Collector of anomalies, esoterica, and curiosities.
Could the Death Star really destroy a planet? Back in 2008, I posted that astrophysicist and mathematician Jeanne Cavelos, author of The Science of Star Wars, speculated that indeed, the Death Star could be that deadly. Last year, another group of scientists published a paper addressing the same question. And these researchers from the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy came to the same conclusion. According to the paper abstract, "A simplified planet is used giving an energy required to destroy as 2 x 1027 J. Since the Death Star's power source has a much greater energy output it is feasible to destroy a planet with such a space station." Of course, such a space station doesn't exist. But, well, yeah. "That's No Moon" (PDF, via
Comics artist Frank Miller has consigned two pieces of original Batman artwork — both valued at more than $50,000 — to be put up for auction.
The first (above) is the book cover art for Absolute Dark Knight, the single-volume edition combining The Dark Knight Returns and The Dark Knight Strikes Again, which the comics creator says is one of his favorite pieces.
"It took me years to define, in my own mind, Batman as less a creature of vengeance than of vigor," Miller said, describing the drawing in a press release about the auction. "To me, it sums the man up."
The second piece of Miller's work up for auction is a splash page from Batman: The Dark Knight Returns (10th Anniversary Edition) featuring Batman with Carrie Kelly, the first female Robin. Miller's artwork is being offered by Heritage Auctions as part of its Vintage Comics and Comic Art Signature Auction, which will be held Feb. 22-24. Miller will be making an appearance at the New York preview of the auction before his pieces go under the gavel.
Miller worked with artists Klaus Janson and Lynn Varley on the artwork for his Dark Knight graphic novels, but the two pieces up for auction were created entirely by Miller. Original Miller artwork from Dark Knight comics has been fetching a pretty penny lately. A splash page from The Dark Knight Returns brought in a mind-boggling $448,125 last year at a Heritage auction. It's a piece the auction house's Senior Vice President Ed Jaster likened to the Batman and Robin image currently open for bidding.
"This piece is a direct reflection and front-on view of Miller's famous original splash page of the Dynamic Duo, which shattered all existing records for a piece," Jaster said in a statement. "Needless to say, we expect great demand in the market for this visionary piece."
Hundreds of other comics and pieces of original artwork will be on the block in Heritage's upcoming auction. Check out a few more of the rare comics artifacts — from Action Comics No. 1 (with a current bid of $140,000) to an original Bill Watterson Calvin and Hobbes watercolor — in the gallery above.
A long-lost brand, and singularly odd one. Like discovering Spicy Cajun Visine Hot Sauce lurking in the product's history
[Video Link]
Members of the Black skeptics organization African Americans For Humanism (AAH) are planning events on Feb. 26 in six major U.S. cities, "targeting African-Americans who have privately or openly questioned their faith." The group holds religion responsible for “many of the problems plaguing the African American community” and promotes “rational and scientific methods of inquiry” that include “positive thinking, the sharing of ideas, and enlightened self-interest.”
A double treat from Errol Morris: a short video documentary about a man who calls himself the Wingador, the five-time champion of the Philadelphia Wing Bowl eating competition, and an accompanying essay about Morris' fascination with "champion eaters."
I have been fascinated by champion eaters for over 30 years.
When I was in Berkeley, Calif., in the 1970s I made a pilgrimage to Oakland to visit Eddie Miller, known as Bozo, the world champion chicken-eater. Bozo was in the Guinness World Records book for eating 27 two-pound roast chickens in one sitting. A remarkable feat of gluttony. I remember trying to tell my friend Alice Waters about Bozo, and she clamped her hands over her ears and said, “I just can’t listen to this kind of thing. It’s against everything I stand for.”
Bozo reminded me of Kafka’s Hunger Artist — except in his case it wasn’t fasting, it was the exact opposite. Also, I loved the fact that Bozo called his daughters Cooky, Candy and Honey, and that there was a framed cross-stitched sampler next to his front door that read, “NOTHING EXCEEDS LIKE EXCESS.”
[Video Link, via LAist]
Los Angeles area radio station KPCC produced this lovely video portrait of designer, educator, and media artist Alex Braidwood. His work "explores methods for transforming the relationship between people and the noise in their environment." In the video, you'll see Alex wearing what I believe may be his Noisolation Headphones, "an invention for mechanically transforming the relationship between a person and the noise that immediately surrounds them." His video about that project is below.
Ever since I was a kid, I've adored the crunchy/creamy sweet treat of astronaut ice cream. Now that I live just five minutes from Johnson Space Center, the freeze-dried confection is the top request when we take visiting friends to the gift shop at Space Center Houston. There is just something idyllic and iconic about the space-age dessert. Ben Krasnow shows how you can build a freeze dryer to sublimate the water from regular ice cream to turn it in to the crunchy astronaut ice cream we all know and love. Bonus point for the mix of science and sugar!
From the Telegraph: "Of the 12,000 who attended the scene of the atrocity at the World Trade Center 10 years ago, 297 have been diagnosed with cancer, almost triple the incidence before the attack. A report said that 56 who have been diagnosed had since died." — Xeni
The Los Angeles Times reports that two more $6,000 King brass sousaphones (marching band tubas) have been burgled from an LA county high school this week, in an extended run of thefts over recent months blamed on "the popularity of Mexican banda music." — Xeni
Adam Levin Chairman and cofounder of Credit.com and Identity Theft 911. Adam’s experience as former director of the New Jersey Division of Consumer Affairs gives him unique insight into consumer privacy, legislation and financial advocacy. He is a nationally recognized expert on identity theft and credit. Reach Adam at creditexperts@credit.com.
Last week was a pretty good one for the notion of privacy in America, which has increasingly become forlorn and tattered as a result of the advancement of digital technology. First, the Supreme Court ruled in United States v. Jones that warrantless GPS tracking of a criminal suspect by the FBI was unconstitutional, and then later in the week Google announced its new privacy policy, a model of simplicity and fairness with one sizeable flaw. Oddly, this particular decision by the court sheds some important light on the particular problem within Google's otherwise admirable new privacy policy.
The decision of the Court in United States v. Jones was accompanied by two concurring opinions, one written by Justice Alito, and the other by Justice Sotomayor. The unanimous decision and ruling found that the government violated the Fourth Amendment's prohibition of unreasonable searches and seizures because a tracking device had been attached to the defendant's car without first obtaining a warrant. The placing of the device constituted a trespass, akin to breaking into someone's home or filing cabinet.
Justice Alito's well-reasoned concurrence went further, arguing that the notion of physical trespass as a predicate to finding a warrant necessary was outdated, and that beginning with the wiretapping cases of the 1960s, courts began to recognize that a more appropriate standard was whether or not a person had "a reasonable expectation of privacy" in a given situation. This approach, argued Alito, was far more effective in dealing with privacy issues in the digital era---as opposed to limiting the Fourth Amendment to the law of trespass, which essentially dates back to 1215. Justice Sotomayor's opinion spoke to the world as we know it, and she couldn't have been more spot on. She wrote:
... it may be necessary to reconsider the premise that an individual has no reasonable expectation of privacy in information voluntarily disclosed to third parties... This approach is ill-suited to the digital age, in which people reveal a great deal of information about themselves to third parties in the course of carrying out mundane tasks. People disclose the phone numbers that they dial or text to their cellular providers; the URLs that they visit and the e-mail addresses with which they correspond to their Internet service providers; and the books, groceries, and medications they purchase to online retailers... I for one doubt that people would accept without complaint the warrantless disclosure to the Government of a list of every Web site they had visited in the last week, or month, or year."
Could the Death Star really destroy a planet? Back in 2008, I posted that astrophysicist and mathematician Jeanne Cavelos, author of The Science of Star Wars, speculated that indeed, the Death Star could be that deadly. Last year, another group of scientists published a paper addressing the same question. And these researchers from the University of Leicester's Department of Physics and Astronomy came to the same conclusion. According to the paper abstract, "A simplified planet is used giving an energy required to destroy as 2 x 1027 J. Since the Death Star's power source has a much greater energy output it is feasible to destroy a planet with such a space station." Of course, such a space station doesn't exist. But, well, yeah. "That's No Moon" (PDF, via 
