08.21.2012]blodic.us

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The Man Who Laughs: grotesque Victor Hugo potboiler was the basis for TheJoker

The Man who Laughs is a graphic novel adaptation of a 1869 Victor Hugo novel that is chiefly remembered for inspiring a 1928 film whose poster-art, in turn, inspired the character of the Joker.

Empathy explained by David FosterWallace

UPDATE: "Vimeo has removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by The David Foster Wallace Literary Trust claiming that this material is infringing: THIS IS WATER - By David Foster Wallace.

Annoying lawsuit for AnnoyingOrange

An advertising agency is suing the creators of Cartoon Network's The Annoying Orange, accusing them of ripping off a character, The Talking Orange, that they created for a 2005 public information ad.

Anatomical pinballtable

Canadian artist Howie Tsui redesigned a pinball machine to turn it into a crude simulation of a musket-ball rattling around a soldier's guts for a War of 1812-themed exhibition currently running at the Agnes Etherington Arts Centre at Queens University in Kingston.

HOWTO move an immensely delicate 50'-wide circularelectromagnet

Fermilab just got a new Awesome Magnet, a 50'-wide jobbie that can't be tilted by more than a few degrees without suffering irreparable harm.

Promotional DVDs smell like pizza whenplayed

A Brazilian ad agency has built a campaign for Domino's "Pizza" that uses a heat-sensitive coating on rented DVDs; when the disc is played, the heat from the player heats up the coating and causes it to emit a pizza-like odor; the coating also changes appearance and becomes a picture of a pizza with

Three female artists who shaped the AmericanPin-Up

Ben Marks, our pal at Collectors Weekly, says, "We just published an article on Zoe Mozert, Pearl Frush, and Joyce Ballantyne, who created some of the most memorable pin-up art in the 1940 and '50s.

Iain Banks doesn't write sf for themoney

SF/thriller writer Iain Banks has weighed in to quash a rumor that he only wrote his amazing SF novels to pay the bills because the (also amazing) high-brow literary thrillers didn't bring in enough:

I wish I did have the time to reply to everybody individually but I don"t.

Augmented reality game about NYC's Jewish culturalhistory

I think one of the most fascinating uses of augmented reality is to reveal the "secret histories" of neighborhoods, buildings, and other locations when you are actually in those spaces.

Social steganography: how teens smuggle meaning past the authority figures in theirlives

Danah boyd has a great summary of the new Pew report on Teens, Social Media, and Privacy. The whole thing is worth a read -- especially her thoughts on race and social media use -- but the most interesting stuff was about "social steganography" -- smuggling meaning past grown-ups through the clever