Readers may recall previous posts on Jeff Han’s impressive multi-touch interfaces. Today Microsoft unveils a new toy.

More at Popular Mechanics and ZDNet. Art world please take note.

SubmarineChannel has an archive of memorable film title designs. From Sergio Leone’s A Fistful of Dollars to David Cronenberg’s eXistenZ. Have a look at Joost Korngold’s striking teaser for Sean Thibodeau’s “docu-horror” Devil’s Drug.

I first encountered Marjane Satrapi’s comic book memoir, Persepolis, back in 2003. The book recounts the author’s childhood in and beyond revolutionary Iran, with Satrapi’s faux-naïf illustration luring the reader into unexpectedly adult territory. Through the eyes of a nine-year-old girl we see the collective hysteria of Islamic fundamentalism and its intimate, coercive evils, contrasted with smaller, more personal, acts of rebellion. As when a pair of black market Nikes, an ABBA recording or an inch of visible hair become gestures of truly hazardous proportions. Some four years later, Persepolis has been remade as an animated film, directed by Satrapi with Vincent Paronnaud. A recent screening at Cannes, where Persepolis shared the Jury Prize, upset the Iranian authorities, prompting the obligatory accusations of “Western bias” and claims that the film is “an anti-cultural act” and “an unreal picture of the outcomes and achievements of the Islamic revolution.” Audiences will be able to decide for themselves when the film is released later this year. Though not in Iran, methinks.

More at Satrapi’s blog.

I thought I’d highlight a piece from Friday’s ephemera by Christina Hoff Sommers, on what she calls the “fecklessness of American feminism.” Sommers notes the silence of so many “vagina warriors” on matters of gender oppression in Islamic societies: 

“If you go to the websites of major women’s groups… or to women’s centres at our major colleges and universities, you’ll find them caught up with entirely other issues, seldom mentioning women in Islam. During the 1980s, there were massive demonstrations on American campuses against racial apartheid in South Africa. There is no remotely comparable movement on today’s campuses against the gender apartheid prevalent in large parts of the world…

Many feminists are tied up in knots by multiculturalism and find it very hard to pass judgment on non-Western cultures. They are far more comfortable finding fault with American society for minor inequities (the exclusion of women from the Augusta National Golf Club, the ‘under-representation’ of women on faculties of engineering) than criticizing heinous practices beyond our shores. The occasional feminist scholar who takes the women’s movement to task for neglecting the plight of foreigners is ignored or ruled out of order.”

As, for instance, when the “post-colonial theorist” Gayatri Spivak denounced Martha Nussbaum’s critique of postmodern feminism and her reference to Islamic misogyny as mere “flag waving” and advancing some (no doubt wicked and rightwing) “civilizing mission.” Sommers also casts an eye over the intellectual contortions of those who equate cosmetic surgery and a tolerance of pornography with acts of jihadist terrorism – an equation that renders those who mouth it trivial, pretentious and morally absurd.

Dr Robert Albert Moog. Synthesisers, sex changes, radical fashions. “People were freaking out.” (H/T, 1+1=3) // Cinematic drugfest. Tokin’, gulpin’, sniffin’, shovellin’. (H/T, Metrolander) // Fun with vibrating cornstarch. Wait for the tendrils. // Time-lapse film of Sunspot 875. Plasma “granules” the size of continents. Watch that hydrogen seethe. // Researchers eye bacteria for long-term data storage. (H/T, Protein Wisdom) // The USB Mini Fridge. // Multi-Tool! It’s 8 screwdrivers in one. And Multi-Hammer too. // Thought-reading machine. (1919) “For the office of the future.” // Robot plays air hockey. // Japanese manhole covers. Firemen, fruit, anime. // Basic reasoning test deemed “discriminatory” and “racist” by US Department of Justice. // Christopher Hitchens on a transformed London. “The roots of violence are in the preaching of it, and the sanctification of it.” // Diana West on Pew’s “encouraging” survey. “Just one in four. Isn’t that something to be upbeat about?” // Iranian modesty police in action. Shrouded zealots accost and berate women. “Your hair is showing. Come with us.” Struggles ensue, blood flows. But remember, “all cultures are equal.” Sure they are. // Christina Hoff Sommers on the silence of Western feminists. // An imposing chandelier. // 50 things to love about superhero comics. // The best and worst airports to sleep in. Mosquitoes, shootings, uncomfortable chairs. (H/T, Coudal.) // Scary Mary. (H/T, Ace) // Hush now, children. It’s Henry Hall.