Joel Johnson

Ad: Richard Deacon for Thermodor

Joel Johnson

Video: Timelapse LEGO Nintendo DSi build

Sean Kenney built this 7-foot Nintendo DSi out of 51,324 LEGO elements. It's currently on display at the Nintendo World Store in Manhattan. [via Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Local man finds card skimmer on ATM

A Consumerist reader found a card skimmer on a WaMu ATM. He ripped it off and reported it to the police and the bank. The police said they'd never actually seen one in real life.

I always check for card skimmers at the ATM by smashing the front repeatedly with a sledgehammer, starting with the camera.

Joel Johnson

Hot Stone Grill

Giles & Posner, which seems to specialize is mostly useless culinary monstrosities like fondue fountains, also sells this Hot Stone Grill that lets you cook shishkebob like a Phoenician George Foreman. It's a relatively affordable £30, plus shipping. [via Appliancist]

Joel Johnson

This is a motorcycle helmet

These are DOT-approved (or at least were) motorcycle helmets crafted by a Brazilian artist who uses "animal teeth, fangs, bones, and hairs besides fines stones from the Amazon river" to make these $100 helmets. [via I, Gizmodo]

Joel Johnson

Commodore 64 laptop designer looking for work

Ben Heckendorn is looking for work as an industrial designer. Why should you hire him? Because he's the sort of person who can design and build a Commodore 64 laptop from parts in less than two weeks.

Joel Johnson

Dork Yearbook

Mr. Bill was both a computer camp attendee and young mechanic.

Despite being disfigured in a horrible book explosion, ckindel still looked stylish in the Webb Computer Lab.

Derek K. Miller has a picture so geeky he even wrote an index of each increasingly dork feature, including his Computer Faire name badge.

As a child, J Carter had never heard of ergonomics.

Bigspum got to play games in the UCLA Machine Room in 1971.

These boys got busted wardialing. They were sentenced to 12 years in Pizza Delivery Prison, where they caught Hep-C from the Noid.

Woopop used his TURBO 10MHz 8088 to teach his brother the alphabet.

Linnea wins.

(Keep 'em coming!)

Update: You kept them coming!

Is Jeremy Hietpas "contemplating the crude, flashlight-controlled robot I just built," he muses, "or that horrific sweatshirt I'm wearing? Oh 1987..."

Richard Ragan: "My 15 minutes of fame after my program in Fortran II to write poetry got noticed by the press and was picked up the Washington Post, New York Times, Scientific American and others.

"Those old vacuum tube machines and stacks of punched cards were "high tech"."

Katylah proves that the family that dorks together stays together, because no one else will get near them. (BONUS TARDIS)

Blackbearnh was into puffy coats and PDP-8a before they were both appropriated by the hip-hop community. "OS-8 RULZ!" indeed.

Joe is playing with power. And hairgel.

"Working intently on a computer, Ed Knittel studies his program." Thank you, essential yearbook caption writer.

Byron Servies: "During the run of War Games, I was paid by the theater to play video games on an apple ][ in the lobby while people waited to get in to see the show.

"The juxtaposition of the theater owner with Ally Sheedy was always disturbing to me."

Phil Gyford used to have hair, until he was scalped by a pre-AC/DC Angus Young.

The Rocketeer invented this: "In 8th Grade, I invented a safety feature for electrical outlets. It uses an attachable magnet that goes on the male plug (and stays on the plug when you unplug the appliance) and a magnetic reed switch inside the electrical outlet. The current doesn't turn on inside the outlet until a magnetic field is present. That keeps kids with forks or knives poking into the outlet from being electrocuted."

She went on to invent the chart-topping single, "Heartbreaker".

Laura Tallardy "feels compelled to point out my current occupation is digital illustration." I hope she's learned better cord management.

Brian's contribution isn't at first very dorky, and then you realize he's singing karaoke.

Joel Johnson

Reading Rights Coalition to protest Authors Guild whinging about Kindle 2 text-to-speech

The Reading Right Coalition and the National Federation of the Blind will be hosting a protest tomorrow outside the offices of the Authors Guild in an attempt to convince the Guild to quit busting Amazon's balls over the Kindle 2's text-to-speech technology that turns any eBook into a robotic audiobook. (Cory wrote about this a bit just recently.)

Here's their point: "The Coalition believes authors and publishes absolutely have the right to be paid for their work and control the rights to audio performances of their works however, it is discriminatory for authors and publishers to charge disabled consumers more for an e-book than they charge the rest of the general public as the only difference is the method by which the disabled person will read it."

The Kindle 2 is such a boon for the blind and others who have trouble reading printed books. I'm not in New York any more, but if I were I would probably still not actually go protest because I'm really lazy, but I would at least feel guilty about not going. I could sign an online petition, but you know how those work out.

If you're in New York tomorrow, have a more generous heart than I, and want to support the Reading Rights Coalition for a couple of hours starting at noon, here's where they'll be.

Joel Johnson

Frank, the LEGO Firebot

Brent Waller's Job Bot #3: Frank is a cutie. [via Brothers-Brick]

Joel Johnson

Pogoplug turns USB hard drives into personal miniclouds

Engadget reviews the Pogoplug, a simple box that turns any USB hard drive into a networked device, accessible from even the wild yonder of the internet:

All-in-all, we like the Pogoplug a lot, but we do have a couple of quibbles. Mainly, we wish this were a WiFi enabled device, which would spare some cables and setup pain. Additionally, it would be nice to see a device of this nature with multiple USB ports instead of just the one -- yes, you can attach a hub, but you're already dealing with a mess of lines as it is. Still, for $99, the ability to turn a random drive into not only a network-accessible device, but a remotely-accessible device is huge, and we plan on putting it into heavy rotation around here.

Update: Here's another one, called the SheevaPlug, that isn't out yet. It looks so similar I wonder if it isn't the same basic product being rebadged twice.

Lisa Katayama

Tokujin Yoshioka's tear drop lamp

Photo: Tokujin Yoshioka

Check out this beautiful, glass-and-aluminum tear drop pendant lamp by famed furniture designer Tokujin Yoshioka. Yoshioka got his start as an apprentice to Issey Miyake; his work can now be seen in places like the MoMa and the MUJI store. Same guy who made the natural crystal chair that I posted on Boing Boing last fall. The lamp's not for sale, but it'll be on display at the Milan Design Week later this month. [via Designboom]

Joel Johnson

Visualization: Websites as Japanese subway stops

This: a pleasing chart showing "web trends" (which I take mostly as "some websites") as would flow a map of the Japanese subway. From Information Architects, who will be selling prints. (A larger 2.6MB PNG is available if you'd like to get a detailed look. [via Zeldman]

Steven Leckart

Geeks Are Big Eye Tuna!?

Critter Tees is a line of t-shirts for fisherman and fishophiles. They sure do love wordplay: Bob Marlin? Salmon' Be Jammin'? I'm no pro angler, but I'm partial to their "big eye tuna on campus..." tee. A pocket-protector-toting fish? In horn-rimmed glasses? ...that are, of course, taped at the bridge. Sign me up.

Accessories that would make this tuna even more stereotypical? How bout an archaic copy of Basic Programming?

Joel Johnson

Welcome Lisa Katayama and Steven Leckart to BBG

Join me in welcoming Lisa Katayama and Steven Leckart to the Boing Boing fold. They'll be coming aboard with Rob and I to work on BBG, although I wouldn't be surprised to see them contributing to Boing Boing and Offworld just every now and again, as well.

You'll get to know them through the blog-o-squawk soon enough, but it'd be a shame to waste such bona fides as our two new contributors have collected.

Lisa you guys will know as a former guestblogger at Boing Boing, as well as her blogging about Japanese culture and tech at her blog Tokyo Mango. She's also contributed to WIRED, Popular Science, and the The New York Times Magazine. (There's a big feature coming up there, isn't there, Lisa? Can you talk about that yet?) And of course she's the author of Urawaza: Secret Everyday Tips and Tricks from Japan. She has two min-pins named Malcolm and Ruby (no relation to my car), as per the requirements for BBG contributors. She's @tokyomango and will be her first name at boingboing.net once I figure out how we actually do our email forwards here.

Steven's work has been seen at WIRED, DVICE, GOOD (and was the founder of ALL CAPS MAGAZINE*), as well as the editor of our friend Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools. He also helped Chris Anderson with the books The Long Tail and the upcoming Free as a writing assistant. He has a pug named Gus, as per the requirements for BBG contributors. He's @stevenleckart on Twitter and will be his first name at boingboing.net once I get off my ass and set up that email account. [photo by Jonathan Snyder]

Welcome, you two! I'm stoked to have you aboard our undulating tanker ship of bubbling mutant goo.

* NOT REALLY.

Rob Beschizza

Rumor: Nokia netbooks on the way

Scott Moritz at The Street claims that Nokia's "sealed its plans to enter the netbook race."

Nokia hinted in February that it was at the crossroads of mobile phones and PCs and that it was "looking very actively" at making netbooks.

Skeptics figured the move would get Nokia tangled in an expensive race to the bottom against lower-cost manufacturers like Asus and Acer.

Technology Rumor of the Day: Nokia [The Street]

Rob Beschizza

David Pickett's amazing chess set

Spotted by The Awesomer, David Pickett's chess set unlocks more than just strategic mysteries.

A project from my 3d design class.

A chess set I designed around the function of skeleton keys. The skeleton keys are made of brass. One set was finished in liver sulfur petina and the other set was sandblasted. The wood includes curly maple and walnut.

chess set [David's Photostream]

Rob Beschizza

Obama PC

Source [Fudzilla via Engadget]

Rob Beschizza

Analysts: "There Will be iPhones"

Barclay's Capital claims "contacts" tell it that Apple's doubled its iPhone orders for the quarter. Analysts wed this report to the now-traditional spring prediction of there being a whole range of different iPhones ready to roll. Oh, and a netbook, too.

Barclays says Apple has more than doubled iPhone production [Apple Insider]

Joel Johnson

Pictures: Mom's drunk on the scanner, again

The black & white photos are my grandfather and my Uncle Mike, I believe. When Mike went to West Point, they handed out copies of one of Grandpa's electronics repair books in class. Apparently when they realized that Mike had the same last name as the author, they started to give him shit about being really good at electronics, too. It only got worse when he told them it was his dad.

And the bucktoothed kid in front of the 286 is me, proudly showing off the sum total of my activity for the summer between sixth and seventh grades: shoplifting pewter dragon statues from the mall, dicking off on Prodigy, and spending hours a day tracking down Lord Verminaard in Trade Wars 2002 until I blew him and his parter into space for daring to tussle with DRIZZT DO'URDEN and his sock puppet buddy SHARP BLACKWOOD. (When a month before this shot was taken Verminaard had looted my home planet, I went out into the backyard and wept and sniveled at the stars for justice.)

If you have any pictures of you and dorky tech pastimes of your childhood, I would love to see them. Don't leave me hanging with my whistling gap teeth here. You can email me and I'll add them to the thread, or just add them t to the BBG Flickr pool. (Tag them "dorkyearbook" and I'll find them.)

Previously: Things On My Desk: My Grandpa's "Lemonaid Loader"

Update: The first batch are here.

Joel Johnson

The six year solar Sun Table

I like Sudia Design Labs' "Sun Table" for obvious reasons, and I think it shows the way a lot of our objects will try to eke out a secondary use for themselves in the future. But Popular Logistics' calculation shows why it's not exactly practical yet: The $2,200 table would generate about $30 worth of electricity a month on average, paying for itself in about six years. (Too long in my estimation, even though it's relatively clean energy not generated by, say, coal. Although you should account for the carbon cost of its production!)

Anyway, what I'm saying is: Real close. Just need to figure out a way to get spray-on solar to cost next to nothing and simple ways to ditch the batteries and inverters and just drop all this extra electricity back into the grid.

Joel Johnson

Video: Inside EHX's new guitar pedals

EHX has reissued a couple of old pedal designs from the late '60s, the Screaming Bird (for treble) and the Mole (for bass). John Pazzani, one of the engineers, shows the guts and a quick scope reading.

Joel Johnson

Morning tech deals highlights

⌦ Kid's Game – LeapFrog Leapster Learning System (like a big Game Boy for teaching toddlers) on sale for $30, shipped, at Target. (Won't ship for a few weeks, though.) [Slickdeals]

⌦ Slacker Radio – Slacker G2 [our review] for $50 off at Best Buy, making it $150 shipped. Basic service is free, although you'll probably want to upgrade to a pay version if you enjoy it. [Dealhack]

⌦ Point-and-Shoot – The Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX35A 10-megapixel camera with 720p video shooting for $180, shipped. That's at least $50 off the next best price I could find for a really nice little camera. [Dealoco]

⌦ Valkyria Chronicles – Sega's Valkyria Chronicles, sort of like a cross between X-Com, Final Fantasy Tactics and a Hitler Youth rally, is on sale for $30, shipped. For some reason they only released this for PlayStation 3. [Dealoco]

⌦ HDTV – Sony Bravia 46-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $1,000, shipped, about $200 off. [Dealnews]

Photo: DCVision

Rob Beschizza

Biomimetic child will never leave you

"It's not human -- but it is paying attention."

Japan child robot mimicks infant learning [Physorg]

Rob Beschizza

Blingermouse

As protesters marched against the G20 summit, bankers leaned out of windows and waved Bullion mice from iwantoneofthose.com at the crowd.

"Despite all appearances," the product page warns us, "the mouse is NOT made out of gold."

Rob Beschizza

Le Mac

The Cult of Mac finds a curious homage to its raison d'être while wandering Paris.

Brandon Boyer

Recently on Offworld

Recently on Offworld there's been a lot of art appreciation as we watched LittleBigPlanet artist Rexbox serve up against Made In England designer Cookie in Coudal's game of Layer Tennis, and saw "I Can Read Movies" artist Spacesick create an 8-bit title screen for a NES game never made.

We also saw Olly Moss's goomba/invader/zombie firing range target design Shoot the Baddies (right) finally go into print, watched Tea and Cheese create an 8-bit water slide in real life, and gawked at the I Am 8-Bit related T-shirt/print/sticker designs rolled out for Nintendo's Los Angeles DSi launch party.

Finally, we watched the first cinematic for ngmoco's 3D spherical iPhone tower defense game and watched Mega64 show no mercy for the un-indie, saw Uniqlo's new games-related T-shirt designs, coveted the best Noby Noby Boy sneakers you'll ever see, and, best of all, downloaded both volumes of the brilliant reality-enhancing iPhone app RjDj for free, in celebration of their new social updates -- don't miss your chance to get them now.

Rob Beschizza

Power On Self Test: New Toy