Ebay auction to help raise money for Stan Sakai

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Stan Sakai needs your help. His wife is ill and the bills are piling up. You might know him from his days lettering Groo the Wanderer or as the creator of Usagi Yojimbo. If you are a fan, follow the headline link to see how you can help.

To help the Sakais, Stan’s many friends have rallied in support with donations of cash and artwork. There are two major fund-raising efforts. One is a book that Dark Horse is publishing — a collection of cartoons by an incredible array of cartoonists. The drawings are so amazing, you’ll probably never get around to reading the foreword by me in it. Watch for this book. Buy it. And yes, it’s a contribution to the Sakais’ well-being but it’s also a terrific book which you should purchase just because it’s a terrific book.

The other effort is something you can get in on right now…and again, it’s to your benefit as much as it is to the Sakais’. A “Who’s Who” of great artists has donated drawings — some pre-existing, some done for the occasion — for a big online art auction that’s being run by the Comic Art Professional Society, aka CAPS. The first batch of many wonderful pieces can be bid upon right this minute over on this page. The proceeds go to two good people who need aid…and you can get a terrific, to-be-treasured art piece out of it. I’d call that a Win/Win…so go win/win and get one. Or two. Or more.

Track your luggage using an iBeacon

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[VIDEO]This is a brilliant app idea, assuming it works. Put an iBeacon in your luggage, get notified as your luggage arrives at baggage claim. Genius!

Steve Jobs monument in Chinese ghost city

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Embedded in the long linked blog post about Kangbashi, China’s so-called Ghost City that was built for a population of one million people but is largely uninhabited, is a monument to Steve Jobs.

The sculpture, a hexagon containing the outline of an apple and Jobs’ face, is not that strange in itself. What’s strange is that it is located behind an apparently unused school, in the middle of hundreds of thousands of vacant apartments in the Kangbashi New Area of Ordos, a shining metropolis built by China in Inner Mongolia that has been called the world’s biggest ghost city.

Apple’s new San Francisco store wins final approval to demolish and build

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All obstacles have been cleared, and the long-planned Union Square flagship Apple Store has finally received final clearance from the San Francisco City Council to demolish the current standing building and begin renovations and construction on the new store. The new building will be a two-story structure with an all-glass frontage facing Union Square, utilizing a cantilevered design that features a patio and waterfall behind the store.

Yet another reason for me to make the trip out to San Francisco. Can’t wait to see this store.

Samsung escalates patent arms race

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One of the latest signs that there’s an escalating “patent arms race” between Apple and Samsung is that Samsung in record filing more than 10 times as many European patents as rival Apple in 2013.

This is just unfortunate, a bad trend.

The hidden iTunes Store power search

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Fantastic find from Kirk McElhearn. I’ve been playing with this feature and it works incredibly well (on your Mac, not your iOS device).

SXSW Festival to use iBeacons for first time

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EventBase has been supporting SXSW with a native mobile app since 2011, allowing attendees to filter events by track or topic, then build and share their event schedules with their friends. This year, they’ve added iBeacons to the mix.

Runner diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, starts winning races

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Kayla Montgomery, 18, was found to have multiple sclerosis three years ago. Defying most logic, she has gone on to become one of the fastest young distance runners in the country — one who cannot stay on her feet after crossing the finish line.

Her M.S. is blocking signals that cause pain in other runners, allows her to push through, extend her tolerances.

The black market for prestige Twitter handles

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If you’ve got a one word or, even more to the point, a one letter Twitter name, there’s a good chance there’s someone who wants it even more and will do anything they can to get it.

There was a lot of press recently about Twitter user @N, the hijacking of his name and, ultimately, his Twitter account being returned to him.

The linked article digs into the motivations for theft of Twitter handles, talks about the people who take them.

Apple’s iPad is targeted in new patent troll lawsuit

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A patent troll by the name of Penovia LLC has filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Apple. The lawsuit claims that Apple’s iPad infringes their acquired patent that’s about a maintenance technique that monitors office machine status without personal attention. This is the typical type of case that the Federal Trade Commission is now studying to find ways to assist tech companies from having to waste their time fighting such suits.

When I see the phrase “acquired patent”, I see red. In my opinion, this type of lawsuit is destructive and serves simply to line someone’s pockets. This needs to be fixed.

The tweet that cost $105,000

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This is one lesson I’m passing along to my kids. Goes right up there with our discussions on piracy.

Virtual reality allows men and women to swap bodies

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Controversial. And fascinating.

The cost of the equipment BeAnotherLab is using to create this illusion is modest: The group uses secondhand PlayStation Eye cameras, arduino-powered servos and motors to control the movement of the camera, laptops, and Oculus Rift headsets. Each set up costs around €500, or $685 but the “gender swap” setup requires two sets of equipment to function, one for each participant.

“In Brazil there are many problems with violence against women, which comes from their own partners,” Bertrand explained. “What would it be like if a man could see through the eyes of a woman? Would he act in the same way?”

Some of this is NSFW.

Stuff being thrown at my head

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These pictures, taken by Latvian photographer Kaija Straumanis are making the rounds right now. I kind of like them. Take a look. If you are interested in how they were made (it might spoil the magic, but read if you must know), read the article below the pics.

The genius of Frank Zappa via his answering machine messages

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If you have even a tiny little taste for Frank Zappa, take the video below for a spin. These are a series of answering machine messages from Zappa’s home recording studio, the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen (UMRK). So very delicious.