This papercraft "Paper Horse Park" is fantastic. There are several different jockeys and horses, each posed differently, with real expressiveness. As if that wasn't enough, there are a group of cartoony kid-jockeys on kid-horses to print, fold and assemble, with removable jockey-helmets and goggles. Wow! Link (via Paper Forest)

Oxford is no longer accepting admissions from "child prodigies" because of the new UK child protection laws.

'The admissions executive is in discussions around whether we should introduction a minimum age of 17 for undergraduates,' confirmed Ruth Collier, a spokesperson for admissions to Oxford. 'We have been pushed to consider it, not because of concerns about whether it is psychologically healthy for children to study here, but because of child protection laws which have come into play this year for the first time.'...

Children can no longer live in student accommodation, because the university could not carry out a criminal record check on every other undergraduate sharing the same premises.

Link

This Flickr magazine-cover-generator uses the URL of a Flickr image and a bunch of user-supplied text and spits out a perfectly credible-looking magazine cover design that brings it all together. Fun! Link (via Make)

An anime distributor that is planning on reissuing Astro Boy is looking to buy or borrow 16mm prints of a dozen lost episodes for the definitive versions:

16. Secret Agent 3-Z
19. The Cosmic Giant
20. Toxor, the Mist Man
21. Satellite R-45
29. Memory Day
30. The Super Duper Machine
32. The Moon Monsters
35. Planet X
36. The Elixir of Life
39. The Mysterious Cat
41. Deadline to Danger
47. The Gigantic Space Crab
51. Jimbo the Great
95. The Mighty Mite from Ursa Minor
104. Double Trouble

Link (Thanks, Tamu!)

In February, I posted an entry about outre vocalist Yma Sumac. She is going to make a live appearance at the Hukilau Festival in Ft. Lauderdale, October 6-8.

"Lotsa tiki acts and DJs, a slideshow presentation about Tiki through the years by Charles Phoenix, but most importantly: AN APPEARANCE BY YMA SUMAC," says Richard Butner.
Link

The source code to Quake III Arena is now online under the GNU General Public License -- free to be hacked, spindled, bent, folded and mutilated. Let the meta-fragging begin! Link (via /.)

The Cardboard House -- roofed with HDPE plastic -- is recycled, recyclable, flat-pack, home-assembled, and comes with a composting toilet and condenses its own water, which doubles as an under-house ballast tank to keep it from blowing over.

The Cardboard House is conceived as a kit of parts comprising a flat pack of frames, and infill floor and wall panels. It uses minimal fixings: nylon wing nuts, hand-tightened polyster tape stays and Velcro fastenings are used to assemble the frames and protective skin system.

The building can be assembled by two people over a six-hour period using appropriate scaffolding, and is transportable in a light commercial vehicle. A series of repetitive portal frames are both spaced and stabilised by a standardised secondary structure, similar to the interlocking spacer sheets found in wine boxes. Once assembled, the structure provides a creative architectural frame from which the house derives its aesthetic.

Link (Thanks, Ivy!)

I've blogged before about Plane Crazy, my friend Suzy Conn's new musical about 1960s airline stewardesses and the sexual revolution, currently playing at the New York Musical Festival in Manhattan.

The show's been getting great reviews in places like Billboard, and now the producers have a new wrinkle: free admission for flight attendants who turn up in uniform.

Yep, that's right, all air crew get into the show for free...they just have to wear their uniform or wings to the show. For free air crew passes to the show, e-mail Plane Crazy's producer, Michael Rubinoff, at mrubinoff@mrubinoff.com (we have to subject this offer to availability just in case it gets out of control...thanks for understanding).

Link (Thanks, Grad!)

World-champ game designer Greg Costikyan once wrote a funny, obscure game called "Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed" as a gag for a published called Hogshead Publishing. The founder of Hogshead, James Wallis, has let Greg re-release the long-gone game under a Creative Commons license -- download it at the link below. 1MB PDF Link (via Games * Design * Art * Culture)

One of the most fun conventions I've ever attended was Toorcon, the indie, friendly hacker convention in San Diego. Their next event is coming up soon. Conference Chair H1kari sez, "ToorCon has just announced their finalized lineup for its 7th conference in San Diego this September 16th-18th. Seminar attendees receive training from some of the top experts in the industry including a Reverse Engineering tutorial by Mike Lynn, a hands-on overview of how evade most security tools by David Maynor and Robert Graham of ISS, and many others. The conference sessions feature over 30 talks including Paul Vixie, Joe Grand, Simple Nomad, Roger Dingledine, and many others." Link

These "Micro-Compact Homes" were designed at the Technical University of Munich and the Tokyo Institute of Technoloogy, inspired by the highly designed compact spaces in first-class airplane cabins and Smart cars. They are lightweight, transportable, and cost a mere 50,000 Euros. They're going to be installed in a "village" on campus at the Technical University of Munich.

The tiny cube provides a double bed on an upper level and working table and dining space for four or five people on a lower level. The kitchen bar is accordingly arranged to serve these two levels. The entrance lobby has triple use and functions as a bathroom and drying space for clothing. Storage is provided off each of these four functioning spaces.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

Looking for a weekend papercraft project? This life-size tombstone-perched bat flaps his wings when you turn his crank -- all based on paper mechanisms that you can download, print, glue to cardboard and assemble

Just turn the handle and watch this little creature flap its wings in a most convincing manner. The bat is actually life sized, with a wingspan of over sixteen inches! And he comes complete with his own crumbling headstone and rotting trees.

Link (via Paper Forest)

Jamais sez, "Researchers from the University of Texas, Dallas, and Australia's CSIRO have developed a way of making strong, stable and amazingly useful ribbons and sheets made of multiwall carbon nanotubes. Their system pushes the material out at seven meters/minute; a Quicktime video of the process in action is here. If you've been following the development of nanotubes, you know what kind of accomplishment this is. In my view, this is the biggest technology breakthrough of the year, quite possibly of the decade." Link (Thanks, Jamais!)

Harry McCracken sez, "I run an odd little Web site about 'Scrappy,' a cartoon character (a sort of Mickey Mouse-like little boy) who was extremely prominent in the 1930s--and who then, except for sporadic appearances on early kids' TV, just disappeared. I call him the greatest cartoon character that almost everyone has forgotten, and it's true. The site includes a lot of offbeat stuff (photos of weird Scrappy toys, for instance), as well as a Scrappy history and filmograpy." Link (Thanks, Harry!)

The Mitsuibishi Diamondstar 90 is reportedly the fastest offset printer in the world, capable of running 90,000 color newssheets per hour. Link (via Red Ferret)

Yesterday, I blogged about the Alaskans who are suing the TSA for refusing the comply with the Privacy Act while testing the Secure Flight air passenger profiling system.

If you fly, you could be among the 100 million passengers whose info the TSA has illegally collected from commercial sources. Ann Harrison has posted a step-by-step guide for exercising your rights to request the TSA's records under the Privacy Act:

In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?

You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.

Link (Thanks, Ann!)

Update: Ann clarifies: "I should note that 100 million individual commercial data records does not necessarily translate into 100 million passengers. As explained on the blog, TSA gave 42,000 passenger names to their data contractor who expanded the list to 200,000 names by using name variations. Then that data was compared to the 100 million illegally obtained travel records. But honestly, we don't have a clue how many names are really in that database. It's only an educated guess."

Liew Cheon Fong has made my Friday afternoon even better by sharing this photo of three baby porcupines hedgehogs (thanks to all the amateur zoologists for the correction!).
Link (thanks, Takashi!)

Yesterday, I posted an item to Boing Boing about the growing popularity of Pastafarianism, a new religion that worships Flying Spaghetti Monster, initially created to protest the Kansas State School Board's decision to teach "Intelligent Design" in schools. A suprising number of I.D. supporters wrote in with comments like this from reader Anne Kenny:

Okay Xeni

I read your Blog about Intellegent Design and the spaghetti monster. Ridiculous. I'd like to know what you think should be taught in the schools.

Certainally not evolution considering there is not one single fact that proves it. No missing links, not even common sense. Lies are still being printed that were proven wrong in the late 1800's but they're still taught as fact.

If you're so positive that you came from a monkey or a rock or whatever you think it is I suggest you debate Dr. Kent Hovind.

Dr. Hovind is willing to pay any individual a quarter of a million dollars to anyone who can give any empirical evidence for evolution. He has had this offer up for a long time but even this country's top scientists have gone up against him and lost the debates.

I suggest you offer this to your avid readers... I'm sure one of them would like some extra cash. You can call 850-479-3466 (8-5 Mon-Fri CST) for more info about the $250,000. Please blog this I'm interested in what you think about evolution and all of its lies.

I've discussed the matter with my blog colleagues, and we would like to hereby issue a challenge to Kent Hovind and his supporters.

We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You may submit entries here.

Suggested reading in Scientific American, "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up." Link to SciAm article (paid sub required); Link to a subscription-free PDF copy. (Thanks, Dan Strunk). See also this website with criticism of Dr. Hovind's challenge: Link

Previously on Boing Boing:

Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows

Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters?

* Prize to be awarded with Intelligently Designed currency; void where prohibited by logic.

Challenge Grant Update: Recently converted Pastafarians are adding matching reward funds to the Boing Boing Intelligent Design Challenge. Jason Kottke of kottke.org (Link) and Sean Bonner of metblogs (Link) have each offered an additional $250,000. We've been flooded with still more donations, and have decided to cap the purse at $1 million -- in part because the number contains a lot of pretty, round zeroes that resemble holy meatballs. But also because many of you offered sums payable in "whisky and wenches," or "ho's 'n' blow," neither of which really count. Thanks all the same.

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) I was interviewed by GQ Japan a while back.

Here's a translation (courtesy of Ben List):

"bOING bOING" began before the word "blog" began appearing circa 2000. Mark Frauenfelder has reached the top position in the world of bloggers. We flew to LA to hear his secret.

1. The power of persistance

"We started early, and found our readership. It was really just lucky." he says modestly, however the popularity of the site is largely due to "frequent updating." Though "bOING bOING" was essentially started by Mark, he now collaborates with three writer friends contributing material from their various fields of interest.

"The readership of a blog is proportional to how frequent one is able to update." Frauenfelder spends only two hours a day on the blog, however is able to keep the content fresh with the aid of his partners.

2. Curiosity and the spirit of fun

"bOING bOING's" core staff are all professional writers having gained experiences writing for such publications as "Wired." "By nature, our curiosity is twice that of most people and are able to keep the content fresh." In their search for interesting content they do daily searches through magazines, newspapers, nerdy trade publications, and the internet. There was never any intention of making a profit (with "bOING bOING"), so they are driven mainly by "simply having fun with it." Unlike traditional media, the instant feedback of publishing on the internet, and direct contact with the readership is also part of the appeal. "The improvisational aspect (?) is as addictive as an adrenaline rush"

3. No compromising to advertisers or to readers

While they haven't created a corporation in the traditional way, "bOING bOING" has become a true business. With 200,000 hits daily from inside and outside the U.S., the company made $20,000 in advertisements from skateboard brand and a T-Shirt company in March, however maintaining an independent spirit is the the most important thing.

"We have been known to criticize corporations, but we don't kowtow to our advertisers. The popularity of the site was earned by writing what we want, but we aren't looking to change anything for our readers.

4. The key is in community collaboration

"The best part is the spirit of being able to share your thoughts and what interests you with the readers and community" Frauenfelder says. Communication with other bloggers has been the key to increasing the readership. By trading links with other blogs, communication becomes much more active, and traffic to and from the site increases. "The world of blogs is made up of innumerable tiny islands in a vast ocean all communicating with each other. It's the ultimate success for a blog to become part of that community."

Using components from the first person shooter Full Spectrum Warrior, researchers at a Southern California thinktank have created a "virtual" world that simulates the sources of combat stress. In trials at three military hospitals, they're now using the sim in therapy sessions to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for personnel returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I filed a "Xeni Tech" report on the system for NPR's "Day to Day." Link to radio segment with archived audio, video, and images from inside the simulation. An in-depth report for Wired News is coming on Monday.

For today's Wired News, I filed a review on Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, a new book co-edited by Mizuko Ito that traces how mobile phones became an integral part of Japanese culture. The book teaches us a few new things about how technology changes societies in a broader sense, too:

[It] begins by tracing the evolution of mobile media from its roots in the wireless telephones found on '50s-era merchant ships, through '90s pager culture to contemporary smartphones. Then it explores how those devices became a source of pervasive connectedness to friends, family, lovers and co-workers -- a completely different kind of connectivity from the "other-world" internet space experienced through personal computers.

The Japanese word for cell phone -- keitai, meaning "something you carry with you" -- provides a hint about its role within Japanese culture. Over time, mobile devices in Japan have come to be perceived not so much as bundles of technical features, or tools for replicating PC functions from the road, but personal accessories that help users sustain constant social links with others.

In one essay, Ichiyo Habuchi describes that always-on state of wireless closeness as a "telecocoon" -- "a zone of intimacy in which people maintain relationships with others who they have already encountered."

And contributor Kenichi Fujimoto refers to the devices themselves as "territory machines" capable of transforming any space -- a subway train seat, a grocery store aisle, a street corner -- into "(one's) own room and personal paradise."

Link

Previously:
Keitai culture book by Mizuko Ito is now out

These Parisian book-vending machines sell classics, French-English dictionaries and cookbooks, priced at $2.45 each. Link (Thanks, Digitaler Lumpensammler!)

Update: RBP sez, "Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have similar book-vending machines on underground stations. Sao Paulo also has a public library in one station, where people can register and borrow books for free, including a few in Braille." Also: book-vending machines are on the streets of Barcelona, apparently.

This Spartan Life is a machinma talk-show that takes place inside the multiplayer Halo game, using the Xbox Live service (Halo is also the basis for the amazing and hilarious Red Versus Blue series). The music is provided by an in-game DJ who spins 8bit Collective tunes made with a Nintendo Game Boy. They show is amazingly weird and funny. You've got the synchronized dancing moves of the Solid Gold Elite Dancers and the interviews are actually pretty thoughtful and stimulating, especially the segment with Bob Stein, the founder of the CD ROM pioneer firm Voyager (one of my first-ever programming jobs was coding Voyager CDs in the early 90s).

Of course, there are lots of Halo players who aren't in on the gag, crashing through the "set" and opening fire on the apparently slow-moving and non-lethal guest, host and crew, which only adds to the general awesomeness of this thing (excellent commentary on this here). Link (via Gizmodo)

Roermond-Ecke-Schönhauser is a telepresence art installation where live webcam images from Denmark, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Holland are projected onto small 3D models of the territory the cams are capturing. It reminds me of experimental videoconferencing systems I've seen where the faces of the conference participants are projected onto featureless "heads" to enhance realism. Roermond-Ecke-Schönhauser was created by Markus Kison, a digital media student at the Universität der Künste Berlin. From the project page:

To make the projection fit on the models, the architecture of the webcam-places was rebuild in a 3D-application and printed on a 3D-plotter. That way, the picture information is displayed on the same geometrical shapes, it is filmed from. The result are four "live-models" from a distant space, which can be regarded three-dimensional and are touchable. With this material manifestation, the transmission, in contrast to the usuall webcam, where transmission is not finished, is completed.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

Philip sez, "Yesterday, Microsoft Germany rented the Berlin municipal parliament house to lobby the delegates after the day's session. Berlin's government thinks about switching to Linux and although everybody (at Microsoft and at the Berlin administration) denies it, this was a clear attempt to influence that process.

"Activists from the youth chapter of the German Greens party and the Berlin division of German hacker association CCC showed up in penguin suits and with a big 'Alt+F4' banner. They even managed to sneak in a PowerBook and deliver an audio stream via UMTS mobile internet connection." Link (Thanks, Philip!)

Update: NB: Alt-F4 is the Windows shortcut meaning "Close Windows." Gettit?

For years, I've taken it for granted that while the entertainment industry was generally full of crap when it came to how people were infringing copyrights online, they were at least correct when they talked about the "organized crime" elements who run the counterfeit CD and DVD businesses that supply the endless stream of sidewalk hawkers and market-stalls around America.

But according to this Wired News article, there's precious little evidence of any organized crime involvement with CD and DVD counterfeiting in the USA. That makes sense: organized crime likes the kind of business where they supply something the customer can't get for herself, preferably at a gigantic markup -- guns, hot goods, drugs, etc.

But while the average crack customer lacks the wherewithal to cultivate his own coca or machine his own handgun, practically all the customers for counterfeit CDs and DVDs are just as capable of cranking them out as the mob is. All you need, after all, is a burner, and Internet connection, and a file-sharing client.

So there's got to be a lot of downward pressure on the price of bootleg CDs and DVDs -- the only customers for these things have to be people who are too poor to afford their own burning rigs (who, by definition, won't be able to afford high-priced bootlegs either) or people who are willing to shell out a few bucks for the convenience of not having to go to the bother of downloading and burning themselves -- and for this latter, you have to ensure that the monetary cost of buying the discs never exceeds the convenience cost of downloading it yourself.

Considered that way, it's not surprising that there's not much evidence of mob activity in this realm -- the mafia is smart enough to stay in those businesses where it doesn't compete with its own customers.

Asked to cite actual U.S. convictions involving organized crime, the RIAA and MPAA instead presented a handful of pending piracy cases against warez networks, commercial replicators, a few members of street gangs and a smattering of individual drug dealers -- but no John Gotti or Tony Soprano.

"It's not organized crime families, as in 'the mob,'" admits Bradley Buckles, head of the RIAA's anti-piracy unit and former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "But large groups engaged in organized criminal activity are involved."

Link

Two months ago, Cory was among the first to blog about "Flying Spaghetti Monster" -- the overlord of a new parody religion created to protest a Kansas State Board of Education decision allowing so-called Intelligent Design to be taught in science classes.

The FSM cult now has a Wikipedia entry, with details that indicate that followers of His Noodliness -- Pastafarians -- are growing in number, like so many meatballs accumulating on a plate of linguini. A few of the facts I learned:

Codes of conduct:
# Prayers are ended with the word RAmen rather than Amen.

Benefits of conversion:
# Like the great noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
# Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.

A rival faction, based on SPAM (Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs), has formed and is calling for a Holy War against FSM. SPAMation claims to have the One True Letter to the Kansas School Board.

Link to Wikipedia entry.

So, here's a question. If some people see Jesus in a tortilla, or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, where does the Flying Spaghetti Monster show up to avoid redundancy?

Previously: Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters?

Carrie sez, "D.C. Comics is going after a Chelsea art dealer, demanding that it cease and desist from exhibiting Mark Chamberlain's series of 'gay Batman' watercolors." Link, Xeni's post on this show from May (Thanks, Carrie!)

LV sez, "Lia over at cheesedip.com annotated the Electronic Bard's love poem from Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad, for those of us who are not quite mathematically savvy but still want in on the joke."

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

Link (Thanks, LV!)

Bill Scannell sez,

A group of Alaskans filed suit against the Transportation Security Administration in Federal District Court in Anchorage today.

At issue is TSA's refusal to comply with the Privacy Act while testing the Secure Flight air passenger profiling system. The Alaskans are asking the court to order TSA to stop destroying Secure Flight test data until the Alaskans are given all records collected on them by TSA, including commercial records.

TSA collected over 100 million travel and other commercial records on US citizens into a secret database in order to test Secure Flight. It is high time for TSA to comply with the Privacy Act and show the American people their files.

Link (Thanks, Bill!)

Disney's books are being produced in sweat-shops in China:

The National Labor Committee, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group that once exposed labor abuses in apparel produced for Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, made new charges Thursday against The Walt Disney Company, releasing a videotape alleging that two Chinese factories making books for Disney operate under unsafe conditions.

At a press conference, Charles Kernaghan, director of the NLC, released an 11-minute videotape in which workers -- their faces hidden -- in the Hung Hing and Nord Race factories say they have been injured by unsafe equipment and show their bandaged fingers and cut hands.

Link

Boing Boing buddy Alex Boucherot points us to some amazing protoporn:

Charles François Jeandel (1859 - 1942) was a honourable member of the Archeological Society of Charente. With his wife Madeleine, he seemed to have a quiet life in the countryside. Or not. Charles and Madeleine didn’t have any children. It’s a miracle that this album didn’t get lost or end up in the hands of a private connaisseur. Today, the collection belongs to the Musée d’Orsay. The blue cyanotyped pictures give a touch of morbid mystery to these very special scènes de campagne: no one will ever know who’s really dominating / dominated. Notice the solid wooden frame on a lot of the pictures: as in japanese kinbaku, the erotic fantasy has something to do with penal punishment.

Link, and here are the photos.

Above, one of Jeandel's cyanotypes produced around 1880.

tie a tie
sinclair spectrum hoodie
spamshirt
breakfast hat and bag
candy wrapper bags
go-go boots
and the bride wore...

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

Mike Outmesguine says,

Wireless vendors Trango and Microserv created a 137.2 mile ground-to-ground wireless link using "off-the-shelf" equipment from Trango. This distance bests the Defcon Wifi Shootout winners by 12.3 miles. People are crying foul, however, because (1) there were no independant observers to verify the distance and setup and (2) the equipment used is not 802.11b Wi-Fi - though it does use the unlicensed 2.5 and 5 Ghz spectrum. Still, that distance is impressive. Write up, pics, and screencaps from the participants: Link. SOCALWUG discussion: Link. News.com story: Link. Slashdot comments: Link.

My fave /. comment = "Uhh, I'm pretty sure voyager 1 has the record for data transmission across a wireless link."

Richard Giles has posted an audio interview with William Foster, Lead Ascent and Entry Ground Controller for Mission Control at NASA. Richard explains:

He gave a fairly detailed overview of the communications that they use with the Shuttle from launch to landing. Bill's has done launch and landing for the last 23 missions, including the last mission.

Link.

Snip:

Fresh from a trip to Barrow, America's northernmost city, [U.S. Senator] McCain said anecdotes from Alaskans and residents of the Yukon Territory confirm scientific evidence of global warming. "We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role," McCain said.

McCain, accompanied by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spoke to villagers in Canada whose spruce trees are being attacked by the northward spread of spruce beetles. On Alaska's northern coast, they met Native Alaskans dealing with melting permafrost and coastal erosion.

(...)Opponents who ignore evidence of humans contributing to climate change, Clinton said, are participating in a trend of turning Washington, D.C. into what she calls an "evidence-free zone."

"You just keep saying something no matter how untrue and unfactual it might be, over and over and over again, and try to drive the politics to meet your ideological or commercial agenda," she said. "That is a grave disservice to our country..."

Link (Thanks, John Parres!)

A couple weeks back I posted an entry about crooked towing companies in southern California. This story from the LA Times tops everything so far:

A tow truck driver was charged Wednesday with manslaughter after running over a Santa Ana man while towing his vehicle in June, officials said.

Paul Michael Sassenberger, 29, of San Bernardino County faces 20 charges, including taking a vehicle unlawfully, extortion by force or threat, attempted extortion, aggravated assault, reckless driving and using methamphetamine, said Mark Macaulay, spokesman for the Orange County district attorney's office.

According to the article, the tow truck driver was cranked up on speed at the time. It also says that "tow truck drivers are required by state law to release a vehicle if the owner arrives before the vehicle has left the property."
Link (thanks, jason!)

Swapatorium has scans of a young girl's sticker collection from 25 years ago purchased at a flea market.
Link

Look at all the pretty knobs, buttons, and lights on this Ferrari Formula 1 steering wheel. It looks like a high-end crib toy. My 2-year-old daughter would love one.
Link (via Core77)

In accordance with his last wishes, Hunter S Thompson's ashes will be sent into the sky in 34 fireworks mortar tubes, and Johnny Depp is paying the $2 million the ceremony will cost:

Hunter S. Thompson's cremated remains, mixed with fireworks and packed into 34 mortar tubes, were en route to Woody Creek Wednesday. The unusual shipment from New Castle, Pa., via padlocked truck is one of the final steps towards a funeral Saturday expected to mix solemnity with pageantry.

Link (via Fark)

Since 1997, the Southern Baptists have been boycotting Disney because of its "gay-friendly" policies and productions. John sez:

This unintentionally hilarious article in Baptist Press News outlines the "few worthy efforts" by Disney in movie-making in the past several years. Columnist Phil Boatwright has gone to the trouble of weeding out the un-Christian flicks produced by gay-happy Disney since the implementation of 1997's boycott, and presents a list of movies that will not sully the souls of pure-hearted Baptist boys and girls.

Take note, if you will, of the caution placed here and there in the article. Boatwright warns that in 2002's Treasure Planet, "the story does include a father who abandoned his wife and child." Admittedly, I was puzzled by the remarks on the prevalence of Elvis' music in Lilo and Stitch: "At last, Elvis got to be in a good movie!"

Most amusing to me was the following excerpt from the review of Louis Sachar's 'Holes': "in the flashback story, a black man and a white woman fall in love, an act presented as against the law during that period, which leads to a tragedy perpetrated by a bigoted mob." I can't help but wonder: In reality, how many of those 'bigots' in the mob would have been Southern Baptists?

Link (Thanks, John!)

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) We've opened a new Boing Boing store at Spreadshirt.com, which lets you customize the size, placement, and color of different Boing Boing logos on T-shirts and other items. I can't access the store using Safari, but it works with Firefox.

One of the shirt designs is an illustration I drew in 1990 for T-shirts that I sold in my print zine, bOING bOING. It features the zine's mascot Kata Sutra, a secret agent for the NeoWobblies.
Link

Doom, the grandaddy of first-person-shooter games (ancestor of Quake), has been available under the GPL since 1997, and as a result, you can find a version of Doom playable on practically any device with a screen and buttons.

ItPlaysDoom.com is a site devoted to cataloging and reviewing all the different Dooms floating around out there. Fascinating reading:

The Jornada 820! The result? Carnage!
Doom runs faster on the Jornada than it did on my first Pentium PC. So fast, that the LCD screen can't keep up and blurs slightly. It's full-screen action, complete with sound effects, maps, options, WAD files... everything which makes Doom the fantastic game it is.

Link (via Wonderland)

The Japanese company behind Kidsbeer, a nonalcoholic beverage that looks like the real thing, is apparently shipping 75,000 bottles of the stuff a month. From The Japan Times:

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the beverage maker, said: "Children copy and mimic adults.

"If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

The Kidsbeer label captures a nostalgic mood as it was modeled after classic beer labels.

"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads the product's advertising slogan.

Link

After complaining to Comcast about their customer service, LaChania Govan of Chicago received her August bill addressed to "Bitch Dog." Comcast identified the pranksters, fired them, and apologized to Govan. In a similar turn of events, Peoples Energy customer Jefferoy Barnes mysteriously began receiving bills addressed to a curious variation of his name. Form the Associated Press:

"I had no bad words at all. I guess the earliest letter is dated in May and from then on up until now my name has been listed as Jeffery Scrotum Bag Barnes and I have no idea why."

Barnes said he received an apologetic call from a company official. He also has contacted an attorney to determine if he can take legal action.

Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

UPDATE:BB reader Stephen Berg points out that two diners at Parkhill's Waterfront Grill on the New Jersey shore were recently given a bill with a description on the bottom written by the waitstaff to identify their table. It said: "Jew Couple." Link to AP report, Link to NY Post's more recent coverage (reg. required)

Alan is a 91-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia who is on a mission to walk every single street of Sydney and its sprawling suburbs. His walks are methodically documented with snaps of him standing bent and grinning before landmarks on each road. He is a latter-day Phyllis Pearsall -- the woman who walked 3,000 miles of London streets in compiling the now indispensable A-Z Street Atlas of London. Link (Thanks, Louise!)

Update: Caleb Smith has done this in Manhattan, too. (Thanks, Bruno!). Also, Francine Corcoran, a 91-year-old Minneapolis resident walked every street there. (Thanks, Sarah!)

The Onion brilliantly parodies Intelligent Design believers:

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University...

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

Link (Thanks, Scott Compton!)

UPDATE: David Lynch (not that David Lynch) points to a comic with a similar gag from May. Link

Dan sez, "Wow. I am...mortified...apparently, our country wouldn't let Xiaoyun Wang -- the Chinese professor who finally took MD5 out back -- into the US. Wow. As someone who personally benefitted from her research...I don't know what to say."

Last year a Chinese mathematician, Xiaoyun Wang, shook up the insular world of code breakers by exposing a new vulnerability in a crucial American standard for data encryption. On Monday, she was scheduled to explain her discovery in a keynote address to an international group of researchers meeting in California.

But a stand-in had to take her place, because she was not able to enter the country. Indeed, only one of nine Chinese researchers who sought to enter the country for the conference received a visa in time to attend.

Although none of the scientists were officially denied visas by the United States Consulate, officials at the State Department and National Academy of Sciences said this week that the situation was not uncommon.

Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Nick sez, "Pictures of the Dmobo M900, an official Mickey Mouse Flip Phone available in Hong Kong. It's just as awesome as you'd expect. Particualry check out the 'ears' softkeys - a surprisingly good design solution to an always tricky problem." Link (Thanks, Nick!)

Check out these scanned-in game tokens from "What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls," circa 1966. Link (Thanks, Cal!)

Update: See also 1966's "White Glove Girl" a promotional board-game from Manpower Employment Agency. (Thanks, Jon!)