UK village posts “Ignore sat-nav” signs August 31, 2007
Darren Barefoot sez, “Apparently sat-nav systems are hazardous to the health of British (and visiting) drivers:”
Vale of Glamorgan Council in South Wales is the first in the UK to use visual signs warning drivers not to believe sat-nav advice after once peaceful villages were reduced to bedlam when heavy-goods lorries got stuck in tiny country lanes.Now a sign aimed largely at foreign drivers has been put up on the outskirts of the village of St Hilary.
“The proliferation of satellite navigation aids used in heavy goods vehicles, and their over-reliance, especially by overseas drivers, has presented itself as a problem within the Vale of Glamorgan,” a spokesman for the council’s highways department said.
(Thanks, Darren!)
Podcast on future of technology, copyright and science fiction
Last night at the World Science Fiction Convention in Yokohama, Japan, I sat down for an interview with Patrick Nielsen Hayden, the editor who runs the largest science fiction line in the world for Tor Books. Patrick is my editor and a friend, and we had a rollicking, quick discussion about copyright, technology and the future of science fiction. It’s live now on the Tor podcast, for your listening pleasure.
MP3 link, Link to Tor podcast homepage, Link to podcast feed
Anatomical knee-socks
Loving these anatomically correct knee-socks — they remind me of Grade Six Hallowe’en skeleton costumes.
(via Neatorama)
See also: Detailed anatomical t-shirts
Gadgets.BoingBoing.net: here’s a roundup of recent goodies
UN sends 10,000 food aid SMSes to Iraqi refugees in Syria
The United Nations today sent about 10,000 text messages to help inform Iraqi refugees in Syria, via their cellphones, that an international food distribution for them will start tomorrow. Snip from Bloomberg item:
The UN Refugee Agency and the World Food Program will initially distribute enough rations to feed 33,000 Iraqis in Syria and about 50,000 by the end of the year, the UN said today in a statement. The UN agencies have pledged about $4.14 million to provide food for the next four months.
Syria has struggled to keep up with the surge of refugees from neighboring Iraq since violence increased there in May 2006, said World Food Program spokeswoman Brenda Barton. “There are refugees that used to cross, but host families were able to take care of them,” Barton said in a telephone interview from Rome. While the UN began providing some refugee food aid in Syria in March, the program that begins tomorrow will feed “significantly more” Iraqis than before, she said.
Link (thanks, Cyrus Farivar)
Premature Man Burning: not the first Black Rock City prankage
Scott Beale says,
Many people are very upset about Tuesday’s premature burning of Burning Man, but others consider it to be the ultimate Burning Man prank. For years the joke on the Playa was to set the man on fire early and in the mid 90’s Bigrig Industries used to hand out match packs printed with the words “Burn The Man Earlyâ€.
Burning Man has a long history of prankster activity which is largely due to it’s association with the The Cacophony Society during the late 1980’s to mid 1990’s. Burning Man 1990, the first event on the Black Rock Desert was a collaboration with The Cacophony Society as part of their event “Bad Day At Black Rock (Zone Trip #4)â€.
One of the most infamous Burning Man pranks took place during the 1996 event (the year of the HELCO theme) when a giant neon smiley face was installed inside the head of the Burning Man sculpture.
Link.
Previously on Boing Boing:
Amazon to launch DRM-free iTunes competitor
Site is slated to launch in September. Link to NY Post article, where news broke, Link to somewhat more sober account over on Gizmodo.
Shure SE110 Sound Isolating Earphones
Shure today announced their new sound-isolating
SE110 earbud. The innovation comes from a speaker shrunk down to micro size that boasts more high-frequency, making for earphones with the exceptional sound quality we’ve come to expect from Shure at a more accessible price point.
Designed for iPod and iPhone (yes, the plug fits) users who ditch Apple’s headphones in favor of better designs, the SE110s have most all the features that Shure usually includes, like the modular extension cable and the fit kit of foam sleeves that ensure the crucial noise-canceling seal. Available in white (pictured) or black, they’ll retail for $99 and will ship 17 September 2007.
Also on Cool Hunting: Shure Music Phone Adapter for iPhone, Shure SE530Shure E Series Gaming Edition
Os Gemeos: Assum Preto
Os Gemeos are rounding out the summer with a show “Assum Preto†in Milan at
Galleria Patricia Armocida, opening this Monday, 3 September. This is Os Gemeos’ first solo show in Italy and it is the inaugural show for the gallery. The artists will be showing six new canvases as well as making an installation on-site . Luckily, they have brought their older brother Arnaldo to help—they’ve only got 10 days to finish. But if anyone can do it, the Pandolfo brothers can. (Click image for detail.)
Assum Preto
Opening Reception: 3 September, 2007, 6pm
3 September-3 November 2007
Galleria Patricia Armoci
via Bazzini 17
20131 Milano
Italy
tel. +39 339 729 1034
Also on Cool Hunting: Os Gemeos: Drawing, The Graffiti Art Project, The Fish That Ate the Shooting Star
LA Weekly on the Source Family Sunset Strip love cult
In the most recent LA Weekly, Doug Harvey has an excellent article about The Source Family love cult, which operated The Source vegetarian restaurant on Sunset Blvd in the 1960s and 1970s.
(For an in depth history of The Source Family, I highly recommend The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, Ya Ho Wa 13, and The Source Family, published by Process Books.
Things started getting freaky early in 1969, when Baker opened his third restaurant — the Source — and became a devotee of Sikh kundalini master Yogi Bhajan. Baker began speaking and directing meditation sessions in the restaurant, and — though still a follower of the yogi — channeling a new synthesis of traditional and original esoteric teachings. Attendance soared, and soon Baker and his growing group of followers were dressing in white cotton robes and turbans, living communally in the Chandler mansion (a.k.a. the Mother House) and following a rigorous program of spiritual practices involving elaborate breathing techniques (beginning with a single six-second hit of sacred herb at 3 a.m.), cold showers, radical shifts in gender roles, yoga, chanting the Tetragrammaton, natural home birth, magickal visualizations, Aleister Crowleyian ego-suppressing rituals and tantric sex.
During this period, the Source Family was one of the most high-profile and unusual of the many new religious movements proliferating in Los Angeles, not least because of their uncommonly high standards of grooming and cleanliness, their economic self-sufficiency and work ethic, and the fact that they didn’t openly proselytize. Potential members, in fact, were obliged to undergo a period of sexual abstinence and cross-examination as well as surrender all their material possessions to the group, washing dishes (or other chores) at the restaurant and taking a vow of confidentiality in order to partake of the spiritual teachings.