You've never considered yourself to be a political cartoonist. Yet "In the Shadow of No Towers" is a very political work. What changed?

This character — me — got so shaken up. I think like a typical American who can get narcotized by the mass media. For me, politics was always put in a strange box, sort of like "baseball for nerds." But since Sept. 11, that bubble has burst. "The personal is political," to put it — yawn — in its most T-shirtlike form.

That's the thing that's swept me into doing something I'd always wanted to avoid: caricaturing presidents for a living. Nothing ages faster. If you look at these old Herblock cartoons, they can only be seen in the context of marginal images in the history book. You've got to read too many footnotes to get what's going on, like, "What is this Taft-Hartley Act, anyway?"

"We are not working in association with author Katie Tarbox or any other individual inan attempt to assume ownership of the domain name address www.katie.com. Of course, the personal views of the author are hers and do not represent Plume in any way.

"Going forward, Plume and the author have decided to re-title this book A Girl's Life Online. This is an important book about predatory pedophiles on the Internet and how we can protect our children. We changed the title to keep focus on this issue. The newly titled book will be released next month. We have always taken this situation very seriously. And we hope that by making this title change, it will demonstrate just howdedicated Plume is to clarifying this matter."

As Sherlock Holmes knew. Lolling around in his smoking jacket, puffing his pipe, Holmes would sit and ponder for hours on a tricky case. In one superb story, the opium-drenched The Man With The Twisted Lip, Holmes solves yet another case with ease. An incredulous Mr Plod character muses: "I wish I knew how you reach your results," to which Holmes replies: "I reached this one by sitting upon five pillows and consuming an ounce of shag."

Rene Descartes, in the 17th century, was similarly addicted to inactivity. Indeed, it was absolutely at the centre of his philosophy. When young and studying with the Jesuits, he was unable to get up in the morning. They would throw buckets of cold water over him and he would turn over and go back to sleep.

On one level, this tale highlights the plight of low levels in the MMORPG. They pose the litmus test: do opportunities for heroism exist for them in and amongst the treadmills? Is it ever possible for a low-level to make a *real difference?* Perhaps, for some, an exceptional stand by a NOOB ("newbie") party against MOB trains (large flocks of NPC monsters) in some NOOB dungeon somewhere, qualifies. But is there a more fundamental difference?

Consider. Can one make the argument that MMORPGs, as an adventuring platform, have gone astray with player = single(few)-avatar assumption? Because of the investment of time (read treadmills), social and emotional capital, players are practically limited by the number of characters they can play. Consequently, they are loath to get in "over their heads" and virtual worlds are loath to offer dire scenarios with only heroic exits for a few. Hardly a profound point, but the question: is such a dynamic, in some guise, necessary for the organic emergence of heroic narratives in an MMORPG?

Gobo: First up to get the mail, now out to the Gorgs' garden... It's turning out to be a dangerous day.
Wembley: Yeah, but we love it, don't we, Gobo?
Gobo: Well, to tell you the truth, Wembley, sometimes I get sick of it.
Wembley: Yeah, me too.
Gobo: ... You sure do like to agree with a person.
Wembley: Oh, I gotta agree with that! Heh.

And there you have it. That's Wembley. In six lines, you get his whole character: his indecision, his affability, his attachment to Gobo, and his willingness to try anything. That's economical writing. Plus, it's funny, so it's got that going for it too.

VARNEY: Well, you know, I -- exactly. I mean, in June you have "Gay Days" at your theme parks. You got any 'Gay Days' on the Mickey computer?

IGER: Well, this has built into it all kinds of protective devices that protects the kid, or the child from internet sites that a parent wouldn't deem appropriate. Also, the fact --

VARNEY: Well, you don't protect the kids from "Gay Days" at the theme parks, do you? Why do you have to protect them in the computer?

Well, in their latest comments, Disney (which is an RIAA member, and owns ABC Radio Networks and four record labels) let slip what this is all about:

In addition, to the extent the Commission considers such a content protection mechanism, it should also consider whether to extend that mechanism to all music distribution platforms, including satellite digital audio radio service, the Internet and broadcast radio service.

Got that? Disney wants the FCC to regulate all devices capable of recording from any audio broadcasting medium or from the Internet. FM radio, XM, Sirius, Streamripper, Total Recorder, you're all in the crosshairs. It's the Hollings Bill all over again.

UPDATE: Paul Murray sez: I believe the "Rockwell Electric retro-incabulator" is an homage to/updating of an older industrial video put-on, which in turn dates back to a humor piece written in the 1940s. Here's what I know. When I was in college (early 1980s), I was shown a short video clip where a narrator described the features and benefits of a "turbo encabulator," which presumably was the massive piece of industrial equipment in the photo next to him. My jaw dropped at the absurdly complex, dense explanation he provided for this mysterious piece of equipment, which left me utterly lost. As I eventually learned, it was actually a brilliant spoof of the copy written for industrial film-making. I don't know whose idea the clip was, but I know the narrator of that version was named "Bud" Haggart, who pioneered the use of "the ear" that enables talent to work without a TelePrompTer. I've actually worked with him a few times. I personally know of at least one other homage/remake of the legendary turbo-encabulator gag, and I believe that this is yet another. Even the name seems to suggest it. However, even that is not the true origin! A little Googling turns up this piece [http://www.floobydust.com/turbo-encabulator/] written in 1944! Sure enough, the video version I remember started off the same way this piece does.

There is already a waiting list, despite the fact that each week 30 contestants end up on the air. Producers adhere to a strict format: Six contestants compete in the first round, which involves a difficult and daredevilish physical task. Four semifinalists break bread together over gourmet treats, such as live crabs, scorpions and worms. The remaining two go head-to-head performing a job, such as towing a car or washing the outside of a 10-story building. The winner is picked up by a limo at the end of the show, presumably to be taken to meet with an immigration lawyer.

"If it's true what they say, that they are helping people get their papers in order, I think that's great," said 25-year-old Luis Sanchez of Los Angeles, who watches the show every night. "I don't think the show can hurt anyone. There are thousands of illegal immigrants, and everybody knows it. I don't think the immigration service is going to go after anyone because they are on the show. There are things we do out of necessity, not because we want to. Eating worms for your papers is one of those things."

Do you want to help shape one of the fastest-growing and most innovative areas of the web? As a user-interface engineer, on the Blogger team, you will help define how people create, find, and share personal content online. Be a part of the Google team that pioneered the blogging phenomenon.

I can speak for myself and my immediate family including my Dad, that we all love it!  We've all seen it and passed it along to our friends and family.  It's incredibly clever, funny and a nice break from the heavy tones of politics going on right now.  My personal opinion is that if I were the one who had written that song, I would be honored to have it used that way.  If they start selling that song and making money, then I might be concerned about getting my royalties, but as far as I know, they haven't made any money from showing it on their site for free.  That parody was made for you and me.

Last year, DAN SUGALSKI, lead developer of the forthcoming Perl6 virtual machine, Parrot, bet the Python developers that run Python faster on the fledgling VM - and the creator of Python could throw a pie at him at the next OSCON if he didn't. He didn't; the pie-ing was duly arranged. As everyone knows, while Perlites are chaotic/good trickster archetypes who love such events, Pythonistas are peaceful, have-their-glasses-on-a-little-string types, like hobbits or the Dutch. In the end, Guido van Rossum refused to throw the pie, and instead offered to share it as food with the Perl developers. Nothing, of course, could have been more guaranteed to throw Perlsters into violent rage.

The Canadian Legion sells plasic poppies every year to raise money for charitable causes. This week, Peter Underhill of the Canadian Legion left this on Pia's public guestbook:

I tried your contact email but the address wouldn't copy. The "Poppy" is a trademark registered to the Royal Canadian Legion. Please remove reference to Poppy on the Poppy Hat. Thank you for your consideration. P. Underhill

"Although the unknown animal is "kind of a sensation," (researcher Olav Rune) Godoe said in an interview, finding new and strange creatures wasn't surprising given that researchers collected more than 80,000 specimens. Moreover, little is known about the deep ocean. "It's much easier to observe the surface of the moon or Mars," said Godoe."

To a large degree, the game was developed online, in public. Fans of the game contributed enthusiastically via blog, wiki, and online forum. They wrote text, debated rules, proofread, ran statistical analyses, and even wrote a computer simulator to test the game's paper-and-pencil rules.

"Online collaboration made this edition of Paranoia the best yet," said Allen Varney (www.allenvarney.com), the game's designer. "We borrowed the tools and methods of open-source software development for a paper game, and it worked brilliantly. I plan to create future games the same way, and other designers should consider it too."

THEREFORE, your petitioners call upon Parliament to ensure generally that users are recognised as interested parties and are meaningfully consulted about proposed changes to the Copyright Act and to ensure in particular that any changes at least preserve all existing users' rights, including the right to use copyrighted materials under Fair Dealing and the right to make private copies of audio recordings. We further call upon Parliament not to extend the term of copyright; and to recognise the right of citizens to personally control their own communication devices.

Only the FCC has the wisdom to see what is necessary for copyright law to function properly. Courts should certainly not be permitted to interpret copyright law, they might decide that a device without DRM had substantial non-infringing uses and thus be free of regulation. The FCC sees through this ridiculous test and knows copyright needs stronger protection than that. Do the courts not see the devastation the VCR has wrought on Hollywood?

Yes, hear Simon, Theodore and Alvin at their true speed, sounding respectively like an accountant, a hot-dog vendor, and a lunatic. Put it on repeat and you'll drift gradually into madness - it's like an acid flashback to fetal languor, the surreal sounds that filtered through the uterine wall.

The result: Chaos in the line, as people were sent home after failing cell phone inspection. The choice was to leave your phone / camera behind or leave the concert. People were mad. ("Where is the love?" they asked). So I asked the bouncer, "what's this about?"

And he said "It's not our deal. Its those guys [the sponsors]."

(8) The argument that we should not make efforts against X which is admittedly evil because there is a worse evil Y against which our efforts should be directed (pp 50-52)

Dealt with by pointing out that this is a reason for making efforts to abolish Y, but no reason for not also making efforts to get rid of X.

(9) The recommendation of a position because it is a mean between two extremes (pp 52-54)

Dealt with by denying the usefulness of the principle as a method of discovering the truth. In practice, this can most easily be done by showing that our own view also can be represented as a mean between two extremes.

For reference, I am about 5'8", dark black hair and untrimmed beard length about three to four inches. I weigh about 160lbs and have brown skin. I am of Indian descent but am frequently mistaken for Arab. I often wear religious headdress when traveling (a white cotton cap with gold trim).

Here's some of the things I have done on an airplane, and why:

- Speaking a foreign language in hushed tones with other similar males

My language is a variant of Gujarati, with many Arabic vocabulary words. I consider it rude to talk loudly on a plane, since people are sleeping, and prefer to talkin my language with my friends or family if we are discussing personal things because in my experience, people eavesdrop in close quarters.

What's more, Disney's Unique Sales Propositions for their PC is that it comes with censorware that will keep your children from looking at porn (and about one-third of the sites that deal well with concepts covered in the common curriculum, oops), and some DRMed-up make-your-own-Disney-video software. Snore.

Oh and it comes with a mouse. Hardy har har. Link (Thanks, Scotto!)

Update: Benoit sez, "The monitor is actually a flat panel LCD. It looks like a CRT in that picture you have but that's actually the computer tower placed behind the LCD."

Update 2: Chris sez, "There is no DRM used in the video software. The videos are saved as standard AVIs. In fact, this is the first time we have ever allowed guests to combine their personal videos with our characters and it was a big step for us to do so. We don't know of any other major entertainment company that has done this either. I would think you would applaude us for taking a leadership position here."

There are few things that are quite evident from the chart:

- Whenever his ratings dip, there's a new terror alert.

- Every terror alert is followed by a slight uptick of Bush approval ratings.

- As we approach the 2004 elections, the number and frequency of terror alerts keeps growing, to the point that they collapse in the graphic. At the same time, Bush ratings are lower than ever.

"Yahoo! News reports, 'Designed by Thomas Rathgeb, a graphic artist who works for Swiss Post, the stamps are made from 120-year-old pines felled in northern Switzerland. 'Rathgeb's design focuses on the sustainability and uniqueness of this natural, living material — the structure of the wood, integrated into the contemporary design, produces a different picture on each stamp. This makes each stamp unique, just as each tree is unique,' said Swiss Post."

"The Swiss Post site offers a video clip (WMV) of the production process." Link

Most carriers provide some way of translating your phone number into an email address (often something along the lines of yourphonenumber@mail.yourcarrier.com), and this ruling only applies to those accounts... More to the point, however, the FCC made it very clear that this ruling means absolutely nothing when it comes to SMS spam.

JBM I don’t know that we can make it through another four years of Bush.

NM Oh, we’ll make it through, although I’m not saying what we’ll be like at the end. By then, Karl Rove may have his twenty years. Just think of the kind of brainwashing we’ve had for the last four. On TV, Bush rinses hundreds of thousands of American brains with every sentence. He speaks only in clichés. You know, I happened to run into Ralph Nader recently in Chicago, and I, like a great many others, was looking to dissuade him from his present course. He’s a very nice man, maybe the nicest man I’ve met in politics---there’s something very decent about Nader, truly convincing in terms of his own probity. So I didn’t feel, "Oh, he’s doing it for ugly motives." Didn’t have that feeling at all in the course of our conversation. Still, I was trying, as I say, to dissuade him, while recognizing that the odds were poor that I’d be successful. At one point, he said, "You know, they’re both for the corporation, Kerry and Bush." And it’s true; both candidates are for the corporation, and I do agree with Nader that ultimately the corporation is the major evil. But in my mind, Bush is the immediate obstacle. He is a collection of disasters for America. What he does to the English language is a species of catastrophe all by itself. Bush learned a long time ago that certain key words, "evil, patriotism, stand-firm, flag, our-fight-against-terrorism," will get half the people in America stirred up. That’s all he works with. Kerry will be better in many ways, no question. All the same, he will go along too much with the corporations who, in my not always modest opinion, are running America. At present, I don’t see how any mainstream politician can do otherwise. Finally, they’re working against forces greater than themselves.

Yet another family's trip to Disneyland. WMV slideshow set to jazz - includes Club 33 pics (not audio)
Edit Up Down Cut Copy Paste Same Family, Same Disneyland trip. Some of the same pics, different music in this WMV slideshow (not audio)
Edit Up Down Cut Copy Paste Lilo And Stitch’s Catch The Wave Party at Walt Disney Studios Paris
Edit Up Down Cut Copy Paste Shoot for the Moon - The Making of Disneyland Paris' Space Mountain (BBC TV show video)
Edit Up Down Cut Copy Paste Tokyo Disneyland - Pooh's Hunny Hunt (video)

"That is the challenge," he said, "people have to accept it, that it's absolutely safe to live in a Styrofoam house, safer than in an adobe house.

"Let them feel it. Let them dance on it. Let them see that it is strong."

Well, I really can't speak for him. I can just tell you that when I saw it a few weeks ago I thought it was one of the funniest commentaries if not one of the most directly inspired... I called my sister, I called my friends, I sent everybody a link to the site so that they could go see it. And we've all been laughing about it since then. I think my dad would have absolutely loved the humor in it.

For example, said LeapFrog Chief Executive Officer Tom Kalinske, reproduction is a culturally and religiously sensitive topic in the country. The solution: a page of text and a page of pictures with the analogy of growing carrots. Growing them too close together produces skinny and not-well- formed carrots that do not look good to eat, but if you space the carrots, they're plump and appetizing -- the lesson being it's better to space children rather than having them in rapid succession.

Though mild entheogenic effects may be felt through the window or inside the store during business hours, optimum viewing is experienced after dark with eyes closed. This will be the Bay Area's first ever Dreamachine exhibit, other than the machine's brief appearance during a William S. Burroughs memorial service held at the SF Art Institute in 1999. Currently on display at West Portal Books, through August 11, is a Wishing Machine. The peculiar devices find literary companionship through Burroughs' work.

Our first book, All the President's Spin: George W. Bush, the Media, and the Truth, goes on sale today... it offers a nonpartisan analysis of the PR-driven deception that has come to define George W. Bush's presidency, chronicling his spin on issues ranging from tax cuts to the war in Iraq. We also put Bush's presidency in perspective by tracing the history of public relations in modern presidential politics; examining how this process has culminated in a presidential campaign in which Bush and John Kerry are both engaging in deceptive PR tactics; and explaining why the media has failed to hold Bush and other politicians accountable for dishonest spin.

Another method takes advantage of "the natural incentives that occur in peer communities, as manifest in things like Napster and Gnutella," says Canny. "It does seem within a community you have a few altruistic people who will, for whatever reason, help the community by providing the service, and from a privacy perspective you can do a lot if you can identify some users who are willing to leave a machine online that provides some privacy protection. The rest of the people in the community can use that machine. They don't have to trust the owner of the machine because the algorithm is set up so that the owner of that machine can't get access to that machine anyway, but if they provide this service, they can protect their peers' information from the service provider."

Update Jason sez: Re: Totoro House, Scott writes "All we need now is a Cat-bus to get us there," which reminded me of the Studio Ghibli Museum in greater Tokyo that I had the pleasure of visiting 2 years ago.

Among the features is a life-size catbus that children can play in.

When I was there, the Cat Bus was in a giant ball pit! Visitors were prohibited from taking pictures of it, so maybe this image is dated.

The museum itself is a fantastic building with spiral staircases and child size doorways.

And the best part was the life size metal statue of a Laputa robot on the roof.

3 teenagers from Ohio used Orinoco Gold 30 milliwatt USB adapters mounted on the feedpoints of two 10 foot dishes, and shot 55.1 miles. Yes, that's fifty-five point one miles! This is a new world's record for an unamplified shot! Complete details will be in a press release, which should come out in the next few days.

Hey, this is your escape-a-date call. If you're looking for an excuse, I got it. Just repeat after me, and you'll be on your way!

"Not again! Why does that always happen to you? ... Alright, I'll be right there." Now tell 'em that your roommate got locked out, and you have to go let them in. Good luck!"

The piranha -- which has its origins in warm South American rivers and can devour whole cows when hunting in packs -- is a popular fish in Hong Kong home aquariums and can be bought in Mongkok pet shops for less than HK$100 a pair (7 pounds).

Skinplex technology could be used between an identifier worn on the user's body and a receiver integrated into a car, for example. A distinct code is transmitted through touch, the receiver recognizes its dedicated, authorized sender, and the car door is opened, for example.

"We were there for nearly the whole night and saw stones falling from the sky like rain," said Vhembe police spokesperson Ailwei Mushavhanamadi. "We went around the area to make sure someone wasn't throwing stones on the roof on purpose, but we didn't find anyone."

Police then advised the family to consult with spirit mediums about the phenomenon.

"Maybe if the family contacts someone who deals with evil spirits, like a pastor, the problem will stop," he said.

1. The Gavilan (1983). Actually this was an amazing attempt at leapfrogging everyone. Unfortunately, the developers leapfrogged over a cliff. This (despite what Apple mavens believe) was actually the machine that first employed the mousepad, then called a touchpad. The company soaked up a then-whopping $30 million in venture capital and essentially failed right out of the gate. Nobody wanted the machine, and the rationale for the touchpad was always questionable. The pad was poorly located, above the keys. Originally known as the Cosmos Computer, it ran the GOS operating system as well as MS-DOS. Seen by many as the first true laptop, the machine is highly collectible. It's a machine that could also easily appear on the ten-best list.

To get where it is, the brain has made some fascinating design decisions. The layering of systems has produced a complex environment, with automatic and controlled highly mixed. This development over biological time has introduced constraints. As has the architecture--it takes time for slow signals to make their way from one area to another. And there are computational difficulties too: How much of its capabilities can the brain afford to invoke when a sub-second response is required? The tricks used leave traces. There are holes in our visual field that we continually cover up. There are certain sensory inputs that grab our attention faster and more thoroughly than we'd expect.

You don't need to know all of neuroscience, cognitive psychology and so on to know how your brain works. I'm not a neuroscientist. I write, my undergraduate degree is in physics, I hack in my spare time, and I work in new media. But neuroscience has got to such a level now - with the imaging techniques in the last three or four years - that we can make focused probes into particular functions, and illustrate the traces that these design decisions have left (see where+how they are, and draw that up the stack towards conscious experience) and we can look at them one by one.

There's one major exception to this, though: the ancient redwoods across the Golden Gate Bridge, in Muir woods and elsewhere. These millennia-old giants are Northern California's most beautiful and humbling feature. Standing alongside of one was like being in the presence of something holy. I think that if I'd spent more time with them, I might have stayed in California.

Today, California's old-growth forests are being indiscriminately logged. Conservation of these irreplaceable trees is a nonpartisan issue: it's an issue of humanity. If you love life, if you love your children, if you love your world, then saving these trees is something you should support.

The California Heritage Tree Preservation Act (SB 754) is being voted on today (August 4th) by California's Assembly Appropriations Committee. Before you go to work this morning, send your California Assembly Member an email and a fax in support fo SB 754:

I urge your support of SB 754, the Heritage Tree Preservation Act. This bill has been carefully written to protect some of California's largest and oldest trees while minimizing impacts to landowners, jobs and state revenues. The bill minimizes and offsets costs and it preserves revenues to the state from tourism, recreation and fisheries.

Fewer than one percent of California's old-growth trees remain standing on non-federal forestland. SB 754 will protect these trees and the ecological and economic benefits they bring to our state. Millions of tourists flock to California's forests each year to witness these towering giants with their own eyes. The trees protected by this bill are among the oldest, tallest, and largest living things on earth.

Please approve SB 754 and help us preserve California's ancient trees for future generations.

The RIAA’s biased and blinkered account of "copyright policy" cannot obscure the fact that copyright law expressly approves of digitalaudio home recording devices (including devices like the DAB receiver/recorder) and their noncommercial use by consumers.8 There isno copyright policy "gap" here for the Commission to fill, even if the Commission had the jurisdiction to do so. Where Congress has legislatedwith specificity, it is not for the Commission to countermand its legislative scheme.

Police say she was questioned for several hours, but could not explain why she had left her son alone.

The non-partisan Verified Voting Foundation is working with other voter protection groups to make sure every vote is counted, focusing its efforts on the new electronic voting terminals we're all concerned about.

Their program is called TechWatch, and it will help reduce the risk that votes will be lost or miscounted by these machines and other technology.

On the nascent cable industry, in 1974
"[Cable will become] a huge parasite in the marketplace, feeding and fattening itself off of local television stations and copyright owners of copyrighted material. We do not like it because we think it wrong and unfair."

On the dangers on media concentration, 1984 Op-Ed
"Will a democratic society allow just three corporate entities to wield unprecedented dominion over television, the most decisive voice in the land? There are now only three national networks .... There will never be more than three national networks."

On the public domain, 1995
"A public domain work is an orphan. No one is responsible for its life. But everyone exploits its use, until that time certain when it becomes soiled and haggard, barren of its previous virtues. How does the consumer benefit from the steady decline of a film's quality?"

"[In] the process of clarifying [DMCA safe harbor] provisions, Judge Baird also made some dangerous assumptions about the safe harbors that have created a veritable roadmap for litigation-happy copyright owners who want to use the DMCA to harass people right off the Internet.

The ruling explains that, to qualify for safe harbors, a company must terminate its relationship with a user or customer if they receive 'repeat notifications of copyright infringement. 'Repeat notifications' means multiple takedown notices.

Why is this a problem? Think of it this way: If a large adult website wants to put its smaller competitors out of business, one way they could do it would be to send several takedown notices to the small company's age verification and bill processing service providers, claiming that a few images posted on a few webpages are infringing. To avoid the risk of liability, these service providers will sever ties with the small website's owner, who will now have no way of processing credit cards to do business on any of the websites."

The Department of Justice has called for these five public documents, two of which are texts of federal statutes, to be removed from depository libraries and destroyed, making their content available only to those with access to a law office or law library.

The topics addressed in the named documents include information on how citizens can retrieve items that may have been confiscated by the government during an investigation. The documents to be removed and destroyed include: Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure; Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms; Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes; Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory; and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000 (CAFRA).

Update

"[T]he Department has determined that these materials are "not sufficiently sensitive to require removal from the depository library system."

Update L. Perg sez: "I've built hypercube shadows! Zometools are incredibly fun in their own right -- I own an embarrassingly large amount of them. 4D cube shadows can be built with the smallest kits, however. I've linked to a very nice diagram and explanation of how to view and build hypercubes (unfortunately a .pdf) with Zometools. Of course, it is much more fun to build them.

"Zometools are also great for playing with bubbles. Zome shapes also make striking architechture that is much more flexible than domes (this what they were originally designed for). They are also great at teaching geometric and mathematic concepts. Some scientists use them also, although personally they won't do what I need -- I can make a single true tetrahedron, but can't link them correctly to make silicate minerals. Also, the twist ratio in the DNA model is not correct. Overall, though, they whup any building sets that I had as a child, which is really the important thing."

Nicholas sez: I know this is going to sound crazy, but please humor me by reading through it.

Seeing the "4D Rucker Cube" post today was quite the synchronicity. Just yesterday I had purchased a copy of the books Hyperspace, and Surfing Through Hyperspace. I am actually a student of Michael Bertiaux (occult author of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook), and had read a couple of nights ago in the Monastery of the Seven Rays first years course about the hypercube. I had the thought that the puzzle Cube 21 (also known as the Square 1) might possibly be a shadow of a hypercube. I have been using this puzzle in my esoteric research. There is a shape that it can be changed into which I call the Z(OM-B) Configuration. The middle layer is turned 45 degrees from the top and bottom sections, which can also be done with a normal Rubik's cube. This creates a sort of 8 pointed star. The 8 points suggest many things, one attribution might be space-time. This eight pointed star appears in Bertiaux's Voudon Gnostic Workbook on a paper about occult time travel. I had the thought after reading about the hypercube in the Monastery papers that perhaps the cuboid at the center of the cube could be an example of a cube within a cube, or a shadow of a hypercube. Furthermore I thought that like someone in the fourth dimension when in this configuration we are able to see inside an opaque 3-d object.

Another thought I had after reading the chapter on the fourth dimension in Hyperspace is that the Lovecraftian Outer One known as Yog Sothoth might be from this realm. He is described as being many iridescent blobs, and is said to be the key and the gate to other dimensions. In Hyperspace a 4-D being in our 3-D world was described as a "a blob like creature that constantly changes shape and size." In the Dunwich Horror Lovecraft writes that "Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth."

Finally I had the thought that perhaps our experience of time as the present is similar to the way that flatlanders experience the third dimension, as shrinking and expanding cross sections. We seem to also experience time as a cross section.

One last coincidence is the name of the company that sells the Hypercube kits. The name Zome is very close to the name of my ZOM-B Configuration.

Here are some links to the references made above.

Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the Tenth Dimension

Surfing Through Hyperspace: Understanding Higher Universes in Six Easy Lessons

Here's a link to Michael Bertiaux's website.

I also wrote years ago a review of the Voudon Gnostic Workbook.

Finally about a year ago I wrote a brief paper about the Hypercube.

Update: Thanks to everyone who pointed out that opening the M3U file in a text-editor yeilds a track-listing that can be d/led!

The Sniper Yagi is an M16 with the firing apparatus removed and replaced with a directional high-powered antenna. Use the sniper stand and sight to line up your WiFi shot, plug in, and let the packets begin! Link

What constitutes critical will be judged by the Mozilla Foundation staff. Linux software developer Linspire and Mark entrepreneur Shuttleworth have issued seed funding to support the initiative, to be supplemented by donations from Mozilla supporters. The first $5,000 in community contributions will be matched dollar-for-dollar by Shuttleworth.

For starters, Trippi can write -- he's put together a campaign narrative that's a cross between the Fellowship of the Ring and Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail. This was an exciting adventure, half tech startup and half presidential bid, and after all, Trippi's professional career has been devoted to producing snappy written and verbal materials for candidates, and it shows. He's really, really good.

What's more, Trippi is a genuine, fire-breathing, rip-roaring Internet evangelist who makes me want to jump up and shout hallelujah. I mean, halfway through this book, I was starting to daydream about moving back to the US to help use the Internet to sway elections and change the world -- and that's ALREADY what I do for a living.

Finally, this is a flat-out inspirational story, a story about how the future arrived in politics, about how the transformation in politics has been downplayed by the entrenched interests who stand to lose from it, about how we've only just seen the beginning of a new form of civic engagement in the US and all over the world.

I grew up on narratives of civil rights organizers, Yippies, revolutionaries and great scientists, and I've always had a firm belief that we can change the world by applying our shoulders to it and pushing. Trippi's book affirms that belief for me, and gives me renewed hope for the future.

The Dean for America campaign arrived at just the right moment--a pivotal point in our political history, when forty years of a corrupt system had reduced politics to its basest elements--the race to raise money from one-quarter of one percent of the wealthiest Americans and corporate donors in exchange for dictating the policy of the country. Then, the side with the most money simply bought the most television ads to manipulate the most people--while instant polling, focus groups, and message testing ref ined the struggle to a few swing voters in a few key districts in a few key states, blurring any significant differences between the monolithic parties and destroying honest debate about issues like health care and the war in Iraq. Until every candidate sounded exactly the same, and a member of either party could proudly stand up and proclaim that his party had passed a Patients' Bill of Rights--an utterly meaningless bill that, incidentally, *didn't provide health care for one single American.*

Anyone who has copied songs from a CD onto an iPod or computer hard drive has fallen foul of Australian copyright laws, which critics argue are failing to keep pace with technological change. Copying music for personal use is generally OK in the US and Europe. But not in Australia.

Our economy is so based on intellectual property ideas that, unless we can protect them, we're really looking at a situation where it's going to hurt our ability to survive as a country.

Secondly, so much of what we do now involves computers, whether it be with software or other types of communication lines. Often, intellectual property is a key component to the things we do to protect ourselves as a country.

This last year, I was contacted by Universal Press Syndicates about PvP. They know the strip and were very interested in syndicating it as a feature. I would love to see PvP in newspapers and we started talks. I let them know that there were six years of archives available and that I could edit the strips to conform to family paper editorial standards. The only thing I could not do was give up my ownership and rights to my creation.

Under no circumstances would I relinquish my copyright, book deals, merchandise deals, rights to market my strips, etc. If they wanted PvP, we would agree to a newspaper distribution deal and that was it. After six weeks the syndicates returned with their answer: They wanted PvP...all of it. If they could not have the rights to the feature, they weren't interested. So we parted ways.

But I've already become attached to the idea of seeing PvP in the papers, and that's why I've decided to start a new program. In the coming months, I'll be putting into effect, a program in which papers can receive PVP for free. That's right, free. They don't have to pay me a cent for it. I will provide for the papers, a comic strip with a larger established audience then any new syndicated feature, a years worth of strips in advance, and I won't charge them a cent for it.

After young people have converged in physical space, mobile communication does not necessarily end. In contrast to work meetings in which mobile communications are largely excluded, among gatherings of young people, the mobile phone is a social accessory. They might call a friend, inviting them to join them, or getting information about the conversation at hand. When an email message comes into a friend's mobile, it is quite common to ask who it was from and a conversation about that person to ensue. Young people generally reported that they had no reservations about making contact with others via mobile phones when they were with a group of friends, though they might make a brief apology if a one-on-one gathering was interrupted with a voice call.

Rudy also wrote a regular column for the print edition of bOING bOING. His story about going to Portugal with Robert Anton Wilson and Terrence McKenna was fantastic. (Do you have it on your hard disk, Rudy? It would be great to share with everyone.) If you've never had the pleasure of reading Rudy's work, you're in for a treat. Both his fiction and non-fiction is awe-inspiring, accessible, and funny. Welcome, Rudy!

More than 2 million essays have been scored by e-rater since it was adopted for the GMAT in 1999, and the technology is being considered for use in the Graduate Record Examination, for graduate school admissions, and the Test of English as a Foreign Language, which assesses the English proficiency of immigrants entering U.S. schools.

Testing experts predict that machines eventually will help grade the SAT and the ACT, which will add writing sections in their 2005 college admissions tests, because computers cost less money and work faster than humans. Before technology entered the picture, teams of people graded each GMAT essay. Now one person's judgment is compared with the machine's conclusion.

"It is sort of inevitable," said Jeff Rubenstein, vice president for technology at the test-preparation company Princeton Review, "but it is also sort of regrettable." He said he knows test takers "who are brilliant writers, but they write very subtly," and when a machine is grading them, "they score terribly."

So, you're an Indian living in the United States, making megabucks in Redwood City, Calif. A big shot. But your aging parents are back home in India, alone. What should you, as a good Indian son or daughter, do? Call or send an e-mail to yourmaninindia.com, who will do everything from paying the family bills to just sitting down and being your mom or dad's new best friend.

"Perceptual techniques which make the environment seem more complex or less safe have the potential for success. Natural traffic calming, such as narrow or winding roads, can be very effective as well as being more acceptable to drivers. Carefully-designed schemes, using the properties of natural traffic calming, have the potential to achieve a similar effect."

"Cloud Gate combines the blobular, organic shapes that have been so prevalent in recent design with the reflective surfaces common to Gehry's architectural work and turns the idea of sculpture  as something to be *looked at* on its ear, transforming the very looking into an experiential, interactive encounter--all within the public sphere. Plus it looks like an alien just layed a mega egg in the middle of the city, which you gotta love."

More stupid security, this time from Australia. Flight attendent finds air-sickness bag with the letters "BOB" written on it. In a dizzying feat of delusion, she imagines that "BOB" stands for "Bomb on Board," and convinces the captain to turn the plane around and make an emergency landing. I try to draw some actual lessons from this bit of stupidity.

Yesterday the Daily Mail invited readers to visit its online chatroom and respond to a typically ferocious anti-videogame rant, which took up two pages of the newspaper. Strangely, by 5pm the same evening, the 'should violent videogames be banned?' thread had been removed 'pending review', much to the confusion of those who were involved in what seemed to be a lively and mostly intelligent discussion. Could the reason perhaps have been that general opinion was very much against the proposition? Not to be silenced, however, visitors have started the thread again, and it's worth a look – in stark contrast to the paper itself, you should find some in-depth, well-considered and informed responses to a tragic incident. Unless it's all been removed for 'review' again...

The one question I have is how these things fare against time itself, given that CDs and DVDs tend to delaminate, tapes crumble, and HDDs' bearings seize up -- it'd be great to have media that you could bury in a time-capsule for a couple decades with confidence.

They were dipped into cola, put through a washing machine, dunked in coffee, trampled by a skateboard, run over by a child's toy car and given to a six-year-old boy to destroy.

Perhaps surprisingly, all the cards survived these six tests.

Most of them did fail to get through two additional tests - being smashed by a sledgehammer and being nailed to a tree.

Name: Sonny Bono

Profession: singer, actor, republican rep., pizza delivery man in congress member of the House Subcommittee on Copyrights and Intellectual Property

Status: introduced by Mimi Rogers; took some courses, says he's a roman catholic, not a scientologist (LA Times), but probably still in (used the word "enturbulate" in public around 26.4.1997)

He says in Esquire: "I openly studied scientology to the degree that they did some courses on ethics, and then said thank you and left. (...) The scientology - there was no cult thing there."

From drogers@huey.csun.edu (David D. Rogers): According to Corydon's book, he was quoted as saying: "My only sorrow is that L. Ron Hubbard left before I could thank him for my new life," in a full-page ad featured in several newspapers after Elron's death. died 6.1.1998

His widow, Mary Bono, has also done scientology courses

Achievement: Congressman (R), Palm Springs Mayor, Cher's ex-husband. Cher: "A politician is usually a null, so the job fits him". "The Progressive": (first mentioned to me in october 1995) "#8 on the list of 'The Ten Dimmest Bulbs in Congress' "Bono's mental shortcomings have long made him a subject of scorn among California politicians."

We're bringing the fight to Guthrie's rightsholders, and suing on JibJab's behalf, "to defend JibJab's fair use and free speech rights."

Check out Donna's excellent and heavily linked post for more. Link

To stand out from the crowd, Mr. X must wear his yellow "X" shirt. Detectives must wear the red "D". To win the game the detectives must physically touch Mr. X (optionally cuff, rough-up, interrogate and incarcerate).

Mr. X is randomly placed at a stop and must phone into HQ to tell his dispatcher what 3 methods of transportation he will be using on his next three moves (subway, streetcar, bus). 3 moves consists of a turn, Mr. X must reveal his location every second turn as he enters that location. His dispatcher must tell the detective's dispatchers, who in turn tell the detectives. The detectives locations known by Mr. X at all times.

"Clear-eyed, hype-free and for all that prescient and inspiring. We the Media is Gillmor's heroic effort to bridge the tech-obsessed polyannas like me and the skeptical grownups whose hardened attitutudes won't admit of this stuff. He's done us all a service by writing it for us."

Orrin Hatch (OH) : "During the august recess, I would like your office if they can to assist this committee in the efforts to identify and resolve potential concerns about potential abuses of international and domestic and intentional inducement liability. Could we count on your to help us with that?"

Marybeth Peters (MP) : "Absolutely, I just identified this as the most important question in copyright today. We would be more then happy to assist the comitte in facilitating, umm, and bringing about a hopefully a result that could work"

OH : "Yeah i'd heard that so I was just making sure that you..."

(Edit Start)

MP : "We would never say no to you"

(Edit End)

OH : "We'll that is an interesting comment"

Following on from the earlier Boing Boing post about New Zealand's scratch n' sniff postage stamps, here's another world first from NZ Post - "Action Replay" postage stamps. By using a special printing process known as lenticular, the pictures on the stamps appear to move when the stamps are tilted. By the way, the scratch n' sniff postage stamps have already sold out.

10. The more talented somebody is, the less they need the props.

Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece on the back of a deli menu would not surprise me. Meeting a person who wrote a masterpiece with a silver Cartier fountain pen on an antique writing table in an airy SoHo loft would SERIOUSLY surprise me.

Adorn your belly with Elven beauty wearing this Arwen Pendant Navel Ring. Weighing 14 grams and made out of surgical steel, this ring features the design motif from Arwen's necklace and earrings set and is sure to turn heads. The bottom ball is cubic zirconium and measures 5mm in diameter.

So, you're thinking of buying one of those gas-electric hybrid cars like the Toyota Prius or Honda Insight. They're trendy, conserve fuel, and reduce pollution. But to really go "green," some entrepreneurs and academics say, you should try a Volkswagen Jetta.

Not just any Jetta. A dark blue one that a California electric-car company has modified so that it not only uses electricity but generates it for other purposes. So, once it's parked, you plug it in and sell excess electricity to a utility.

2. Posthumans complement flesh humans. Having an posthuman is good. Having a flesh human is good. Having both is even better. One reader wrote to me and said that he read half my first novel from the bound human, and printed the other half on scrap-flesh to read at the beach. Students write to me to say that it's easier to do their term fleshs if they can copy and paste their quotations into their word-processors. Baen readers use the electronic editions of their favorite series to build concordances of characters, places and events.