guest post by Burstein!

Imaginism Studios is a great little group of artists that all seem to have engaging, cartoony and playful styles. The art of Bobby Chiu is especially engaging to me as it has a specific fantasy-world-appeal that I find akin to Hayao Miyazaki at times.

Also on Imaginism Studios is Kei Acedera, an artist with a clear affection for dragons and fairies. I personally agree with her that the bay needs more families of dragons.

Other artists include cartoonist Stephen Silver, the caricatures of Jason Seiler. Be careful, there is so much fun stuff on their site that you can easily waste an hour just looking at the pretty images (like a image described as “creatures with giant blisters on their heads that are filled with cheese”).

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

The Art of Imaginism Studios

Related posts:

- Panoramic VR Photography of Seattle Artists In Their Studios

- Universal Studios Training Video by Matt Stone and Trey Parker

photo by Andrew Storms

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) is a Hindu nationalist organization in India that is venturing into the soft drink industry. While that may not be notable, the fact that they are undergoing laboratory testing for a soda made from cow urine is. Considering that the RSS often decry the influence of westernization on their culture and that drinking cow urine is considered healthy in some parts of India, it is an interesting bit of cultural reclamation to promote a very Hindu beverage.

The flavor is not yet known, but the RSS said the liquid produced by Hinduism’s revered holy cows is being mixed with products such as aloe vera and gooseberry to fight diseases such as diabetes and cancer.

Many Hindus consider cow urine to have medicinal properties and it is often drunk in religious festivals.

The drink will be called “gau jal,” the Sanskrit word for “cow water”.

In light of the recent success of the urine-to-water test conducted by the astronauts on the International Space Station, maybe Tang might have some competition for being the beverage of choice for astronauts.

via Discover’s Discoblog

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Gau Jal, A Hindu Soft Drink Made From Cow Urine

Related posts:

- Sour Candy Body Fluids, Yummy Blood & Urine For Your Mouth

- Bubble Thursday, Drink to Web 2.0 & The Dot Bomb

- After Burner: Playa Fuel & Aura Elixir, A Burning Man Energy Drink

guest post by Burstein!

photo by Sarah Atwood

In an amazing Yahoo Answer, Kat Atredies (most likely a pseudonym) a student at a private school asks the question “Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?”

Let me explain.

I go to a private school that is rather strict. Recently, the principal and school teacher council released a (very long) list of books we’re not allowed to read. I was absolutely appalled, because a large number of the books were classics and others that are my favorites. One of my personal favorites, The Catcher in the Rye, was on the list, so I decided to bring it to school to see if I would really get in trouble. Well… I did but not too much. Then (surprise!) a boy in my English class asked if he could borrow the book, because he heard it was very good AND it was banned! This happened a lot and my locker got to overflowing with the banned books, so I decided to put the unoccupied locker next to me to a good use. I now have 62 books in that locker, about half of what was on the list. I took care only to bring the books with literary quality.

The books on her list include, but are not limited to, the following:

• One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
• The Picture of Dorian Gray
• Slaughterhouse-5
• Lord of the Flies
• Bridge to Terabithia
• Catch-22
• East of Eden
• The Brothers Grimm Unabridged Fairytales.
• Candide
• The Divine Comedy
• Paradise Lost
• The Godfather
• The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court
• Animal Farm

Kat is bravely ensuring that her fellow students have access to some very fine literature. She is also taking her librarian duties seriously by keeping a log book with due dates and even curating her collection: “Twilight is banned also, but I don’t want that polluting my library.”

via Neatorama

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Student Converts School Locker Into a Covert Lending Library for Banned Books

Related posts:

- Ballard Public Library

- Wine Library TV Episode #500 Recorded Live at Crushpad

- Gary Vaynerchuk’s Wine Library TV SXSW Meetup at Cork & Co.

- Fore-Edge Painting Transforms the Edges of Books Into Works of Art

- The Library of Congress Adds Photos To Flickr, Encourages Tagging

guest post by Burstein!

As part of our continuing coverage of the Swimming Cities of Serenissima, we have obtained some lovely mail art from embedded artists Spy Emerson and Moses Grub. They have been mailing back improved postcards from their travels as part of an ongoing fundraising effort that included the speakeasy raid at Ritual Roasters because “being an art marauder does not pay.”

The piece above is from the coast of Slovenia. This means that the Swimming Cities are getting closer to their ultimate mission - crashing the extra-fancy Venice Biennale on June 7th. There is much more adventure left, so there is plenty of time to get an original piece of mail art for only 10 bucks.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Mail Art From Spy & Moses in Slovenia

Related posts:

- Mail Art From San Francisco Artists Crashing Venice Biennale

- Business Reply Mail

- Monster By Mail Presents: Aliens

- Monster by Mail and The Coloring Book of Death

- Speakeasy, A Fundraiser For The Swimming Cities of Serenissima

phreakmonkey made a demo video where he used an antique 1964 Livermore Data Systems “Model A” Acoustic Coupler Modem to connect to the internet at 300 baud.

via Waxy

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Using a 1964 Modem To Connect To The Internet

Related posts:

- Tech Connect: Robots at San Jose Museum of Art

- Sierra Wireless Compass 597 EV-DO USB Modem on Sprint

- Internet Power! Vol. 1, A 1995 Video Explaining The Internet

- Internet Week New York, Celebrating NYC’s Internet Industry

- Just The Backgrounds of Popular Internet Memes

Back in 1997 and 1998 our friend Warrior Girl organized the epic 24 Hour Community Spacewalk through San Francisco’s Mission District. Since then she’s taken it to Los Angeles and now she’s bringing The 24 Hour Community Spacewalk to the streets of Detroit from noon on June 13th through noon June 14th.

The 24 Hour Community Spacewalk is a twenty-four hour long creative adventure. It takes place in a participating area of a city and incorporates the local community, artists, restaurants, non-profits, and churches. The Spacewalk festival begins at noon in a designated location with a collective event. Then, with program and map in hand, Spacewalkers begin their own odyssey. Spacewalks conclude with another collective event in a particular location with the focus on contributions, for example, in-kind donations by restaurants to feed the local needy, or cleaning the streets, where needed. The Spacewalk creates an opportunity for individuals to work, create, collaborate, organize and celebrate as a community team. It encourages the individual to take on the responsibility for their own ideas and how they can interact within and affect their community.

See the Spacewalk website and Facebook group for more info on how to get involved.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

The 24 Hour Community Spacewalk Detroit 2009

Related posts:

- Lights Out San Francisco, Turning Off Lights For One Hour

- 24 Hour Comics Book Day San Francisco

- Portland’s Legendary 24 Hour Church of Elvis May Re-Open

- Facebook Hosts Lunch 2.0 Developer Happy Hour

- How to Grow Online Community

Plants vs. Zombies by PopCap

A mob of fun-loving zombies is about to invade your home, and your only defense is an arsenal of 49 zombie-zapping plants. Use peashooters, wall-nuts, cherry bombs and more to mulchify 26 types of zombies before they can reach your front door.

Each zombie has its own special skills, so you’ll need to think fast and plant faster to combat them all. But be careful how you use your limited supply of greens and seeds… as you battle the fun-dead, obstacles like a setting sun, creeping fog and a swimming pool add to the challenge. And with five game modes to dig into, the fun never dies!

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Plants vs. Zombies

Related posts:

- Warning: Zombies Returning To San Francisco

- Zombies Invade San Francisco Santacon

- Zombies Sue Minneapolis Over Free Speech

- Zombies Invade San Francisco!

- Ritual Roasters Starbucks Zombies

Andy Baio shows what popular Internet memes look like with their backgrounds only in his series “Meme Scenery”. Kind of leaves you with an empty feeling, eh?

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Just The Backgrounds of Popular Internet Memes

Related posts:

- Know Your Meme, Rocketboom Explains Popular Internet Memes

- Internet Anti-Memes & Non-Sensations on Big Fat Whale

- ROFLThing, Exploring Internet Memes in San Francisco

- ROFLThing NYC, Internet Memes Invade Manhattan

- Internet Memes Timeline

The Variant :: Screenwriter and director John August is releasing his latest work as a self published short story on amazon - the first 13 pages are free, and they suck you in. August is great with new media - his blog is fantastic - and i love how he approaches this latest venture - read the whole page where he explains his thinking on the pay per download model. (It's a great story BTW)

RE/Search Publications recently released “Burning Man Live”, a new book featuring 13 years of Piss Clear, the wonderful Black Rock City alternative newspaper published by Adrian Roberts and distributed daily at Burning Man from 1995-2007.

To celebrate its release they are having a Piss Clear Book Release Party this Thursday, May 28th at Mighty in San Francisco.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Piss Clear Book Release Party

Related posts:

- RE/Search Pranksfest: Pranks 2 Book Release Party

- GAMA-GO Limited Edition Book Release Party

- Merkley??? Book Release Party For 111 Nude Ladies on Sofas

- John Law Book Release Party at City Lights Bookstore

- Burning Man Live, 13 Years of Piss Clear

<img src="http://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/new-yorker-iphone-20090526-080913.jpg" alt="The New Yorker iPhone"/

Jorge Colombo created the June 1st cover of The New Yorker entirely on an iPhone in one hour using the Brushes app.

Here’s a video made with Brushes Viewer showing how Jorge created the cover image.

Colombo’s phone drawing is very much in the tradition of a certain kind of New Yorker cover, and he doesn’t see the fact that it’s a virtual finger painting as such a big deal. “Imagine twenty years ago, writing about these people who are sending these letters on their computer.” But watching the video playback has made him aware that how he draws a picture can tell a story, and he’s hoping to build suspense as he builds up layers of color and shape.

via Gizmodo

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Cover of The New Yorker Created Entirely on an iPhone Using the Brushes App

Related posts:

- The New Yorker Cover by Dan Clowes

- iPhone 3G, iPhone 2.0 Software Update & iPhone App Store

- The New Yorker Thanksgiving Covers by Chris Ware

- iPhone Arm, Helps Free Up a Hand When Using an iPhone

- The Untold Story of How The Internet Was Created

Intel’s new ad campaign “Sponsors of Tomorrow” celebrates nerd rock stars, in this case USB co-inventor Ajay Bhatt (Intel hired an actor to play him in the ad).

via Waxy

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Intel TV Ad Campaign Celebrates Nerd Rock Stars

Related posts:

- Nerd Merit Badges

- Nerd Salon Photos

- The Return of Nerd Salon

- Conspiracy Rock, A JFK Assassination Parody of Schoolhouse Rock

- John McTaint Launches Presidential Campaign

Repurpose is a great doucmentary short by Jack Oatmon about hardware hacking and hackerspaces. The video focuses on the Montreal hardware hacking community, including Foulab.

Why are more and more hobbyists experimenting with hacks and circuit bends? What relationship does this imply about consumer society and technological advancement? Is this a real-world analog of ‘user generated content’?

via Bre Pettis

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Repurpose, A Mini Documentary About Hardware Hacking & Hackerspaces

Related posts:

- Citizen Engineer, Open Source Hardware Hacking by Ladyada & PT

- You 2.0, A Documentary On Life Hacking

- NYC Resistor, An Electronics & Hardware Hacker Space In Brooklyn

- Yoda Backpack, A Portable Mini Jedi Master

- Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, A Web-Based Musical Mini Series

HardTimes :: Illusion [VIDEO]

Make and Craft present Maker Faire 2009, the world’s largest DIY festival, which is returns to the San Mateo County Expo Center for its 4th year next weekend, Saturday, May 30th and Sunday, May 31st.

Following on President Obama’s call to “begin again the work of remaking America”, Maker Faire 2009 will be organized around the theme of Re-Make America. Held in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 30-31, Maker Faire celebrates what President Obama called “the risk takers, the doers, and the makers of things.” The fourth annual Maker Faire will showcase individual creativity and grassroots innovation in the largest festival devoted to DIY culture and technology in the country.

Here are my photos from Maker Faire Bay Area 2008.

This is a blog post from Laughing Squid.

For more content like this, subscribe to the RSS feed, Twitter & FriendFeed.

Maker Faire 2009, The World’s Largest DIY Festival

Related posts:

- Maker Faire Bay Area 2009 Call For Makers

- Maker Day, Maker Faire 2007 Preview and Setup

- Maker Faire 2007 Call For Bay Area Makers

- Maker Faire 2007 This Weekend in San Mateo

- Maker Faire