This week, Boing Boing tv is debuting regular product reviews produced with Joel and the crew, and we'll blog 'em here on Gadgets first. What better way to kick the series off than a lulz-filled analysis of the Lippi Selk Bag, a sleeping bag with arms and legs that makes our Joel look like a bespectacled Gumby? The funky-chunky "sleepwear system" ranges in price from $169 to $399. I imagine they'd really come in handy at one of those outdoor all-nighter raves, unless you get lucky -- interpersonal intra-bag intercourse might be logistically difficult in these.

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Tell Joel what you think of his Gumby impersonation in the Boing Boing Gadgets comment thread for this video. And here is a direct MP4 link, if you prefer a downloadable video to the Flash embed above.

Update: Complete and unedited transcript of our interview here.

In today's episode of Boing Boing tv: One year ago, a 19-year-old MIT engineering student named Star Simpson got dressed to go pick up a friend at Boston's Logan airport. She pulled a hoodie out of her closet, a wearable tech design she'd made with a light-up LED-circuit on the chest. In her hand was a small pink rose she'd crafted from hardened clay, a gift for her friend.

A few hours later at the airport, after an airport employee mistook her sweatshirt for a bomb and the rose for an explosive implement, Star found herself surrounded by 40 armed police who believed she was a suicide bomber. She was arrested for "possessing a hoax device," and an unprecedented media frenzy ensued. Here was the Boing Boing post from that day.

A year later, after a long series of court dates, a Boston judge ruled that Star must perform community service and make a public apology. Star says she intended no harm. She believes the authorities were unfairly harsh with her long after it was obvious she posed no threat, and that legal proceedings were unduly influenced by a prevailing atmosphere of anxiety over terrorism (this just months after a similar case in Boston).

She has since dropped out of MIT, and says the school's reaction felt like "being disowned." She moved out of Boston in part because of recurring threats and attacks from strangers.

Star has finally come forward to tell her side of the story publicly, and she does so on Boing Boing tv today.

If you'd like to make your very own LED breadboard hoodie, the folks at Instructables have just published Star's plans here. They're too graceful to say this, but I will: do not wear this to airports. Make a Breadboard Sweatshirt (Instant Wearable Electronics!)

MAKE will soon be publishing a related article.

Previous Boing Boing tv episodes :
* Star Simpson's fuzzy logic, MacGyver, MIT lasers, and trippy glasses: Maker Faire with Phil Torrone

Related Boing Boing blog posts:
* MIT student arrested for entering Boston airport with "fake bomb"
* Improvising electronic devices is not a crime
* OK Go's LED Jackets
* ATHF LEDs all over Boston today

Boing Boing tv is taking a week off for organic yak-yogurt wrestling on a private Himalayan island; we leave you to enjoy some of our crew's favorite past episodes in the meantime.

"Gem sweater diva" and midwestern maven Leslie Hall has appeared twice on our show. The video featured above is a tour diary she recorded just for us. If you like that, check out our backstage visit with her during a stop in San Francisco, below. "With these shoulder pads, I have the strength to destroy villages, homes and crops."

Original BBtv posts:
* Leslie Hall: Dear Diary
* Leslie Hall: ceWEBrity, gem sweater diva, jammer of jams.

BBtv guest teen haxxor correspondent 5t311a teaches us how to do guerilla t-shirt silkscreening, as described in Cory Doctorow's novel Little Brother, and as detailed in a recent series of Instructables posts. (Thanks, Charis Tobias!)

Xeni goes backstage at a wearable technology fashion show held at the San Francisco Exploratorium, and tries digital and analog clothing on for size. (Still photographs that appear in this episode by Amy Snyder, used with kind permission of the Exploratorium)

The gem sweater bedazzlements and lyrical besnazzlements of "internet ceWEBrity" Leslie Hall have graced Boing Boing tv before -- but in today's episode, Ms. Hall submits an exclusive tour diary for BBtv viewers, a veritable world exclusive. "With these shoulderpads I have the strength to destroy, villages, homes, and crops," she warns. Her ladyfire is mighty, as all ye who gaze upon this video shall witness.

Ms. Hall was among the internet personalities who participated in the recent ROFLcon gathering in Cambridge, Mass. Her presence there among fellow internet memesters is documented in this Wired gallery, and in a photo set from Scott Beale of Laughing Squid. See also his short video of the Tron Guy talking about geek women. Which brings us back to the 26-year-old Ms. Hall, straight outta Iowa, believed by her many followers to be the fiercest gold-lame-wrapped geek woman on the planet.

Related Boing Boing tv items:
* Leslie Hall: ceWEBrity, gem sweater diva, jammer of jams.
* Leslie Hall iPhone snaps, "Blame the Booty" remix - Boing Boing

Avatar Machine, by designer Marc Owens, is a wearable device that simulates the experience of third-person gaming environments.

By wearing this costume and head-mounted camera with VR goggles, a user can view themselves as a sort of virtual character while moving around and interacting in the real world.

Owens created Avatar Machine to explore whether such a device would grant users "a diminished sense of social responsibility (...) and demonstrate behaviors normally reserved for the gaming environment." In other words, turn them into instant board trolls.

Owens, 26, is a design student at the Royal College of Art, and lives in East London. An earlier version of this experiment from Owens circulated around the web in 2007.

In part one of today's Boing Boing tv episode, we premiere an all-new experiment with Avatar Machine -- live beta testing conducted in 2008, in the Harajuku area of Tokyo. Here, the user (Owens) flirts with Harajuku hotties, then almost gets his ass kicked (for real!) by some Japanese gangster dudes.

In part two of today's show, Xeni speaks with Owens over a Skype video connection, live from his studio in East London.

HowStuffWorks has a step-by-step explanation of the device here. (special thanks to Susannah Breslin)

Today, a two-part feature of weird little short animated films. First, "The Marvelous Tale of The Raccoon, the Giraffe, and the iPod," from deep within the Argentinian internet wildlands, as told by Peppermelon. Next, more minimalist fare -- Noobies, by Benjamin Vu.

Today on BBtv, part two of our coverage of "Space Style 2007: A Giant Leap for Couture," an intergalactic couture show which took place during the TRANSFORMING SPACE conference hosted by the California Space Authority (CSA) and the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI).

Part one of our series is here: "Space Couture runway show."

BBtv's Xeni Jardin was there, with two pro fashionistas providing live critique and comic relief: Nony Tochterman of Petro Zillia, and Oren Shepher of Spear Collection.

In today's episode, we meet Syuzi Pakhchyan of SparkLab, and check out her cool LED light-up bracelets (which have been covered in Make:CRAFT -- 1, 2).

Below, and after the jump: LOLspacemodel macros.

What would you wear in outer space? Fashion designers, space entrepreneurs, and intergalactic travel advocates gathered to answer that question recently on a runway (the couture kind) near Los Angeles International airport. BBtv's Xeni Jardin was there, with two pro fashionistas providing live critique and comic relief: Nony Tochterman of Petro Zillia, and Oren Shepher of Spear Collection.

"Space Style 2007: A Giant Leap for Couture" took place during the TRANSFORMING SPACE, an annual conference hosted by the California Space Authority (CSA) and the California Space Education and Workforce Institute (CSEWI).

Participating designers included Louise Bisby, Rain Sherman, Danielle Kelly, Samantha Ceora, Payam Emrani and Syuzi Pakhchyan of SparkLab (her cool LED light-up bracelets have been covered in Make:CRAFT -- 1, 2). Misuzu Onuki, creator of the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s (JAXA) space couture fashion show, presented the finalist designs from that competition. Martin Bergstrom of Sweden showed off burka-like headdresses, and "mathematically-inspired" Japanese designer Eri Matsui presented a zero-G-inspired wedding gown.

The event was co-produced and co-hosted by Randa Milliron of Interorbital Systems, a Mojave-based rocket company working to make space transportation a reality, and Karyl Newman, an artistic consultant to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. California Space Authority (CSA) hosts included Andrea Seastrand and Celeste Volz Ford. Link to photos by Sam Coniglio.

Music: Casino Mansion, David Habif, and Roman Kovalik. Video art: Steve Nalepa.

Below: BBtv fashion analysts Oren (left) and Nony (right) glimpse the future of spacewear, and they're not sure quite what to make of it.