August 29, 2007

How Much Paper Would It Take To Print Out Wikipedia?

Posted by Cory Doctorow,
(boingboing)


An intrepid Wikipedian named Nikola Smolenski has calculated how much paper it would take to print out the English entries in Wikipedia and produced this handy chart showing the relative sizes of the pile of paper and an adult male. This doesn't include the History or Discuss pages, which would make it a lot less useful than electronic Wikipedia (nevermind the lack of a search interface!). I think that Wikipedia is one of those documents that is inherently electronic.


Here's Nikola's assumptions: "Using volumes 25cm high and 5cm thick (some 400 leaves), each page having two columns, each columns having 80 rows, and each row having 50 characters, ≈ 6MB per volume. As English Wikipedia has 4.4GB of text (October 2006) ≈ 750 volumes. Note that this is conservative estimate, as it doesn't include images, tables etc. which take up more surface than the text which describes them."
Link

(via Digg)

August 23, 2007

Cats And Racks Video:

Stereo 3D Retro Erotica:


LINK to a Flickr set of old photos, mostly nudes, all in stereoscopic 3D. Some appear to be very old (1900s?), others from the '50s and '60s.
(thanks, jay)

posted by Xeni Jardin | BOING BOING

August 21, 2007

Greening Burning Man:


Over at Worldchanging, Micki Krimmel has written a comprehensive roundup of what individuals, camps and the Burning Man organization are doing to make this year's festival more ecologically responsible: Link. See also the Burning Man environmental blog: Link.


Image: Burning Man playa tableau, with lots of bikes and a tripped out mannequin. Xeni Jardin, 2003.


posted by Xeni Jardin

August 16, 2007

Sandwich Art:



This gallery of artistic sandwiches features many gems -- this one bears a striking resemblance to a damned soul in a Bosch painting!

Link to JibJab

(via IZ Reloaded)

posted by Cory Doctorow: BOING BOINGpermalink

August 13, 2007

Blind Driver Caught Again:

TALLINN (Reuters) - An Estonian man who was caught driving a car even though he is blind has been at it again, police said on Monday, and this time he faces jail.

Police first arrested the man, 20, a week ago.

"We arrested the same blind man driving his car again on Saturday in the town of Torvandi, near Tartu (in southern Estonia)," said Marge Kohtla, a spokeswoman for Tartu police district.

"He was drunk. There were three people in the car with him giving him instructions."

She said police wanted the court to jail the man for 30 days and confiscate his car.

August 12, 2007

Can't Bust This:

Like drugs? An ex-narcotics agent reveals the secrets to staying one step ahead of the law
By Neel Shah


NARC'S BEST FRIEND Barry Cooper, pictured here with dog Toby and 350 lbs. of seized marijuana, would have arrested you for smoking pot back in 1994. Now he wants to help you get away with it. Below, Cooper's tips for evading the fuzz


During his eight-year stint as a cop inTexas—two of them as head of narcotics for the Gladewater Police Department—Barry Cooper made over 800 drug-related arrests, impounded more than 50 vehicles, and seized at least $500,000 in cash and assets. He worked with everyone from the DEA to the FBI to border patrol, earning a reputation as the "best narcotics officer in the state, and perhaps the country," according to a former colleague. So what did Cooper, now married with four kids, learn from his experience?


"The war on drugs is an utterly losing proposition," he tells Radar. "We caused more harm breaking up families to put non-violent drug offenders in jail than the drugs ever did. And for what? To eradicate 1/10th of a percent of drugs on the street."


Tips for potheads looking to avoid the po-po, breezily narrated by the man formerly tasked with putting them behind barsCooper's epiphany stems in part from a few legal skirmishes of his own—he's been arrested five times (all non-drug-related offenses), though convicted only once, of a misdemeanor verbal assault charge. Plenty of cops lose faith in the system, but Cooper's 180 was so complete, he's now helping people to subvert it. Never Get Busted Again, in stores this September (or available now through his website), is a DVD compendium of advice for potheads looking to avoid the po-po, breezily narrated by the man formerly tasked with putting them behind bars. "I really just felt guilty about what I had done with my life," says Cooper. "This was the least I could do."



Because potheads have notoriously short attention spans, we asked Cooper to boil down his DVD into easy-to-read bullet points. Safe toking.



TRAVELING WITH MARIJUANA




SMELL THE GLOVE Handling pot with latex gloves will keep marijuana residue off your door handles, and your ass out of jail



• The best advice I can give you is this: Never carry more marijuana than you can eat. If the police turn on the red and blues, just eat it. It's not illegal to smell like pot—it's just illegal to possess it.



• Don't think that by hiding pot in coffee grounds, or masking the scent with Bounce fabric softener or vanilla extract, you're gonna be okay. Police dogs are trained to cut through these scents. Petroleum and cayenne pepper don't work either—a dog may jerk back after smelling it, but humans will recognize the reaction.



• If you are going to travel with marijuana, place it in a non-contamined container right before you leave. The drug odor won't have time to permeate through the plastic. If you are handling pot at your house, wear latex gloves or wash your hands—marijuana dust can reside on your fingers, and dogs can smell it. You'd be surprised at how many people get busted when dogs start sniffing around car door handles.



• Hiding your drugs in food is also a wise move. The mixed smells will throw off a dog.

August 10, 2007

Dills Caught For Diddling In Public:

By Matthew Gruchow

Sioux Falls police Tuesday arrested a 60-year-old man for burglary and for what they believe is at least two years worth of video-taped public sex acts.

Verle Peter Dills was arrested at his home at 2613 W. Bailey St. after a man who lives in the 1200 block of North Kiwanis Avenue chased Dills out of his yard Monday evening, police spokesman Loren McManus said.

The man saw Dills with a video camera and tripod and chased him for a short distance, McManus said. When the man returned home, Dills also returned with his camera and again was chased from the yard. He was seen entering the garage at 2613 W. Bailey St., McManus said.

There police found the video camera and a “large amount” of 8mm and VHS video of Dills engaged in masturbation and sex acts with traffic signs near his home, McManus said.

“We don’t know how long he’s been doing this,” he said.

He is charged with burglary, unlawful occupancy and six charges of indecent exposure.

He is being held in the Minnehaha County jail on $100,000 cash bond.

August 09, 2007

Firm Gets Big From Penis Enlarging Condoms:

By Kerstin Neuber

LONDON (Reuters) - British condom maker Futura Medical Plc said on Thursday that results of a study showed its new condom helped men have firmer and bigger erections, as well as a longer-lasting sexual experience.

Shares in the company, which specializes in sexual healthcare and pain relief, rose 14.5 percent to 59.25 pence on hopes the condom, which will be marketed by Durex condom-maker SSL International, could go on sale next year.

Futura said the study of 108 healthy couples showed its CSD500 condom helped men to get a firmer erection compared with a standard condom, increased penis size and made the sexual experience last longer, delivering statistically significant results.

The condom has a small amount of gel in its peak that dilates the arteries and increases blood flow to the penis.

Chief Executive James Barder said the study results underpinned hopes the contraceptive will start generating revenues in 2008.

"We expect to get regulatory EU approval later this year and then it is a question of launching the product soon after, so the revenues are really going to hit us in 2008," he told Reuters.

Market research has shown so far that interest in the condom is enormous, Barder said.

"Up to 80 percent of existing condom users would be interested in trying the product and, more importantly, 49 percent of non-condom users would be interested in using it as it will help them maintain an erection," he said.

Barder said global consumption of condoms was around 14 billion per year, of which half are branded condoms that are actually sold, with the rest being condoms distributed to promote safer sex and in developing countries.

August 07, 2007

Short Links Roundup:




  • 9/11-themed machinima terror-rotica: Link, another Link. Flesh, by Edouard Salier. (mildly NSFW, some stylized CGI nudity) I don't know that I'm a fan of it, or not, just fascinated that it exists and evidently floats some people's boats.


  • Foot and mouth disease outbreak in the UK probably originated with viruses "that escaped somehow from a pair of veterinary laboratories where vaccines are made." Link (NYT)



  • Monsoon rains this year in India, Bangladesh and Nepal are causing some of the worst floods in decades. 19 million people have been displaced, roughly the entire population of NY state, or nearly the entire population of Sri Lanka. By comparison: Hurricane Katrina scattered about a million Americans, and that was the largest US population displacement in 150 years. Ennis Singh Mutinywale at Sepia Mutiny has more: Link.


  • On August 28, a colorful eclipse of the full moon will occur. Link.


  • After a teen was arrested for recording a 20-second clip of Transformers in a movie theater (to share with a family member, for personal use), many are now calling for a boycott of Regal Cinemas: Link.



  • 8-foot-tall man made out of Legos washes up on a beach in Amsterdam: Link.



  • Hurry, hide your cats. Google Street View vehicles are now surveilling and snapping in four new cities: San Diego (high-res), Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando: Link.


  • Geeksugar takes a peek inside the newly renovated video-game-themed hotel in San Francisco's Japantown district, Hotel Tomo. Link to review.

    (thanks, Siege, Dave Markland, Callum!)

  • Mom Charged With Assault For Tossing Pizza At Ump:

    A New Hampshire woman has been charged with assault for allegedly throwing pizza at an umpire at a Little League game in Concord last month.

    Police say 35-year-old Sherri Ferns was working in a concession stand. Her son is on the Concord All-Star team, which lost a close game on July 11. A league investigation said Concord parents and Little League volunteers taunted the umps and tried to provoke them.

    Police say Ferns tossed pizza that hit one ump and a parent. She's charged with two counts of simple assault.

    The league disciplined nine parents, board members and volunteers, asking some to resign from the board. Ferns was one of the nine.