Sony has filed for a patent for a technology to tether a video-game to a console so that you can't sell it, loan it out, play it on a new console after your existing one is stolen or damaged, etc. Some speculate that this is intended for use with the PS3, but wherever it's deployed, it's very consistent with Sony's ongoing contempt for its customers. Once you've installed rootkits onto everyone's PCs, what's a little unfair trade practices aimed at killing the aftermarket?

The technology would allow an authentication code to be read and then rendered unreadable, making the software unplayable on any machine but the one which first read it.

DRM is often touted as "enabling business models" -- e.g., the business-model of charging you more money if you want a version of the DVD that you can watch in more than one household -- but here we have it being teed up to destroy the business model of anyone who makes a little bread selling old games.

This "new business model" business is really bogus. They take the media that today lets you do everything copyright permits -- timeshifting and quotation, format-shifting and backup -- and they take away all those things. Then they painfully dribble each of those rights back as a "feature" that you pay extra for.

Drip, drip, drip -- each drop of functionality painfully and expensively squeezed into your living room, every time you want to do something you used to do for free.

That's not a business-model. That's a urinary tract infection. Link (via Wonderland)

In today's Worth1000 photoshopping contest: plants mashed up with electronic and mechanical components. Link

A wonderful mashup of Dr Seuss and Star Trek: The Next Generation:

Data: May I suggest a course to take?
We could, I think, quite safely make
Extinguishers from tractor beams
And stop the fire, or so it seems...

Geordi: Hurray! Hurray! You've saved the day!
Again I say, Hurray! Hurray!

Picard: Mr. Data, thank you much.
You've saved our lives, our ship, and such.

Troi: We still must save the Indran planet --

Data: Which (by the way) is made of granite...

Picard: Enough, you android. Please desist.
We understand -- we get your gist.
But can we get our ship to go?
Please, make it so, PLEASE make it so.

Link (Thanks, Bonnie!)

MIT's new Picower Institute for Learning and Memory is hosting an inaugural symposium on Thursday, December 1, and the agenda looks, well, mind-blowing. From the conference site:

Moderated by Ira Flatow of National Public Radio's "Talk of the Nation," the symposium will focus on the future of neuroscience research. MIT President Susan Hockfield will open the day's discussion. The morning session will feature talks by five Nobel Laureates including Susumu Tonegawa, Director of the Picower Institute, and James D. Watson, Chancellor of Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

The first afternoon session, entitled "Change Your Mind," will focus on the impact of the neuroscience of learning and memory on human health. The session speakers include Thomas Insel, Director of the National Institute of Mental Health, Li-Huei Tsai, of Harvard Medical School and a molecular neuroscientist studying the mechanism of neurodegenerative diseases, and Kerry Ressler of Emory University, an expert on memory extinction and its use for curing PTSD.

The second afternoon session entitled "Expand Your Mind" will look at the relationship between the human brain and the mind. Christof Koch of CalTech will speak on the biological basis of consciousness. Alexander Shulgin, a synthetic chemist who has done research in the area of psychedelic drugs, will address the resident complexity and creativity in the brain. Philosopher Patricia Churchland of UCSD will speak to the relationship between philosophic inquiry and brain research.

Link

From Wi-Fi Net News: "A University of Texas professor creates tiny windmills to tilt at providing electricity: The prof has developed a system with his group that uses piezoelectric crystals which, when flexed by the small pressures provided by a 10-centimeter windmill running as slow as 17 miles per hour, can produce 7.5 milliwatts of electricity. This could be enough to power wireless sensors." Link

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement) Life is full of surprises, but nothing quite matches the thrill of finding an abandoned treasure on the side of the road. Earlier today, I had just such an experience. Behold the wonder of the light-up noisemaking horse mirror picture!

I spotted it on the side of the road right after I pulled out of our driveway to run an errand. The picture was propped up against a stump when I spotted it. I experienced a flash of delerium. Clearly, someone had set it there as a giveaway. My two daughters, age 2 and 7, were in the back of the car, and I pointed it out to them. "Look at that!" I said. "I think it's a light up picture!"

I pulled the car over and got out to inspect it. It was covered in shrink wrap, but somehow a bunch of earwigs had gotten under the plastic wrap and had either laid eggs or crapped all over the surface of the mirror.

I took it and put it in the back of my car. When I returned home, I took it out, removed the plastic, and wiped off the dried up bugs. I was afraid they'd be glued to the glass surface, but they came off very easily. Once it was clean, I stepped back to admire the photo of white horses running through blue water.

I took it into my 7-year-old daughter's room and set it on her bookshelf. When I turned on the light, my daughter gasped with delight. I noticed a knob of the side of the box. I assumed it was a dimmer, but it turns out to be a control to adjust the volume of an audio loop of horses whinnying and galloping and splashing! And so you can share in our delight, here's an MP3 of the soundtrack. If you play it while you look at the photo of the horses, it's almost like having a real one of your own.

On the Freedom to Tinker blog, DRM researcher par excellence J. Alex Halderman dissects a second variety of malicious software that purchasers of Sony music CDs can be infected with. Sony not only uses the now-infamous First4Internet rootkit, but also uses a second piece of malicious software from Suncomm, the less-well-known but still-dangerous MediaMax. Halderman's masterful research is both lucid and alarming. If you want to have a safe experience with Sony music, you'd better acquire it by some means other than purchasing it:

To summarize, MediaMax software:

* Is installed onto the computer without meaningful notification or consent, and remains installed even if the license agreement is declined;
* Includes either no uninstall mechanism or an uninstaller that fails to completely remove the program like it claims;
* Sends information to SunnComm about the user's activities contrary to SunnComm and Sony statements and without any option to disable the transmissions.

Does MediaMax also create security problems as serious as the Sony rootkit's? Finding out for sure may be difficult, since the license agreement specifically prohibits disassembling the software. However, it certainly causes unnecessary risk. Playing a regular audio CD doesn't require you to install any new software, so it involves minimal danger. Playing First4Internet or SunnComm discs means not only installing new software but trusting that software with full control of your computer. After last week's revelations about the Sony rootkit, such trust does not seem well deserved.

Link

For $1500, you can buy this pair of used first-class plane-seats to use as a sofa in your living room. You know, I've gotten the occassional first-class flight, and while the seats are infinitely preferable to cattle-class's torture-chairs, they're nowhere near comfortable enough to consider replacing a decent sofa with. Link (via CribCandy)

This Sunday at 2PM, Toronto will host a giant public pillow-fight at Dundas Square. This is modelled after London's recent flash-mob/pillow-fight (see photo, below):

Soft pillows only! Do not hit anyone who does not have a pillow. Do not hit people who are holding cameras. Swing lightly, there will be many people swinging at once! Remove expensive glasses beforehand. Extra pillows may come in handy. Feather pillows are even more fun. Do not begin until the signal (a referee whistle.) Forward this to fun people!

Link (via AccordionGuy)

The Kill Bill's Browser site campaigns to get people to switch from Internet Explorer to the free and open alternative, Firefox. In addition to an hilarious, racy list of thirteen reasons to do this, the site comes with the news that Google will pay you a dollar for every person you induce to switch to Firefox, and has a script for alerting Explorer-using visitors to your site of the benefits of switching.

1. You'll only see porn when you want to.
Sick of seeing pornographic pop-ups all over your computer while you're helping your daughter with a research project? Since Firefox blocks pop-ups, you won't get tons of porn in your face when you're least expecting it. On the flip side, since Firefox stops spyware from taking over your computer, there will be nothing to slow you down when you go and look for porn.

2. Your kids will only see porn when they want to.
Sorry, buddy... the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

3. Your computer won't spend its free time telling the world about Viagra soft tabs.
Experts say 80% of spam comes from hacked PCs. Firefox has much better security, so your computer will get hacked less. Do it for the children, the children! (caveat: reducing Viagra spam may also reduce total number of children.)

4. Mozilla doesn't inflate prices and use the money to vaccinate children in Africa.
Uhh... wait a second. Maybe Microsoft's monopoly hasn't been all bad. Better donate to Oxfam. Seriously, you should.

Link (via EFF Minilinks)

On November 8, Bill O'Reilly -- one of the least-appealing lifeforms to have ever slithered across the surface of the earth -- thinks it would be swell to punish San Francisco by calling on terrorists to attack the city and blow up Coit Tower. Transcript and audio clip here.

O'REILLY: Hey, you know, if you want to ban military recruiting, fine, but I'm not going to give you another nickel of federal money. You know, if I'm the president of the United States, I walk right into Union Square, I set up my little presidential podium, and I say, "Listen, citizens of San Francisco, if you vote against military recruiting, you're not going to get another nickel in federal funds. Fine. You want to be your own country? Go right ahead."

And if Al Qaeda comes in here and blows you up, we're not going to do anything about it. We're going to say, look, every other place in America is off limits to you, except San Francisco. You want to blow up the Coit Tower? Go ahead.

Link (thanks, OV!)

At $15 per, these dancing robot hand-towels look like a pretty cool deal. Link (via PopGadget!)

Vidiot says: Here's "The story of how I caught the San Francisco Chronicle plagiarizing from the New Yorker last week. (There will most likely be a SF Weekly article about this soon.)"

I read the two stories, side-by-side, with increasing disbelief.  But what really made my jaw drop was one particular graf.  Again, from the New Yorker:

In 1995, as No. 1,000 approached, the frenzy was even greater. A local disk jockey went so far as to promise a case of Snapple to the family of the victim. That June, trying to stop the countdown fever, the California Highway Patrol halted its official count at 997. In early July, Eric Atkinson, age twenty-five, became the unofficial thousandth; he was seen jumping, but his body was never found.

From the Chronicle:

In the '90s, a suicide club was formed to predict the exact date that the 1,000th suicide would jump to his or her death. As the death toll approached, a local disc jockey promised a case of Snapple to the victim's family. In June 1995, trying to stem the countdown fever, the California Highway Patrol halted its official count at 997. In early July, Eric Atkinson, age 20, became the unofficial thousandth; he was seen jumping, but his body was never found.

Link

Dozens of BB readers wrote in to say that Sony is no longer putting malicious rootkit software on its CDs. Of course, the stores are still filled with infectious CDs, and untold millions of computer users have had their PCs compromised by the rootkit. And Sony's statement on the action is the lamest non-apology I've ever read:

Sony defended its right to prevent customers from illegally copying music but said it will halt manufacturing CDs with the "XCP" technology as a precautionary measure. "We also intend to re-examine all aspects of our content protection initiative to be sure that it continues to meet our goals of security and ease of consumer use," the company said in a statement.

Link (Thanks, everyone!)

Justin sez, "Goopymart has just posted his latest collection of cartoons -- Goopy monsters on holiday, with a Polynesian theme!" Link (Thanks, Justin!)

One of my favorite artists, Amy Crehore, has started selling prints of her work. The first one she has for sale is "Bubble Gum Encore."

A Giclee Fine Art Museum Quality Print, same size as the original painting (10"x 10"), individually hand-signed and numbered by the artist in a limited edition of only 250. $79.

Link

Peter Drucker, management theory pioneer, business philosopher, trend forecaster, and author, has died. He was 95. Here's an interview with Drucker from Wired's third issue. Link

While they may have moved to NYC to join the cast of NBC's Saturday Night Live, the "Creative Commons Comics" from The Lonely Island haven't forgotten their internet roots. The latest release from Jorma, Akiva, and co.: a new video by the Bing Bong Brothers. Hint: If you've ever heard this totally filthy song by the Ying Yang Twins, you may notice something familiar.

Link to "The new hit song from the Bing Bong Brothers." Available in two DRM-free download flavors, in viralicious Creative Commons hi-fi. (Thanks Macki)

Previously on Boing Boing:

"Creative Commons Comics" debut on SNL this weekend

"Creative commons comics" join Saturday Night Live cast

Open Source Opens Doors to SNL

Weseley Mullen sent me this picture on October 31, and I haven't had a chance to post it. But David's entry about the deceased juvenile snapper allegedly found in a coffee can gave me the incentive to post it.

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) The pic I've attached shows my father holding several hatchling snapping turtles; they were discovered in my family's backyard late this summer only a few weeks after we'd noticed an adult female digging around in the soil beneath our porch.

Mark Hurst took this photo at NY MOMA of a chair that keeps your bag safe.
Link

I haven't begun to get to the bottom of this twisted true tale, but following the links to all the parties involved has proven to be quite a trip. Here's what I've gathered so far: Lisa Carver (aka Lisa Suckdog), a musician/performance artist who used to hang out with the late dung-flinging musician GG Allin, and was romantically involved with controversial prankster/musician Boyd Rice, has a new autobiography out, entitled Drugs Are Nice : A Post-Punk Memoir.

In her book, she writes some inflammatory stuff about Anton LaVey, the late founder of the Church of Satan, reporting that he abused family pet dogs by starving and freezing them, and striking them across the face with wooden boards. She goes on to repeat a rumor that LaVey impregnated his own daughter, making his son, Stanton LaVey, also his grandson.

Carver says she was attacked last night outside a book signing by Szandora and Stanton LaVey.

A red-haired gal said, "Are you Lisa Carver? I'm Szandora and this is Stanton LaVey and" something like we want to know why you'd write something like that and you're a stupid bitch and we're going to kick your ass. So she lunges for me, we pull each others hair out, I kick her in the crotch a couple times, she scratches my neck up. I'm fine with that part. Stanton is her boyfriend and I wrote things about him and she announced her intentions and I could have run back in the store if I'd wanted to avoid it and it was fair because it was one on one. Then Stanton yells at me to get off his girlfriend, who was actually on top of ME, but I think I was hurting her, and so she's holding me down and he's kicking me on the pavement! And then my friend Pat Glamorous yells at him and tries to pull me out from under Szandora and two more satanists come up and I don't know if they were kicking me because I was in a fetal position at that point clawing and kicking at any flesh I could. Then my friends come up and Stanton yells "You're gonna get it even worse in San Francisco tomorrow!"

So then Szandora LaVey went onto Carver's blog to respond:

Your story is incorrect.  If Stanton was hurting you why didn't any of your GUY friends help you?  It was a fight between me and YOU.  You STARTED it!  You are just feeling like shit cause you got in a fight.  You are trying to make yourself seem like a guy beat you up. That is totally stupid. Stanton would NEVER hit a woman! A clump of my hair?  Nice fantasy, all of my pretty hair is intact.    Press charges on me.  I'm the one you got into a fight with. And that's exactly what I told the police last night when I made my report.

I have a feeling this story isn't over yet. (via Subcrawl)

Snip from NYT:

The newest award in broadcasting excellence gives new meaning to the line Gloria Swanson made famous in "Sunset Boulevard": "I am big. It's the pictures that got small."

The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, best known for handing out the Daytime Emmy Awards, is expected to announce on Tuesday that it has created an award category to recognize original video content for computers, cellphones and other hand-held devices, like the video iPod and PlayStation Portable.

The category is to have its debut at the academy's next Sports Emmys presentation, and ultimately be added as a category for other Emmy presentations as well, including those for news and documentary, business and financial reporting and daytime television. The category will not be included in the prime-time Emmy Awards, which are overseen by a sister organization.

The academy already hands out a technical achievement award for new media. But this will be the first time the group has recognized original content for cellphones and other devices, which have gained some acceptance among media-hungry consumers.

Link (via Cynopsis and unwired, thanks Stacie Seifrit Griffin)

Gary Baseman, one of my favorite Pop Surrealist painters, will have a show next month at Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA. The exhibit, titled "Bedtime For Toby," runs from December 2 to January 28 with a reception and artist talk opening night. (Previous Baseman posts here, here, and here.) If you can't make the show, Baseman's monograph Dumb Luck is a wonderful introduction to his delightfully-depraved world.
Link (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)

quilts | paintings | comix | robot bastard | bitterbots | toy robot auction | spanish + latin american robots | robot village | kiss institute | mo'bots

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

Grease yourself up, kids, it's mecha-lucha time. Combots organizer David Calkins says,

The best flame-throwing, high-energy, steel-crunching robots in the world come to SF for the championship after touring the US racking up enough points to compete for the $10,000 grand prize. The event is being organized by ComBots, the co-organizer of International ROBOlympics and RoboGames.

The machines are fully capable of surviving being run over by a tank - or taking one out! Filled with high-tech custom electronics controlling state-of-the art pneumatics, motors, and engines, the bots demonstrate their sportsmanship through shredding metal!

Biohazard, Sewer Snake, Megabyte, and other famous bots weighing up to 340 pounds will spew fire, flip their opponents, and spin hundred-pound weapons faster than Bruce Lee on meth. ESPN SportsCenter named our March 2005 event one of the top ten list of things to do for that weekend.

Sideshow entertainment includes the Beer-Can Can-can girls, Flash the Bartender and his flame-throwing 240cc drink blender, and music from Bay-Area bands.

Link to info, Link to full-size image of the cool robo-trophy. (Thanks, Mike)

Like a silent, recursive, Numa Numa, slinking around on the internet in cotton-blend skivvies. Once, we had stealth disco. Then came Stealth Lessig. Now, Stealth Jessica Simpson Hoovering.

Probably the only photo you'll ever see on Flickr with the poetic tag sequence, "Asian Sexy Rolling Stone Vacuum."

Link.
(Thanks, Jason!)

Correction, sort of: BB reader Eric Spiegelman says, "It's not a vacuum, it's a Swifter Wet-Jet!"

Bonus: cleanse your eyes with this recursive photo: girl on the train, reading tomorrow's newspaper today. Link. (Thanks Walt)

This $9 35mm camera comes as a bunch of parts that you break off of a plastic skeleton -- like a snap-together model car kit -- and snap together. Link

Update: Jason points out this similar kit available on Amazon. (via Red Ferret)

Mark Hurst says,

Moustapha Akkad died in the Jordan bombings: Link. Best known for producing the "Halloween" films. Sad irony - he was also the producer of "The Message", an Oscar-winningnominated film about the life of Mohammed... and an attempt to explain Islam to non-Muslim Western audiences.

Reader comment: Adam Villani says, "Akkad's "The Message" was only nominated for an Oscar; it didn't win. The nomination was for Maurice Jarre's original score."

Rome's municipal government has passed a law to protect the city's goldfish from unfair treatment. The fish can no longer be given away as prizes and they must be given a full-sized aquarium. The new rule is part of a longer statute calling for more humane treatment of all kinds of pets. From the Los Angeles Times:

In addition to protection for fish, the law requires dog owners to walk their canines daily or face a $625 fine. It bans the display of pets-for-sale in store windows, and gives legal recognition to "gattare," the "cat ladies" who feed an army of strays.

Also banned: choke and electrical collars and, for dogs and cats, declawing and the clipping of tails and ears for cosmetic reasons....

"We have the most beautiful laws in the world, and nobody enforces them," said Silvia Viviani, a retired opera soprano who co-founded the Torre Argentina cat sanctuary, a home for 250 strays ensconced in ancient ruins at the site where Julius Caesar was assassinated. It is one of an estimated 800 cat "colonies" in Rome that the new law will help by forbidding construction projects from displacing their feline residents.

Despite her reservations about enforcement, Viviani praised the new law. She only wished it went further, to include mandatory sterilization of cats and dogs — something, she says, that is still resisted in Italy because of "machismo."

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

A Kyoto University primatologist suggests that Japanese young people wielding mobile tech are acting increasingly like chimpanzees. Nobuo Masataka's study is called "Keitai wo Motta Saru (Monkeys With Mobile Phones)." From MSN Mainichi Daily News:

He says that young Japanese have lost the ability to discern between public and private space. He adds that they have formed what he calls the dearuki-zoku (out and about tribe).

"There's been a dramatic increase in the dearuki-zoku. They don't eat meals at home with family members and you can clearly see with your own eyes the large increase in young people who hang about on the streets together with the same old friends," Masataka tells Sapio. "They make places like Shibuya their territory and rarely head even to places like (nearby entertainment and shopping districts) Shinjuku or Harajuku. They get tired going to new places or meeting new people. If they get hungry while they're strolling around, they simply get food by going into a convenience store, buying something and sitting down outside on the curb to eat it. If not that, then they just hang around for hours in fast food joints."

The primate specialist says the actions of the dearuki-zoku closely resemble behavior patterns in chimpanzees, which tend to travel in groups, walking around for a long time without going to any specific place, then eating and disposing of their wastes in the same place before bedding down on piles of grass whenever and wherever the inclination takes them.

Link (via MobHappy)

Earlier this year, MIT engineers conducted an empirical study on the efficacy of aluminum foil helmets to block mind control rays. They've published the detailed results of their experiments online. From the abstract:

Among a fringe community of paranoids, aluminum helmets serve as the protective measure of choice against invasive radio signals. We investigate the efficacy of three aluminum helmet designs on a sample group of four individuals. Using a $250,000 network analyser, we find that although on average all helmets attenuate invasive radio frequencies in either directions (either emanating from an outside source, or emanating from the cranium of the subject), certain frequencies are in fact greatly amplified. These amplified frequencies coincide with radio bands reserved for government use according to the Federal Communication Commission (FCC). Statistical evidence suggests the use of helmets may in fact enhance the government's invasive abilities. We theorize that the government may in fact have started the helmet craze for this reason.

Link (via Fortean Times)

Marjorie Morris, 77, found this dead baby turtle deep in her bag of freeze-dried Folgers coffee. She says she isn't planning to sue and suggests that somehow the turtle could have been a result of flooding in New Orleans where several Folgers plants are located. Procter & Gamble, owners of Folgers, are investigating. From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

The turtle, meanwhile, is in Morris' safekeeping, where she said it would remain to show her grandchildren.

Although the experience has turned her into a much more mindful consumer, Morris said she would continue to drink coffee.

She said things could have been worse.

"It could've been a snake," Morris said.

Link

Leia's Metal Bikini is your one-stop shop for Slave Princess Leia in Jabba's Lair cosplay -- ten pages of galleries of photos of women in Slave Leia costumes, instructions for building your own costume, and commercial store-bought costumes for $350. Link (Thanks, Mattyohe!)

John Scalzi is a science fiction author best known for his breakout novel Old Man's War, which Tor editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden bought after John serialized it on his blog.

Old Man's War is a cracking adventure story, but Scalzi's career has been largely as a comedy writer (he's the force behind the Uncle John's Bathroom Readers), and now we have a comic novel to prove it: Agent to the Stars.

Agent to the Stars is the story of Thomas Stein, a junior agent in a cuthroat Hollywood agency who finds himself representing an entire alien race to humanity. The aliens are Frederic-Brown-esque wiseacres, and Stein's own voice is perfectly balanced on the edge between cynical and compassionate, making him one of the most likable characters I've encountered in a comic novel since Oliver, the hero of Bradley Denton's masterpiece Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede.

I finished Agent to the Stars last night before bed. Like Old Man's War, the story has brilliant pacing -- often I'd sneak a chapter on the tube, and when I reached my stop I'd get off and keep reading, shuffling along the platform rather than stuffing it back in my bag.

I'm going on a family vacation next month and I'm going to pack this in my suitcase. It's the perfect book to cuddle up with during a relaxing holiday. Link

Update: Brent sez, "It should be added the cover is drawn by the brilliant Mike Krahulik, artist of the infamous webcomic Penny Arcade and well as a founder of the totally awesome Child's Play Charity. Child's Play raises money to put video games in children's hospitals around the world."

Update 2: Tyler sez, "Agent to the Stars is, and to my knowledge always has been, available free on Scalzi's website, as well."

Update 3: John Scalzi sez, "I would note that if people purchase A2S directly from Subterranean Press, 10% of the cover price goes directly to the Child's Play charity. It was our way of thanking Mike Krahulik for his awesome cover."

Kathryn sez, "A woman I know found some glass plate negatives this summer at an estate sale in Los Angeles, and had contact prints made from them. The photos were taken in Halsingborg, Sweden sometime in the early 20th century (possibly late 19th century) and are very interesting, almost like stills from a Victor Sjöström film." Link (Thanks, Kathryn!)

Robin sez, "It's time once again for the Free Software Week in Quebec, otherwise know as SQIL 2005 (Semaine québécoise de l'informatique libre)."

Montreal and Quebec, Wednesday November 9, 2005 - FACIL, for the collective appropriation of free information technology, is proud to announce the 2005 edition of the Quebec Free Software Week (la Semaine québécoise de l'informatique libre SQIL), from November 12-20, 2005, in many regions of Quebec. The theme for the week is Connecting people. The SQIL program includes presentations by university researchers, free software installation festivals, demonstrations of solutions intended for enterprise and government, teaching workshops in and educational milieu, screening of documentaries and festivities.

Link (Thanks, Robin!)

PodStar has announced this cool new line of iPod Nano cases made of form-fitting silicone -- the cases feature little silicone horns and demonic faces, and come in red and black. Link (Thanks, Yas!)

With Hallowe'en behind us, the time has come for this year's crop of weird-ass xmastime product, starting with this Christmas 2005 Edition Darth Vader action figure in sparkling red, with a green wreath. Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Rob took a 1948 Mobile Sportsman trailer that was a derelict wreck and painstakingly rebuilt it, panel by panel, mixing new and vintage materials, finishing it with a mirror-bright skin. He's blogged the process, showing lots of before-and-afters. The results are mouth watering. It makes me want to retire immediately and take up residence. Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

Link to photos of a memorial vigil in Amman today by Yazeed Al Oyoun of Jordan. Link to "Amman Demonstrations" Flickr pool. Here are more.

Or, if you wish, huffing ass. I can't find the news story associated with this photo, but the caption reads:

A model parades in front of street children, some of whom are sniffing glue, in the drug-infested 'Barrio Triste' (Sad Neighborhood) in downtown Medellin in Colombia November 7, 2005. The event was organised to entertain the children by a member of a local charity that helps children in Barrio Triste by providing food, clothes and cleaning facilities.

Link, more photos here. Shot for Reuters by Albeiro Lopera. (Thanks, Kenneth Bowen, and ESC)

Reader comment: dice Martin Ligori,

I found a story related to this pic in a Mexican news site. In the article the show runner explains that this models are teenage girls from other barrios (large overpopulated outcast districts.) who dream about being "Top Models." An outcast once himself, he helps this girls now with a program, which provides them support for their careers in exchange for the promise to "stay in school".

"These girls are usually rejected by modeling agencies, which usually overlook them because they come from 'slums,'", they said. They started this shows in malls and shopping centers, but now they decided to move them to the 'hood and make it about homeless youth and glue-sniffers.

Currently the project helps about 30 girls in Medellin.

Alvaro Marin managed to put on the entire show by himself. He said he has been knocking on literally hundreds of doors to get people to collaborate, and donate stuff, music, clothes, makeup and time to these girls.

Besides the modeling shows, he also runs a company and acts in some indie movies.

Link to article in El Universal. Reader comment: Los Angeles Food Not Bombs says (no really, all of them at once, in unison):

For at least the past two years, Sacramento Food Not Bombs has produced a "Men of Food Not Bombs, Sacramento" calendar for fundraising. Link

Poetic rant (from 2002 or so, but it applies today just as well) against DRM writing coders on Pigdog Journal.

MY GOD MAN!!! Do you realize what you're doing? DO you? What kind of HONEY BITCH TOOL have you become? Have you no shame? None at all?

Look at you. Look at yourself. Look at what you've BECOME. Your job is writing code to BREAK PEOPLE'S COMPUTERS if they dare to put a CELINE DION CD into their disk drive. Is this what you always wanted? Is this what you went to school for? Is this what we've all -- all of us, every other hacker and programmer and geek and computer person -- is this what we've all helped you to do?

Link (thanks, Danny!)

Reader comment: Bob says "The linked rant is indeed fantastic, but it was actually written years ago (probably 2002) in response to a previous copy protection misstep by Sony. The fiasco being railed against in this screed is the one that broke iMacs and was ultimately solved by drawing on the CD with a Sharpie.

This table has a conveyor belt on the top surface. To get rid of your clutter, just activate the belt and the contents are rolled right off onto the floor.
Link (thanks, sarvinc!)

At a tax sale, officials in Owen County, Indiana tried to sell one-square-inch plot of land for $1500. No buyers stepped up. From the Associated Press:

The inch-square parcel was originally part of a 1.12-acre tract under a separate deed, said auditor Angie Lawson. Officials think the tiny piece of land in the county west of Bloomington was deeded to someone in the 1960s, when people had to own property to use a nearby lake.

First National Bank foreclosed on the property owner's mortgage, which covered the entire 1.12-acre tract, and the land was up for bid at the tax sale. There is a minimum bid of $1,500 for tax sale parcels.

County attorney Richard Lorenz said he is trying to find a way around the tax sale rules so the county can get rid of the land and the responsibility of selling it. The county has to pay $85 for legal advertisements for each piece of property sold at a tax sale.

Link

Real Doll, makers of life size sex dolls, has a doll named Anna Mae that looks like a Japanese cartoon character with impossibly large eyes.
Link (NSFW) (thanks, Jenny!)

"25 Above Water is an online art sale/exhibition to benefit Hurricanes Katrina + Rita relief and recovery efforts, with proceeds going to the American Red Cross." Shown here, "Event Horizon," by Boing Boing illustrator Shawn Wolfe.
Link

A Chicago man is wanted for ripping off a 74-year-old woman's purse... and her finger. Yesterday, Jackie Mlinarcik and her friend were driving home from a supermarket when a guy hit their car, seemingly on purpose.

The two stopped, and the man got out of his car and pretended to look for damage. He then allegedly grabbed the woman's purse from the passenger seat of her car and – seeing a ring on the woman's left pinkie – grabbed her hand and either ripped or cut off the finger, WGN reported.

Mlinarcik said she passed out. The next thing she remembered, she said, she awakened and saw bleeding from her injured finger.

The suspect got away with $150 in the woman's purse and the ring, valued at $10, WGN reported.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

Phillip Torrone was a guest on G4's "Attack of the Show" earlier this week. He "talked about the PEZ MP3 player, the Fly pentop computer and homemade high speed flash photography." There's a QuickTime of the segment. Link

Yesterday I wrote an entry about the mysterious piece of equipment Todd Lappin bought from a Navy surplus sale. What is know for sure is that it is a "US Navy CP-748 Radiac," but there seems to be a lot of debate about what it actually does. Here's one alarming comment on Todd's Flickr page

DO NOT OPEN THE BOX.



RADIACs contain a radioactive source which can contaminate you and give you cancer. The source is shielded but I would advise you not to tinker with the internals of this device.



I'm a veteran who served on a US Navy nuclear submarine, BTW.

Is San Francisco about to be declared one big superfund site? Link

Simon sez, "On Macintouch today, Darren Dittrich reports that Sony's DRM software targets Macs too. Digging into the "enhanced" content on the disk, he found a Start.app that, when run, shows a license agreement, then asks you for an admin password. On entering this, it installs two kernel extensions, PhoenixNub1.kext and PhoenixNub12.kext."

Note that these aren't the rootkits that infect Windows PCs -- Sony's Mac crippleware comes from a different vendor called Suncomm. Link (Thanks, Simon!)