Here's a theoretical.

There's a company with its own wind farm whose parking lot and offices are roofed over with solar panels.

They pipe the juice into a condenser which sucks CO2 out of the air and turns it into inert bricks.*

Would an offset certificate from them be acceptable?

I'm taking up a collection to send polomoche a big box of superfluous gears. Anyone in with me?

They look like such fine young men. I bet the Army could find something to do with them.

google "fud"

Would destroying a neighbor's Hummer or Escalade count as a carbon offset?

With what gas costs, they might be grateful.

My dog would love toys that she could eviscerate herself. It's no fun when a car has done half the job.

Kira, squirrel

Actual road kill squirrel.

#8: Wander the streets screaming and mumbling at nobody in particular.

If you do this enough, people will come up to you and give you money and/or paper bags containing sandwiches and cups of coffee.

"This is the way the world ends . . . not with a bang, but with a Honk! Honk!"

"The street will find its own use for technology." -- William Gibson

You'd better believe it.

#21: Where it's called "Kinderwurst", which I would loosely translate into "Kids sausage".

Please, please, please tell me there was supposed to be an apostrophe after "Kids" in that sentence.

I want to see a charter school for Mall Ninjas.

I love this one:

Crow and Wolf

There's something really sweet about the characters.

What is that they have balanced there? A bale of wood shavings for hamster cages? A package disposable diapers? A shrink-wrapped bundle of floor tiles?

#118: "Zealotry kills people, no matter upon what that zealotry is based."

I think that's spot on.

Marjane Satrapi, author and artist of the Persepolis books, said that we're not in a war between East and West, we're in a war between smart people and narrow-minded people.

The sleep of reason breeds monsters.

#1: RE location of Pullman's books:

I went to a local Barnes & Noble today to get a gift for my mother; Pullman's Lyra's Oxford. I found the three "His Dark Materials" novels, in several editions, on the main SF&F shelves.

I'd pretty much given up when a clerk passed by and asked me if I was looking for something in particular.

She led me to the YA section, and there was the book . . . along with another edition of the "His Dark Materials" novels and a brand new novelette in overpriced hardcover form.

#53: Minus the talent and good looks.

I actually think Stein is talented, and his looks are perfectly suited to his persona.

This doesn't mean he isn't wrong, wrong, wrong.

There's something that isn't getting picked up on enough here:

I don't think it really matters to Ben Stein, or the creepy moralizing social engineers at The Discovery Institute, whether ID is valid or defensible.

The whole ID thing is a ruse. It's a tool. Specifically, it's the "wedge" of the Wedge Document.

What this whole thing is about is unimaginative conservatives who are scared shitless of the modern world. They're trying roll back Modernity and bring us back to a time when moralizing blowhards called the shots.

Go read the fricking "Wedge Strategy." That the game plan. Expelled is one of the moves of Phase II.

If you look real careful, you'll see that the bear has a coin slot in his left paw.

.20 Euro for five minutes of . . . I'm sorry, I just plain run out of ideas.

I'm pretty sure this is a dubbed version of an American film. Something I saw just recently, in fact.

"This elevator only goes down. And someone made an awwwwful mess down there." -- Abe Simpson.

I'd put a link here to Patrick Farley's utterly brilliant alternate-history Afghan War web comic The Spiders, in which President Gore deploys an army of citizen-telecontrolled robot spies to Afghanistan after the attacks of 9/12.

But I can't, because Farley let the domain for his site expire.

Imperial hip flasks held 13.2 Oz.

From 1964:

The electric age of servomechanisms suddenly releases men from the mechanical and specialist servitude of the preceding machine age. As the machine and the motorcar released the horse and projected it into the plane of entertainment, so does automation with men. We are suddenly threatened with a liberation that taxes our inner resources of self-employment and imaginative participation in society." . . .

". . . the social and educational patterns latent in automation are those of self-employment and artistic autonomy. Panic about automation as a threat of uniformity on a world scale is the projection into the future of mechanical standardization and specialism, which are now past."

#37: "95% of anything is crap."

Sir, please do your homework before you quote the great Theodore Sturgeon.

It's 90%. You've gone and halved the amount of non-crap in their world.

I look forward to more segments! I actually went to a comic book convention today (Stumptown Comic Fest, in Portland) and had fun buying seventy bucks worth of strange little comix.

#13: I still have a few of those complex old boardgames. They still tug at my mind even though I haven't opened them up for years. An you know, the other day while walking the dog I found myself DESIGNING board game mechanics in my head. Something involving chits representing magic books allowing Junior sorcerer characters to advance to Master status. Thing is, I have no clear idea what game these are for. There's probably a pharmaceutical for this condition.

I'm an old time gamer. One of the books I'm reading this week is "Hobby Games: The 100 Best." Steve Jackson Games is editing a manuscript of mine now. I like seeing people enthuse about games.

But you know, when you're covering a comic convention, I wanna see comics! I was hoping to see guys squatting behind their tables pitching their latest indie title.

OK Mr. VP, how about some Linux support you evangelizing freak?

My new MythTV box has a nForce 630a / 7050pv and there are no Linux- specific drivers for it.

What's all this brouhaha?

Rocketeers do it on impulse.

[fireman]
I known fellers like that.
[/fireman]

My mother took my sister and me. I was maybe four.

I remember the globe and the big pavilions (one of which had a giant stained-glass roof, now gone) and the elevators to the rotating restaurants. I recall being disappointed that we didn't get to ride in them; the colorful cars seemed so futuristic!

We saw "It's a small, small world," which was incredibly hyped on kiddie TV at the time but kind of underwhelmed me . . . it was over so quick!

I got a felt pennant as a souvenir. Saw a phony robot that just kind of wobbled around and made buzzing noises.

#4: The one on the California coast, meant for launching military missions on polar-crossing orbits?

#5: After the Morlocks who lived under Teletubby Land boiled out of their lairs to feast on their overworld oppressors, Noonoo made his way to London and ekes out a living as a highly specialized sex worker.

Hey. You asked.

I'm going to pass on the Faire this year, but hope to see lots of cool video coverage.

Any god responsible for the being which wrote #153 needs to repeat Design 101.

#6:

IM-PRO-VISE!

At the very least, you could use these as sets for post-holocaust SF movies.

"let's play stern Dalek and recalcitrant Time Lord"

PEN-NA-TRATE!

Only in Japan. Figures. We'll probably get a Shrek head.

#2: A neighbor had one of those! I remember badgering her until she cooked one up for me. Nothing to write home about.

I've love to see BBTV adaptations of Rob Cockerham's stories.

#2: There were reports of Tibetian splittists and hooligans causing trouble there. Damn their evil theocratic hearts!

If they played this at work, everyone would be skipping through the aisles and snapping their fingers and wondering where they could rent a wood chipper to shove their heads in.

#14: I vaguely remember balloons like this too, w/o the talking tape.

The "feet" were flat cardboard cut-outs with a hole that the knotted mouth of the balloon was pulled through.

I seem to remember a clown balloon.

Not so much spam as flame-bait.

In any case, reported.

That was hilarious!

Aren't some insects kosher? That would make certain aliens fit for noshing.

Not a bad looking theme park, really.

Crapping babies aside.

Has anyone seen the wretched things that Disney does with Mickey these days?

He's been CGIed and lobotomized and neotonized and put him on a toddler-friendly Disney channel show.

#31: Yes, but they're liberated dead Iraquis!

A guy wrote to the local paper (The Oregonian) a month or two back. Paraphrasing: "The war wasn't about oil or fighting terror, it was about liberating the Iraqi people! It's called 'Operation Iraqi Freedom,' right? And we succeeded! Nyah! Nyah!"

You can fool some of the people all of the time...

"A Modest Proposal" would be more apropos than Soylent Green.

#18: So they'll work it all out if they're left to themselves?

What will the sizable Haitian expat community think of that? Or the Dominican Republic? Or the Coast Guard, which would have to deal with the refugees? Or the DEA, after Haiti becomes a failed state and drug dealers turn it into their bitch?

Haiti could be the poster child for compassion fatigue, but not caring won't help any better than helping in the wrong way.

Yeah, the whole Ethanol boondoggle is maddening.

I saw we start a petition to demand that Midwestern farmers and politicians do something to help, by shipping good old American prairie soil to Haiti.

If you're going to eat dirt, it may as well be the best dirt in the world!

(I'm allowed to joke about this because I donate to Oxfam and the Heifer Project.)

Well, this sucks. I have maybe a half-dozen nalgene bottles. I use them for carrying water on hikes and in the car.

What I might do is save them for storing emergency wash and flush water.

I wrote a section about hitchhiking for the "Worldchanging" book.

Several nations encouraged the practice. The Soviets issued coupon books to riders; truckers who picked you up got a coupon. Don't know what they were good for; maybe if you saved up a hundred you got a Hero of People's Transportation Medal.

One high-tech alternative: cell phone-mediated hitchhiking networks. Everyone who wanted to participate would register, and have their photo and address on record. You could text in a request or your availability and then meet your ride or rider at a designated spot.

Cripes, tell me about it.

I stop by a lot of dumpsters to toss in bags of dog crap. It is rare not to see TVs, computers, and for some reason lots of computer speakers in there.

I take out stuff that could be reused or donated to Goodwill. I drop recyclables at Freegeek in downtown Portland.

I'd love to see my apartment complex fine people who ditched televisions and monitors. Or maybe bit the bullet and offer to pay the recycling fee.

I've said it before:

1,000 people in Guy Fawkes masks with cameras.

More alarmist nonsense from Boing Boing.

Everyone knows that you get camera licenses from the same bureau that issues Fish Licenses.

Rocky the flying squirrel: "Awww! What kind of game can you play with girls?"

Bullwinkle: "Huh, this really is a kiddie show, isn't it . . . Parcheesi, of course!"

I was really good at operating the filmstrip projector. It always ticked me off when another kid got the job and messed up.

#2: I remember Uncle Smiley! The school showed his films when stuff was canceled and there was time to fill.

Uncle Smiley episode guide

You know those big transparent blue plastic jugs that water-cooler water comes in?

If you fill those with kraut juice and put it in your apartment building's elevator, you won't be bothered by vampires or werewolves.

Really, try it.

What's next, yiffing in darn?

Or -- big leap -- yiffing in drat!

#4: Hillbillies can afford dentists. But they keep shooting them because they think they're revenooers.

Yeah. Trail of wrappers. Has the makings of a really short episode of CSI.

MMMM. Better yet, Law & Order. But while the identity of the thieves will be determined quickly, by the end of act one we'll learn that the baby didn't belong to Christine.

Or maybe the four young rocket scientists will start coughing up blood because . . .

. . . well, I should stop giving away ideas for free. If there's another writer's strike I am SO going to be a scab!

Gallun was invited to I-Con, a campus-based SF convention, each year from the early 1980s until his death. A reserved but funny guy. It was fun watching younger pros meet him. ("Holy crap . . . Raymond Z. Gallun!?!?! And you're still writing?")

Gallun's style is dated, but he had some amazingly brilliant ideas. One of his shorts, "The Seeds of Dusk," is wonderfully creepy and sad. It's about a dying far-future Earth that is invaded by spore-born creatures from an even worse-off Mars. A semi-intelligent crow tries to warn humanity's degenerate decedents.

There were three accomplices . . . four if you count the baby.

This young lady needs to grow up. Someone in her situation should be eating something more nutritious than candy. Shouldn't she be stealing Hot Pockets or frozen pizza or Spaghetti-O's instead?

The personal recollection angle is new, so this isn't a total repeat.

#7: Yes, that's the one.

The ice pond research is described in one of Freeman Dyson's books. Taylor was leading a team of Princeton students.

Theodore Taylor did some research on "ice ponds" that would do for A/C what this trick does for refrigeration.

An office building would set up on the edge of a parking lot a big swimming pool like structure. Ice and snow would be plowed into it. At the end of winter it would be covered over. When A/C season swings around, the pond would be used as a heat sink, greatly decreasing electrical demand.

#46: most Liberals swooning over the supposed wonderland of "Communist" Cuba,

Oh, bullshit.

That's as valid as saying that "most Conservatives long for the days of slavery."

Not Atomic Age . . . Dingbat Age!

Devil: "HAW HAW HAW!"

"I DO NOT UNDERSTAND YOUR COMMAND MISTRESS . . . HOW CAN I 'POLISH YOUR RUG'? THE FLOOR IS OF SYNTHA- LINOLEUM AND IS NOT CARPETED. IT DOES NOT COMPUTE."

My sister works, or worked, for an organization that rehabilitated abandoned pit bulls. It's awful work, because so many of the dogs don't have a chance. (Some are all chewed up and scarred . . . often, they're dogs who weren't aggressive enough and were used as targets for the fighters.)

She has a foster doggy now who is coming along fine. It takes a lot of work to get them to the point where they can be adopted and be around other dogs.

I really think dog owners should be licensed. Not expensive, but requiring attending a class and taking a test. If you're too lazy or stupid to do that, you shouldn't be trusted with a dog.

My parents were convinced by a family friend to see 2001 under the influence of pot brownies.

My mom took us kids to see it a week later. I was six. I was utterly hooked on SF after that. No pot necessary.

There's an old Whole Earth Review article in which a guy describes his friend chomping down on the leg of a police officer.

The guy tried, and succeeded, in getting the dog to let go by implementing a bit of street wisdom on the subject:

He jammed his finger in the dog's ass.

Apparently this convinces the dog he's being assaulted (accurately, as it happens) and turn his attention to other things.

The cop shot the dog, and the narrator and his friend were arrested. It's been a while, but I recall the guy took the cop to lunch to show he had no hard feelings.

"It's worse than China..."

Well, except for the cold jail cells and truncheons.

Oooooh! Statists and communitarians coming to eat our lunch and take away our SUVs!

I guess that's progress. Last year's talking points called the whole climate change thing a hoax cooked up by climatologists who wanted to scare people into giving them grant money.

My first computer was an IBM PC, but I got a used Atari 800 a few years later because the games were better.

Those thick daisy-chain cables were a royal pain in the ass. They leaked RF like crazy. I remember arranging and rearranging things to minimize the interference with the TV.

It was a good time to get Atari stuff. Liquidators were selling peripherals and cartridges really cheap. I had most of the peripherals shown here, except I had a different (daisy wheel) printer.

I dragged a cubic yard of Atari crap with me when I moved to California. It was crammed in a corner of my living room until I decided that I'd never use it again. I sold everything to a delighted collector for $20.

In the movie Soylent Green, Edward G. Robinson's character complains about the greenhouse effect . . . and the reason that Soylent Corporation was harvesting corpses was that the main ingredient of Soylent Green crackers, krill, was unavailable because the ocean ecosystems had crashed.

Nah, that could never happen.

Please continue shopping. Metal detectors and anti-tiger rocks have been placed at all entrances to the mall.

In related news, Sheldrake's neighbors report that his dog is barking her head off, and spelled out "BWARE MASTER MAN WITH NIFE!" in pee.

I'd like to take a picture of Dick Cheney with one of these, to see what hideous alien creature manipulates his bloated human shell.

I wonder how many people, twenty years down the road when all the dirty laundry has been dug up and classified memos published, will actually admit to having voted for Bush.

"Oh, I was a Republican back then, but I could tell he wasn't a real conservative."

What Moon (#6) said. Invest in alternative energy.

#11: I was thinking Law & Order.

Dum-DUM!

The squirrel was roadkill. Really fresh.

I had to walk a quarter mile home with her carrying the thing because she would not let go. So, I figured I'd get a photo-op out of it, then offer her a sardine or something in hope she'd drop the corpse.

As it happened, the camera flash scared her into dropping the squirrel.

#35: It was dead when she found it.

You know, it might be worth the risk of arrest and public humiliation to sneak into strangers' houses and install these while they're out.

At the very least, these should be installed and left behind in hotel rooms you visit.

I walk my dog between a mile and two miles every morning and evening.

It's what lets me keep a dog like this in an apartment.

If anyone wants to pay me for the privilege of walking Kira, I'll send you my PayPal address and arrange a schedule.

Bonus: Sometimes you come home with two animals.

#27: Oh, I know that. I did say analog TV. There will be a time next year when the analog stations sign off forever.

Another cartoon about the dangers of the Large Hadron Collider:

http://www.overcompensating.com/

(March 28th installment.)

Eighty seven and still working!

I was a total MAD (and CRAZY and CRACKED) fanatic as a young teen. Jaffe's stuff was some of my favorites. I remember one feature about recycling, and another about creative ways to deal with dog crap. He substituted little piles of link sausages for the poop-piles, but it still seemed really daring for the time.

I remember sign-ONS. I used to get up really early to watch cartoons on Saturday morning.

There'd be static at first, then a test pattern, then a slide with a voiceover: "Station blah-blah-blah now begins its programming day. Broadcasting on a frequency of yadda-yadda-kilohertz, blah-blah-blah, FCC, public interest . . ."

Followed by the national anthem over stock footage of B-52s and the Statue of Liberty, a sermon, and finally cartoons . . .

I have a little analogy TV and a pair of rabbit ears. I intend to use it to watch the last analog broadcasts go off the air . . .

Goobah-gabba, Goobah-gabba
We accept her, we accept her
Goobah-gabba, Goobah-gabba
One of us, one of us

#9 "I always wonder what one does all day in such a world."

Well, I notice there are no leaves on the ground, or dirt on the sidewalk, so you'll need to spend a lot of time picking up and scrubbing. When that's done, well, you smile and stare off into the Future, when things will be even better.

#103: Uh, Michael? Do you really want to give them ideas?

@81: Well, we know they sell Kool-Aid.

Mark Frauenfelder in a Cupcake

David Pescovitz in a Cupcake

We should get this guy a speaking engagement at one of those meetings where movement conservatives congratulate each other on their brilliance.

Of course, he might convince them about the flat earth thing, and end up paying for a giant watch tower so Homeland Security can keep tabs on everybody.

Pshhht. This problem could be fixed tout-sweet by switching the contract over to a Halliburton subsidiary. Any profits accumulated to date would be wiped out way quick.

#10: Yeah, same here.

I realized that N&P had gone off the rails -- no, rather, were on their own private railroad that had video monitors rather than windows looking out onto the real world -- when I re-read "Oath of Fealty."

Pournelle never seems to have gotten over having been taken seriously by the Reagan administration twenty years back, when he and Niven were part of General Graham's (sp?) push to get the "Star Wars" / SDI project funded.

Brin was talking about involving citizens in civil defense and disaster preparedness . . . the "we" was "us" in this case.

Over in his blog, he described the SIGMA meeting as a disaster.

This story reminds me of a great David Byrne song:

Now I'm You're Mom. From the "Uh-Oh" album.

Last week NPR's "Fresh Air" had an interview with a veterinarian who had written a memoir. One of his patients was a dog who had to be both spayed and neutered. Don't know how functional s/he was before the surgery...

This can't be linked to enough:
The Wedge Strategy.
A cynical, blunt strategy document by the Discovery Institute, laying out what they want and how they intend to do it.

Something to keep in mind, RE hoarding-guns-and-ramen scenarios:

Situations like this mess, Y2K, and the Bird Flu scare bring out people who are in the business of selling fear and selling with fear. They do it to sell books and videos and lectures, for personal aggrandizement, and to grind ideological axes.

You know the type, right? Grim, authoritative, good at getting Rotary Clubs to get the newsletter or check out the website. They get their fifteen minutes and then are only remembered when you see their books at Goodwill.

Put another way: Panic and fear empower assholes and opportunists who will make things worse, not better.

#81: "she also learned how to shoot a hobo who broke into her farmhouse looking for a meal"

Did your great-grandmother leave you any recipes for hobo?

I remember watching Jack's show on early-morning TV when I was a kid. He and his wife (?) and white German shepherd dog would . . . well, eat well, exercise, and sing, I guess. It's been an awfully long time . . .

Something I daydreamed while walking the dog this morning:

Every time a bill is passed for emergency war funding, each citizen is issued a bill for an equal share.

That's every citizen. Every newborn, every 90 year old in a nursing home, Bill Gates, and the crazy guy living under a bridge. No exemptions.

The bill would be payable within a month to the office of your local congress person.

#71: "why can't the problem be solved by removing bills from circulation?"

I would be happy to dispose of any bills that bOING bOING readers would like to part with.

There's a 25% handling fee, but I will guarantee that 75% of the bills sent me will be shredded, burned, mixed into Plaster of Paris blocks and thrown at the heads of mortgage bankers.

One thing we really need schools to teach is economic education. Not the high-faluting theoretical stuff that the convention suite libertarians wank off too, but survival skills.

The problem is, if it's at all good, it could come across as seriously paranoid anti-business ranting with a helping of seriously dour social commentary.

Nice portrait of the man in his last weeks; as active and involved as his condition allowed. It's sweet that he allowed interviews.

I think all fashionable electronics gear should come with fake vacuum tubes, with the warm glow provided by small hidden LEDs.

I'm fascinated by "tailor tourism."

But I guess I'll have to wait until after the recession until it becomes a bargain again.

There was a "Shrek" version of Operation as well.

Railway sleeper (uk) = railway tie (us) = something you don't want to get hit by (anywhere).

Let's start a collection to compress his ashes into a adamantine monolith and bury it in Tycho crater.

Not for public parades . . . if you read the catalog copy, it and the other "goats" are props for initiation ceremonies.

Scroll down to the table of contents link and flip around the catalog.

This and other automata were used in unspeakable masonic initiation rituals:

http://www.phoenixmasonry.org/masonicmuseum/demoulin/ferris_wheel_coaster_goat.htm

At least they didn't use live goats, like the Illuminati.

Appropriate sound effect:

WAH-Wah-wah-wahhhhhhhh!

It takes two to tango. The people in this documentary may have been short sighted and over-hopeful about their prospects, but they were also victims of con jobs.

All those shabby, exploitive loans should never have been offered in the first place. The buyers were convinced they could handle an obligation that any reputable banker would know they weren't ready for. Faked employment and financial condition records, high-pressure salesmen, badly explained terms and conditions . . . it's a swindle.

The strip-mining developers, bankers, and mortgage hucksters deserve to be on the street as much as these people.

Not Hooverville.

Bushton. Roveston. Greenspan Heights.

They need to outfit it with a loudspeaker that repeats "DIE CARBON UNITS!" in a squeaky-cute anime-girl voice.

Freeman Dyson, in 1971 or so:

"The question that will decide our destiny is not whether we shall expand into space. It is: 'Shall we be one species or a million?'"

. . .

The expansion of life over the universe is a beginning, not an end. At the same time as life is extending its habitat quantitatively, it will also be changing and evolving qualitatively into new dimensions of mind and spirit that we cannot imagine. The acquisition of new territory is important, not as an end in itself, but as a means to enable life to experiment with intelligence in a million forms."

#15: "small,furry people need me for a while"

Dude. Are you harboring hobbits without a license?

Well, I don't have to worry about hitting the office cookie jar for the rest of the afternoon.

So . . . how long before this gets adapted for CSI, ER, or Law & Order?

Yeah, I hate when that happens.

[crotchety old geezer voice]
Fah! Back in my day we trained on CLAYTABLETIAC.
[/crotchety old geezer voice]

#3: You forgot boot camps for the offenders.

The 21st century is going to require frequent New Sin updates.

Remember that BB story about "people" in Second Life having virtual sex with unicorns in order to give birth to virtual pet unicorns? That's gotta be a sin to these guys. (Maybe not as bad a sin as actual sex with a unicorn, which won't be happening without some serious advances in genetic engineering.)

#8: A wench is a serving woman; she has a job other than providing sexual services. For a tart, that's her career.

My solution to Too Many Books is Powell's. They give me money. Or store credit.

For a while, I was carefully picking up and evaluating all of the PCs discarded in my apartment complex. People throw away a lot of working computers. Alas, most are so old that even the local computer recycle / reuse program will only scrap them. Now I only pick out the truly useful machines. (And sometimes they are amazing finds, like the box I turned into a MythTV system.)

Oye . . . I'd expect that noise from, I dunno, a suspiciously ill-maintained Soviet-era thrill ride found in a carnival touring rural Estonia.

One with chipped paint and scary characters to sit on.

The Areas of My Expertise rocks. And he does the 826 storefront stuff too? Neat.

I saw a "Father Ted" in which a really, really low-rent carnival visits the village. Pretty funny.

"even when I haven't been drinking milk"

Cool . . . if you can outfit your nostrils with a nipple you can take a turn at nursing duty!

Sam:

If Vin Diesel gets in there, so should Stephen Colbert and Patton Oswalt.

Have you seen the Geek Hierarchy?

http://www.brunching.com/images/geekchart.pdf

#10: Yes, there's a link on the linked-to site which says just that.

Great little video. Very dry but funny.

Teller did several pieces for National Public Radio years ago.

American Science & Surplus used to sell a replica coyote skull for under $20. (Other places still sell them, for a lot more.)

I had one on my desk for a few years. I never thought of "hacking" or decorating it.

A friend just pointed me to:

Forbidden LEGO: Build the Models Your Parents Warned You Against!

by Ulrik Pilegaard

"It just may be impossible to exhaust the creative potential of LEGO bricks. With an active imagination as your guide, there are endless possibilities-provided you follow the LEGO Company's official (and sensible) rules. This means no cutting or tampering with bricks, creating models that shoot unapproved projectiles, or using non-standard parts with any LEGO product. After all, those little precision-molded ABS bricks can be dangerous in the wrong hands! Well, toss those rules out the window.

Forbidden Lego introduces you to the type of free-style building that LEGO's master builders do for fun in the back room. Using LEGO bricks in combination with common household materials (from rubber bands and glue to plastic spoons and ping-pong balls) along with some very unorthodox building techniques, you'll learn to create working models that LEGO would never endorse. Try your hand at a toy gun that shoots LEGO plates, a candy catapult, a high voltage LEGO vehicle, a continuous-fire ping-pong ball launcher, and other useless but incredibly fun inventions.

Once you get into the spirit, you'll want to try inventing your own rule-breaking models. Forbidden Lego's authors, share tips and tricks that will inspire you and help you turn your visions into reality. Nothing's against the rules in this book!"

As an early Boing Boing contributor, I claim Chief Winkie Guard (the one who says "You . . . you killed her!" and "Hooray for Dorothy!" and "OH-EEEH-Oh, Oh-EEEEEH-Oh!").

#21 "Who would actually buy fake viagra from a spam email?"

People with wood in their heads instead of their pants?

#11: No, hip geeksters!

Hey, Donkey, Koford has a casting call out for a sequel to his latest documentary. Why don't you go for it?

Another blog?

Uh . . . Mark? How many of you are there? Does cloning hurt?

What's the saving throw vs. venereal maladies?

Back in Jr. High School (~1978), I carefully wrapped my D&D books (the original three-brown-book set) with paper covers, so I wouldn't have to explain what the hell they were if someone saw me reading them.

The notion of a game you played with pencils and paper and in your imagination was so totally out there that I knew no one would understand. (Being interested in reading was bad enough.)

Now, not only is D&D a household word, but a significant portion of the population has played RPGs, if only the computerized kind.

Gygax & Arneson's creation has truly battled its way into popular culture.

Rob Cockerham should have his own TV show. Or guest spots on BBTV

Ahhh, fuck. I knew he had health problems, but god damn.

Wow, great stuff! Especially part II.

Oh, I remember fuxes. Because each author was free to fill in the details, the stories in the collection had all sorts of slightly different variants on them and the other aliens.

Little known fact:

Frederick Pohl wrote a whole novel (JEM) set on a slightly-changed version of Medea.

It's been years since I've been to an SF convention, but I recall that centaurish creatures were a subset of furry art. Maybe inspired by those John Varley novels set on Saturn's artificial moon?

I never understood the attraction / fascination.

As for the car, shouldn't they find a way to take advantage of those two extra feet? Selectively breaking right and left wheels for added control, maybe?

There is no God.

Just two photos? Is there a link missing? (Well, there's a link to the map-it thingie, but no Flickr group or what-not.)

One of my college friends is having his ninth birthday today. His wife is putting on a Star Wars themed kiddie-party, with an R2-D2 cake and a Death Star pinata.

In a few years, his son will have had more birthdays than he . . .

I hope John Rogers reads this, and writes a script about mall ninjas.

The XO comes with a single (folded) instruction sheet, much of which shows how to open the unit.

Maybe the studio should put a slot in the fence labeled UNSOLICITED SCRIPT DEPOSIT.

The slot would very obviously feed into a heavy-duty paper shredder.

The shredded paper would then be laid out on the bottom of a large cage, labeled UNSOLICITED SCRIPT EXAMINATION DEPARTMENT, which is full of piglets.

#17: "I've also found extra money in my pocket at the end of the week, so that's a bonus."

Dude. I put that there.

Now that you've kicked the soda habit and lost that weight, I'd like it back so I can help someone else.

. . . in bed!

Mark, I wasn't able to view your Flikr set until I signed in. Also, I was told that these pictures of thrift stores and restaurants fell outside my filter limits! :-)

You might want to check the permissions / settings so more folks can enjoy them.

From Salon, a few years back:

Planet Autism

Hah, hah, our troops sure love their high-spirited fraternity-style hi-jinks! I bet the prisoners had fun too!

[/heartsick snark]

Yeah, but because the value of the dollar is plummeting, that $3,000,000,000,000 isn't anywhere near as high a figure as it seems!

"They bring German Shepards (also in uniform) on their patrols with them."

Consequences of reading through bOING bOING story summaries too quickly:

I mentally conflated the previous story with this one, and for a moment imagined those German shepherds in a girl's school uniform. (Would that make the dogs more or less intimidating?)

I recall using one of these in either NYC or San Francisco. I don't recall any problems, but these units seem to generate controversy where ever they're installed or proposed because of the vandalism and misuse problem.

The real solution:

Old-style public restrooms, updated to be handicapped accessible and easier to clean, with an attendant to handle security and cleaning. You could put a community policing booth between the womens' and gents' wings. Yeah, it would cost money, but your city would be cleaner and more attractive to pedestrians.

Or why not bow to the inevitable and let companies introduce coin-operated privacy booths? No sanitary plumbing, just a dimly lit, self-cleaning place where junkies can shoot up and johns can get serviced. Then the pressure would be taken off of public toilets.

Penn & Teller are not journalists; they're entertainers, and their show caters to an audience looking for a brand of entertaining truthiness that disses regulation of any sort.

You can find "experts" who can authoritatively support any position you pay them to.

There's a post on Bruce's blog with a longish video of Bruce and Jasmina examining an XO laptop and the OLPC project.

She thinks it would have been great to have during the siege and bombings several years back (sturdy and portable and power-frugal), and the educational equivalent of having a personal spaceship for poor kids. Bruce loves it as a gadget but had great doubts about its political acceptability.

I visited my parents in Florida last week. I booked a frequent flyer program flight with a stopover and lots of waiting.

So, I brought my XO laptop ("One Laptop Per Child") with me, to check email and use as an ebook reader. I loaded it up with classic books from Project Gutenberg, and looked up how to turn off the WiFi so I could use it on the plane as well.

It was great. The screen, with the back lighting on, was brilliant and crisp. With the back lighting turned off, the text was perfectly clear and readable under the light of the planes' reading lamps. I read E.E. Doc Smith's Triplanetary and most of Baum's The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus with it in that mode.

The no-brainer network searcher found and connected the Orlando, Las Vegas, and Portland airports' free WiFi. I was able to check my AOL and Comcast email accounts. (The browser had trouble with my work email.) The keyboard is a bit too small for touch typing, but I knocked off three or four email messages as well.

And . . . folks . . . the thing attracts geeks like a cute baby in a stroller attracts cheek-pinching old ladies. I was approached by at least six people, on the plane and in the terminals, who were utterly entranced by the thing. I demonstrated it, let them fondle it, and explained the OLPC project. (One couple not only liked the computer, but photographed my home-made case.)

They all wanted one.

I'm considering stenciling LAPTOP.ORG on the case, so I can tell people where to find out more about the project and the XO.

If you google around a bit, you can find on-line recipes for some of the dishes that Horn & Hardart put in automats. Also, a book full of automat trivia and more recipes.

My mom took my to an automat when I was a little kid. I don't remember what we bought, but it was for the novelty value, not because we were getting lunch. I do recall the sad little ceramic bowls of baked beans, and a coffee spigot shaped like a dragon.

The dispensers took actual coins at the time. A few years later, the NYC automats were reduced to tourist novelties and the machines took pricey tokens.

Wait, wasn't there going to be free ice-cream?

Bob the Angry Flower triumphs over the Pirates and Looters.

I dunno. If the tot's name was on a no fly list, I'm sure if it was for a reason. :-(

The slick coupon booklets that come in the Sunday newspaper have, toward the rear where the rates are lower, advertisements for realistic doll babies. I always wondered who bought those things. Now I know.

(The supplements also have adverts for collector plates for various icky little dog breeds, and unbelievably tacky Thomas Kinkade religious kitsch.)

This reminds me a little of animal hording, but far less destructive to one's physical health and the cleanliness of one's home. And, of course, there's not animal suffering involved.

Next thing it needs: A kitchen in a crate. Assume a sink, fridge, and range/oven.

Comfort yourself in how safe we'll all be from . . . uh . . . how ahhh . . . hmmm.

You know, even if we can't sue or try the bastards, we should make the CEOs of these firms admit everything they've done to a national audience. And publish their home addresses so we can keep an eye on them and make sure they're safe.

Steve Jackson, of Steve Jackson Games, has for years been running war games with Lego pirate ships at conventions.

He recently announced:
"... I'll be spending a full day running a new Lego game that's not Pirates. It's SPACE Pirates, based on the Triplanetary movement system. Except the ships will be Lego!"

While I can believe this starch and fat pile is the least healthy, it's not the "worst" food. There are unhealthy foods that are also disgusting.

I remember, after maybe 24 years, a microwaveable hamburger -- the "Big 'Un" -- that I bought at 7-11. Loathsome, with bad quality chili and bad quality cheese and an unhappy gristly meat patty. I finished it only because I was desperately hungry poor college student.

And a "crispy" "spicy" "seafood" "wrap" that I bought at Long John Silver's. The "crispy" part came from 1" long rice crispy like bodies. The spicy part, a runny, caustic yellow-pink fluid. I managed to eat half of it, then threw the remainder out the car window. (I-79 on the way down to Pittsburgh.) I belatedly apologize for littering, and beg forgiveness from the Most High for the agonizing death the consumption of this wretched choad might have caused any unsuspecting wild critters that thought they'd lucked out when they found it.

Another thumbs up for Coraline. It's short, really well written, and can be enjoyed by young and old.

I was indifferent to Neverwhere. Well written, neat premise, but . . . I dunno, not my cup of baroque tea. I like American Gods quite a bit more, but still not a knock-out for me.

Ah, ok, reviewing the video cleared that up. You got behind the mask when your turn came up.

I think I remember another commercial, one where a whole family played and there wasn't an elaborate cardboard frame for the mask.

Very late 60s' or even early 70s'.

My cousins had this game, although I never actually played it or saw it in operation. It came with a clear plastic face mask. It wasn't clear to me what use that was; wasn't the pie-ing supposed to be a surprise?

I was manning a booth at the CES where WIRED had its second premiere (they were at an Apple conference the week before). We asked for and got a "dump" to give out copies of issue 1.1.

It was pretty darn mind blowing at the time. I grabbed about a dozen copies. I left some in the airplane magazine rack on the way home, some I mailed to friends.

I still have maybe a half-dozen copies, some still sealed in plastic.

New homes in the SWestern US should all be being built with cisterns.

But that one is fug-ugly. It looks like the ceiling has a horrible tumor.

#6: No wonder they're hard to find these days!

I'd love to see a cutsey stuff-toy-rat version of this featured in CRAFT.

I recall that there's a copy of the card on display in the Smithsonian Air & Space museum, with some other astronaut memorabilia.

I will pass on the advice given to my parents by a beatnik patron of my grandparents' restaurant, on seeing me when I was a few weeks old:

Raise her to be a death-ray repairwoman!

Congratulations!

I can imagine the late-nights terrors of a kid given this book . . . waiting in dread for that fateful day when her eyes would turn into eerie spirals.

#2: I love sonipitt's description of the exercise.

How far back to you have to go before you get primers that tell girls to wait things out in a hut in the woods? ("Bring plenty to read, catch up on your sampler, and don't bake any cakes.")

#19, #21: "It's alright to prick your finger, but never finger your prick!" -- George Carlin

#13: Maybe something to do with missing nutrients, or a miserable life in a sunless box?

Or maybe factory hens are bred to produce consistent product?

#8: No, sorry. The unicorn died and . . . well, you don't want to know what they did with her horn.

Let's just say Dick Cheney's new dentures sure are golden and shiny.

This story has been the basis of a "Law and Order" episode. DUHM-DUHM!

You know, you couldn't come up with a better name for an corpse-raiding bio-fraudster than Mastromarino if you tried.

A co-worker keeps a dozen or so laying hens. He claims that their egg shell color matches the color of their exposed skin (on legs).

He brings in the extras. Usually they go to paying customers who want fresh organic eggs. I've gotten a few dozen that were still around after a few days. As others have noted, they come in a variety of colors.

Tolchocker beat me to it. $17.95 was pretty damn steep back then. Was this guy the equivalent of a Pleo . . . unaffordable unless daddy had deep pockets?

I know that things like chemistry sets and model railroads sets could be pretty pricey back in the day, but they had educational and hobby value.

I was a little space nut (and, uh) and loved this sort of space tie-in stuff. My family used Tang on camping trips, but my mom thought (probably correctly) that Space Food Sticks were pricey junk.

However, I do recall a cousin and I polishing off a box of the butterscotch (?) variety during a car trip.

Bob's comparison to a slightly less chewy Tootsie Roll is pretty dead on from what I can remember.

Choose carefully; all proponents of the theory that loses will be condemned to scamper along that runway conveyor belt forever, BWAH-Hah-hah! FLY fools, Fly!

#28: Phlogiston.

Somewhere on Lilek's site are a series of cartoon-style adverts for a coffee substitute. Each strip shows an invisible, jet-pack-wearing demon tempting people into drinking too much coffee, turning them into short-tempered bastards.

After they switch to Postum (or whatever) and patch up their personal lives he flies off with a "curses, foiled again!" type exit line.

Interestingly, many of the people calling about Babygirl aren't interested in adopting her, but in getting her extra limbs.

Mmmmm, cat legs.

Great poster!

#10: In addition to getting guys over the border, there's the business of delivering them to various destinations once they're in country.

I just read a newspaper story about this side of the smuggling business. A broken license plate lamp led to a traffic stop, and the arrest of a bunch of illegal immigrants and a couple of "coyotes." The van had a delivery list . . . where each guy was heading.

Or maybe law enforcement personnel can get some kind of special symbol, like a magical lens or something.

Now trucks and vans will have to be built with a shiny anti-counterfeiting strip. And corporate logos will have to be changed every couple of years.

I bet it talks in an annoying, high pitched, juvenile anime-character voice.

Getting dropped keys and coins out of that thing would be a total nightmare.

Another thumbs up for "Down and Out in London and Paris."

"Burma Days" is a total bummer, but a good antidote for revisionist trogs who think life in the Subcontinent under British rule was just peachy.

Mark, is there any way to learn about Lollipopland without signing up (?) for this iGoogle thing?

What's the deal with that, anyway? Will the header show pictures from the series?

For a short time, mid/late 90s, I was painting stuff that looked good on a gaming table. Nowhere near show quality, but the characters had eyes and there was some shading and such. I'd steal unpainted plastic minis from classmate's monitors and desks and return them painted.

A few years later I thought I'd finish painting a a bunch of Star Guard minis, just so I'd have complete units to sell when I finally grew up and decided to shed all my geek stuff. And I couldn't even manage to meet my average efforts. My eyes and coordination had gone south.

Now I hear that most gamers don't paint at all anymore. They buy pre-decorated collector packs.

It's nice to see that some people still do their own.

Tekeli-li! Tekeli-li!

Manufacturer's coupons, which come in slick booklets bundled with (in my area) Sunday newspaper, are usually good for a month or two.

Coupons from specific grocery stores do indeed have a one week life.

Another "secret:" The two types of coupons are compatible. If you match up a store coupon and a manufacturer coupon, you can get some great deals. Especially if the store offers "coupon doubling."

Last fall, I took advantage of several great sales on cereal and a clutch of coupons. I ended up with three dozen boxes of cereal; average price, perhaps $1.50 a box. The shelf life of the stuff is a year or more, so why not? I'm down to a dozen boxes, and starting to collect coupons again.

That rocks!

William Gibson's poem "Agrippa" was originally printed as a limited-edition book that self-destructed as it was read.

I forget the details, but as I recall there was a printed version that smudged up and became unreadable, and a floppy disk version that scrolled the text past once and then scrambled itself. Of course, that version was swiftly hacked and the poem is now floating about the web.

Swanwick's bottle stories, despite being lower tech, seem much less hackable.

As I recall, the same 'card' provided an alphanumeric code reference for the area.

I think the standard of visual design and world building in SF film and TV is getting slowly better. Not consistently, but on average. There's an awful lot of geeks out there, and they're having an effect on what makes it on the big and little screen.

I remember, as a barely-teenager, being really offended by a detail in the movie version of Logan's Run. Logan, bored, tunes in the holographic girlfriend channel, and eventually chooses a chick who . . . walks out of the TV set. It's a teleporter, evidently.

Huh?

They have teleportation technology, but all they use it for is arranging one night stands?

Sloppy, sloppy!

Nowadays, you sometimes get neat, consistent stuff thrown into a film that's on-screen for mere seconds, but it helps set the mood. Like the cereal box in Minority Report that has animated characters running all over it.

Only eight years?

When was the early pre-blog BB started?

Joel is a great host, but I think both of those topics / visits deserve their a longer post of their own, with more introductory material.

Having just red Candy Freak, I wish I knew more up front about Candy Expo, for example!

#8: "Fuck art"

Yes, you can find plenty of that in Manhattan, but why ask for it here?

#8: Some Islamic nations require nanny goats to wear underwear, to cover up their naughty bits.

Makes you wonder if this is a) just some clerical authority taking things to a silly extreme, or b) a reaction on an actual problem.

According to his blog, SF author David Brin has some screen time during the series.

One of his novels (actually, a trilogy) is set on a colony world that was deliberately abandoned and its cities left to rot; the illegal current inhabitants have to live in a way that won't leave traces for future legal colonists to discover.

Bert has been known to hang around with Osama Bin Laden.

Both #4 and #17 creep me out, but #17 creeps me out far more.

Ah, yes, here it is:

Wham-O Slingshot

Cripes, that Wheelie Bar looks insanely dangerous.

* * *

The Wham-O site has a lot more than the Hacky Sack, Hulu Hoop, and Frisbee. Besides the Superball and Super Slide, there is all sorts of sports-related stuff.

Nothing really strange and geeky, though. It's kind of a jock toys outfit now. I doubt they'll every come up with an insanely popular fad toy again.

* * *

I think I remember the Wham-O slingshot. A sturdy Y-shaped wooden handle with slots to thread a really thick rubber band through.

I was just looking at the Wham-O site. "The Original Superball" is available.

Who came up with the notion that it was banned?

"The" superball may be discontinued, but close replicas can be had in any dollar store.

A fitting tribute would be to hunt up old Wham-O TV commercials on YouTube and such.

Also, throw a Frisbee up on your roof.

Is there a crust under there? Any cheese?

Maybe this should be referred to as a flattened gyro rather than a pizza.

Good story.

I'm still not clear on why the European crowd bought Boris' kiosk . . . market research?

Urban gardeners are always fighting bugs, Takuan.

But now she can hurl them into the Gowanus Canal.

So Vampira was inspired by the Chas Addams character who was later named "Morticia Addams!"

A hobo tried to light me on fire once.

Well, he might have just been a bum.

You could poke an eye out with that thing!

What are its anti-zombie properties?

MAKE Magazine should have mystery box contest. The boxes would do something -- whine, vibrate, move -- until opened.

#10: Hey, I like it!

Wow. You were lucky. We had to pretend we had a refrigerator box when I was a kid.

And that was so we could pretend we were in the cockpit of the Space Angel, so we could only move our lips.

Is there an emoticon symbolizing a joke whizzing over someone's head?

Great stuff! And there's a bonus appearance by Mark lurking in a doorway at 00:45.

OK, BBTV has now had all of the regulars except Cory in the anchor seat. Why ya camera shy D-man?

What J.Black said. Any fetish-tang is way overwhelmed by the techno-artisan aspects.

Oblig fiction reference: Olaf Stapledon's Star Maker, 1938, in which our universe turns out to be the Nth in an (almost) infinite series of steadily more perfect works of art.

Another thanks to Simon @ 6.

Why do people assume that everyone in the developing world is listlessly sitting by the side of the road with an empty bowl on their lap and flies walking on their faces?

You could make a good argument that a solar- rechargeable LED light could provide more economic benefits to more people, by allowing folks to do work and study after sunset, but if a charity was set up to distribute those, I'd donate to that too.

Me, I bought TWO XO laptops via the Give One/Get One program. To judge from the reaction of people at work to my sample, the manufacturer could sell dozens to my cow-orkers alone.

#7: Genetically engineered lemur people, who service the vast network of pneumatic tubes that link each desk in the airport skyscraper with the city's dry goods stores, banks, and tele-vision theaters.

This is next year's Christmas gift for my friends.

#8: Heh-heh, does the book have the strip about the little girl and the bunny watching clouds?

One thing is for sure:

This situation is going to turn up on an episode of CSI.

#27: A hidden room with a seated dummy wearing a hockey mask and a chainsaw in its lap would be even better.

I've (finally) started seeing PSAs explaining the digital turnover. Not bad, but they still have their jobs cut out for them.

I still have one analog set left. I plan on hooking it up to an antenna and watching the last broadcasts go off the air.

Hmmm. In addition to letter stencils, you could make little phage diagrams.

If you put aluminum-foil stencils on your butt and thighs before sitting down on one of these, you could leave messages for the next customer!

It's been an awful long time (when was Worldcon in Orlando?) but I remember enjoying TCOP ironically.

I recall that the final set had a crummy Olivetti PC on it.

#8: Without googling: That's the code you enter in DEBUG to start the low-level format program on a Western Digital hard drive controller card.

I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers.

* * *

I'm going to guess that the video mode used is the present but never advertised 160 x 100 pixel, 16 color mode of the CGA card. I don't think BASIC supported it, so you had to use machine language tricks. There were a few games that took advantage of it.

For cripes sake. $49,000 will buy a college education.

The same site offers a pirate ship playhouse for $52,000.

How does that saying go? This stuff is for people with more money than sen