Boing Boing

Harvey Weapons: Taito's secret Elevator Action DS revival that never was

Brandon Boyer — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 01:32:19 PST

Born of a time when novel ideas and game mechanics were flourishing and the rules were being rewritten with every new release, Taito's 1983 arcade original Elevator Action might not have achieved the certifiable classic status of Pac-Man or Galaga or Taito's own earlier Space Invaders, but it remains a true cult classic, remembered best for its semi-slapstick themes of lighthearted espionage. It's a franchise that never managed to lift itself up as well as it deserved: its 1994 arcade sequel -- even more lavishly animated (and far more cheerily ultraviolent) than the original -- only saw console release in Japan on the Sega Saturn, and, most curiously, as a Game Boy Color release re-skinned via Cartoon Network in the U.S. as a Dexter's Laboratory game. All of that could have changed in 2008, when Taito was pitched a Nintendo DS revival of the franchise, a pitch that would center on original character designs by long-time favorite illustrator (and occasional Vice Magazine comics contributor) James Harvey, better known by his swapped-around pen name Harvey James. A week's vacation to Japan that was meant to be for pleasure only, Harvey explains, turned into "a pretty fruitful business trip" when a friend happened to have an upcoming meeting with a Taito representative: one in charge of the secret project to bring Elevator Action back to life for Nintendo's handheld. The friend, says Harvey, "solicited some character designs as part of his proposal for the game... The brief he gave me was to redesign the main characters, three gung-ho anti-terrorists, but to 'keep one eye on the present and one eye on the past', which is one of the more exciting briefs I've ever had. At the time, the economic proliferation of China was making big headlines, so I looked to things like modern Chinese couture and street fashion to get inspiration for my designs, as well as North Korean military uniforms and hip-hop culture." Though the project never made it to light -- "maybe my designs are still sitting in a file at Taito somewhere, or maybe they're in the trash," Harvey adds -- the radically culturally diverse team he invented are too fantastically brash and imaginative to keep under cover. So below, a quick introduction to every member of the would-be snooper squad, printed here maybe not so much in overt hopes that it'll jog Taito's memory into giving them a second look, but it would be nice, wouldn't it?

Quite obviously the clear charmer of the three, North Korean team member Kim Min Ji uses a (curiously familiar) laser pistol that Harvey explains "charges from a tea kettle full of battery acid, which she can also hit people with."

Described simply by Harvey as a "crazy white kid in a Halloween suit", Brussels Tibia's special power would have been his deadly flying kick.

Finally, Muslim radical Rakim Al Taff (his name a callback to Elevator Action Return's original Engrish-ed up "tough" guy Jad the "Taff") looks no less foreboding in his dashing pink cap, and would have come equipped with a running clothesline special move.

More of Harvey's art can be seen via his freshly redesigned portfolio site, where you'll also spot T-shirts and original silkscreened prints produced for upstart games culture web-shop Attract Mode.

1980s "China retro" shop opens in Shanghai

Kristie Lu Stout — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 05:51:55 PST

In America, the 80s brought us Max Headroom and power shoulder pads.

While in China, it was poly-fiber track suits and the omnipresent black handbag.

The "romance and energy of 1980s China" is now captured in Shanghai's new Nengmao store (the original closed last year). The name comes from a misspelling from storeowner Xixi's youth.

He says,"Neng Mao was a tiny misspelling of the word "panda" in pinyin Chinese, that I made in elementary school. For some reason, this mistake always reminds me how silly but sweet childhood is. Now I've made this little misspelled creature come to life and hope to remind everyone of the happiness of our childhood."

The new Nengmao store is in Shanghai's French Concession: Shanxi Nan Lu, Lane 38, No. 96, close to Xinle Lu.

Nengmao products also available online (Chinese only).

多谢 NeochaEDGE!

Glitch: the new game from Flickr co-founder Stewart Butterfield

Cory Doctorow — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 00:19:28 PST

Steward Butterfield, co-founder of Flickr, has just launched his next act, a web-based multiplayer game called "Glitch." It sounds a lot like the original game behind Flickr, Game Neverending, full of puzzles, whimsy and warmth (like Stewart). The game's in private alpha now, but the intro video and Daniel Terdiman's profiles of the company on CNet are damned exciting:

A new game that went into alpha testing on Tuesday, as reported exclusively by CNET, Glitch (see related behind-the-scenes feature about its development) is a puzzle-heavy, Web-based social MMO built around sending players billions of years into the past to develop the optimistic future that today seems increasingly unlikely.
"The whole world was spun out of the imagination of 11 great giants," said Stewart Butterfield, the president of Glitch developer Tiny Speck, and better known as the co-founder of Flickr. "So you have to go back into the past, into the world of the giants' imaginations and grow...the number of things in the world, grow it in terms of physical dimensions, to make sure the future actually happens. So all the game play takes place in the past inside the world of the giants' imagination."
While Glitch shares some of the features of hard-core MMOs like World of Warcraft and EverQuest--principally quests, leveling up, an in-game economy and working socially with other players, as a 2D Flash game--it might at the same time feel mildly familiar to players of Facebook games like Farmville or Nintendo titles like the many iterations of the Mario franchise.

In depth with Tiny Speck's Glitch (Thanks, Stewart!)

Previously:

SF in SF: science fiction night in San Francisco with Jedediah Berry & Laurie R. King

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 23:28:01 PST

The next SF in SF free science fiction events is coming up on Feb 13, with guests Jedediah Berry and Laurie R. King:

Jedediah Berry was raised in the Hudson Valley region of New York State. His short stories have appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, including Best New American Voices and Best American Fantasy. He lives in Northampton, Massachusetts, and works as the assistant editor of Small Beer Press. The Manual of Detection is his award-winning first novel, now available in hardcover and paperback.
While Laurie R. King's fiction falls into several areas, first in the hearts of most readers comes Mary Russell, who becomes first the apprentice of Sherlock Holmes, and then his partner. Over the course of ten books (and more to come!), Russell and Holmes challenge each other to ever-greater feats of detection, traveling the world from Sussex to Simla. King's other series concerns San Francisco homicide inspector Kate Martinelli, her SFPD partner Al Hawkin, and her life partner Lee Cooper. In the course of her five books, Kate has encountered a female Rembrandt, a modern-day Holy Fool, two difficult teenagers, and a manifestation of the goddess Kali.
Reception begins, and cash bar opens at 6:00PM. Author readings begin at 7:00PM
Each author will read a selection of their work, followed by Q & A moderated by author Terry Bisson. Booksigning and schmoozing in the lounge afterwards. Books for sale at event, courtesy of Borderlands Books
The Variety Preview Room Theatre
The Hobart Bldg., 1st Floor - entrance between Quizno's & Citibank
582 Market St., at 2nd @ Montgomery, San Francisco

Jedidiah Berry & Laurie King (Thanks, Rina!)

Mission Control radio: Space Shuttle Endeavour with ambient electronica soundtrack

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:35:08 PST

Rusty from SomaFM writes,

"The Space Shuttle Endeavour has taken off and is in space, traveling to the International Space Station where it will be delivering parts including the third connecting module known as 'the Tranquility node' to the station. It's also bringing up a seven-windowed cupola to be used as a control room for robotics. The mission will feature three spacewalks."

"You can hear it all mixed with electronic ambient music on SomaFM's Mission Control channel. Just go to somafm.com and click on Mission Control.

"The best time to tune in is around 2pm pacific time (06:00 GMT), when the astronauts are just getting up and starting their checklists for the day. Astronaut sleep periods are approximately from 6am pacific to 2pm pacific. There will be minimal mission audio at that time, but the rest of the time all sorts of stuff is going on."

[CC-licensed image, via Flickr: "STS-130 Shuttle Launch," photographed on Feb 8, 2010 by Malenkov in Exile]

Ornate early doorbells

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:31:43 PST

These early electric doorbells by Rene Binet date to the early 1900s (they were used at the 1900 Paris World Fair). Binet was inspired by Ernest Haeckel in his designs.

When electric doorbells were new

Filmi star claims Heathrow security guards printed and circulated naked pictures from body-scanners

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:28:37 PST

Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan claims that when he went through Heathrow, security staff printed out the naked image of his body from the full-body scanners (scanners that the authorities have claimed won't ever be used to generate printouts) and circulated them among the staff:

'I was in London recently going through the airport and these new machines have come up, the body scans. You've got to see them. It makes you embarrassed - if you're not well endowed.
'You walk into the machine and everything - the whole outline of your body - comes out.'
Khan said he did not know that the body-scans - installed in the wake of last year's abortive Christmas Day bombing of a transatlantic flight over Detroit - showed up every little detail of one's body.
'I was a little scared. Something happens [inside the scans], and I came out.
'Then I saw these girls - they had these printouts. I looked at them. I thought they were some forms you had to fill. I said 'give them to me' - and you could see everything inside. So I autographed them for them.'

Shah Rukh signs off sexy body-scan printouts at Heathrow (Thanks, Drew!)

(Image: S3010420, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from dodo_anji's photostream)

Previously:

Canadian customs refuse to disclose laptop border search policy

Cory Doctorow — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:32:07 PST

Greg from the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association sez,

It's not just the U.S. border guards who want to search the files on your laptop and cellphone. The Canada Border Services Agency has been doing the same thing for years. From U.S. journalist Amy Goodman to a Canadian gay couple whose collection of porn got border agents all hot and bothered, the CBSA likes to look just as much as its counterpart in the U.S.
The biggest difference between U.S. border guards and the CBSA is that the CBSA hasn't made their policy for laptop searches public. Judging by how they've handled the BC Civil Liberties Association's Access to Information request, they'd like to keep it that way.
Back in October 2009, the BCCLA filed an Access to Information Request with the CBSA looking for their policies on searching personal electronics and copying data from them. We got a polite acknowledgement, and we settled in to wait for the 30 days allowed by the Access to Information Act.
On November 30, 2009, we got another letter from the CBSA saying that they'd need another 60 days to meet the request, because a timely response would "unreasonably interfere with the operations of the government institution" and "consultations are necessary to comply with the request." We settled in to wait again.
February 1 came and went. Three months after the original request was filed, the CBSA remains unwilling or unable to provide a single document in response to our request.
We've written up an overview of the file and put the correspondence online. We'll be posting more about this over the next few weeks, and we'll be putting documents online as soon as we get them.

CBSA delays laptop search Access to Information request (Thanks, Greg!)

(Image: Pacific Highway crossing, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from scazon's photostream)

Previously:

Make: Online series: Maker Business

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 21:21:09 PST

Gareth Branwyn says:

We're kicking off our Maker Business series with this piece by Jeffrey McGrew, who along with his wife Jillian Northrup, and their trusty CNC machine named Frank, are a two-person (and a bot) design and fabrication juggernaut. From their design-build studio, Because We Can, in Oakland, CA, they do custom interior design, furniture, and create such artistic wonders as the "Art Golf" course they've set up at Maker Faire. Here, Jeffrey shares some words of advice to those who may be thinking of going "Maker Pro."

Make: Online series: Maker Business

Video podcast infinite recursion

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 18:37:39 PST

Look what happens on this podcast when the host clicks the button to play the podcast.

Phone texts in Nigeria urged mass murder

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:56:28 PST

"War, war, war. Stand up and defend yourselves. Kill before they kill you. Slaughter before they slaughter you. Dump them in a pit before they dump you." — One of many mass-text-messages sent last week in Nigeria, inciting people to murder. And they did: some 350 were killed in Christian/Muslim violence. (textually via Bruce Sterling)

The Lost Lizard People of Los Angeles (1934)

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:32:39 PST

Snip from 1934 Los Angeles Times article about lizard people who lived in tunnels under the city 5,000 years ago. This legend is a long-lived chestnut. A hi-rez scan, more at Strange Maps, and: Reptoids! The Flickr uploader, vokoban, has lots of great stuff.

NASA JPL working on radar project to map earth movement in Haiti

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:20:26 PST

"We're hoping to get some idea of how the earth relaxes, or releases stress, after an earthquake. This is just one tool to improve our understanding of the mechanisms in earthquakes and volcanoes."— Dr. Scott Hensley, principal investigator for NASA JPL's aerial radar project to map movements in quake-devastated Haiti.

ACLU on Google + NSA

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:45:21 PST

"The news that the NSA and Google are working on a deal for the military agency to help protect the information giant's data networks comes at a time when the NSA is angling to get a major piece of cybersecurity action. The only problem is, despite what the agency would have us believe, the NSA is mainly a spy agency, not a cybersecurity agency."—Michael German, at the ACLU blog.

Angry Norwegians in scuba gear chase after Google Street View car

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:54:43 PST

News story, auto-translated to English in the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten. More on Google Maps. (thanks, BB reader Kjetil Rydland in Norway!)

Teaching Shakespeare to a toddler

David Pescovitz — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 14:53:47 PST

Video link. Actor Brian Cox attempts to teach Shakespeare's most famous soliloquy to Theo, age 2 1/2. (Thanks, Lisa Mumbach!)

Patent for a screw-in coffin

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:39:24 PST

Donald Scruggs of Chino, CA was awarded a patent in 2007 for a self-boring coffin. (Via Random Good Stuff)

A tale of two Buzzes

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:02:51 PST

Google Buzz. Why does name that sound so familiar? Ah, of course, it's because Yahoo Buzz launched almost exactly two years ago.

Beaker (of the Muppets) performs "Dust in the Wind" for mean YouTube commenters

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:16:52 PST

The official Muppets Studio channel on YouTube just keeps getting better and better. First "Bohemian Rhapsody," now this: Beaker performing the Kansas prog-rock classic "Dust in the Wind," and being pelted by caustic overlay annotations from anonymous strangers. Video Link: Beaker's Ballad.(via Laughing Squid)

Launder clothes in a giant kickable candy-striped ball

Lisa Katayama — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:51:07 PST

A Munich-based design studio is proposing a unique alternative to washing clothes by hand in developing countries. Swirl is the concept design for a giant candy-striped ball that you can stuff your clothes in; roll it around using removable handlebars or by kicking it around, and that rolling motion launders the clothes inside. It has the added benefit, the studio claims, of doubling as a giant soccer ball and a water transporter. What do you guys think? Good idea? Bad idea?

Swirl main page (via Inhabitots)

People who are frightened by pink Ouija Board

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 13:15:23 PST

This article reports on people who think that playing with a pink Ouija Board can "leave a person's soul vulnerable to attack." Just think: this is the 21st century, and people who believe (or pretend to believe) this are currently walking the Earth. It's as amazing as discovering a lost tribe of Neanderthals.

It's designed for young girls ages 8 and older, but some say the mysterious product is a "dangerous spiritual game" that opens up anyone, particularly Christians, to attacks on their soul.
"There's a spiritual reality to it and Hasbro is treating it as if it's just a game," said Stephen Phelan, communications director for Human Life International, which bills itself as the largest international pro-life organization and missionary worldwide. "It's not Monopoly. It really is a dangerous spiritual game and for [Hasbro] to treat it as just another game is quite dishonest."
Phelan, who has never played the game, said the Bible explicitly states "not to mess with spirits" and that using a Ouija board will leave a person's soul vulnerable to attack.

Pink Ouija Board Targeting Young Girls Riles Critics (Via The Agitator)

Wireless power through magnetism, lasers, or RF

David Pescovitz — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:16:34 PST

New Scientist surveys the latest in wireless power, from highly directional lasers to magnetic induction. Paging Nikola Tesla -- your meme is ready! From New Scientist:

The idea of wireless power transfer is almost as old as electricity generation itself. At the beginning of the 20th century, Nikola Tesla proposed using huge coils to transmit electricity through the troposphere to power homes. He even started building Wardenclyffe Tower on Long Island, New York, an enormous telecommunications tower that would also test his idea for wireless power transmission. The story goes that his backers pulled the funding when they realised there would be no feasible way to ensure people paid for the electricity they were using, and the wired power grid sprang up instead.
Wireless transmission emerged again in the 1960s, with a demonstration of a miniature helicopter powered using microwaves beamed from the ground. Some have even suggested that one day we might power spaceships by beaming power to them with lasers. As well as this, much theoretical work has gone into exploring the possibility of beaming power down to Earth from satellites that harvest solar energy (New Scientist.
Long-distance ground-to-ground wireless power transmission would require expensive infrastructure, however, and with concerns over the safety of transmitting it via high-power microwaves, the idea has been met with trepidation.

"Unplugged: Goodbye cables, hello energy beams"

Previously:

How to levitate by standing next to a wet spot on the sidewalk

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:00:44 PST

I like this illusion.

Deep zoom into Mandelbrot set

Mark Frauenfelder — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:31:38 PST

From Forgetomori: "After a trip of 10 minutes inside this Mandelbrot fractal (be sure to check the HD version on Vimeo), the original image you saw would be "billions and billions" of times larger than the whole Universe."

The final magnification is e.214. Want some perspective? a magnification of e.12 would increase the size of a particle to the same as the earths orbit! e.21 would make a particle look the same size as the milky way and e.42 would be equal to the universe. This zoom smashes all of them all away. If you were "actually" traveling into the fractal your speed would be faster than the speed of light.

You might like to know that this animation took me about two days to set up. My computer then rendered day and night non-stop for just over a month to produce the animation. The resulting twenty-eight anti-aliased 1280x720 AVI files (each just under 2GB) were each watermarked at full frames (uncompressed) Then I stitched them all together uncompressed. I also added the audio track at the same time. This was all done in Virtual dub. (except watermarking) The final watermarked Avi with audio is a whopping 46GB - Then I compressed it to 495mb so I could upload it onto vimeo. I think it still looks fairly crisp
With the compression settings adjusted to achieve the highest quality, the resulting file size was about 1.5GB and looks absolutely sweet!

Zooming into a fractal bigger than the Universe

Scifi "disaster" Valentine cards

Lisa Katayama — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:38:19 PST

(by Garrison Dean for io9)

Toledo strip club gives "lap dances for Haiti"

Lisa Katayama — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:30:29 PST

Under its "lap dances for Haiti" fundraising initiative, an Ohio strip club donated $1,000 towards a local charity that provides food and clothing for the relief effort. It probably would have been more effective if they had donated cash directly, even if it came in the form of 1,000 $1 bills. Still, as the general manager of the club says: "You don't hear much about strip clubs giving back to the community."

Our mood affects our facial expressions, but also vice versa

David Pescovitz — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:18:54 PST

Often when we frown, it means that we're sad or grumpy. But how much does the frown also exacerbate the bad mood? To study this, University of Wisconsin-Madison psychology PhD candidate David Havas tested individuals who had received Botox treatments to stop brow-wrinkling. The subjects were asked before and after Botox treatments to read statements that were angry, sad, or happy. The Botox seemed to slow down the time it took the subjects to read and understand the angry and sad statements but not the happy ones. This supports the theory that facial expressions do affect the brain's ability to process some emotions, a concept Mark looked at in 2008 in a guest essay on Good. From the University of Wisconsin-Madison:

"There is a long-standing idea in psychology called the facial feedback hypothesis," says Havas. "Essentially, it says, when you're smiling, the whole world smiles with you. It's an old song, but it's right. Actually, this study suggests the opposite: When you're not frowning, the world seems less angry and less sad."
The Havas study broke new ground by linking the expression of emotion to the ability to understand language, says Havas' adviser, UW-Madison professor emeritus of psychology Arthur Glenberg. "Normally, the brain would be sending signals to the periphery to frown, and the extent of the frown would be sent back to the brain. But here, that loop is disrupted, and the intensity of the emotion and of our ability to understand it when embodied in language is disrupted."
Practically, the study "may have profound implications for the cosmetic-surgery," says Glenberg. "Even though it's a small effect, in conversation, people respond to fast, subtle cues about each other's understanding, intention and empathy. If you are slightly slower reacting as I tell you about something made me really angry, that could signal to me that you did not pick up my message."
Such an effect could snowball, Havas says, but the outcome could also be positive: "Maybe if I am not picking up sad, angry cues in the environment, that will make me happier."
In theoretical terms, the finding supports a psychological hypothesis called "embodied cognition," says Glenberg, now a professor of psychology at Arizona State University. "The idea of embodied cognition is that all our cognitive processes, even those that have been thought of as very abstract, are actually rooted in basic bodily processes of perception, action and emotion."

"Can blocking a frown keep bad feelings at bay?" (Univ of Wisconsin-Madison)

Previously:

Why Darwin Would Have Loved Botox - Boing Boing

A place for rear load garbage truck fetishists

Lisa Katayama — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:24:39 PST

This is part of a series of over 2,000 photos in the Flickr group called World of Rear Load Garbage Trucks. There's a group for front load garbage trucks, too. (via Telstar Logistics) Photo via Pip Wilson's Flickr

Google launching "Google Buzz"

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:38:56 PST

I'm following a live stream of the Google press conference taking place in Mountain View this morning. They're launching a new product called "Google Buzz," a Twitter-like client that sort of acts like Friendfeed inside Gmail. Gizmodo has a blip, far more to follow.

The Garry Shandling Movie Poster Project

Xeni Jardin — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:23:42 PST

Funnyperson Tim Heidecker has collected a bumper crop of photoshopped movie posters with Garry Shandling puns.