For seventy bucks, you can put a Gator Guard in your pond that is designed to keep aquatic birds away, even in states where alligators are not common, as birds are instinctually fearful of plastic heads. [via Toolmonger]
CycleKarting is the art of driving your little hand-built vintage go-kart around a dirt track. Total build cost can't be more than $1,750, which sounds just perfect. [via Jalopnik]
AT&T is now offering FamilyMap, a $10 a month which lets you see where your spouse or children are in real-time using their phones as beacons (assuming you have a family plan). Unlike when the feds use such technology, AT&T says it will send a text to each tracked phone as the feature goes on, and a reminder every month.
Not all cheap crappy cameras are treated as junk. The Lomographic Society, a Vienna-based experimental photography organization, teamed up with The White Stripes to create two modern-day versions of vintage cameras, the Holga and the Diana. The Holga, as some of you may know, is a cheap (around $15) medium-format camera made in China best known for its imperfections--photos shot with it are often blurry and distorted. Similarly, the Diana--first produced in Hong Kong in the early 60s--is known for its low quality and light leaks, and was most frequently acquired as a cheap prize at carnivals. Some photo enthusiasts love them, though, for the cinematic, imperfect results that come out of normal pics snapped with these guys.
Both cameras come with cool accessories like peppermint film mask filters and fisheye lenses, and are named after the Detroit Duo--"Jack" Holga and "Meg" Diana. Only 3,000 each were produced, but it looks like you can buy them here.
John Mahoney's article about a meeting with famed audiophile Michael Fremer is wonderfully written. In fact, it's the most effective pro-audiophile piece I've seen in years. He went in skeptical and emerged a believer, even after hearing the telltale hiss of dead technology.
That it's a well-crafted piece is what makes it so sad to read: his hypothesis is that even if normal people can't appreciate what makes ultra-expensive gear special, audiophiles can. This is a myth, and to honor it like this is to sell it.
His tests, of course, were entirely subjective. Mahoney's conclusions emerge with an unremarkable discovery--that a 256kbs MP3 played on an iPod doesn't sound as good as a well-kept vinyl record on high-end gear. It moves on in steps, however, toward serious discussion of the differences between varieties of thousand-dollar power cable and Flatland-like descriptions of the amazing aural world of the audiophile.
I've met Fremer, just once. He's a a nice chap who sincerely believes in the technology, unlike some of the people who sell it. But Mahoney's journey from skepticism to poesy shouldn't surprise you, because it's how music store salesmen have been "turning" skeptics since the beginning of time: establish a difference between shit and sugar, and then say "But if you pay more, you get more sugar. Are you sure you can't hear it?"
The hard part in making sense of this is in challenging what we understand to be reasonable. When you think you hear a difference but haven't done the work to rule out bad mastering or other variables, how can you be sure? And when you don't even notice the hiss anymore, how do you trust your own frail senses with so much money?
There's only one way to rationalize it all: golden ears. Mahoney is not afraid to couch that epiphany in the requisite vaguely scientific terminology:
Audiophiles are basically synesthesiacs. They "see" music in three-dimensional visual space. You close your eyes in Fremer's chair, and you can perceive a detailed 3D matrix of sound, with each element occupying its own special space in the air. It's crazy and I've never experienced anything like it.
The problem isn't that expensive gear doesn't sound better than rubbish. The problem is the claim that you can go from "98.6 to 99.1 percent by swapping out a $2,600 AC power cable for a $4,000 one."
There is not a law of diminishing returns here: there is merely the law of whether you can hear it or not. Tests under controlled conditions would justify these claims, but no-one ever agrees to do them.
Such recalcitrance is fine, but it's an admission that audiophiles have supernatural powers.
TopatoCo created is selling a t-shirt and poster featuring a handy guide of stuff to remember do if you ever get stranded back in time. For instance:
Aluminum used to be more valuable than gold. Depending on when you are, it still is. Extract it from rocks by dissolving them into molten cyrolite and running current through it. You'll find cyrolite in Greenland, latitude 61.2, longitude -48.16. Look for glassy white crystals.
In today's episode of Boing Boing Video, a collaboration with PopSci, we debut the world-premiere of the first video documenting an experiment like the ones you'll find in this book -- in which Theo cuts steel with bacon. It's a FLAMING BACON LANCE OF DEATH.
Yes, that's right, using nothing but bacon -- okay, prosciutto -- and an air hose, Mr. Gray constructs a high performance thermic lance that seriously cuts sheet metal.
In this video, you'll also see a purely VEGAN THERMIC LANCE built from one cucumber and several dozen thin vegetable-oil coated breadsticks. (Tip: the performance is all about the oil). This hotrod burns fast and furious, but does not last long enough to initiate a cut in steel sheet. The flame front travels towards the back of the cucumber and endangers the operator when it reaches the rubber connector.
Gray also created a CUCUMBER-BEEFSTICK LANCE. A high-performance thermic lance constructed from seven beefsticks and a cucumber. Later versions used Pup-Peroni brand dog treats, which are exactly like beef sticks only cheaper.
In some ways this device out-performed the Bacon Lance, and it's much easier to build.
But it's not made of bacon.
Theo tells Boing Boing,
"Cucumber is an *excellent* base for these things because it's air-tight, moist (to resist fire), easy to core, and has a rubbery skin that makes an air tight seal. About the only thing wrong with cucumbers is that they are not made of bacon. (I have a thing called a "fruit coring tool" which is like a very small round cookie cutter on a stick. You drill it down the middle of the cucumber until it comes out the other end, then stuff the cucumber with the chosen fuel.)"
Years ago, women like this were supposed to make fun of people like you for loving Star Trek. Now they're making a living promoting it -- and not just at Comic-Con, but at "hipster" dance parties in L.A. The geek chic pendulum has officially swung as far as it can.
Update: Here's the t-shirt they were giving away there, from the failed eBay auction. It's a riff on this Beatles t-shirt by a Japanese designer whose name I've forgotten. Too bad it says Cobrasnake on it. – Joel
Update 2:
The poster is by Jesse Phillips, but I can't find it for sale anywhere. I sent him an email to ask if Paramount is selling any, though. – Joel
Do cellular carriers have fanboys? The very thought makes my skin crawl. As AT&T's brass appeals to Apple to extend its iPhone exclusivity period past 2010, however, there appears to be debate over the matter. Lonnie Lazar at Cult of Mac lays out the somewhat obvious arguments against it:
As the Apple spokeswoman in the WSJ article was quoted, "We have a great relationship with AT&T." But how about the consumer? ... Even if technical issues cannot be overcome that prevent iPhones, as they are currently manufactured, from working with Sprint and Verizon's CDMA-based services -- and surely they could be overcome in this day and age -- having a choice between AT&T and T-Mobile is better than having a choice between AT&T and not using an iPhone at all.
If nothing else, if there were a Sprint or Verizon iPhone that operated on Evdo rev. A., the name "iPhone 3G" would be a technical joke rather than an actual one.
Pacific Gas and Electric is reportedly seeking permission to test a solar power satellite, which would send energy generated in orbit to a radio receiver station in Fresno County, California.
the solar energy available in space is eight-to-ten times greater than on earth. There's no atmospheric or cloud interference, no loss of sun at night, and no seasons. That means space solar can be a baseload resource, not an intermittent source of power.
In addition, real estate in space is still free (if hard to reach). Solaren needs to acquire land only for an energy receiving station. It can locate the station near existing transmission lines, greatly reducing delays that face some renewable power projects sited far from existing facilities.
While the concept of space solar power makes sense, making it all work at an affordable cost is a major challenge, which Solaren says it can solve.
Unfortunately, despite the 200 megawatt output. the frequency used means that it's completely safe. Thinking meat that strays into the beam won't feel a thing.
A Tampa mom claims that after buying a "new" PSP at Wal-Mart, her 6 year-old kid found tons of porn on it. From the local Fox affiliate's story:
"I showed it to my mom, and I ran back to my room...she said I'm not in trouble," says Eliso.
Tamatha says she found a memory card inside the P.S.P. containing hundreds of pornographic pictures. She says it's not hers and it was in the P.S.P. before she opened the box. Tamatha called the store wanting to speak with a manager about the problem.
It's kind of funny how some commenters on the internet are writing, "This is impossible, unless there was a memory card inside it."
Today on Offworld, we played Scarygirl, the just-released new platformer game based on illustrator and designer toy maker Nathan J's exquisitely designed world and characters, which, pleasantly enough, turned out to be one of the richest web-game experiences in recent memory.
We also learned that Through the Looking Glass -- the first and only game ever first-party Apple developed and published for the Mac -- had been brought to the iPhone as AliceX by its original developer, Steve Capps (who would go on to help develop the first version of the Finder).
The Russian-born Wall-E case mod was solid. But this steampunkish tube, wood and pipe job posted to English Russia is just plain nutty. When did intensely-over-the-top case-modding become the thing to do in Russia?
One of my favorite artists in the world is Yayoi Kusama, an octogenarian Japanese lady with an obsessive, clearly genius mind who has checked herself into a mental hospital after a trauma-filled childhood and a career that entailed spending the fifties in New York City with Andy Warhol, Yoko Ono, and Donald Judd. She just draws dots everywhere, on the ceiling, on the table, on herself--and now, on some creatively packaged Au by KDDI cell phone handsets which were announced last week. [Reuters via TokyoMango]
John Mahoney's article about 
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