Here’s a video of an extremely detailed Simpsons Map for Quake 3 Arena.

UPDATE: Here’s a direct link to download the map RAR file.

via Waxy

Speaking of Virgin America and The Internets, here’s a photo I shot of Boing Boing TV on Virgin America, one of the programming options on Red, their interactive in-flight entertainment system. The photo is from my “virgin” flight on Virgin America back in March and overall it was a great flying experience, especially since I was able to pass the time watching great content like Boing Boing TV and TED Talks, as well as access to live satellite TV, MP3’s, open source games and pay-per-view movies.

photo by Scott Beale

Pownce is having their 1 Year Anniversary Party this Friday, June 27th at the Justin.tv headquarters in San Francisco. If you plan on going, you need to RSVP in advance and you should show up early if you want to make sure that you can get in.

photo by Mark Trammell

Last Friday Mario Anima, director of online community for Current, gave me a tour of their San Francisco headquarters. Current is an internet and television news and culture network started by Al Gore and Joel Hyatt in 2005 that encourages collaboration with their audience through their VC2 interactive viewer created content program. For the latest on what’s going on at Current, check out the Current blog.

Here are a few photos I shot of Current’s offices as Mario was showing me around.

Here’s a promo for Current’s VC2 program featuring Bay Area filmmaker Kevin Epps.

photos by Scott Beale

The new documentary “Dust And Illusions” by Olivier Bonin, featuring an in-depth look a the history of Burning Man, is having a special preview screening at CELLspace in San Francisco this Saturday, June 28th. The event is a benefit for The Flaming Lotus Girls to help them raise money for their Burning Man 2008 fire-art project Mutopia.

Once a year, on a vast Nevada lake bed surrounded by mountains, the Burning Man festival brings together tens of thousands of people who are attracted by the festival’s promise of seven days of “decommodification,” “community,” “artwork,” and “revelry.” But increasingly, many question whether Burning Man’s mainstream appeal threatens—or even upends—the festival’s utopian vision. Through a series of in-depth interviews of the festival’s founders, organizers, and participants, DUST AND ILLUSIONS traces the festival’s history, while examining whether the festival is a victim of its own success.

More Coverage:

- SF Bay Guardian (Pixel Vision)

Here’s Walt Mossberg’s Wall Street Journal review of the new airline Wi-Fi service provided by the Denver based company Gogo, that will be launching soon on a limited number of American Airlines and Virgin America flights within the US. Gogo is providing coverage using their ground-based Aircell Network and it could be available on as early as July.

UPDATE: Over on Boing Boing, Xeni contacted a representative from Virgin America to get an update on their plans for in-flight Wi-Fi.

Thomas Hawk shot some amazing photos of the beautiful artwork by Dale Chihuly currently on exhibit at the de Young Museum in San Francisco.

Chris Heuer also shot some wonderful photos of the Dale Chihuly Exhibition.

The Dale Chihuly Exhibition runs through September 28th, here’s more info.

photos by Thomas Hawk & Chris Heuer

Fuck! George Carlin is no longer with us. He died of heart failure at the age of 71 at around 6pm PDT today in Santa Monica. George is scheduled to receive this year’s Mark Twain Prize for American Humor on November 10th.

Goodbye my friend, you were a huge inspiration.

See Also: George Carlin Showing Children How To Be a Class Clown

guest post by mikl-em

A wildfire in the hills of Brisbane, CA threatens homes. There are a lot of close friends of Laughing Squid who live in Brisbane, and we are thinking of them and everyone whose homes are threatened there.

The latest images of the Brisbane fire from Flickr users. Details on the evacuations reported by CBS 5.

There are fires raging throughout California right now, including a 3,500 acre fire in the Napa / Solano county area, most of these were started by lightning strikes.

Cal Fire is the California state department of Forestry and Fire Protection. Here’s a list of current incidents (though I wasn’t able to find the Brisbane fire in this list, I think it’s part of the larger lightining strikes fire). Here’s hoping for low winds and a cool day and thanks to the firefighters who are all working non-stop to keep the damage at a minimum.

UPDATE: Good news! As of 1:30AM Monday the San Bruno fire was 75% contained and all residents were allowed back to their homes.

photo by Adonis Allen

In 2006 the production company PSYOP made “Happiness Factory”, an amazing animated 60 second ad for Coca-Cola, showing what happens behind the scenes when you buy a Coke from a vending machine. Here’s a hi-res version of the video.

The original ad was such a success that PSYOP made a follow-up 3:30 mini-movie of “Happiness Factory” in 2007. Here’s a hi-res version of the video.

Here’s the making of video “Inside the Happiness Factory”.

UPDATE: GorillaSushi wrote a great post addressing the Coca-Cola conspiracy rants the comments.

In 2006 video game developer Matt Harding took a 6 month trip traveling to 39 countries and made a video of himself dancing at various locations along the way. In 2008 Matt went on a follow-up trip, dancing his way through 42 countries in 14 months, this time inviting people to dance with him. Both of Matt’s trips around the world were sponsored by Stride Gum.

Here’s the first sponsored Where the Hell is Matt? video from 2006.

For more on Matt’s travels, check out his Where the Hell is Matt? website.

Alison and Lloyd, the hosts of My Home 2.0, have created a Twittering Teddy Bear by performing surgery on an animatronic toy bear, adding a text-to-speech implant allowing the bear to speak real-time Twitter updates. Here’s the bear’s Twitter account.

Here’s live stream of the Twittering Teddy announcing Twitter updates. The bear is currently up for auction on eBay and the proceeds will be donated to Homeless Children’s Education Fund.

via Hack A Day

Chop Shop, the guys who made the great weRobot t-shirt with 51 robots, recently came out with “The Internets” featuring 29 different internet memes.

Dave Shea posted the t-shirt illustration on Flickr, providing annotations for the images which identify each meme, along with a relevant link.

via Waxy

Now this is pretty damn hot for San Francisco and if accurate it is close to either tying or breaking the record for the highest temperature for the date of June 20th. In fact the highest temperature ever recorded in San Francisco was 103 degrees on July 17, 1988 and again on June 14th, 2000.

guest post by RICK!

Not to be confused with the hilarious series You Suck at Photoshop, the blog Photoshop Disaster compiles examples of those who did not pay attention to Donny’s lessons.

via MetaFilter

image via Photoshop Disaster