This Japanese ski resort toilet has everything: a vertiginous, trompe l'oeil mural, a pink toilet that washes your bum, AND an incomprehensible slogan for a brand of tinned coffee! Georgia Max Coffee chose to redesign the toilets of a number of key ski resorts in Japan. The cubicles were fully wrapp...

Last week, I gave a talk in Milan and had the immense pleasure of sitting down to lunch with Davide Casaleggio and his colleagues, who work with provocateur, dissident and comedian Beppe Grillo on issues related to social justice and media in Italy. Now Davide sends along this call-to-action for blo...

I've had an Android G1 phone since late October (verdict: I hate it less than other phones). There are plenty of useful/fun apps in the Android Market, but today I downloaded my first game-changing app: Android Calling Card, which auto-dials any cheapo calling card you buy down at the corner store, ...

Astute social media researcher danah boyd -- now running her own lab at Microsoft Research -- has published the notes from an internal company talk she gave called "Social Media is Here to Stay... Now What?" It's a good condensation of the material in her dissertation, full of punchy insights into h...

Cyborg Bugs: a series of concept illos for a race of super-violent, high-tech insects from Dean Christ of Ubyka Studio in Sydney. CYBORG BUGS : Enter the new evolution of warfare (via Geisha Asobi )...

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel's celebrating the CGSociety's "Steampunk: Myths & Legends" contest winners' page, highlighting Gabricio Moraes's rendered image "Steamnocchio," which is a damned fine piece of work. But it's not a patch on Guillaume Dubois's "Alice's Adventures in Steamland," if...

The inestimable Duncan Davidson, photographer laureate of the O'Reilly tech conferences, has distilled his experiences watching thousands of speakers on thousands of stages into a pithy, useful article about how to be a better speaker. I know I need help with the last one (try not to look bored on p...

John Reed writes a long and compassionate piece about Detroit in the Financial Times, suggesting that it has many lessons to learn for America as many other industries fail and the cities built around them have to figure out how to survive. Refreshingly, he puts some effort into puncturing the myth ...

The KZ Xtreme Defense Pen appears to be designed for stabbing people with: # 6061 Aircraft Grade Aluminum # CNC Machined. # Type II Class 3 Hard Anodized. # Ergonomic Design Provides Superior Grip and Comfortable Texturing. # Threaded Cap. # Slip Free, Knurled Center. # Heavy Duty, 1/16 Inch Stainle...

At San Francisco's Pizzeria Delfina, they know how to own their pain. Rather than wringing their hands over Internet sourpusses who give them one-star Yelp ratings, they've printed up tees with excerpts from the most scathing reviews ("This place sucks") and given them to the staff to wear. Instead ...