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"An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing? Scientists today reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds. The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS), is ordinary water."...

In Japan, contracts are signed using a hanko, an engraved stamp. (I bought one for the name "Mark" just for fun when I was in Japan. We also bought one for my daughter's karate teacher and he loves it, and now uses it on the certificates his gives his sudents. You can order a hanko online.) Japan Sugoi writes that Mitsubishi Pencil has announced a hanko with built-in fraud protection: Non Japanese people usually sign legal contracts or other important documents in ink, but Japanese traditionally prefer an engraved stamp called a hanko. One concern though, is that the stamped signature, usually the owner’s name, can be easily forged. Mitsubishi Pencil’s Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko stamp ダイヤルバンク印 alleviates the risk of fraud by adding a two-digit dial that creates a series of marks around the printed name, making it difficult for an unauthorized person to copy someone’s stamp. It also wards against theft by requiring a code to be entered before use. I'm not sure how people can tell whether or not a correct combination was used, though. perhaps a Japanese reader can explain. Mitsubishi Security Enhanced Personalized Hanko Stamp...

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of meeting Stacey Ransom and Jason Mitchell, proprietors of Purebred, an intensely creative still and motion production company in San Francisco. As made apparent to me by their absolutely marvelous portfolio, my phantasmagoric dreams and nightmares somehow play out behind their studio doors. Magnificently strange, luminous, and fantastic... I can hardly imagine the shots that aren't meant for the public's eye. Purebred still + motion production (Thanks, Ozlo!)...

In celebration of the imminent release of the game Fallout: New Vegas, Ryan Palser made a replica of the A3-21 Plasma Rifle from Fallout 3. As Ryan says, "It is one of the only weapons still manufactured after the great war." He's posted a fascinating series of build photos over at Flickr. A3-21 Plasma Rifle...

A middle-aged woman throws a cat into a trash can. It happened near the Sacred Heart School in Coventry. Too bad for her there was a camera pointed at her. She will be identified, maybe with the help of a Boing Boing reader! The cat lived. Daily Mail: So who is the middle-aged woman who stopped to stroke the cat.... before cruelly dumping kitty in the litter? (Via Cynical-C)...

Look at this: they misspelled "capitalize!" (Via Cake Wrecks)...

Cibo Matto, "Sugar Water" (1996), directed by Michel Gondry. Pitchfork's terrific list of the top 50 music videos of the 1990s....

Over at the Submitterator, lbigbadbob points us to this video of a Sequoia AVC Edge touch-screen DRE voting machine hacked to, er, play Pac-man. This was done without breaking any of the tamper-evident seals. Nice work, J. Alex Halderman, University of Michigan, and Ariel J. Feldman, Princeton University! From the project page: How did you reprogram the machine? The original election software used the psOS+ embedded operating system. We reformatted the memory card to boot DOS instead. (Update: Yes, it can also run Linux.) Challenges included remembering how to write a config.sys file and getting software to run without logical block addressing or a math coprocessor. The entire process took three afternoons. Why PAC-MAN? In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the iconic arcade game, we reprogrammed the AVC Edge to run Pac-Man. It uses MAME to emulate the original hardware. (We own the electronics from a real Pac-Man machine.) We could have reprogrammed it to steal votes, but that's been done before, and Pac-Man is more fun! PAC-MAN on the Sequoia AVC-Edge DRE voting machine...

I'm a few days behind the viral bell curve on this one—I have a good excuse, I was overseas in a not-very-connected place! Many of you may have been slouching in the late days of August, too, and missed this phenomenal new video from Cee-Lo Green taking the 'tubes by storm. Watch it now. It's brilliant, the song, the execution, and the sans-serif video styling. Just phenomenal. Simplicity is everything. Those of you not familiar with Cee-Lo's stage name (his mom knows him as Thomas DeCarlo Callaway) may find the sound familiar: he's the voice of Gnarls Barkley. Update: Observant BB commenter fhamilton notes that the font in this video appears to be "Knockout" by Hoefler & Frere-Jones. (via @seanbonner, @Zadi )...

BB quizmaster David Israel and artist Kiersten Essenpreis have a delightful new project, Twaggies, where they create comic panels for odd, funny, or downright random Tweets from various folks. You can also buy t-shirts of all the Twaggies. Twaggies...

"What other churches might be objectionable because of the horrific acts of some of its members? Maybe we shouldn't have Christian churches in the South wherever the Ku Klux Klan operated because years ago proclaimed white Christians lynched blacks. How close to Hickam Field, at Pearl Harbor, should a Shinto shrine be allowed? I wonder how many of our young people -- notorious, we are told, for their ignorance of American history -- would be surprised that Japanese-Americans had lives and livelihoods destroyed when they were rounded up during World War II? Should all World War II service memorials, therefore, be moved away from the sites of these internment camps? Where does one draw the line?"—American television icon Dick Cavett, in the New York Times....

J. Alex Halderman writes, "About four months ago, Ed Felten blogged about a research paper in which Hari Prasad, Rop Gonggrijp, and I detailed serious security flaws in India's electronic voting machines. Indian election authorities have repeatedly claimed that the machines are "tamperproof," but we demonstrated important vulnerabilities by studying a machine provided by an anonymous source. The story took a disturbing turn a little over 24 hours ago, when my coauthor Hari Prasad was arrested by Indian authorities demanding to know the identity of that source." More here....

"Making up social media strategies so you don't have to." [via Justin Newton]...

At an all-white anti-mosque rally this week, a New York City resident passing by who happened to be black, and not a Muslim, wore the wrong hat— and was harassed and quite nearly assaulted by an assortment of "dumb motherf***ers." This is America, folks. [YouTube video link, via Balloon Juice] Anti-Defamation League joins bigots in opposing Manhattan mosque ... The "30 Mosques" guys visit "The Ground Zero Mosque" China Mieville wants your designs opposing the anti-mosque folks ... Fareed Zakaria returns ADL award as protest over Ground Zero ......

I hope I don't need to explain to you why this mashup is completely amazing. Other than that a friend just posted it on Tumblr I know nothing about it, if you have any details, let me know. Otherwise, enjoy! UPDATE: As noted in the comments, this was done by DJ Topcat and is from the new Bootie Top 10 collection. This makes sense since DJ Topcat is also responsible for "More Than On Point" which is one of my favorite mashups ever and is from the Bootie - Best of 2007 mix....

Photo by Crystl, via Flickr (CC, some rights reserved) Physicist Robert Richardson from Cornell University is warning against plans implemented via the Helium Privatization Act to sell off our National Helium Reserve by 2013. Although cryogenic applications in magnetic resonance imaging, semiconductor processing and basic research consume the largest portion of the helium market presently, this light, inert gas has many other uses. NASA uses it in the pressurizing and purging of its rocket engines while civilian industries use approximately 13 million scm annually in various welding applications. By the time one accounts for helium's role in atmospheric control and leak detection as well as its obvious use as a lifting gas, it is clear that the industry is an important part of the U.S. economy. Helium is a non-renewable material here on earth. About 80% of global reserves are in the American Southwest, created as a by-product of refining natural gas. Dr. Richardson recommends raising prices drastically, so a helium balloon would run around $100, to reflect the value of the gas inside. World helium reserves are running out, Nobel laureate claims [telegraph.co.uk]...

A few days ago, Japanator posted this fun tribute to K-On!!, where a group of musicians recreate the opening and closing theme of the anime with household items. It looks like the video stems from Nico Nico Douga. K-On!! is the second season popular anime about a group of high school girls who form a band (the first season is known as K-On!). The show has been getting a good amount of buzz in within the U.S. anime fandom for a while now and, at this year's Otakon, Bandai announced that it would be releasing an English dub of the first season....

I want to entertain an offhand theory that I've had ever since I became obsessed with indoor rock climbing two and a half years ago: It's great for geeks, and we should all be doing it.

As people get older, their eyesight starts to decline, and I'm no exception. I was considering bifocals or progressive lenses until I was contacted by TruFocals, a company that makes a new type of eyeglass with adjustable focus. It sounded interesting, so I sent them my prescription. A week later I got a pair of circular lensed John Lennon-ish spectacles. They have a little slider on the bridge that I can move with with my finger to change the focus. When the slider is to the right, I can see fine print, and when the slider is to the left I can drive and watch movies. With the slider in-between, I can get crystal clear vision at any distance. They work very well. If you aren't dissuaded by the $895 price tag, they might be just what you are looking for. Visit the TruFocals website for more information. Above: a video I made of the TruFocals in action. Learn more about how they work at the link below. TruFocals eyeglasses...

Swedish prosecutors issued an arrest warrant for Wikileaks' Julian Assange on Friday only to withdraw it hours later. Accused of rape and molestation, Assange was quoted on Twitter saying that the allegations were "without basis" and "deeply disturbing." The warrant was cancelled on Saturday, however, with the chief prosecutor saying that Assange was not suspected of rape. From the BBC: In a brief statement Eva Finne said: "I don't think there is reason to suspect that he has committed rape." The website said there would be no further immediate comment. Earlier, Karin Rosander, communications head at Sweden's prosecutors' office, said there were two separate allegations against Mr Assange, one of rape and the other of molestation. She gave no details of the accusations. She said that as far as she knew they related to alleged incidents that took place in Sweden. On Saturday she said the police investigation into the molestation charge continued. Wikileaks, which recently published 75,000 'war logs' relating to the war in Afghanistan, suggested the charges were 'dirty tricks,' but did not elaborate. Assange, whose globe-trotting advocacy for the organization makes him its most high-profile public face, was in Sweden last weekend to apply for a publishing certificate, which would qualify Wikileaks for protection under the country's journalist shield laws. Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper reported further details of the the allegations. Assange remains under investigation for the lesser 'molestation' charge, which appears to be a literal translation of Sweden's sexual harassment laws. Photo: New Media Days...