browsing machines

Krach der Roboter, the circuit bending noise-bot



At the 2008 Bent Festival for experimental electronic music, Xeni encounters Krach der Roboter ("Noise Robot"), who brings a message of peace, crackers, and chaotic tonal algorithms for all mankind.

"Why do humans love robots so much?" Xeni asks. "Actually, people love animals, babies, and robots," Krach replied. "But animals make turds and babies cry, while robots do none of those things."

Includes gratuitous references to the spectacularly crappy 1979 movie "Starcrash," starring David Hasselhoff and Christopher Plummer. Special thanks to Make, which sponsored the event, and to Andreas Stoiber and Johannes Grenzfurthner of monochrom.

MORE circuit bending video goodness: filmmaker John Fox attended the 2007 Bent Festival in Los Angeles, and shot this fun mini-documentary about the instruments, the technology, and the participants: Video Link.

Cupcake Cutthroats: muffin-shaped electric art cars gone wild.



Boing Boing tv presents CUPCAKE CUTTHROATS, a cakesploitation epic exploring the dark side of electric art-cars shaped like baked goods. These homemade vehicles are crafted by Silicon Valley nerds (including one engineer from Tesla Motors) and Burning Man enthusiasts in a Berkeley, California, warehouse. In today's episode, Xeni joins the marauding muffineers for a 15-mph thrillride down mean, sugar-sprinkled streets.

CBS News almost blew our cover! The muffineers say, "We dedicate our efforts in memory of Keith Taft." A full list of cupcake art car bakers designers and drivers, after the jump.

Continue reading Cupcake Cutthroats: muffin-shaped electric art cars gone wild..

Text-o-possum / Your Psycho Girlfriend



Xeni dons a tutu made of baby heads on today's Boing Boing tv: we visit the workshop of Your Psycho Girlfriend, creators of demented couture and cyborg marsupials from the future.

One of those mammal-machine hybrids is the text-o-possum (we meet him around 02:27). The left rear leg of this taxidermied texter hides a bluetooth keyboard projector that shoots ASCII into the ether with red lasers. No, really.

In part two of today's episode (around 3:09), a Boing Boing operative tests out the text-o-possum's capabilities for enterprise computing in an urban business environment. A elderly lady walks up and pets text-o-possum, then all hell breaks loose. And by hell, we mean comedy.

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Continue reading Text-o-possum / Your Psycho Girlfriend.

Robot Revolution / Peppermelon Animation



Robots are used on battlefields to fight wars, but today on BBtv -- an infomercial for robotic revolution from the Institute for Applied Autonomy. Founded in 1988, the group describes themselves as:
... a technological research and development organization dedicated to the cause of individual and collective self-determination. Our mission is to study the forces and structures which affect self-determination and to provide technologies which extend the autonomy of human activists.
Those technologies include a grafitti-spraying robot to denounce The Man, a cute and seductive pamphleteer, and a txt app for your phone, so you can invite all your pals to come riot.

Next in today's episode: animated square-headed beings from the beautiful genius minds behind Peppermelon.tv.

Mark makes a mini amp / Funky cowboy (BBtv's 50th!)



W00t, here's the 50th episode of Boing Boing tv! Mark makes a tiny amplifier for an electric guitar, then proceeds to shred. Next, a short film by Walter Robot (Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie) in which an urban cowboy funks out.