In post 9/11 America, asking "Why?" when someone from an airline asks for identification can start some interesting arguments. Gilmore, who learned to argue on the debate team in his hometown of Bradford, McKean County, has started an argument that, should it reach its intended target, the U.S. Supreme Court, would turn the rules of national security on end, reach deep into the tug-of-war between private rights and public safety, and play havoc with the Department of Homeland Security.

At the heart of Gilmore's stubbornness is the worry about the thin line between safety and tyranny.

"Are they just basically saying we just can't travel without identity papers? If that's true, then I'd rather see us go through a real debate that says we want to introduce required identity papers in our society rather than trying to legislate it through the back door through regulations that say there's not any other way to get around," Gilmore said. "Basically what they want is a show of obedience."

"But if home users upgrade to a business account (for $84.95 a month, rather than $29.95) the blocked ports magically become unstuck. There's no mention, however, of increased security measures in the upgraded business accounts. Interpret this how you like." Link

Scary as this is, my preliminary research has discovered some even more shocking facts. I have found that only 1% of Stanford professors believe in telepathy (defined as "communication between minds without using the traditional five senses"), compared with 36% of the general population. And less than half a percent believe "people on this earth are sometimes possessed by the devil", compared with 49% of those outside the ivory tower. And while 25% of Americans believe in astrology ("the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives"), I could only find one Stanford professor who would agree. (All numbers are from mainstream polls, as reported by Sokal.)

This dreadful lack of intellectual diversity is a serious threat to our nation's youth, who are quietly being propagandized by anti-astrology radicals instead of educated with different points of view. Were I to discover that there were no blacks on the Stanford faculty, the Politically Correct community would be all up in arms. But they have no problem squeezing out prospective faculty members whose views they disagree with.

The weekend paper is now supplemented by a daily blog, with podcasts and moblogs. The RSS is fulltext (crap, no it's not -- this is such an important detail, Observer -- get it right!). Trackbacks and comments are on and unmoderated. Keywords are tracked and displayed in a "folksonomic zeitgeist." Headlines from competing papers and Technorati link cosmoses are pulled in and displayed on the front page. No paywall. No adwall. No wall.

That's just for starters. We spent many exciting hours sitting in cafes, talking about what comes next -- conversations I'm not at liberty to repeat. But basically: put together a wish-list of features for a clued-in media organization to embrace, then square it and square it again in a relentless pursuit of Web-gonzoism. That's what's coming down the pipe.

I read a lot of newspapers on the Web, and this is something new and wonderful. Check it out. Link (via Ben Hammersley)

"Every animal is custom made, and you can also buy art made from real dead animals. Each page on this site is a Poe-like joy." Link (Thanks, Nick!)

1) Remove and reinsert the battery of the printer's memory chip

First, I disconnected the power and the printer cable, just to be sure. Then, I reached inside and carefully removed the battery. I waited for about an hour, and then reinserted the battery and plugged everything back in. Viola! I was able to make a copy. Tried printing -- that worked too.

2) Preemptive: Change the parameters of the printer driver

Search for hp*.ini and edit the ones with the latest dates. If you configure the printer driver first, see below, the file date should read today.

In it there is a parameter something like pencheck. It is set to 0100. I think this is a boolean because I tried other values without effect. Set it to 0000 in the file and save the file and REBOOT.

These implicitly spiritual stories, just as explicitly spiritual ones, can be divided into parables and fables. Mysteries and romances, like Jesus' stories about servants, are meant to be plausible. Because the stories could be true, we can learn from Sherlock Holmes, Scarlet O'Hara, or the Good Samaritan. But fantasy and science fiction, like the stories about Jesus' miracles or divine birth, are meant to be implausible. By asking us to consider something outside our experience, like traveling in time, becoming a monster, or turning water into wine, they ask us to throw off our preconceptions and see the world as if we had never seen it before. Because it's impossible for a story to occur in our world, we know that it's about something more than its details, and we can learn from Santa Claus, Superman, or the Son of God.

As they do for many adolescents and adults, fantasy and science fiction gave me fables that were spiritual and fables that explored the desire to be spiritual. I appreciated the personal and public difficulty of promoting a faith by reading about Paul Muad'Dib in Dune and Michael Valentine Smith in Stranger in a Strange Land. Roger Zelazny's Lord of Light made me think about the nature of pantheons. As an atheist who yearned for meaning, I saw my struggle in Michael Moorcock's Behold the Man, the story of a time traveler who goes back to meet Jesus. I found answers to questions that traditional religions are reluctant to pose: James Morrow examined the literal death of the conservative Christian God in Towing Jehovah and Jesus' second coming as a woman in Only Begotten Daughter.

Update: Medievalist writes " in mind that Unitarian Universalism is a non- creedal religion, and that most UUs are not Christians. Thus Shetterley is writing from the perspective of a minority within both Unitarian Universalism and Christianity."

Now, L Perg writes, "'Acoustical graphing' of 1D data streams can be very useful in scientific applications, since auditory processing is multi-channel. For example, in mass spectroscopy, an ion beam that is operating at safe levels can be represented by a low hum; as the beam strength increases -- approaching the point it will damage the detector -- the pitch and volume can increase, alerting the operator to the problem. Just think of how insanely boring and inefficient it would be to watch the same data wiggling on a computer screen.

"Of course, auditory graphing is also used to represent 1D graphs for people with visual processing disorders (vision impairment and dyslexia).

"...[I]n a moment of serendipity, I opened my email to find information on the translation of geochemical signals into music posted to a paleoclimate mailing list. As cave stalactites grow, they record changing oxygen isotope values, which correspond to the growth and decay of ice sheets. The isotope record from the Frasassi Cave in Italy has been recorded as 'Geophonic music,' available in the book and CD set 'The Drops of Time' (Gocce di Tempo) (ISBN: 2-911762-51-7)." Link (Thanks, L!)

Update: Blue Boar sez, "The iPod acoustic hack doesn't use the headphone jack, which would mean programming the sound hardware. Last I checked a few days ago, they still don't have that bit finished on the 4G and later iPods under Linux. Instead, they used the built-in piezo. This is the device that "clicks" when you are scrolling the wheel. If you hadn't noticied it before, unplug your headphones, and hold the iPod up to your ear while you scroll through a long list."

Obviously, I need some space to store all these podcasts, but space, these days, is very cheap. I watch sites that provide specials for hardware, and can purchase a 250 gigabyte hard drive for $100. It's a drive type that is prone to failure, so I buy two. At home, I run these drives on USB2 enclosures, on two separate machines, and I use a program called rsync to keep them synchronized. I download podcasts using a program called doppler, which has several advantages to its approach that are useful for archiving. I have the podcasts on a network drive, so I am not beholden to a specific machine to download the podcasts. I found very quickly that Doppler Radio didn't check to see if you had pointed it to multiple copies of the same feeds (it assumes you're using such a small amount of feeds, that you would always notice the doubles yourself), so I wrote a perl script that yanked out doubles. This has held up for the time being, and while I don't have firm numbers on how much disk space per day this process is taking, I'm not too worried about it...

Podcasting certainly has its roots in zine culture, home-brew tapes, BBSes, carbon-copy SF fanzines, and telegraph. If that's too high-minded and artsy-historian, then I could point to the direct event of the fad of "Push Technology" that infected a number of companies in 1998 through to 1999. Microsoft and Netscape both claimed that Push technology would change everything, and Pointcast tried to build a business on it. Really, it was all a fine idea, but the order of the day was to claim that not only was a good idea good, but it would actually turn dog poop into solid gold, so the actuality had issues with the (stock-driven) promises.

It's not a service I'd use, but I believe that it's the kind of service that is vital to the Web's health. The ability of end-users to avail themselves of tools that decomopose and reassemble web-pages to their tastes is an issue like inlining, framing, and linking: it's a matter of letting users innovate at the edge.

I think I should be able to use a proxy that reformats my browsing sessions for viewing on a mobile phone; I think I should be able to use a proxy that finds every ISBN and links it to a comparison-shopping-engine's best price for that book across ten vendors. I think I should be able to use a proxy that auto-links every proper noun to the corresponding Wikipedia entry.

And so on -- it's my screen, and I should be able to control it; companies like Google and individuals should be able to provide tools and services to let me control it.

(Of course, this isn't to justify fraud or passing off, as when linking, inlining, copying, proxying or other munging of pages are used to deceive end-users or remove their freedom of choice. But fraud isn't bad because it uses proxying, or deep-linking, or inlining: fraud is bad because it's fraud, no matter what tools it employs.)

Yoz "Perl is Internet Yiddish" Grahame has posted a good, apoplectic, funny, point-by-point refutation of the major objections to the Toolbar. It's a clear-eyed explanation of why, even if you don't use the Toolbar yourself, you should support it and tools like it.

"The issue for authors and publishers is whether readers know they're reading text that's been modified."

And it's so ambiguous! Admittedly, in order for the web page to be altered by the Google toolbar, an "AutoLink" button needs to be pressed every time (it doesn't do it automatically), and the first time you press it this pop-up window appears which explains everything. Personally, I don't think that's nearly enough! A large claxon should sound, the screen should flash, and the user should get a phone call from a Google employee explaining the incredibly ambiguous and possibly-accidental button press. After all, the user might not realise that they had altered the content of the page if they were incredibly forgetful or stupid.

1 Get an ISBN (for a book), or a UPC (for a CD or DVD). For one book it costs $125, for one CD, $55, for one DVD, $89.
2 Get a bar code based on the ISBN or UPC. Costs $10, or may be included in UPC.
3 Sign up with Amazon, $30 per year.
4 Duplicate your stuff; include the bar code on the outside.
5 Ship two copies to Amazon
6 Send cover scan
7 Track sales
8 Resgister it (optional)

Update: Jim Cowling sez, "Canadian publishers, including self-publishers, can get ISBNs for free by going to the Library and Archives Canada website."

Update 2: Viveka sez, "people in any country can find out how to get an ISBN through the alphabetical list on this page at the ISBN international site. For example, ISBNs in Australia are administered by Thorpe, and cost $33 each once you pay a usury of registration and block-allocation fees. I'm using 'usury' just as a collective noun for fees here, not as any imputation on the fine people at Thorpe, who must be paying their database admins by the keystroke."

Starting in the liberal state of California, they hope to evade the attention of local police officers when they ride a bike in a swimming pool and curse on a crazy-golf course.

In the far more conservative - and landlocked - state of Utah, they will risk the penitentiary when they hire a boat and attempt to go whale-hunting.

If they manage to outwit state troopers in Utah, and perhaps federal agents on their trail, they will be able to take a deserved, but nevertheless illegal, rest when they have a nap in a cheese factory in South Dakota.

Now Aaron Krowne has written a stunning refutation of McHenry's piece and published it in Free Software Magazine. This thoroughgoing debunking not only shows how shoddy McHenry's reasoning is, but it actually goes some way toward a general theory of why and how Wikipedia-like projects fail or thrive. Best article I've read all week.

The user who visits Wikipedia to learn about some subject, to confirm some matter of fact, is rather in the position of a visitor to a public restroom. It may be obviously dirty, so that he knows to exercise great care, or it may seem fairly clean, so that he may be lulled into a false sense of security. What he certainly does not know is who has used the facilities before him...

What would McHenry’s metaphor apply more fittingly to?

Why, a traditional print encyclopedia, of course. If I wanted to analyze an arbitrary Britannica article’s evolution over time (for example), I’d have to somehow acquire the entire back catalog of the Britannica (assuming older editions can even be purchased), presumably reserve a sizeable warehouse to store them all, and block out a few days or so of my time to manually make the comparison.

Even the electronic forms of traditional encyclopedias are sure to be lacking such reviewability features. This makes sense, as public reviewability would be embarrassing to traditional content creators.

Gernsback published an early magazine on the topic, “Modern Electrics,” imported European electronics gear for amateur radio builders, and organized the Wireless Association of America in 1909 that had 10,000 members within a year. Gernback estimated that 400,000 amateur radio aficionados were at work in 1912.

Does this all sound a bit familiar? Working with cheaply available equipment, clambering on roofs, and working inside the law while not being subject to regulation, these amateurs—largely boys and young men—spent countless hours messing with technology to extend transmissions. It was some kind of combination of instant messaging, phone phreaking, and Wi-Fi with a distinctly modern flavor to it.

Schneider's ingenious approach shows several important virtues:

* User innovation and the lack of passivity. Apple didn't intend for third-party software to be used with the iPod; not only was Schneider unconcerned with this, he ended up using the iPod in a way that its developers wouldn't have anticipated (and, if they've heard about it, are probably amused or startled by). He certainly refused to limit his thinking to what the original manufacturer had in mind; he insisted, on, well, thinking different.

* Consciousness of history. This problem was solved before in an earlier generation of technology. As Dave Farber has often pointed out, it's tragic that computer scientists and programmers working today are often thoroughly ignorant of what earlier generations have already invented and implemented. Even more than other fields, computing may be repeating and duplicating effort all the time. The notion of modulating digital data as a waveform at audio frequencies has been deeply important in digital communications, but it's easy enough for people who don't use a modem any more to forget it -- never mind people who (like myself) have never had to use an acoustic coupler.

* An appreciation for the universality of the machine. The idea that data is data and that representations and encodings of it are merely accidental goes back, depending on how you want to count it, decades or centuries. (See, e.g., Umberto Eco, The Search for the Perfect Language (Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 1997), for some antecedents of this idea in the days before Shannon, Turing, and von Neumann.) But even so, we can get stuck in what cognitive psychologists call "functional fixedness" and refuse to think about data outside of its current representation. We can refuse to think of some signalling method or storage medium as capable of representing any data, of communications media and computing devices as genuinely universal. We can say that certain outputs were made for certain purposes and stubbornly refuse to consider that there are other outputs, even outputs that may be a problem for somebody's security policy. We can read Shannon, or anything after Shannon, and still not know in a practical sense that any data can be encoded on any channel. But Schneider thought with an abstraction and generality that befits an "information age"; he knew that bits are bits, from a communication engineering point of view, and meaning comes after, at another layer.

"My Collections Page...

...has been withdrawn since being flooded with unkind and rude emails as a result of the link and unfounded, un-called for comments at B3TA.

I have put a lot of effort into my site for the benefit of everyone and don't expect to receive abuse in exchange.

For the time being I am not prepared to share my collections.

For the record, having a butterfly collection does not automatically make one a butterfly killer and I am most certainly not obsessed. I have many hobbies and I have other pursuits in life, which obviously some people do not.

At least I can say, I am never ever bored."

"Hi-Fructose Toysploitation Magazine is your entry into the exploding Toy Arts Revolution. From Urban Vinyl, limited run, and artist centered toys to abandoned theme parks and Japanese monster Wrestling, Hi Fructose provides a cross section of the best and bizarre of the Under the Counter Culture."
Looks awesome. Link (via cephalablog)

I can't wait to buy my daughter a five-pound bag of this stuff. Hope the gelatin doesn't have mad cow prions in it.

(Related: I think the article that was the most fun for me to ever write was Gross National Product, for Wired in 1999. It was about weird and gross candy design.)
Link

UPDATE: Stefan reports that Kraft foods has caved into pressure from animal rights activists who claim children exposed to this candy will grow up to become sadistic animal-runner-overs. Link

The job responsibilities for the Vice President, THE DUKES OF HAZZARD INSTITUTE are:
-- watch THE DUKES OF HAZZARD every weeknight on CMT
-- know the words to THE DUKES OF HAZZARD theme song, Good Ol' Boys, written and performed on the series by the legendary Waylon Jennings
-- serve as media expert on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD for the CMT DUKES OF HAZZARD INSTITUTE: must be available for TV, radio and newspaper interviews to share his or her expertise and passion for THE DUKES OF HAZZARD on CMT
-- write THE DUKES OF HAZZARD INSTITUTE online blog for www.CMT.com
-- be passionate about THE DUKES OF HAZZARD on CMT

Questions candidates will be asked include:
-- If you, Bo, Luke and Daisy took off in The General Lee, what would happen next?
-- If Waylon Jennings had written your theme song, what would be the title and chorus?
-- Which character on THE DUKES OF HAZZARD do you most identify with and why?

When you can't find copyright holders, copyright becomes a quagmire. Let's fix it. For designers, academics, artists, musicians, and filmmakers, using copyrighted works can be a huge headache. It can be impossible to find out if a particular work is still under copyright or not. And even when people would happily pay to use a copyrighted photo, passage, or video clip, it's often impossible (or extremely costly) to find the copyright holder. When this happens, everybody loses. Artists can't realize their creative vision, academics can't clearly communicate their ideas, and copyright holders don't get paid. Even worse, important pieces of our culture get needlessly locked away.

Right now, the US Copyright Office is asking for public comment on the "orphan works" problem, so now's our chance to make the system work better. The Copyright Office has specifically asked for comments from people who have run up against the problem of trying to clear a potentially copyrighted work -- either for use in a new creative effort or simply to make the work available to the public once again.

If you have a story like this, it's essential you make your voice heard. Use the form on your right to submit comments directly to the Copyright Office -- you type, and we'll take care of the formatting and submission.

It automatically recognizes and lists the medical images stored on the iPod. Now, iin much the same manner that people scroll through a playlist, radiologists can scroll through a list of patients or view their records through iPod's iPhoto application....

But it's not just a novelty, a one-time joyride for medical hackers. Thirty-seven percent of the respondents say they use it every day, and 24 percent say they are likely to develop plug-ins or other upgrades to better serve their needs.

While critics have leveled criticism about the iPod application, Ratib says that the patient's personal data is stripped out and assigned an anonymous identification during transport.

Afruca (Africans Against Child Abuse) spokeswoman Debbie Ariyo said she was not surprised by the findings because the driving out of demons was known to be a widespread practice within the African churches.

"It's part and parcel of what churches do in terms of freeing people from what they see as the stranglehold of the devil.

"But it does worry me that local authorities are not making the effort to link up with the churches in terms of their practices regarding child protection," Ms Ariyo said...

The Newsnight investigation comes on the fifth anniversary of the death of eight-year-old Victoria Climbie, killed by carers who claimed she was possessed by the devil.

Update: Modesty sez, "I makes no sense at all, until the moment you figure out how to hold it, at which point it feels like the most natural thing in the world, it just kinda sits there being useful. I write with it all the time now (well when I write and not type anyway)."

Update 2: Rachel sez, "I've had one for a while and while it's a neat concept I don't find it that comfortable and it's pretty much impossible to write quickly with it. What's interesting, though (at least to me) is it comes with an interchangeable PDA stylus point and (more interesting to me) the inventor went to my high school (Paly in Palo Alto, Aalifornia). My understanding is he came up with the pen concept while in detention there."

Date: Thursday 3rd March, 8:00pm
Price: £4 on the door - all proceeds go to Save The Rhino and The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund
Venue: The Brockway Room, Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square, London WC1R 4RL (map)
Any questions: yoz@yoz.com

He is on his way to a reception hosted by the mayor. His lunch at a Cambridge restaurant was free, after the man behind the counter recognized him. And his phone rings constantly with people calling to congratulate him. ''It's just so amazing that I know this man," gushed a co-worker at his office yesterday.

Geoff Hargadon -- Hargo, now that he's a star -- is the creator of The Somerville Gates, a micro sendup of the saffron extravaganza now in New York's Central Park. And he has become almost preposterously famous. After he posted photos on his website of his 13-gate installation -- made from stuff he picked up at Home Depot that he glued together and painted orange -- Hargadon received more than 4 million hits, so many that he had to take it down yesterday because his Internet service was charging him for every visit. He owes thousands, he says.

Museums across the country are after him. Manhattan's Pratt Institute wants a Somerville Gate for its permanent collection. Ditto, the Browne Popular Culture Museum in Bowling Green, Ohio; the Portland Art Museum in Oregon; and Meredith College in Raleigh, N.C. Someone from Tufts University invited him to display the work in a juried art show.

Previously: Christo "The Gates" parodies: "The Crackers", Christo "Gates" parodies: Batman and Andy Warhol, and Christo's "Gates": let the internet parodies commence.

Update: Eric Marcoullier sez:

Re: Hargo's sudden burst of fame (Christo "Gates" parody leads to absurd burst of fame), is anyone else reminded of the Simpsons episode "Mom and Pop Art" where Homer tries to build a grill and gets labeled as an outsider artist? One minute you're sitting on the floor making 4"-high gates as a joke, the next minute you're judging art competitions at Tufts University. Awesome! And come to think of it, Christo was even mentioned in the episode: Link

Canada's national film board has made Ryan and a preview of Hardwood -- two films from Canada nominated for Oscars this year -- available online. Ryan is specifically notable for BoingBoing readers, it is an animated short but feels more like a biography. It depicts Ryan Larkin, a Canadian animator who was nominated for an Oscar himself in 1969 but is now a panhandler in Montreal. See also Salon.com which includes Ryan in a day of oscar shorts they are making available today.

Update: BB reader steef says,

As a follow up to Xeni's post about Oscar-nominated shorts Ryan and Hardwood, the Animation World Network has a showcase of all 5 nominated shorts, with links to the complete films or clips, without having to sit through Salon's one-day advertising extravaganza.

Link to archived audio for this story with expanded online coverage. Link to "Xeni Tech" archives on NPR's Day to Day. See also this CNET wrap-up of the auction, which brought in less money than anticipated (because, duh, anyone nerdy enough to want to buy this stuff is probably hoarding their cash for pocket protectors): Link

Update Boing Boing Sean Hyde-Moyer says, "I just watched th PK Dick Scanner Darkly trailer, and thought folks might be interested in another vision. My friends Dan Thron and Brian White of Rustmonkey Productions put together a trailer for Scanner a couple of years ago when the project was first making the rounds. It's in pretty stark contrast to the Linklater approach. The Quicktime of their pitch is here: Link I love Linklater, but man, would I have liked to see Rustmonkey's Scanner."

The Italian mobile operator TIM, one of the largest mobile phone companies in Italy has issued a unique warning that the number of wiretaps has reached the limit. In a fax sent to all Italian public prosecutors they say that they have already over-stretched their capacity from 5.000 to 7.000 simultaneously intercepted mobile phones. New requests now have to be processed on a 'first come first serve' basis, they write.

In one recent case, the lawsuit and subpoena were issued in response to someone opining on an online message board that the president of a corporation had "a Napoleon complex." In another, the lawsuit was based on a statement that the company's executives were getting rich while the stock price was in free fall. Each of these suits was dropped once it became clear that the anonymous speaker was going to court to protect his identity, suggesting that the real purpose of the litigation was to discover whether the statements were made by employees so that the company could retaliate against them. The lawsuit was mere pretext for extra-judicial punishment.

Though these two suits were dropped, there was a sad postscript: postings to both of the message boards involved dropped off dramatically once word of the lawsuit got out, and still haven't returned to their previous levels.

Courts across the country are beginning to develop some basic rules about when the anonymity of an online speaker should be protected and when it should be breached. Specifically, the emerging test, best articulated in a New Jersey appellate decision called Dendrite, holds that when a court is faced with a subpoena aimed at identifying an anonymous speaker, the court should (1) provide notice to the potential defendant and an opportunity to defend his anonymity via a motion to quash; (2) require the plaintiff to specify the statements that allegedly violate its rights; (3) review the complaint to ensure that it states a cause of action based on each statement and against each defendant; (4) require the plaintiff to produce evidence supporting each element of its claims, and (5) balance the equities, weighing the strength of plaintiff's evidence and the potential harm to the plaintiff if the subpoena is quashed against the harm to the defendant from losing his right to remain anonymous.

Tomkins was an expert at studying facial muscles and what they revealed about people. His theories bordered on phrenology:

[Tomkins] could walk into a post office, it was said, go over to the "Wanted" posters, and, just by looking at mug shots, tell you what crimes the various fugitives had committed. "He would watch the show "To Tell the Truth,' and without fault he could always pick the person who was lying and who his confederates were," his son, Mark, recalls.

His ability to figure out the lifestyles of people just by looking at their faces is astonishing:

[Tomkins pupil, Paul] Ekman had just tracked down a hundred thousand feet of film that had been shot by the virologist Carleton Gajdusek in the remote jungles of Papua New Guinea. Some of the footage was of a tribe called the South Fore, who were a peaceful and friendly people. The rest was of the Kukukuku, who were hostile and murderous and who had a homosexual ritual where pre-adolescent boys were required to serve as courtesans for the male elders of the tribe. For six months, Ekman and his collaborator, Wallace Friesen, had been sorting through the footage, cutting extraneous scenes, focusing just on close-ups of the faces of the tribesmen, in order to compare the facial expressions of the two groups. Ekman set up the camera. Tomkins sat in the back. He had been told nothing about the tribes involved; all identifying context had been edited out. Tomkins looked on intently, peering through his glasses. At the end, he went up to the screen and pointed to the faces of the South Fore. "These are a sweet, gentle people, very indulgent, very peaceful," he said. Then he pointed to the faces of the Kukukuku. "This other group is violent, and there is lots of evidence to suggest homosexuality." Even today, a third of a century later, Ekman cannot get over what Tomkins did. "My God! I vividly remember saying, "Silvan, how on earth are you doing that?" Ekman recalls. "And he went up to the screen and, while we played the film backward, in slow motion, he pointed out the particular bulges and wrinkles in the face that he was using to make his judgment. That's when I realized, 'I've got to unpack the face.' It was a gold mine of information that everyone had ignored. This guy could see it, and if he could see it, maybe everyone else could, too."

The people of Monowi have died or moved — all but one: Elsie Eiler. Brisk and unsentimental at 71, she lives in the one home still fit for living in, a snug trailer with worn white siding. She runs the one business left in Monowi, a dark, wood-paneled tavern, thick with smoke. She also runs the library. The sign outside is painted on a section of a refrigerator door. The floor is bare plywood. There's no heat. But there are thousands upon thousands of books.

They went through rigorous blood and tissue testing last month at LifeLink HealthCare Institute, which coordinates the transplant program for Tampa General Hospital, and say they were declared physically compatible for the operation. But the hope of a new life for the 28-year-old Crionas didn't last long. Crionas got a letter earlier this month from LifeLink, a Tampa nonprofit that links patients and donors, telling him his request for surgery was rejected because Crionas had a Web site seeking a donor. "I was dumbfounded," Crionas said. "We didn't even meet through the Web site."

Jeff "Koganuts" Koga says, "I spotted the same guy at last summer's San Diego Comic-Con: Link to image, and link to blog post. He also wore a Ghostbusters uniform, complete with backpack, at the convention that weekend... and the nametag, a la Venkman, Stantz, Spengler, and Zeddemore, naturally said 'Presley.'"

Michael Kuker says, "The Elvis stormtrooper is a regular at a lot of cons. He's known as 'Elvis Trooper' and he has a website." Link

One of the toys in the "Star Wars" knock-offs -- specifically, the one you actually pictured on Boing Boing -- is not actually a cheap rendition of a Lucas copyright. It's just a cheap toy from the Micronauts line, which came out a year before Star Wars. Check it out. I know this because, as a kid, some of the only comics i could afford were 25 cent back-issues of, well, the lame comic book inspired by these rather boring toys. Wheeeeee!

Chris Eng says,

Check out how bad-ass Baron Karza looks when he's not all small and sad and blurry! Cone missiles! Magnetic scowly-head! Intense! Link

"Baron Karza and Andromeda were based on these Japanese toys 'Kotetsu Jeeg.' Link 1 Link 2."

Looks like there's a new version of the Micronauts due out in mid-2005. Link to details, and more about the toy line's Japan roots.

Update: Why I love nerds, part umptybillion. Kirk Demarais, creator of the "Secret Fun Spot" site originally linked in this post, submits this heartfelt mea culpa -- er, mea Karza...

Hey Xeni, Thanks for linking to the "Fake Star Wars" page of my site "Secret Fun Spot." I'm sorry to offend so many by including Baron Karza of the honorable Micronauts, and I just wanted to explain my actions. I made the faulty assumption that they were rip-offs because...

1. They showed up in stores (and in the 1978 Sears wishbook from which the image originated) after the historic 1977 summer of Star Wars. From innerspace online... "Much like Series 1, this section entitled "Series 2-1977" actually came out about 1978, but the toys bear a 1977 copyright."
2. In color and robot-ness, they vaguely resemble Darth Vader and a Stormtrooper.
3. They shared the page with various Star Wars knock-offs.

That said, I'll remove the offending image from the gallery as soon as I am able.

Beatallica.org has been taken down by our ISP:

"Even though we have received your counter notice, we are required by law to disable access to the infringing material. However, we are going to restore that in 10 business days from the date we received the counter notice (February 24, 2005) unless required under the DMCA to do otherwise."

Andy Baio (waxy.org) and Matthew Haughey (music.metafilter.com) both still have Beatallica mp3's up on their sites. I've emailed them to get their okay on linking them up, as they'll likely be getting a ton of traffic (and possible Sony C&D's) as a result.

Also, I just received, via Certified Mail, a cease-and-desist letter of my own! It's directed at me personally, not the website or the band. It basically says the same things as the one our ISP got last Thursday, but also that I must *immediately*:

- cease exploiting Sony/ATV Compositions and all derivative works thereof;
- provide Sony/ATV with information regarding any and all audio and audio-visual product, merchandise and written material (electronic and otherwise), and any other product that incorporates or uses Sony/ATV Compositions yadda yadda
- provide Sony with an accounting of all sums received or earned in connection with the exploitation of the Sony/ATV Compositions... as well as the operation of the Sites
- compensate Sony/ATV in an amount to be discussed

I have ten (10) days to comply. By the way, our message board is still active, as is the online petition (now up to nearly 3000 signatures), if Boing Boing readers want to send some kind words our way.

Update Scott Matthews says:

Regarding Beatallica:

1) their site is still available via Archive: Link

2) Matt Haughey is running the audio here: Link

And BB reader andy points us to this torrent of the whole heap of Beatallica tunes: Link

Right-owners are now in FULL MOBILIZATION on the WIPO development agenda. The only thing I have seen like this are the campaigns relating to the 1998-1999 WHO resolution on trade and public health and the 2001 WTO Doha Declaration on TRIPS and Public Health. Like then, the right-owners effort is closely coordinated behind the scenes, with enormous cooperation and pressure from the US and other developed counties. The US has formed an inter-agency task force to attack the DA. It would be good to have some details on the EC organization on this. I assume the worst, but there is a new Commission, so we need to check. Note that the US, the EC and European governments will put huge pressure on developing country governments to abandon/isolate Brazil or India on this, which is exactly what happened on the WTO negotiations over paragraph 6 of the Doha Declaration, and which was a disaster.

It appears as though the WIPO secretariat is entirely committed to defending corporate right-owners and entirely trying to undermine consumer interests. I would love to be wrong about this, but one has to face the evidence we have seen so far, including for example the recent USPTO and Casablanca meetings, and the rejection of applications for ad hoc observer status to groups like ICSTD and others, and the lack of a real dialogue with civil society NGOs.

Now that we're on the verge of reversing some of that harm with a rational treaty that treats the Internet like a solution, not a problem, they're pulling out all the dirtiest tricks they can think of. If I were you, I'd be mad as hell. I know I am. Link (via Copyfight)

Thanks to some prodding by a couple of great US Senators, the copyright office is currently considering whether to recommend changes to copyright law that will make it easier and cheaper for you to use "orphaned works" -- works that remain under copyright but whose "owner" can't be found. As many of you have written me, this is a real problem that affects thousands of innovative people every year. But the copyright office still needs some convincing.

To convince them, we need your help. If you have a relevant story, or a perspective that might help the Copyright Office evaluate this issue, I would be grateful if you took just a few minutes to write an email telling them your story. The most valuable submissions will make clear the practical burden the existing system creates. (One of my favorite stories is about a copy-shop's refusal to enlarge a 60 year old photo from an elementary school year book for a eulogy because the copyright owner couldn't be found.) Describe instances where you wanted to use a work, but couldn't find the owner to ask permission. Explain how that impacted your ability to create. Or pass this email on to someone who you know might have a useful story to add.

March 11 is the anniversary of the bombing of ten commuter trains in Madrid and the Spanish government is going to commemorate it with marches and speeches. In the days running up to the anniversary a bunch of politicians and academics will be meeting to discuss and announce something called the 'Madrid Agenda' - a set of recommendations and proposals for how democracies can deal with threats of terror. The process is being lead by the Club of Madrid, a group of former world leaders (Clinton, Gorbachov and that sort).

But the big thing is planned for March 11 when we want people around the world to sit down with friends or family, talk about democracy and terrorism and think about what they want their political leaders to do about it - then tell us so we can make sure their views get taken into account. We're calling it Meet on March 11 (original, huh). We've got around five hundred people signed up, and people are starting to publicise their own meetings.

How on earth did a Labour Government get to the point of creating what was described in the House of Lords hearing as a "gulag" at Belmarsh? I remind my hon. Friends that a gulag is a black hole into which people are forcibly directed without hope of ever getting out. Despite savage criticisms by nine Law Lords in 250 paragraphs, all of which I have read and understood, about the creation of the gulag, I have heard not one word of apology from the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary. Worse, I have heard no word of apology from those Back Benchers who voted to establish the gulag.

Have we all, individually and collectively, no shame? I suppose that once one has shown contempt for liberty by voting against it in the Lobby, it becomes easier to do it a second time and after that, a third time. Thus even Members of Parliament who claim to believe in human rights vote to destroy them.

Many Members have gone nap on the matter. They voted: first, to abolish trial by jury in less serious cases; secondly, to abolish trial by jury in more serious cases; thirdly, to approve an unlawful war; fourthly, to create a gulag at Belmarsh; and fifthly, to lock up innocent people in their homes. It is truly terrifying to imagine what those Members of Parliament will vote for next.I can describe all that only as new Labour's descent into hell, which is not a place where I want to be.

Update: RpR sez, "This is the link to Hansard - the UK's parliamentary reporting and has the full text of the speech by Brian Sedgemoor."

A blogger in Finland has been sued for libel by a school headmaster (or actually the headmaster has asked the police to investigate if the blogger can be charged) after he wrote harsh words about the headmaster's questionable schooling methods.

The first thing police did was to ask the blogger to remove all posts about the headmaster, even though this is clearly unconstitutional. Later, the police instructed the author to remove the offending material from the website according to the ".fi top level domain rules", which state that the police can ask for a suspension of a domain, if it's suspected to be used in crime. However, the blog is under the .net domain and not .fi!

The problems with this headmaster have been publicly discussed in the newspapers, but there is no knowledge about any criminal investigations except against this blogger.

Update: Visa sez, "The blogger who is being intestivated for libel has written his story in his own words."

Phishers use technical spoofing and social engineering to trick potential victims into thinking that they're interacting with a legitimate Web site. For example, you've probably received at least a few e-mails purporting to be from PayPal and asking you to change your password because your account may have been the victim of a cyberattack. Of course, the reality is that the e-mail is itself an attack. Following the link takes you to a page that looks just like PayPal, but in reality is a phisher's net.

"Phishing exists in both wireless and wired settings," says cryptographer Markus Jakobsson, a professor at the Indiana University School of Informatics. "But it's a bit more difficult to protect against when you're using a public wireless access point and you can't be entirely sure of its identity."

According to his bio, Jakobsson "teaches cryptography, security, protocol design, and likes to cheat." The combination of his professional practice and, well, appreciation for a good con helps him stay one step ahead of the phishers.

"The trout have been spooked by the monster and they have gone into hiding at the bottom of the ponds," (the farm's operations manager Gary) Wales said.

"I had to give refunds today to people who couldn't catch a fish.

"And I have had a few cancellations as well -- people are too scared to bring their kiddies in case Nessie jumps out and starts chomping on them."

Since 2001, psychiatrist Francisco Moreno of the University of Arizona in Tucson has been testing psilocybin as a treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder. Psychotherapy and antidepressants such as Prozac help many patients, but some have such severe symptoms and are so resistant to treatment that they turn to electroshock therapy and even brain surgery. As with the work on cluster headaches, Moreno's study was motivated by reports from people with OCD that psilocybin relieves their symptoms.

So far, Moreno has given both sub-psychedelic and psychedelic doses of pure psilocybin to nine treatment-resistant OCD subjects, in a total of 29 therapy sessions. His preliminary findings suggest firstly that it is safe to ingest psilocybin, which was a primary concern of the trial. Beyond that, Moreno calls his results "promising", but won't discuss them further, since he plans to submit a paper to a peer-reviewed journal this year.

Talking toys have become such a hit that some elderly people have embraced them as substitutes for the children who have grown old and deserted entire neighborhoods in the rapidly greying country.

"I feel so good, g-o-o-d n-i-g-h-t," the doll says before falling asleep if the owner pats it on the chest gently.

Or Yumel may ask, "Aren't you pushing yourself too hard?" when it judges the owner has been going to bed too irregularly or not spending enough time playing with it.

"If you lead an orderly life, Yumel will be in a good mood, singing songs or pleading with you to do something like buying him toys," Kiriseko said.

I met Pam for the first time on Nantucket Island. She and her ex-husband, bOING bOING senior editor Gareth Branwyn, and son Blake invited Carla and I to stay with them at an inn there where she was singing. I loved her performance and became an instant fan.

We will miss her very much. Goodbye Pammy!
Link

This website explains exactly how to matte in your own light-saber effects on your homemade movies, from how to construct an easy-to-rotoscope saber right up to using video-editing software to add the light-beam. Link (Thanks, IZ Reloaded!)

In the '80s, I spent many hours playing this game. It was a lot of fun, but I got stuck (I think I was trying to convince the depressed robot to open a spaceship door for me) and never finished it. The BBC version I'm playing comes with graphics (created by people who entered a BBC contest to port the game to Flash), which might make it a little easier to solve the puzzles this time around. Link

Update: Peter sez, "don't forget the earlier Boing Boing post about Tiger Woods being paid $1M to hit golf balls off the same helipad!"

Among the culprits named by the report was Nestlé's Golden Nuggets carrying a picture of Disney's Incredibles, which contains an extremely high amount of sugar.

Kellogg's also came under scrutiny for Frosties, which contains more salt and sugar than the Food Standards Agency recommends.

Some of Kellogg's' cereals include promotional offers linked to gadgets featuring branding from DreamWorks's Shark's Tail film.

The book has scenes like the one where he kisses the hand of the man who abused him. Most normal people will find this nauseating. The book is for wanna-be masochists who enjoy perversion, and people with strong stomachs. Perhaps that's who the author sees as his audience? The book has little plot, and seems like one vaguely descriptive scene after another. The reader is left with a bad taste in his or her mouth. I hear the author's father is preparing a website to show that his background is totally fabricated. That will be an interesting blog.

Update: Mark sez, "The legislature wanted to give a day's salary to the boy, not a month's salary. I thought it sounded too generous!"

The Participatory Politics Foundation and Downhill Battle are looking to jointly hire a full time web developer for a variety projects. We need someone who has serious commitment to what we're doing and professional or pro-level experience.

Requirements:

* Real world experience coding original PHP/MySQL. This means professional work or major open source experience.

* You must be comfortable investigating, understanding, and working with other people's code.

* Drupal/CivicSpace experience is a plus, but not required if you're a fast, flexible learner.

* Living within an hour of Worcester MA is a plus (Boston, Providence, Springfield, etc).

In situations where more than one worker is providing service to a client (e.g. threesomes) it is necessary to ensure that equipment such as vibrators and dildos is not used by one person and then another without being cleaned, disinfected and having a new condom put on first. Ideally each worker should have her/his own toys and equipment, which are not used by other workers. Each worker may choose to use a condom of a different colour in order to identify who has used the dildo last.

Update: Michael sez, "the Australian Capital Territory (the DC equiv) has had one since 1989. The Aussie/Kiwi rivalry goes way beyond cricket and rugby."

UPDATE: Gerald says: a note on that bus ad; it's in downtown Vancouver and the top layers of money are actual Canadian $20 bills and the rest are fake, like the ones in movies. There's still a hefty chunk of cash in the ad and the bus shelter is actually monitored by video by the ad agency (which is conveniently located across the street).

The story goes that, while covering the Kentucky Derby on assignment for Scanlan's Magazine, mentally spent and under deadline, Thompson ripped pages from his notebook, numbered them and sent them off to the printer, certain that it would be his last article. The piece, however, proved to be a success, and Thompson realized "if I can write like this and get away with it, why should I keep trying to write like The New York Times?"

As part of a book I've been writing, I've been reading up on the history of HP. It seemed like a cool company back in the old days. What a shame it's now making equipment designed to malfunction on a certain date.

H-P ink cartridges use a chip technology to sense when they are low on ink and advise the user to make a change. But, the suit claims, those chips also shut down the cartridges at a predetermined date regardless of whether they are empty. "The smart chip is dually engineered to prematurely register ink depletion and to render a cartridge unusable through the use of a built-in expiration date that is not revealed to the consumer," the suit said.

UPDATE: D. Christian Quezada says: "the recently posted photo of 'mule killing mountain lion' is likely a deceptive description. The Urban legends site has a breakdown of the various narrative incarnations these photos have been accompanied with through their adventures in and out of inboxes. Most likely its a mountain lion killed by gun, then toyed around with 'post mortem' by mule. No genuine ass kicking involved." Link

The new pill, which contains grapevine extracts intended to slow down the oxidation of alcohol and keep the user drunk, has been criticised. The weight of criticism means the company may now reconsider introducing it to the market.

(Spirit Science co-founder Emil) Chiabery, who was born in what was then the Soviet republic of Georgia, said: "I'm not sure I'm going to market it in the USA. I don't want it to become a party drug. We are for responsible drinking."

[W]ith a copyright date of 2003, some reviewed items are now stale, outdated or obsolete. However, many more -- probably most -- remain the best things to use and won't be easily superceded. I still use the book myself. If you want a black & white version you can order one from Amazon (below).

But I have a better offer: a digital download. Halfway between a book and a website, PDF digital books are pioneering a third way. With this Cool Tools PDF you get several things the printed version does not have (but the web does): an index, clickable active hyperlinks in the text, and glorious full-color. At the same time the PDF version retains the easy to browse design and rapid navigation of a book, which the web does not have. And it is a lot cheaper than a book, immediate in its delivery, and smaller to store. I find myself reading a lot of PDFs and growing comfortable in their habits.

This Landspeeder is built on top of a three-wheel Harley Davidson golf kart and seats two; there's room for you and your droid, Wookie or Jedi Master. This Landspeeder is perfect for driving around the local golf course or your lot. You could also take it to Burning Man 2005! It's loaded with features!

* Built in talking car alarm with remote (says "System armed"; "System dis-armed" and "I've been tampered with!")
* Built in PA system for yelling out things like "This is not the vehicle you're looking for, officer!"
* Built in 70 watt audio amplifier and forward-facing 6 X 9 speakers for hooking up your MP3 player to blast out John Williams' excellent "Star Wars" theme!!
* 350 watt - 110 volt AC Inverter! Perfect for plugging in a laptop in so you can surf the web, on the golf course!
* Headlights, LED rear lights and incadescent side marker lights!
* Animated engines pods containing hundreds of LED and incadescent lights!
* Rope lighting!
* Comes with handy "drink and drive" ice chest which fits behind the seat!
* Powered by a 2 cycle Harley Davidson engine! Has forward and reverse!
* Comes with gas can and 2 cycle oil
* Comes with Two (count 'em) TWO animated light sabers!
* Comes with spare tire and extra Drive Belt
* includes loads of bumper stickers which say things like "Ewoks - it's what's for dinner" and "My kid light-sabered your honor student at Jedi Academy"

Update: Here's a Coral cache of the site.

Update 2: Lowbot provides this mirror.

"The argument concluded with J. Edwards making the point that if it is the view of Congress that the law gives the FCC ancillary authority over these devices, then the FCC will be able to very quickly get legislative authority to make this rule if the courts don’t find it in the current statute."

I've been self-publishing on the web for almost 10 years now, first with a little site on my school's web server, then on various ISP accounts, then 0sil8, and finally kottke.org for the last 7 years (almost). Looking back on it all, this little hobby of mine has been the most rewarding, pleasurable, maddening, challenging thing in my life. I've met so many nice, good people, formed valued relationships with some of them, traveled to distant lands (and New Jersey), procured jobs & other business opportunities, discovered new interests, music, movies & books, and lots of other stuff, all for putting a little bit of me out there for people to see.

And yet, I almost quit last spring. The site was getting out of hand and wasn't fun anymore. It was taking me away from my professional responsibilities, my social life, and my relationship with my girlfriend. There was no room in my life for it anymore. As you can imagine, thinking of quitting what had been the best thing in my life bummed me right the hell out.

After thinking about it for a few weeks, I had a bit of an epiphany. The real problem was the tension between my web design career and my self-publishing efforts; that friction was unbalancing everything else. One of them had to go, and so I decided to switch careers and pursue the editing/writing of this site as a full-time job.

* Boning Up On Human Evolution: Tim White and his "planetary missions" to Ethiopia

* Mining for Microbes: the environmental nightmare of acid mine drainage

* Dealing With Cloudy Data: spotting clouds from space

Seeking men of all sizes, shapes and colors to model their penis for an upcoming art photography book project. This creative project seeks to show what men really look like down there--how we're so very different, yet somewhat the same. This is a documentary-style book project and not porn related whatsoever. The images will ONLY show your pelvic region - no faces revealed. We want to represent the widest array of men possible.

We will be shooting March 6-10 in San Francisco in a private studio. All models will be shot one at a time, with total privacy and discretion.

All models must be at least 18 years of age.

Compensation: All published models will receive a copy of the book.

Please call to schedule your time slot: 415-378-4936

The Committee's first campaign is 'Free Mojtaba and Arash Day' to be held today. And it is getting a lot of publicity. "Overwhelming, between PRI's The World, BBC, Slashdot, BoingBoing, we have over twice as much traffic as usual, halfway through the day. People are planning to do the day by the score," said Curt. When asked if this campaign will work and if the Iranian government will listen and release both Mojtaba and Arash, he told me about Sina, a freed Iranian blogger, "Sina credited the attention of the blogosphere for making the Iranian authorities extremely uncomfortable and letting him go. We're hoping the same thing will happen here."

Update: Erik Olson sez, "I don't think describing the Senseo pods as DRM'ed hardware is fair. There's nothing stopping you from using whatever pods you want -- I know of at least three vendors selling them, and the only sensor in the pod compartment is the 'compartment closed' sensor -- a good safety to have, given the temps and pressures involved.

"The Senseo now is how inkjet printers used to be -- you could buy the manufacturer's cartridges, third party carts, or even refill them. There are reusable filter pods for the Senso that let you use your own coffee -- the coffee maker doesn't stop you from using any of them.

"DRM, in hardware, is best shown by current inkjet printers, where there's hardware that keeps you from refilling the carts or buying third party cartridges. The only punishment for not using Senseo pods is the possibility of a high-pressure coffee shower."

I was shocked reading the interview. Everything fits into place that this is an unintentional oversight and the interviewed student appears to be one of the most honest people on this planet. I have to question who is most right in this case.

I wish that Apple could find some way to drop the matter. In my opinion, more than appropriate punishment has already been dealt out. In this age of professional spammers and telemarketers making fortunes, we're misusing our energies to pursue these types of small time wrongdoers. I will personally donate $1,000 to the Canadian student's defense."

As I wrote on the Island Chronicles, in the '60s, Tom Neale was the sole inhabitant of Suwarrow, one of the northern Cook Islands. His ghostwritten book (based on his journals), An Island to Oneself, is an amazing read.
Link (click on the E-Texts link)

See also: Xeni Tech radio archives on NPR's Day to Day. In related news, The NYT reports that the PR consultants behind Swift Boat Veterans For Truth ads are now setting their sights on opponents of Bush's Social Security proposal. (Thanks, David Isbister)

Petrels, albatrosses, cormorants, frigatebirds, gulls etc. are mysterious and inspiring birds: often the subject of poetic stories and lots of myths around the world. Albatrosses as the incarnated souls of drowned seamen following ships on motionless wings were a bad omen to many living sailors. The horrifying screams of petrels and shearwaters coming to their burrows after sunset have given rise to all kinds of superstitions.

The coastal species are often well known, but many stay out of sight and are seldom seen by most people. In many cases only known when found dead on the beach. And then there is often not much left of them because of their scavenging fellows. Luckily the skull or at least a part of it is often still present.

Mswati was forced to shelve plans three years ago to spend $45 million on a new royal jet, but has shown little inclination to rein in other royal spending projects which include a $15 million project to build individual new palaces for his growing retinue of wives.

[Swaziland, a] "tiny, impoverished kingdom, suffers frequent food shortages and one of the world's highest AIDS infection rates."

Since a market-based approach to music would presumably lead to no government funding, the industry has unsurprisingly ignored its own advice and sought millions of dollars in taxpayer assistance. For example, at last November's music lobby day on Parliament Hill, the industry urged the government to expand its scope and funding of the Canada Music Fund, calling for at least $35 million in annual support.

Not only does the industry rely heavily on government financial support, it also looks to government to intervene in the marketplace by establishing new rules that provide protection against upstarts that threaten longstanding business models.

I just published an article which might interest boing boing readers. It is written in spanish but it's about the biggest ISP in Ecuador (south america) blocking all P2P ports and programs.

More important than the fact that users are not getting what they paid for, is the fact that they are censoring and blocking internet contents. They also blocked some sites (ALT1040 among them).

The month-old Committee to Protect Bloggers' is asking those with blogs to dedicate their sites on 22 February to the "Free Mojtaba and Arash Day".

Arash Sigarchi and Mojtaba Saminejad are both in prison in Iran.

Roy Harris,a twentieth-century composer ofclassical music,got into trouble when he used part ofthe song in his "Symphonic Dedication," which honored the birthday of another American composer, Howard Hanson. Variety reported, "Keeping the occasion in mind, Harris brought his composition to a climax with a modern treatment of'Happy Birthday.' After Harris' piece had been introduced by the Boston Symphony he was compelled by the copyright owners to delete the 'Happy Birthday' passage from his score." P.D.Q. Bach, the "Weird Al" Yankovic of the classical-music world, avoided using any strains of "Happy Birthday to You" in a birthday ode to his father because he was afraid of being sued. Instead, he based it on a traditional German birthday song.Even Igor Stravinsky was slapped on the wrist when he cited a few bars of "Happy Birthday to You" in one of his symphonic fanfares (the composer reportedly assumed it was an old folk tune).

On Friday, under a romantic drizzle in a muddy clearing in Compostela Valley province in Mindanao, Ka Andres and Ka Jose exchanged vows in a heavily guarded ceremony before local villagers, friends from the city and their comrades in arms.

They are considered the first homosexual couple in the New People's Army (NPA) who were wed by the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP).

ITEM: Pro Gang of Four Porcelain
This statue, my wife and I found in Shang Hai, while traveling, and we know very little about it, except the obvious, which is that the porcelain is pro – “Gang of Four”. The man in the back is twisting the arm of the kneeling man in the dunce cap with the sign around his neck, who we assume is a teacher or some other intellectual type.

In mammals, for instance, the recurrent laryngeal nerve does not go directly from the cranium to the larynx, the way any competent engineer would have arranged it. Instead, it extends down the neck to the chest, loops around a lung ligament and then runs back up the neck to the larynx. In a giraffe, that means a 20-foot length of nerve where 1 foot would have done. If this is evidence of design, it would seem to be of the unintelligent variety.

Such disregard for economy can be found throughout the natural order. Perhaps 99 percent of the species that have existed have died out. Darwinism has no problem with this, because random variation will inevitably produce both fit and unfit individuals. But what sort of designer would have fashioned creatures so out of sync with their environments that they were doomed to extinction?

The gravest imperfections in nature, though, are moral ones. Consider how humans and other animals are intermittently tortured by pain throughout their lives, especially near the end. Our pain mechanism may have been designed to serve as a warning signal to protect our bodies from damage, but in the majority of diseases -- cancer, for instance, or coronary thrombosis -- the signal comes too late to do much good, and the horrible suffering that ensues is completely useless.

And why should the human reproductive system be so shoddily designed? Fewer than one-third of conceptions culminate in live births. The rest end prematurely, either in early gestation or by miscarriage. Nature appears to be an avid abortionist...

Over the next few months we will hold listening sessions with former and current patients of the hospital, their chosen friends and family members, caregivers and neighbors, to begin to design and site the memorial. The dates and locations of these sessions will be posted on this web site—you can attend and make your voice heard. You're also welcome to write to us via mail or email.

Either way, you will be heard.

We are working to find a ceremony to bring peace and sanctuary to the cremated remains. The ceremony will help us remember the distance we have come in providing care for people with mental illness and addiction in Oregon.

Manar was born with a rare condition known as craniopagus parasiticus, which occurs when an embryo begins to split into identical twins but fails to complete the process. One of the conjoined twins fails to develop fully in the womb.

As in the case of a girl who died after similar surgery in the Dominican Republic a year ago, the second twin had developed no body. The head that was removed from Manar had been capable of smiling and blinking but not independent life, doctors said.

A short update on the Beatallica C&D situation: Lars Ulrich contacted the band earlier today to offer his support. He will be contacting his people in the biz to get in touch with Sony, and he'll let us know if anything transpires. Jaymz Lennfield (Beatallica's lead singer and co-songwriter) discussed the situation Saturday night on "The Classic Metal Show".

Not before Batman, Famous Bear, and Andy Warhol paid a visit, though.
Link. Previously: Daily Show On The Gates, The Crackers, The Gates of Hargo.

Spazzstick is a high quality lip balm that contains caffeine, which absorbs directly through your lips as you use it. It was developed by an Alaskan Police Officer, who needs both quality lip balm for the cold and the ability to stay awake during long shifts. Spazzstick is made in a beautiful little Eskimo Village called Kaktovik, AK, by the inventor of Spazzstick and his hoards of worker trolls in a vast underground volcano lair.

1. all my muscles ache, as if i have been working out. i have not been working out.

2. so hungry, all the time. yesterday i ate four full meals and still found myself in the kitchen at 4am stuffing dry cheerios into my mouth-hole. i thought that maybe this would cause me to chunk up a bit, but was surprised while checking myself out in the mirror that i can see *all* of my ribs and the outline of my pelvis in places. something needs to be done about this.

3. had a fit of anger in my closet this morning that nearly took out my clothes rack. i couldn't find anything to wear.

4. grumpy as fuck.

5. interesting data point: my hand therapist recorded that i have gained ten pounds of griping strength in my left (good) hand in the last week. i did not tell her why i thought this was so.

6. actually watched basketball last night for the first time in my life. how is it that i've never noticed what a dramatic, amazing, balletic sport this is?

Update: Robin provides this Babelfish translation of the Japanese

"Sim City" has completely bourgeois assumptions, which is why it is not MIM's favorite economic strategy game. The mayor has the power to set tax rates and this influences the level of development. There is no option to nationalize factories. The whole assumption of the game is that private enterprise will create everything in the zones legally established by the mayor.

"Sim City" as such is about the world from the urban administration's point of view in a capitalist city. Cities compete and cooperate with each other. People who believe the mayor set taxes too high may leave the city. "Sim City" tracks population, tax revenue and expenditures. In this particular version of "Sim City," the mayor has a few more political options than in previous games. For example, s/he may opt to spend the city's money on becoming a "nuclear-free zone," which advertises that a city has no nuclear plants or weapons. Advisors to the mayor explain their opinions of the impact of each of the mayor's decisions. Mayors will necessarily have to ignore citizens and advisors from time to time. Earlier versions of the game had especially dim views of the intelligence of city residents. The 3000 edition continues that tradition with stereotypically stupid looking people petitioning the mayor for their idiotic causes.