[via Global Post via TokyoMango]

People in seven European countries have expressed willingness to try "NoMix" toilets that keep crap and urine separate, allowing for more efficient waste processing and less seepage of urine-born pharmaceuticals into the water supply. The study was conducted with 2700 people in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark, with 80 percent supporting the toilets. Even higher numbers were willing to use urine as fertilizer.

The article doesn't discuss infrastructural issues, though: would you need a second black-water sewer for the yellow gold?

NoMix toilets get thumbs-up in 7 European countries

In this weird video, a French comedienne transforms herself into Michael Jackson with just some mascara, lipstick, and scotch tape.

Like UK studio Introversion's indie-rallying clarion call at the 2006 Independent Games Festival, the announcement of an indie-led investment strategy -- simply called the Indie Fund -- could be the next watershed moment for the future of independent gaming.

Organized by a consortium of indie devs that've seen breakout success (like World of Goo creators 2D Boy and Braid developer Jon Blow), the fund aims to maintain control of the funding cycle -- keeping it out of the hands of publishers and traditional investors alike -- and keep indies in charge of their own destiny.

Opening the 2010 Independent Games Summit, 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel took to the stage to explain why the fund was needed, with Braid artist David Hellman illustrating the strange over-complex steamwork behemoth of traditional business models that no longer serve the indies best: the full hi-res gallery continues below.

In the 1990s Bill Geerhart was an unemployed, not-so aspiring screenwriter in his 30s. To pass the time, he channeled his inner child, 10-year-old Billy, and started writing letters to famous and infamous people and institutions. These letters, written in pencil on elementary school ruled paper, asked funny but relevant questions to politicians, serial killers, movie stars, lobbyists, CEOs, and celebrity lawyers.

Geerhart saved copies of his letters and the replies he got back. This week, Harper Collins published them in a book called Little Billy's Letters: An Incorrigible Inner Child's Correspondence with the Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Bewildered. The publisher gave us permission to run some of our favorites. Enjoy!

Buy Little Billy's Letters on Amazon | Visit Harper Collins site for Little Billy's Letters

The National Hobo Association believes that "unlike tramps or bums, the hoboes are usually very resourceful, self reliant and appreciative people."

Over the past seven years, I've had the outlandishly talented country blues singer and guitarist Charley Patton looking over me. (Don't know Charley Patton? Hear him here and then buy what may be the greatest CD box set ever.) For many years, a photo of Patton was as hard to come by as a pic of Robert Johnson, and -- as with Johnson -- the legitimacy of the image has been challenged. For our purposes today, let's assume that this is Patton.

I draw your attention to his left hand, how it is posed over the frets like crab legs. Patton's style has always felt a bit eccentric compared to other country blues purveyors, and I wonder whether he might have fingered the frets in an unusual way, too. Now I know there are plenty of other guitarists from the 1920s and 1930s who have posed in similar ways, but I wonder: does this photo reveal something about Patton's style. I know there are a lot of guitarists here (hey, the guy who let me in here builds 'em), so I'm eager to hear any theories, no matter how dubious. And to learn more about the fellow in the photograph, see R. Crumb's comix history of Patton.

(The Patton pic above belongs to Blues Images.)

Art of the Title Sequence celebrates the world's greatest film/TV title sequences, those oft-experimental opening moments of a movie or TV show that really set the mood of what's to come. I've always been intrigued by this art form and it's fun to watch examples from around the globe. The site also features interviews with more than a dozen masters of the media. Art of the Title was mentioned in a New York Times article today about the South by Southwest Film Awards new Title Design Competition. Winners will be announced at the festival next week. According to the NYT, "The modern approach to film titles crystallized, more or less, in 1955 with “The Man With the Golden Arm.” It opened with a kind of jazz ballet in which dancing white lines, over music by Elmer Bernstein, eventually tightened into the contorted arm of a drug addict.



From the NYT:

The sequence was designed by Saul Bass, who tossed aside a more mechanical approach that had largely prevailed in Hollywood to create story-telling openings for films like “Psycho,” “North by Northwest” and, later, “Goodfellas” and “The Age of Innocence.”

(Among the entries at South by Southwest, “Cigarette Girl,” an independent film about a world in which smoking restrictions have murderous consequences, is one that recalls the Bass oeuvre: guns, cigarettes and people flicker between the real and the abstract, over a cool-toned soundtrack.)

Before his death in 1996, Bass had been nominated for Oscars three times, winning once, for his short films. But his work on the titles fell through the cracks of a film industry awards system that has given far more recognition to directors

"New Honor for the Designs That Get Movies Moving" (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

As part of Converse's "Music Collection," they've issued a variety of Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers themed around The Clash, Blondie, Metallica, and Kurt Cobain. To be fair, they really should have made Cobain-branded Converse One Stars as those were the shoes he was wearing at his death. Now, I do dig The Clash sneakers seen here. But I am aware that Nike selling sneakers co-branded with the name/art of an iconic punk band is... problematic. That said, somebody from The Clash's camp (and Cobain's) had to approve these.
Converse Music Collection

"Bicycle" is now an option for mode of transport in Google maps. Ostensibly, the directions given will help you avoid particularly nasty car traffic and particularly disheartening elevation changes, though Treehugger found some kinks in that when they tried to plot a route across San Francisco. There's not enough uphill slogs in Minneapolis (and I don't know St. Paul well enough) to get you a real solid second opinion from the Twin Cities. But it was smart enough to not send theoretical me biking straight up the feels-like-45-degree incline of 14th street when asked for directions to the University of Kansas journalism school (see above).

It also shows dedicated bike trails and bike lanes, to help plan the trip.

How's this work for your hometown?

"A $6,000 insulin pump with an on-board computer chip is not alluring. Neither is the white mesh adhesive patch on my naked abdomen or the length of nylon tubing that connects the patch to the pump. There is only illness, and there is no way to make that sexy. After several years as a medical device wearer, I know."

Those are the opening sentences of "Tethered to the Body," an essay the writer and teacher Jane Kokernak wrote about her adjustment to wearing an insulin pump and its affect on her sense of sexual self. It connects disability and sexuality in novel and moving ways (it also introduced me to the term "disability erotica"). The essay, which originally appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, has been reprinted in A Sweet Life, a site for the "healthy diabetic." The story is close to me for many reasons. I'm diabetic, too, although I am not insulin-dependent, and, more important, Jane is my wife, so the sex she's talking about in the essay is with, well, me. You may wish to consider my recommendation with that in mind, but I guarantee you that this will be the only piece you ever read in which the two tags are "Insulin Pump" and "Sex."

The UK Metro is reporting on a wedding ceremony held for a 28-year old Korean man and his full-sized body pillow girlfriend. The pillow cover supposedly has an image of a character named Fate Testarossa from the anime series Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.

The story is reminiscent of a New York Times Magazine piece I wrote last year; the Metro article also mentions a story we originally posted on Boing Boing in November about a guy who married a character in his Nintendo DS dating sim.

The European Parliament resoundingly voted against the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), in a resounding 663 to 13 tally. The parliamentarians defied the EU executive and threatened to take the issue to the European Court of Justice if the EU doesn't reject ACTA's provisions on disconnection for infringement and other enforcement provisions.

A strong majority of MEPs (663 against and 13 in favour) today voted against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), arguing that it flouts agreed EU laws on counterfeiting and piracy online.

In addition, the Parliament's decision today states that MEPs will go to the Court of Justice if the EU does not reject ACTA rules, including cutting off users from the Internet "gradually" if caught stealing content.

Though MEPs cannot participate in the ACTA talks, without the consent of the European Parliament, EU negotiators will have to go back to the drawing board and come up with a compromise.

Parliament threatens court action on anti-piracy treaty

The sign on the left is familiar to Americans, but other countries think it is a horrible design, preferring the green running man on the right or a variation of it. Julia Turner of Slate has an in-depth article on the 25-year international fight over exit signs. It's one of a terrific six-part series about sign history and design.

Fans of Ota's running man point to two key advantages: It's a pictogram, and it's green. The sign's wordlessness means it can be understood even by people who don't speak the local language. And the green color, they argue, just makes sense. Green is the color of safety, a color that means go the world over. Red, on the other hand, most often means danger, alert, halt, please don't touch. Why confuse panicked evacuees with a sign that means right this way in a color that means stop? International designers tend to think our system is illogical and consider our rejection of the running man to be as dumb as our refusal to adopt that other sensible international norm, the metric system.

Are the running-man advocates right? This battle over the exit sign has been brewing for 25 years now, and the little green guy is slowly making inroads in the States. But to understand whether he should triumph, we must first understand America's skepticism toward pictograms and symbols, which have long been more popular in the rest of the world than they are here.

The Big Red Word vs. the Little Green Man: The international war over exit signs

After last week's disastrous news that two LibDem Lords had introduced a web-censorship amendment to the Labour Digital Economy Bill, a group of LibDems have pulled together a pro-net-freedom emergency motion that's being taken to this weekend's party conference in Birmingham. If you're a LibDem or know LibDems headed to the conference this weekend, please urge support for this motion: help the LibDems get on the right side of the net-freedom debate!

We condemn
a) web-blocking and disconnecting internet connections
b) the threat to the freedom, dignity and well-being of individuals and businesses from the monitoring of their internet activity, the potential blocking of their websites and the potential termination of their internet connections.
c) the Digital Economy Bill for focusing on illegal filesharing rather than on nurturing creativity and innovative business models.

We support
a) the principle of net neutrality, through which the freedom of connection with any application to any party is guaranteed, except to address security threats or due to unexpected network congestion.
b) the rights of creators and performers to be rewarded for their work in a way that is fair, proportionate and appropriate to the medium.
Conference therefore opposes excessive regulatory attempts to monitor, control and limit internet access or internet publication, whether at local, national, European or global level.

LibDems Save the Net (Thanks, Obhi!)

Do you like prairie voles? Are you curious about the process of earning a Ph.D.? Possibly just a touch of both?

Then tune in today, starting at 10 central, for what Science magazine's Science Careers Blog is calling the first live-streamed dissertation defense (at least, that they've ever heard of).

The adventurous academic is Danielle Lee of the University of Missouri, St. Louis. The dissertation is entitled: An Investigation of Behavioral Syndromes and Individual Differences in Exploratory Behavior of Prairie Voles, Microtus ochrogaster. There was some talk of live Tweets as well. However, Lee says she won't be Tweeting, herself, during the defense (that would be just a little crazy multi-tasky, wouldn't it?), but she is up for answering your questions once everything has been successfully defended. Just Tweet them with the hashtag #LeeDefense. Good luck, Danielle!

Streaming video of Danielle Lee's dissertation defense

Pictured: The prairie vole, one of nature's most adorable research subjects. Originally found on the animal behavior Web site of Verna Case, Ph.D.

This kleige maidel* appeared on a German TV show where she demonstrated her remarkable talent for identifying Star Wars minifigs by putting them in her mouth. The blindfold is what makes this. And the minifigs. Oh, and the waistcoat.

Kinderwette Star Wars (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

*Not actually German. Almost Yiddish.

Jenise sez, "I work for Kiva Systems, a small robotics company in Woburn, MA, and the bots are amazingly fun to watch. A few years ago, one of our interns shot this video of the bots dancing to the Nutcracker Suite, and I thought it would tickle your ample sense of whimsy."

Ample whimsy: tickled.

(Aside: Whenever I hear the Nutcracker Suite, my stupid brain insists on supplying the lyrics from the "Smurfberry Crunch" breakfast cereal ad: "Smurfberry Crunch is fun to eat/A Smurfy fruity breakfast treat/Made with crunchy strawberries/They taste so sweet and [garbled]/Very fresh and very true/And very very Smurfy blue!")

(Bloody Smurfs.)

The Nutcracker performed by Dancing Kiva Order Fulfillment Robots (Thanks, Jenise!)