29 May 2003

Memo to Triona Croke: Backyard Publisher BACK YARD PUBLISHER -- Teresa Nielsen Hayden has innumerable likable qualities, but certainly one of her finest traits is her penchant for finding laughably misinformed information on the interweb and then gently, throughly and lovingly correcting it in a way that is funny enough to provoke milk-in-your-sinuses-and-on-your-keyboard laughter. In today's installment, she takes apart a webpage that "describes" how printing and book design work. They call themselves Back Yard Publisher, but I prefer the page's title tag: Publishing Your Manuescript. (sic). Their motto is good, too: Remember! There's A Publisher in You're (sic) Own Back Yard. Most of their page is given over to explaining hitherto-unknown Alternate Facts about book design, typography, and printing. For instance: In gravure printing the letters are etched into a plate (usually Copper), then ink is forced into the letters, scraped from the area around the letters and paper is forced onto the ink at extremely high pressure. The ink is then transferred to the paper. This is what the song "In Your Easter Bonnet" is all about. Cory Doctorow: Facts about printing and book design. "In your Easter bonnet, with all the frills upon it, / You'll be the grandest lady in the Easter parade ..." x_ref125

SARS emoticons Blog do Itaulab -- Even the Chinese MS Messenger embodied the paranoia in their emoticons. Cory Doctorow: SARS Digital folk art, exhibit J: instant message icons x_ref125

World's largest flower opens in Bonn NATURE -- The nearly 3m-tall Titan Arum at the University of Bonn kicked ass by breaking the record for World's Tallest Flower by 7cm last week. The species is known as the "corpse flower" because it smells like dead flesh. This specimen rarely flowers, but when it does, the whole greenhouse knows it. By mimicking a carcass in decay, they brownish flowers attrach insects that deposit their eggs inside the plant, spreading its pollen in the process. Quirin Schiermeier: World's largest flower opens in Bonn. (Nature News Service / Macmillan Magazines Ltd) Steve Portigal: World's hugest, most big honking flower ever x_ref1256

Mark's new home in the South Pacific /island -- Mark Frauenfelder (plus wife Carla Sinclair and two daughters) will fly off from Studio City to beyond Hawaii. "The first place we'll be staying is the island of Rarotonga. It's due south of Hawaii, as far south of the equator is as Hawaii is north of the equator. "We want to move around to different islands every few months. We'll come back in a year or so. I'm going to try to keep writing and illustrating. Most of the islands have cybercafes, so I'll be blogging. I'll occasionally post to boingboing.net, but most of my blogging will be on The Island Chronicles Blog. The plan is to post a new photo and caption every day. I have a few sample photos already posted, as a way to test the design." I have landed on Honolulu's main runway at least 72 times, and on runways in Pago Pago, Eniwetok, and Kwajalein. I've done mid-altitude atmospheric testing throughout the Trust Territories of the Pacific, so Mark's new adventure tugged at the strings of my memory. Once I establish UnderwayInIreland.com, I think I'll reserve a section for island memories too. It takes an independent soul to enjoy a long-term stay on an island. Every road returns to where you start. Mark Frauenfelder: Mark's new home in the South Pacific BoingBoing/island: Why we moved to the South Pacific x_ref264