Police in Venezuela are rounding up gay/lesbian/bi/trans folk into vans and hauling them to jail by the dozens, according to reports. "Our IDs and mobile phones were taken away, we were beaten, [and] our sexual orientation was insulted." (Thanks, Antinous)

Robert Fisk writes: "As in Vietnam - where Saigon was a lonely kingdom of brutal power totally isolated from the rest of the country - Karzai is going to rule over an equally tiny island of corruption, protected by US mercenaries while the Americans perform their familiar role of propping up a dictator." [Independent, via Ned Sublette]

His real talents are charisma, good taste, and no compromises. Guess who. [CoM]

Three-armed baby costume

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My friends Christy Canida and Eric Wilhelm of Instructables dressed up their lovely daughter Corvidae as a three-armed happy mutant (!) baby! Naturally, they posted an Instructable about it:
This year we were a Nuclear Family for Halloween, with our 4-month-old daughter Corvidae dressed up as a 3-armed happy mutant.

While we wanted to be subtle, this was almost too subtle - she wore the costume all day, and hardly anyone noticed!  But when they finally detected a problem, the responses were excellent.
Happy Mutant 3-Armed Baby Costume
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Our dear friend and guest blogger alum Richard Metzger (show here with his wife Tara in a photo that Coop took) is now in charge of the This Is Brand X blog. Brand X is the Los Angeles Times' entrant into the "alt weekly" market, edited by Deborah Vankin. There are over 100,000 copies in distribution boxes around town.

Richard is the most knowledgeable and most interesting cultural critic I know. The LA Times scored a major coup when they signed him on.

From the press release:

Richard comes to Brand X with a decorated background, most notably as one of the New York Post's "top 20 most important new media executives" and having also been named one of the "top 100 people on the Internet" (twice!) by Silicon Alley Reporter. He's a Webby-award winner and was recently given the "New Business Award" by the Tribeca Film Festival for co-founding The Disinformation Company Ltd., a New York-based book publisher and DVD distributor, where he served as the company's creative director for 11 years.

This is Brand X

@Whiteafrican compiled this neat Twitter List of Africa tech folks: mostly people from Africa or working in Africa, doing interesting things with technology on that continent.

About 75% of Americans eligible as military recruits couldn't serve if they wanted to: they're too obese, intellectually challenged, diseased, or they're stoners. [Wired Danger Room]

Dear god, the overlords have arrived. I found that terrifying (but work-safe) photo through Graham Linehan on Twitter, who muses: "Imagine the fuss if this was in the shape of Jesus instead of a wonky bug-eyed tenting alien."


I love this commercial for a mobile home liquidator produced by I Love Local Commercials, a couple of guys who travel around the country making free commercials for independent businesses.


Video of exploding capacitors shot at 300 frames per second. The real fun starts at around 2:30.

MAKE: Exploding capacitors in high speed

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Evelyn Border (above) and Tina Griekspoor of Bedford County, PA got some old-timey style public shaming for stealing gift cards that a child misplaced in a store.

"I'm just standing out here being humiliated in front of people," Griekspoor said.

"I admit we did make a mistake," said her mother, across the street.

Both agreed to the penance to avoid jail time for theft of lost property.

Thieves must proclaim their deed
Mousebrainnnn-1

From a slew of new brainwave toys and bionic monkeys to advanced brain scans and wireless neuro-implants that will soon enable paralyzed people to remotely operate computers with their minds, the gap in the human-machine interface is closing. But while mind-reading gets all the glory, other researchers are developing new amazing non-drug methods to control the brain as well. We've posted many times about zapping regions of the brain with magnetic pulses, called transcranial magnetic stimulation, to treat depression, boost creativity, or even improve reaction time. And brain "pacemakers" are increasingly common treatments for epilepsy, Parkinson's, and even depression. What's next? Mind control through sound and light.

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Edmund Wilson's all-purpose bugger-off reply. (Via Tim Ferriss)

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Joy! You can now buy a T-shirt featuring the likeness of everybody's favorite horrific-looking, behind-the-toilet-dwelling, cockroach-eating centipede. Will Bower from the Facebook group House Centipedes Are Your Friends sent a link to these great shirts, available on Etsy (where else?). The centipedes look hardcore, and (as you can tell by looking at the models) simply putting a Scutigera Coleoptrata on your chest is sure to make you appear 10x as hip as normal.

Scutigera Coleoptrata T-shirt
Scutigera Coleoptrata T-shirt, fitted version

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If you flip the Dodge Viper logo upside down, it looks like Daffy Duck. (Via Bits & Pieces)

Car Finder app for iPhone

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Leander Kahney of Cult of Mac spotted this $0.99 app for the iPhone 3GS. It's called Car Finder and it helps you find your parked car.

The app uses the iPhone's camera to overlay the direction of your car and how far away it is. The app relies on the camera and a digital compass, and is  compatible only with the iPhone 3GS  running 3.1 or later.

Car Finder iPhone App Uses Augmented Reality To Find Your Wheels

According to 60 Minutes, the UCLA Medical Center moved a notorious Japanese mobster to the head of the liver transplant line after he donated $1 million to the program.

The number of people affected by food shortages is starting to rise again. Is the solution a new biotech version of the Green Revolution, or a green Green Revolution based on organic farming? The New York Times brought together six experts to address those questions. Most fall squarely on one side of the fence or the other, but I'm interested in the more balanced opinion of Jonathan Foley, director of the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota. I've done a lot of research on agriculture issues recently, both for National Geographic News and Discover magazine, and Foley's "third way" seems to make the most sense to me, in context with what I've been hearing from global agriculture experts.

Currently, there are two paradigms of agriculture being widely promoted: local and organic systems versus globalized and industrialized agriculture. Each has fervent followers and critics. Genuine discourse has broken down: You're either with Michael Pollan or you're with Monsanto. But neither of these paradigms, standing alone, can fully meet our needs.

Rather than voting for just one solution, we need a third way to solve the crisis. Let's take ideas from both sides, creating new, hybrid solutions that boost production, conserve resources and build a more sustainable and scalable agriculture. There are many promising avenues to pursue: precision agriculture, mixed with high-output composting and organic soil remedies; drip irrigation, plus buffer strips to reduce erosion and pollution; and new crop varieties that reduce water and fertilizer demand. In this context, the careful use of genetically modified crops may be appropriate, after careful public review.

Can Biotech Food Cure World Hunger, in the New York Times, via the Science and Development Network.

Watch: MP4 download, YouTube, Dotsub (with captions/text translations).

electrokid.jpg In this episode of Boing Boing Video, we test-drive "Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobiteis," also known as The Electrobite.

This trilobite-shaped DIY vehicle was created by "Oilpunk" enthusiasts Kyrsten Mate + Jon Sarriugarte, with help from fellow makers Amy Jenkins and Tansy Brooks.

Pesco previously blogged about the little bugger here -- it's even been to Burning Man, where it no doubt terrified some trippin' hippies.

A court in Saudi Arabia will uphold a ruling to behead and publicly crucify a 22-year-old man who raped five children and left one of them to die in the desert.

New antitrust suit against Intel, this time from NY State AG Cuomo

NY Attorney General Andrew Cuomo files antitrust suit against chip maker Intel. Intel is charged with violating state and federal law by abusing its leading position in the chip market to keep rival AMD at bay.... more

More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for noncommercial music sharing

Michael Geist sez, "According to the official agenda, in a few hours the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement talks will continue on the Internet provisions and then move into the criminal provisions chapter. It is worth highlighting the ongoing criminal provisions as well. As previously leaked, t... more

Seventh Son: Descent Part IV

Welcome to the fourth serialized installment of J.C. Hutchins' SF thriller 7th Son: Descent (part 1, 2, 3), a novel set in present day featuring human cloning, dangerous technologies, and "beyond Top Secret" government conspiracies . THE STORY SO FAR: Yesterday, seven men were kidnapped and bro... more

15 Dots Enough: Alaskan Military School's low-res game demake videos

With gaming's current trend toward the nostalgic taking us on Bit.Trips and Extreme invasions, and with indies giving us de-made versions of modern classics, it more or less follows logically that we'd eventually see the imageat top. Recognize it? Likely not off the bat, but you'd be surprised w... more

America needs a "Manhunting Agency"

The US military's Joint Special Operations University argues that the CIA hasn't done enough to take out the Bad Guys, one by one. No: America needs a "National Manhunting Agency" to hunt down jihadists, drug dealers, pirates and other enemies of the state. I suggest a rebrand: "Manhunting Agency" s... more

Periodic Table Table

I dig this Periodic Table Table that appeared on MAKE. One commenter there says he thinks it's from the Wake Forest University campus in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Great idea for a... science park. (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!) Previously:The Periodic Coffee Table - Boing Boing Gadgets Periodi... more

Cult scene: New Zealand and Africa

"Medication" by Andrew Brandou, from his Jonestown paintings Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books... more

Love of Shopping is Not a Gene: exposing junk science and ideology in Darwinian Psychology

Anne Innis Dagg's "Love of Shopping" is Not a Gene is a scathing, entertaining and extremely accessible geneticist's critique of "Darwinian Psychology" -- that is, the "science" of ascribing human behavior to genetic inevitability. Dagg, a biologist/geneticist at the University of Waterloo, ident... more

Science fiction as a predictor of the present

Tin House, a literary magazine, asked me to introduce the current science fiction issue with an overview of the field. I wrote them an essay called "Radical Presentism," about the way that science fiction reflects the present more than the future. Mary Shelley wasn't worried about reanimated corps... more

Iraqi forces love this "magic wand" bomb detector; US thinks it's junk.

This $60,000 "bomb detection wand" is much-loved by Iraqi security forces. American military representatives say it's about as useful for finding IEDs as a ouija board. [New York Times]... more

Recent Comments

  • "Hmm thanks for the '何首烏' tip. It did sort of look too good to be true. ..."
  • ""I agree with those asking "what can we do"? If we don't even know *who* is making this treaty..." You can vote out the politicians making them. I'd like to know why Obama is getting a free pass on this one. If it were Bush making secret deals about copyright treaties, you guys would be all over him. The president signs the treaties. The Senate ratifies them. It's that simple. Vote the idiots out of office...."
  • "Excuses excuse people, and that's not what I was saying. Too often people want to say "Oh, that's just an excuse!" when really it's evidence of deeper issues. Your character is individual, I'm in no position to judge. A few years ago a program started in Chicago called "Ceasefire". The focus has been on intervention and treating crime prevention as a public health issue rather than simply relying on law enforcement after the deeds have been done. The results were impressive. According to the U.S. Depar..."
  • "Yes, the Android has had it all along. The problem -- and I assume iPhone has it too -- is that you have to remember to note your location when you park. When you come back out to the parking lot later, it's too late...."
  • "Reminds me of the old "bonehead reply form" that used to be so popular...."
  • "Someone make Metzger a thought bubble hat that says "I'm thinking something... crafty..."..."
  • "I've got "Kriegie Cartoons" in my lap. You can see a scan of the cover (Welcome to Pow Camp Stalag Luft I Barth Germany) at the top of this web page: http://homepage.mac.com/gbryan/POW/5th.html My earlier post was incorrect. Art Starrat was a veteran of Stalag Luft I, but isn't the author of KC. The wonderful cartoons in the book were drawn by Flight Sgt. Budgen of the RAF, prisoner of war for three years, and Squadron Leader B. Arct, Belgian flier attached to the RAF. My copy is a middling-large hard..."
  • "Thats just awesome! I still dont understand why there arent more commercials like that on tv. How long till someone has a website of nothing but small business commercial videos?..."
  • "No deterrence, just gives street cred. No more 9 year olds stepping to them at Walmart after this...."
  • "The one reason that Apple stuff is so well designed (no, I wont get into an argument) is that Jobs continually tells his designers that they can do better than that piece of shit they just built, no matter how good it really is. That's a real skill, lacking in most every other company leader on Earth. ..."