery Science 3000 treatment from Cinematic Titanic
  I've been enjoying Mike Nelson's Rifftrax efforts for a while now (even without the bots it still sounds like Mike, Tom Servo, and Crow riffing the films). I too got turned off by the first Cinematic Titanic effort but I'd...
• Commented on Your Virtual Girlfriend
  Japanese people have sex less frequently than every other nationality...They have substituted fetish for sex. How could it be then that Japanese symbolism-sublimation would be so popular amongst the net denizen demographic? Oh, wait......
• Commented on Interview with Crowleyana collector
  Whoops - goes to show you how errors propagate on the net. I actually googled the spelling prior to posting it, and I guess I reiterated the errors on several other web pages....
• Commented on Interview with Crowleyana collector
  Re #4, Alfie - If it worked in the dark roots of the space program in Nazi slave labour at Penamunda as well that would be great. The Lovecraftian underbelly of one of humanity's most amazing technological achievements isn't as...
• Commented on Vlad and Boris: Love Song for Sarah Palin, our Alaskan Neighbor
  Awesome. This is my new favorite thing for today....
• Commented on True nature of science fiction and fantasy books revealed through photoshopped covers
  Not sure what the hate for SRD is all about - I can't slog my way through the Covenant books these days, but they were The Greatest Thing Ever when I was 15, and I'm happy enough with what I...
• Commented on Cool photoblog: elders with style
  Fedoras pretty much look like an affectation on anyone under 40, but they're still a fully awesome hat. Personally the ability to dress up in jacket, tie, and fedora on a daily basis is one of the few things I'm...
• Commented on James Howard Kunstler's "Eyesore of the Month"
  Harbinger of social dysfunction is a bit much, but tattoos are just temporarily trendy and permanently ugly....
• Commented on Security guards beat man in soccer arena, then get beat up by players, fans
  Takuan's comment is excellent. The police *should* fear the people more than a little, and should be aware that their monopoly on violence rests on a consensus which can be revoked. Similarly the rulers should always be aware of the...
• Commented on A quick and dirty Japanese humor tutorial
  There's probably a connection there in terms of why something as ridiculous as the "Yatta" video works for me on a similar level to Monty Python - both are extremes of silliness arising out of cultures with pretty strong traits...
• Commented on Help dress the set for the next season of The IT Crowd
  SAMF - I hear you. All the same the anti-geek laughter goes back a long way indeed; look up the story of Thales and the slave girl. Fact is we probably hit the anti-nerd prejudice at a high (or low?)...
• Commented on Help dress the set for the next season of The IT Crowd
  No geekery? I agree that it veers very far away at times, but there's some Grade-A material as well. Moss and Roy confronted by the Soccer Ball Of Doom in the park. I just paid a pound not to go...
• Commented on UFO turns out to be, er, something commonplace
  I was always willing to give the UFO nuts the benefit of the doubt - certainly there were lots of strange accounts from apparently reliable sources. But now the entire surface of the planet is saturated with phone cameras. Result:...
• Commented on Harpo Marx on the origin of the "Gookie"
  I don't know what the big deal is. Clearly Harpo's funny face is definitively steampunk....
• Commented on Roy Christopher's annual "Summer Reading List"
  I'd argue that things really began spinning apart for the West 50 years prior to that, on the killing fields of France....
• Commented on 5th foot found washed up in B.C.
  Actually I've heard quite a few people talking about the feet / missing men connection, but the media doesn't seem to have picked up on it at all. A few weeks worth of DNA testing could confirm or discredit...
• Commented on Terrifying early-1950s comic book covers
  #4 (Takuan) - That's always been my question too - to what degree are seeing the visual evidence of traumas from WW2? I recall similar stuff in carnival midways as late as the early to mid 1970's - "Houses of...