XKCD presents A Guide to Numerical Sex Positions

comic by xkcd

Brooklyn based web developer Garrett Murray made a beautiful video of a day in his life using the new video capable Nikon D90 DSLR camera. He’s encouraging others to do the same and add the videos to the My Day, Yesterday group on Flickr.

Shoot video throughout a day in your life, then put it together and upload it the next day. Don’t add any music or sound effects, just use what the camera recorded.

It’s easy. DO IT.

Dean Allen accepted the challenge, making his own wonderful video for the group.

via Andre Torrez

Our friends at Rocketboom have been producing a really great series of “Know Your Meme” videos which help to explain the meaning and origin of some of the internet’s most popular memes. Today they took a look at the infamous O RLY? meme.

Last night Chicken John had his Vote for Chicken Subpoena Art Show at the Crucible Steel Gallery in San Francisco, where for one night only he filled the gallery with paperwork, plastering the walls with checks and documentation in response to a subpoena from the SF Ethics Commission related to when he ran for mayor last year.

video: Chicken explains his “art” installation

photo gallery: Vote for Chicken Subpoena Art Show

video: overview of Vote for Chicken Subpoena Art Show

video: Chicken John sweeps up

video: Chicken John scrapes the walls

photos by Scott Beale

guest post by Violet Blue

At first glance, Morbid Anatomy seems like the perfect Halloween blog, except that for some of us — and especially for photographer Joanna Ebenstein — Halloween is every day on her beautiful, macabre blog. And we’re not complaining; her incredible ongoing collection of anatomical/medical documentation and curiosities through history is stunning. It’s like when going to the doctor was more dangerous that whatever afflicted you, but safely tucked in a museum instead of becoming your fate. For her next project she’s traveling the world seeking private collections to photograph and tells me she’ll be in San Francisco later this month looking for items of the body to photograph and add to the visual virtual encyclopedia anatomica she’s creating.

Morbid Anatomy is more than just a creepy-ookey blog about dead stuff and medical strangeness of yore; it’s also where Ebenstein blogs about 21st century artists creating work that reflects Victorian body-preservation fetishes, and maintains an incredible travel journal. Imagine going to every private and public cabinet of curiosities you can imagine, and she’s doing just that, but also documenting her experiences. It’s difficult not to be agog (and a little jealous) when Ebenstein visits places like The Cuming Museum, where an eclectic family collection is on display consisting of over 25,000 objects from the 1800s, including “…paper ephemera, games, scientific equipment, Egyptiana, taxidermy, fossils, archeological fakes, royal memorabilia, and curiosities of all sorts.”

Brooklyn-based, dead-stuff obsessed Ebenstein began by developing a photo exhibition called Anatomical Theatre: Depictions of The Body, Disease, and Death in Medical Museums of the Western World, a photographic survey of artifacts held in great medical museums of Europe and the United States.

Morbid Anatomy became the blog component of that project, then grew an undead life of its own and inspired her current project where she’s Seeking Collectors of Medical Curiosities, Ephemera, or Artifacts. The focus this time is items in private, rather than public collections. She tells us, “If any of you out there have collections that you think might be of interest, or know of anyone else who might, I would love to hear from you. All leads appreciated! All locations considered!”

Yes, all orientations of totally creepy and slightly nightmare-inducing are welcome. If you’re in the Bay Area and have something beautiful and dead or medical you think Joanna Ebenstein might want to photograph, she’ll be here October 20-25 and is looking for collections of medical curiosities, ephemera, and artifacts to photograph. And if you still can’t get enough of Morbid Anatomy, view the complete collections of her photos on her Flickr photostream (astropop).

images via Joanna Ebenstein

“Slacker”, the influential 1991 independent film by Richard Linklater that helped kicked off the independent film revival in the 1990’s, is now available on Hulu.

Kevin Smith introduces the film on Hulu’s blog, citing it as a major influence.

Two of our good friends in the San Francisco arts community, who used to live in Austin and were friends with Richard Linklater, appeared as characters in the film.

Kal Spelletich, founder of the robotics and kinetic machine art group SEEMEN, plays the part of “video backpacker” starting at the 01:06:31 mark.

Writer and artist Seth Malice plays the part of “Scooby Doo philosopher” starting at the 01:15:12 mark.

Viewing Note: Here’s information on how to view Hulu videos outside the US.

guest post by RICK!

Illustrator Harriet Russell started a project of sending envelopes with puzzle to solve for the address though the Royal Mail. Reminiscent of the Postal Experiments by the Annals of Improbably Research, of the 130 envelopes mailed, all but 10 were delivered. The Independent and Telegraph both run stories on the letters and subsequent book.

via Metafilter

illustration by Harriet Russell

Mariana Guglielmelli created this great infographic for Cat 2.0 (aka Gato 2.0).

illustration by Mariana Guglielmelli

guest post by RICK!

Design group Antrepo created these canvas posters cataloging the brand integration and product placement for recent blockbusters. This young company has also created a few other clever items, shame they aren’t for sale yet.

image via Antrepo

A battle has been taking place between the tiny hamburgers of the North & South…

In the North there’s White Castle which was founded in 1921 and is the oldest hamburger fast food restaurant chain in the US. They serve tiny square hamburgers known as “sliders”. See the White Castle Wikipedia article for more info.

In the South there’s Krystal, which was founded in 1932 and is the fourth oldest hamburger fast food restaurant chain in the US (the oldest in the South). They also serve tiny square hamburgers. See the Krystal Wikipedia article for more info.

Here’s a map from Wikipedia showing White Castle vs. Krystal locations in the US. The blue states have White Castles, the red states have Krystals and the green states have both. One thing is certain, the West Coast is missing out on all of the tiny square hamburger action.

photo galleries: White Castle & Krystal

See Previously:

- In-N-Out Burger, A Fast Food Underdog With a Cult Following

- Shake Shack, A Unique Hamburger Joint In The Heart of NYC

photos by Scott Beale

Students for Free Culture and Free Culture Berkeley are organizing the Free Culture Conference 2008 this weekend on October 11th and 12th at the Chevron Auditorium at University of California, Berkeley. The conference features a keynote by Creative Commons founder Lawrence Lessig. Here’s schedule and registration info.

The conference will be held October 11th at the Chevron Auditorium at UC Berkeley. Anyone interested in politics, tech policy, art, and culture will find something to like—we’ll be featuring keynote presentations from Pam Samuelson of Boalt Hall, Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law, and Mozilla Corporation CEO John Lilly. We are also convening panels on transparent politics, remix culture, copyright reform, and open access to knowledge and medicine. Richard Rinehart of Berkeley Art Museum will present the groundbreaking OpenMuseum project and Berkeley’s OKAPI group will demonstrate its virtual recreation of Çatalhöyük island for the Open Archaeology project. Filmmaker Nina Paley will be present for a screening of her groundbreaking film Sita Sings the Blues. And on October 12th, SFC will present a slate of intimate “unconference” style workshops on the Berkeley campus. Join guests from Creative Commons, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and others!

Thanks to Tim Hwang for the tip!

At the JFK airport in New York there are Kosher vending machines that serve hot food, like this Kosher Cafe Hot Nosh 24/6 where you can buy a potato knish, onion rings and fries. There are other machines that served hot dogs. The idea behind these vending machines is to be able to provide Kosher food to travelers in areas where it may not be available.

Here’s a New York Times article from last year about Kosher Vending Industries.

photo by Scott Beale

Recently I stopped by the beautiful Blue Bottle Cafe located at Mint Plaza in San Francisco. The cafe opened back in January and features the amazing Lucky Cremas Bonmac HST 105 Siphon Bar, a $20,000 coffee brewing machine from Japan. While there I shot a few photos and video of the cafe, including siphon bar in action.

photo gallery: Blue Bottle Cafe at Mint Plaza

See Previously: Blue Bottle Cafe Opens, Features $20K Siphon Bar Coffee Machine

photos & video by Scott Beale

Over the years various computer and electronic detritus has been accumulating at the Laughing Squid headquarters, so it’s time to get rid of bunch of it. I’ll be periodically updating this blog post to list items for sale.

Interested in any of this stuff? Contact us.

Please Note:

All payments are via PayPal.

Shipping is not included and is via FedEx (Ground or Home Delivery) in the US only.

All sales are final. We do not have a return policy.

Here’s the current list as of October 8th, 2008:

Canon EOS 1D Mark III Digital SLR Camera - $3700.00

- full product info
- body only, no lenses included
- includes original packaging

Robots and Monsters is a project started by Joe Alterio where he will create a custom drawn robot or monster of your choice for $50 based on the words and phrases you provide him. He will then send you the original and donate the money to a good cause. This quarter Joe is donating all proceeds to The Electronic Frontier Foundation. Here’s the menagerie of robots and monsters that Joe has created so far.

RobotsAndMonsters.org is a charitable art project that matches goodwill and charitable giving with custom-made commissioned cartoon and pop art. Giving just a little bit gets you an original drawing of a robot or a monster of your specification sent to your door - and in the process, you get to sleep better at night, because you know you’ve just helped out a great cause. C’mon in, and wipe your feet, stranger.

via Hugh D’Andrade

illustration by Joe Alterio

“Everybody Poops”, a bipartisan Threadless t-shirt design by Chris Lee Jones.

via Tcritic

illustration by Chris Lee Jones

Hulu will be live streaming tonight’s Presidential Debate via NBC through their new Election ‘08 hub.

See Previously: Current & Twitter Rock The First Presidential Debate of Election 2008

Sydney photographer Keith Loutit has created some amazing tilt-shift time-lapse videos, including “Beached”, “Bathtub II” and “Bathtub III”.

via Cult of Mac

Lowbrow artist and Juxtapoz Magazine founder Robert Williams will be doing an artist talk and book signing at 2pm this Sunday, October 12th at the Oakland Museum of California as part of their LA Paint exhibition which runs through March 8th, 2009. As a tribute to Robert’s love of hot rods, 40 vintage cars and custom hot rods will be in the museum courtyard from noon to 5pm.

See Previously: Lowbrow Art Pioneer Robert Williams Launches Website

As one of the media sponsors of Maker Faire Austin 2008, I have a some extra tickets for next weekend’s event, so I’m going to give away a pair of weekend passes (two sets total) and a pair of day passes (two sets total) to the first four people who leave comments on this post. I’ll contact the winners for their mailing address and then send the tickets via US Mail. We will need your mailing address by 6pm PDT on Tuesday, October 7th in order to send you your tickets.

Please note that I’m only giving away tickets to people who live in Austin, TX, so if you win a pair of tickets you’ll need to provide an Austin mailing address.

If you weren’t a recipient of one of the free tickets, you can always buy your tickets in advance online, which can then be picked up at the Maker Faire Will Call.

Maker Faire Austin 2008 takes place on Saturday, October 18th and Sunday, October 19th at the Travis County Exposition Cente. See my previous post for more info.

UPDATE: Thanks everyone, all Maker Faire tickets have been given away.

photo by Scott Beale