My Tribute to Rosa Parks and Apple's Latest iPod Ad Series

In honor of the passing of one of America's most important Civil Rights figures, Rosa Parks, Apple Computer is re-running one of its past "Think Different" ads that featured a historical archive photograph of her riding on a bus.

I couldn't help adding my own tribute to Rosa Parks, and to Apple Computer for honoring important figures like her, with an updated version, based on Apple's current iPod ads.

Apple's Rosa Parks "Think Different" Ad

Regular Old Sea Sponge

D'oh! I evidently don't know my loofahs from my sea sponges! No sooner was I quoted on Boing Boing saying that the Saturnian moon, Hyperion resembles a giant loofah, than my glaring error is caught.

How I love the internets! Watchful Boing Boing reader, Ryan Freeburn wrote to point out that Hyperion doesn't resemble a loofah. What I was thinking of, was, as Ryan pointed out, was "a regular old sea sponge."

He's absolutely right. And as you can see, a regular old sea sponge, albeit a giant one made of rock, is exactly what Hyperion resembles. If we discovered something that looked like a loofah orbiting anywhere in our solar system, that would be startling news indeed!

Loofah

It turns out, upon a bit of overdue inquiry, that a loofah isn't from the sea at all, and is actually the dried parts of a terrestrial gourd. Sea Sponges, on the other hand, are sea-dwelling animals of the phylum Porifera.

I might not have made this mistake had I taken the time to read up about loofahs and pay attention to how fundamentally different they are from sea sponges. In my defense, however, I can only say that I was caught up in the joy of being able to use the excellent word, "loofah" in a post.

The Spacecraft Cassini's Photograph of Saturn's Moon, Hyperion

Saturn has the most moons of any planet in our solar system - 49 known moons, plus two currently unconfirmed. And it turns out, one of them - Hyperion - resembles a gigantic loofah sponge! (see correction above)

First discovered by William Cranch Bond in 1848, Hyperion is one Saturn's smaller moons. It is also irregularly shaped, with dimensions of 360 km (224 miles) x 280 km (174 miles) x 225 km (140 miles).

The Cassini spacecraft recently flew by Hyperion at the very close range of just 500 km (310 miles). The high-resolution photo of Hyperion at right was taken on September 26, 2005 when the Cassini was 62,000 km (38,500 miles) from Hyperion.

Hyperion's been knocked silly by the thousands of meteor hits it's taken over the eons. It's rotational period varies from one orbit to the next, and tumbles in an irregular, chaotic motion.

Octopus vs. Shark

Check out what happened when keepers at the Seattle Aquarium placed a giant octopus into a large tank with sharks.

The outcome was a surprise, and led to a new understanding of marine life behavior.

Japanese Restroom In a Bag

So let's say you're tooling around in your swell little Daihatsu and find yourself stuck in a jutai.

This reminds me of one of my all-time favorite Japanese films, Jutai (Traffic Jam), but that's another story.

And while you're stuck in this traffic jam, perhaps sipping on a Pocari Sweat, you discover that you've got to make a restroom pitstop. But where? You're stuck!

Well, if it were America, you'd simply go in a bottle or jug and toss it out the window. Nasty gaijin!

But the Japanese have a solution. My friend, Jun Nozaki gave this to me several years ago. It's a kind of restroom in a bag! Inside the package shown above is a plastic bag attached to a rigid opening. Inside the bag is a material that soaks up your business and turns it into a tidy solid.

Scion Xb JIMWICh Edition

Among my favorite diminuitive Japanese vehicles are the Daihatsus. They're tiny and stylin'!

Daihatsu Copen

I like the Daihatsus for the same reasons I've liked the Scion Xb, another awesome small vehicle produced by Toyota's Scion division, and available in the U.S. for a couple of years now. I'd like to have a Scion Xb, just so that I could put the JIMWICh logo on it.

I'm always surprised at how many Americans I know express disdain for the Xb. I think it's one of the most lovable of looks! One reason I like it is that for several years the Japanese had been producing cooly severe boxes on wheels, so when I saw the Scion Xb, my first thought was, "YAY!!! FINALLY!!!!"

Daihatsu Mira Gino

I blogged about these back in August of 2000, but many of those cites succumbed to linkrot. Back then, I loved the sweet retro looks of the Mira Gino, custom versions of the teensy Atrai van, the pipsqueak SUV Terios and Terios Kid, and the Move, which even came in a Hello Kitty version.

Daihatsu Tanto

My favorite new Daihatsus are the cute bloblicious Copen, (which has the happiest face of any vehicle I've ever seen), and the Tanto, yet another little box-shaped masterpiece.

I'm still waiting for Americans to catch on to microcars. Maybe as gas prices continue to skyrocket and parking become more and more difficult, they will.

In a recent discussion on The WELL, the subject arose of InterCaps (or as they're sometimes known, "CamelCaps"). This is where compound words are adjoined, with the first characters capitalized.

But it seems to me that if one was going to have CamelCaps, why couldn't there be LlamaCcaps as well?

And of course, all of you should be familiar with JIMWIChCAPs.

Heineken AlumaBottle

I recently fed the two cats and watered the houseplants of my good friends, Lee and Lena while they traveled to Europe. The brought me back some nice goodies, including this AlumaBottle of Heineken.

I'd never before seen an AlumaBottle, but they're very cool. Lee and I were trying to figure out how it's made. I figure it must be drawn from a circular blank similar to the process used to make a regular aluminum can, but then compressed to make the neck.

LMC informs me that the Big Sky Brewery in Montana also uses the AlumaBottle. And checking out their website, I notice that they've been using it for about two years. They produce the wonderfully named Moose Drool Brown Ale, which I'm told is very fine.

Interestingly, the AlumnaBottle can be filled on existing bottling lines. They were the first American brewery to use the AlumaBottle, and after searching, I can't find any others that do.

I was also looking for a site that described the technology and fabrication process, but came up emptyhanded.