www.veniceartscouncil.org

A man was stabbed with a meat thermometer in a movie theater in LA after complaining to a woman about talking on her cell phone during a Saturday night screening of Shutter Island.

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

[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
Previously:

• World's most flushingest toilet
• Trompe l'oeil ski-toilet mural
• Rampaging toilet terrorizes children
• Woman sat on toilet for two years
• Weed growing inside toilet pipe
• Airplane toilet gobbles a whole roll of TP
• Tiny still-lifes in toilet-paper tubes
• Toilet snake bites man's penis

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.

Adding nuance to the title of his session, Carmel admitted the real problem was more specific: that the real problem was shoe-horning the new world of digitally distributed indie games into the old regime of traditional retail game publishing.

As game development has evolved over the past few decades, he explained, traditional software engineering practices have come with it: "waterfall approach" processes that emphasize doing as much pre-production design as possible as early in the process as possible, postponing the actual building. Throughout the 90s, though, agile practices emerged that saw development models being thought of as much more fluid processes, with studies showing that this model isn't just cheaper and better for actually creating software, but maintaining it as well.

The indies are currently facing the same situation today in regards to funding new games, said Carmel, as the industry still hasn't recognized the importance of creating a new mechanism that takes the new digitally distributed landscape into full account.

The problems: publishers give too much money for what should be smaller budgets. World of Goo's development costs were in the region of $120,000, Braid's at $180,000: if publishers are giving out $500,000-$1 million (presuming old model additional costs of manufacturing and maintaining inventory, working with retail, marketing), they're taking on too much risk and can never hope to make up that investment. "The machinery for triple-A retail games doesn't scale down," said Carmel -- it becomes inefficient and developers end up becoming tenant farmers.

2D Boy saw this inefficiency in effect first hand when they approached both Valve and Microsoft to distribute World of Goo on both Steam and Games for Windows Live. With Games for Windows, each step of the process had to go through each of the above behemoth's component sectors: they'd talk to a business development agent, which would then move up the chain to managers for approval before being passed to lawyers, more engineers, platform specialists, whereas at Steam, the business was handled by one person.

As a result, what took Valve and 2D Boy one day of legal work and four days of technical integration on Steam took two months of contract negotiations and an additional two months of technical work to prepare the game for launch. It's not an entirely fair comparison, Carmel added, with Games for Windows' inherited Xbox Live Arcade and retail business model and their newness on the scene -- Steam's "been around for years" and simply "figured out how to do this efficiently." Live Arcade is not the biggest console distribution platform by accident, he said, "it takes iterations to get things right."

But in this new landscape that's emerged with Steam leading the way to Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Direct2Drive, Greenhouse, the developer and publisher equation has been upended, said Carmel: indies no longer need the traditional distribution channels publishers once provided, they simply need the funding. And so, Carmel said he and the consortium aimed to do for funding what Steam did for distribution.

And they'd do that with the Indie Fund, founded by 2D Boys Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler, Braid's Jon Blow, flOwer designer Kellee Santiago, Capy (Critter Crunch, Clash of Heroes) studio head Nathan Vella, Flashbang (Offroad Velociraptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop) co-founder Matthew Wegner and AppApove (Armadillo Gold Rush) head Aaron Isaksen.

Their goals: to make the submission process shorter and more transparent, to make terms of funding deals publicly available ("Developers," said Carmel, "need to know when they're getting good or bad deals"), to maintain Steam's single point of contact and personal relationship, to allow development flexibility and experimentation, and to allow the developer both the full ownership of their intellectual property, and no editorial influence over their game ("If we provide funding, that's a vote of confidence in the team.").

When an Indie Fund game ships, Carmel explained, "we recoup our costs first, and then for limited time get a revenue share from that game -- but that revenue share is going to be much smaller than what you'd get with a publisher."

The first beneficiaries of the Indie Fund haven't yet been revealed, though Carmel promises we'll hear more soon -- keep checking their website to contact the team directly or to learn more.

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."

Susan Atkins is a convicted murderer former member of the Manson Family. When she died in prison in 2009, she was the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the California penal system, having been denied parole 18 times.

Robert Shapiro was a member of O.J. Simpson's "dream team" of defense lawyers.

The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church, with more than a billion members.

Caesars Palace is a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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

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!)

The band OK Go, blogged many a time here for their wonderful music videos and savvy take on the state of the music biz, is launching its own record label. From okgo.com: The band has left the EMI family of corporations to form their own enterprise, a homemade upstart called Paracadute."

"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?

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.

Previously:

• Love in 2D
• Man to marry his video game girlfriend this Sunday
• Video: man in Japan weds anime game character
• Woman dines with cardboard cutout man in San Francisco
• My weekend with a cardboard version of my boyfriend

"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."

International Women's Day
Gail Dolgin
Jane Norling
Photo: Tim Drescher
Offset, 1978
San Francisco, California

On March 8, l857, women from the garment and textile industry in New York demonstrated to protest low wages, the 12 hour workday, and increasing workloads. They asked for improved working conditions and equal pay for all working women. Their march was dispersed by the police. Some of the women were arrested and some were injured. Three years later, in March of 1860, these women formed their own union and again called for these demands to be met.

On March 8, 1908, thousands of women from the needles trade industry demonstrated for the same demands. They also asked for laws against child labor and for the right of women to vote. They declared March 8 to be Women's Day.

In 1910, Clara Zetkin, a German labor leader, proposed that March 8 be proclaimed International Women's Day in memory of those women who had fought for better lives. For almost 100 years, March 8 has been celebrated in many countries, but has only been commemorated widely in the United States since 1970 with the development of the Women's Liberation Movement.

On behalf of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban
Five, we thank the Venice Arts Council (VAC) for co-sponsorship of
the opening of Antonio's touring exhibit on Saturday, May 22 at 7:30pm
at
SPARC (Social Public Art Resource Center) in Venice. The evening will
begin with a reception which we are delighted to know you will help
coordinate. We will request volunteers from other co-sponsors to work
with the Venice Arts Council to help bar tending, set up and clean up.
I will work with you to secure food and beverage donations. A program
will following at Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center, next door to
SPARC to include acknowledgment of our hosts and co-sponsors, reading
by actor/activist Edward Asner of Antonio's poetry, (others pending),
documentary on the Case of the Cuban Five and update on the Case by
Alicia Jrapko from the International Committee for the Freedom of the
Cuban Five.
VAC's co-sponsorship includes:
1) email(s) to your list announcing the event(s)
2) event(s) featured on your website
3) volunteers on Saturday, ,May 22, opening art exhibit reception, set
up, bar tending and clean up
4) attend Friday, May 21 press conference (just added)
5) attend Sunday, May 23 brunch with Dolores Huerta (just added)
I will get you all the information needed to post on your website and
distribute to your email list. Please let me know deadlines for
website/email copy.
In addition, SPARC is included in the Venice Family Clinics annual
Venice Art  Walk which takes place throughout Venice the following day
of the opening,  Sunday, May 23, from 11 -5pm. So Antonio's exhibit
will have additional exposure to art lovers across Los Angeles.
Just this morning, we confirmed a fundraising brunch for Sunday
morning, May 23, "Women and the Case of the Cuban Five" featuring
Dolores Huerta who has been involved with the Case helping to secure
visas for the wives and mothers of the Five. The brunch will also
include a short video from one of the wives of the Five. We hope to
hold the brunch at SPARC.
For more information on the Woman of the Five see sample letter below.
So, in addition to the art opening on Saturday, May 22, we invite VAC
to attend the press conference, Friday, May 21 (more info to follow),
and Sunday fundraising brunch with Dolores Huerta.
Thank you again for the Venice Arts Council's support!
Best Regards,
Suzanne Thompson
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five
310-570-5410
www.thecuban5.org
       INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION FOR THE RIGHT OF FAMILY VISITS
■ P.O. Box 22455, Oakland, CA 94609, United States ■ Phone 510-219-0092
    ______________________________________________________________________________

March 8, 2010
US Secretary of State
Hillary Rodham Clinton
US Secretary of Homeland Security
Janet Napolitano
 c/c United Nations Human Rights Council
        Rapporteur Against Torture
        United Nations Group on Arbitrary Detentions
        Amnesty International
        Ombdusman

Dear Ms Clinton and Ms Napolitano:
We respectfully write to you to ask the State Department of the United
States and the Department of Homeland Security to immediately grant
HUMANITARIAN VISAS to two Cuban citizens, Adriana Pérez and Olga
Salanueva, wives of prisoners Gerardo Hernández and René González
respectively. They have been denied visits to their husbands in prison
for 11 years.
On December 18, 2009 the Department of Homeland Security denied a
humanitarian visa to Olga Salanueva.  Without any explanation, they
denied this elementary recourse to come to the US with the sole
purpose to see her husband, René González, unjustly sentenced to 15
years in prison.
At the time of her husband's arrest, Olga Salanueva was living with
him and their two daughters; the youngest daughter is US born as well
as Rene Gonzalez himself. After the arrest of her husband Ms Salanueva
was detained with the purpose of pressuring her husband to collaborate
with the prosecutors assuming a crime that he never committed.  Three
months later in December 2000, Olga was deported to Cuba. After 10
years since the deportation, the US government continues to punish
this woman. There has not been any accusation or legal process against
her. Additionally her status of being a mother and a wife of US
citizens makes a compelling connection to the United States.
In the case of Adriana Perez; in July 2002, she traveled to the United
States to visit her husband Gerardo Hernández, unjustly serving two
life sentences plus 15 years in US prison. But upon her arrival, she
was detained in the Houston Airport, photographed, finger printed,
interrogated for 11 hours, prevented from speaking to a lawyer or
Cuban diplomats and subsequently sent back to Cuba, cruelly preventing
Adriana to see her husband.  That was the last time that she was
granted a visa to see him during the 11 years he has been imprisoned.
The last visa denial for Adriana was on July 15, 2009, the day of
their 21st wedding anniversary. Four months later, on November 2,
Gerardo Hernandez's mother died.  Not even on a sad event like this in
the life of any human being was Adriana Perez allowed to visit her
husband to console him.
The applications for humanitarian visas for Olga Salanueva and Adriana
Pérez are supported by an important number of religious, legal and
human rights institutions. From the World Council of Churches to the
US Council of Christian Churches, the Cuban Council of Churches, the
Association of American Jurists, Amnesty International, 170
personalities including several Nobel Prize winners, parliamentarians,
elected officials, and intellectuals from all over the world.
Until the Cuban Five are freed, the below signatories demand the
immediate granting of  HUMANITARIAN VISAS to ADRIANA PÉREZ and OlGA
SALANUEVA and MULTIPLE VISAS TO ALL THE FAMILY OF THE CUBAN FIVE.
This gesture will show the world that we are represented by elected
officials who want better relations with other nations and who have
compassion and humanitarian hearts.
Sincerely,
Bishop Thomas Gumbleton - Former Catholic Bishop of Detroit
Reverend Dr. Joan Brown Campbell - Former Secretary General of the
National Council of Churches of the United States
Dolores Huerta - Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers Union
Melvin MacKay - President of ILWU Local 10, San Francisco, California
Danny Glover - Actor
Gayle McLaughlin - Mayor of Richmond, California
Alice Walker - Writer
Noam Chomsky - Linguist and Writer
Howard Zinn - Historian and Writer (Honorary Member)
Esteban Torres - Former US Congressman
Wayne Smith - Former Chief of the US Interest Section in Cuba
Michael Parenti - Author
Angela Davis - Professor of History, California University, Santa Cruz
Yury Kochiyama - Civil Right activist
Peter Phillips - President of Media Freedom Foundation/Project Censored

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!) Previously:

• LibDem Lords seek to ban web-lockers (YouSendIt, etc) in the UK ...
• Brits: tell the LibDem Peers not to bring web-censorship to ...
• Guardian column on LibDem proposal to block web-lockers
• LibDem candidates come out against anti-web-locker proposal ...
• Last week's web-censorship proposal shows that supporters of every ...

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 Previously:

• EU Data Protection czar comes out against ACTA; EU analysis of ...
• Ask your MEPs to support anti-ACTA motion
• ACTA leak: Now we know who is against transparency - USA, Korea ...
• Europeans: finally a chance to ask your reps to oppose ACTA ...
• Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry ...
• Danish activists demand to know why their governments block ACTA ...
• Europeans: finally a chance to ask your reps to oppose ACTA ...
• Leaked secret EU-Canada copyright agreement - EU screws Canada ...

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

LA Times health blog: Only 32% of medication studies compare the drug in question to already available treatments, rather than just placebo. And only 11% compared the drugs to non-pharma based treatments, like surgery or lifestyle changes. For evidence-based medicine (let alone cheaper healthcare) to work, stuff like this has gotta get fixed. (Via Steve Silberman)

Corey Haim, star of "The Lost Boys," is dead at 38. [AP]

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.