As part of the program approved by President Bush for domestic surveillance without warrants, the N.S.A. has gained the cooperation of American telecommunications companies to obtain backdoor access to streams of domestic and international communications, the officials said.

The government's collection and analysis of phone and Internet traffic have raised questions among some law enforcement and judicial officials familiar with the program. One issue of concern to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, which has reviewed some separate warrant applications growing out of the N.S.A.'s surveillance program, is whether the court has legal authority over calls outside the United States that happen to pass through American-based telephonic "switches," according to officials familiar with the matter.

(...) Several officials said that after President Bush's order authorizing the N.S.A. program, senior government officials arranged with officials of some of the nation's largest telecommunications companies to gain access to switches that act as gateways at the borders between the United States' communications networks and international networks. The identities of the corporations involved could not be determined.

The switches are some of the main arteries for moving voice and some Internet traffic into and out of the United States, and, with the globalization of the telecommunications industry in recent years, many international-to-international calls are also routed through such American switches.

One outside expert on communications privacy who previously worked at the N.S.A. said that to exploit its technological capabilities, the American government had in the last few years been quietly encouraging the telecommunications industry to increase the amount of international traffic that is routed through American-based switches.

Previously on Boing Boing:

NSA spies on US: calls, emails intercepted without warrants

Experiment to see if your mail is being tapped by the gov't

[Y]esterday, the student confessed that he had made it up after being confronted by the professor who had repeated the story to a Standard-Times reporter.

The professor, Brian Glyn Williams, said he went to his former student's house and asked about inconsistencies in his story. The 22-year-old student admitted it was a hoax, Williams said.

''I made it up," the professor recalled him saying. ''I'm sorry. . . . I'm so relieved that it's over."

Hey comrades, this calls for a little happy fun moment of Chairman Mao Quote Zen!

From the so-called Little Red Book:

"Say all you know and say it without reserve", "Blame not the speaker but be warned by his words" and "Correct mistakes if you have committed them and guard against them if you have not" - this is the only effective way to prevent all kinds of political dust and germs from contaminating the minds of our comrades and the body of our Blog Party."

Following up on previous posts about the internet outfreakage over an SNL short produced by a group of Creative Commons lovin' comedians, Boing Boing reader Ian says:

Saw the shirt, got inspired. Fired up iTunes and took screen grabs, and popped into Photoshop to have a little fun. If any other BoingBoingers who want a Crazy Awesome userpic/avatar, head on over and get it.

Previously:
Chronic-WHAT?-cles of Narnia t-shirt; free iTunes video

Here's a list of 111 songs which are all explicitly released under a Creative Commons license (no, I did not consider songs which are merely "podsafe"!) and thus can be shared, listened to, and sometimes even modified freely. There's a great variety in style, mood, and genre of the songs: some traditional, some contemporary, some happy, some sad, and some just plain funny.

1. Set up a Hotmail account.

2. Set up a second email account with a non-U.S. provider. (eg. Rediffmail.com)

3. Send messages between the two accounts which might be interesting to the NSA.

4. In each message, include a unique URL to a Web server that you have access to its server logs. This URL should only be known by you and not linked to from any other Web page. The text of the message should encourage an NSA monitor to visit the URL.

5. If the server log file ever shows this URL being accessed, then you know that you are being snooped on. The IP address of the access can also provide clues about who is doing the snooping.

The trick is to make the link enticing enough for someone or something to want to click on it. As part of a large-scale research project, I would suggest sending out a few hundred thousand messages using various tricks to find one that might work.

As Dave Farber notes: "It is not a good idea to try this if you hope to ever again fly on an American airline without first being strip-searched by the TSA monkeys." Link

Reader comment: Philipp says: "I think to make this experiment really fool-proof, one would need to set up a button on the page which is linked to from the email. The button needs to be called 'Enter' or similar, and only when it is pressed is there suspicious government activity -- because with just a simple 'GET' URL, an automated spider started by the email program (for whatever reasons, e.g. to add pages to the index or look for a virus) might fetch it. A 'POST' button however is not pressed by crawlers."

Reader comment: M Otis Beard says: "I live in China... 'Hai San Xian Casserole' is made with shitty Chinese sausage (you don't want to go there), pig's organs (heart, tongue, possibly kidney), assorted vegetables, and occasionally some (tiny tiny dehydrated, not fresh) shrimp.

"The pigeon really isn't all that bad.

"What is MUCH MUCH WORSE is the practice of oil reclamation in Chinese restaurants. If you order a bunch of dishes (which is typically how Chinese people eat) but don't eat everything, your leavings will usually end up in a big bucket, which is later collected by a worker. Your leftovers either go to make pig swill, or (far too often) the uneaten food has the oil extracted from it, and this oil is then sold to restaurants at a much cheaper price than good fresh store-bought oil goes for. Not every restaurant does this, but it isn't at all uncommon."

Bush is unapologetic. The president believes he has the legal authority to spy on American citizens without a warrant, and he plans to continue to reauthorize the program "for so long as the nation faces the continuing threat of an enemy that wants to kill American citizens." But when the enemy is poorly defined, who determines when the threat is over? In this case, the same government that secretly taps our phones.

Turns out the truth is no stranger than fiction. We think it's time for Congress to heed the warning of George Orwell. To that end, we're asking for your help: Mail us or drop off your tattered copies of "1984." When we get 537 of them, we'll send them to every member of the House of Representatives and Senate and to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Feel free to inscribe the book with a note, reminding these fine people that we Americans take the threat to our liberties seriously. Remind Congress that it makes no sense to fight a war for democracy in a foreign land while allowing our democratic principles to erode at home.

Remind President Bush that ours is a country of checks and balances, not unbridled power. Perhaps our nation's leaders can find some truth in this fiction and more carefully ponder the road we're traveling.

We wanted to make sure that the blogosphere and our customers have the most accurate information about the company. Below I have included some information from our Vice President of Business Services, Rob Schlacter which should help your readers. I'd like to ask if you can post our enclosed comments."

$2.49 Raster Image Processing Service Charge Ensures First Generation Digital Output; Virus Scanning Claim Is Inaccurate

I understand how customers can be upset by inaccurate information. Let me clarify. At Staples, our commitment is to deliver quality work with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. The $2.49 charge is a "Raster Image Processing" fee; it is not a virus scanning fee. This is used industry wide and retailers often charge it as an additional fee or include it in the overall printout cost.

As we have added expanded media acceptance to our service capability, many customers bring multiple file types using different software applications. The Raster Image Processing process is a part of Staples Copy and Print Centers production standards, ensuring first generation, high quality output to our digital copiers. As technology improves and the industry implements new processes, we will continue to evaluate our service level fees just as we do our everyday retail pricing.

We also understand that customers are getting more tech-savvy. So, stay tuned on how Staples can provide easier solutions like a free file conversion software package coming soon to stores next spring.

Thank you for your continued patronage at Staples. Feel free to reach out to any store manager with questions or customerrelations@staples.com

Rob Schlacter

Vice President of Business Services, Staples Inc.

Reader comment: Anonymous says: "I am a Staples Copy Center Expert (means I run the copy department at my store). That 'raster image processing' thing consists of conversion to Adobe PDF, nothing more, nothing less. My managers seem to be under the impression that doing this will preserve the customer's original fonts and formatting, because I can't explain to them that that would only work if the customer converted the file to PDF on THEIR end. I usually represent the fee as being for 'setup,' because - in all fairness - our print drivers are really, really complicated; you can't just hit Ctrl+P and get what you want. I think $2.49 is a bit on the outlandishly high side - I'd be in favor of lowering it to $.99 or something - but I don't make the rules. We don't even have a virus scanning program *available to us* on the computer - I think it auto-scans, but the computers are so locked-down that we can't actively scan anything, as that program is not made available for us lowly employees to even *open*, much less operate. I have no idea what the person who said it was a 'virus scanning fee' was smoking."

Reader comment: Fishcake says: "It's nice to know the fee is not for virus scanning. If the fee is for file format conversion, the obvious question for Staples is: why don't you tell your customers what format to save their files as, so they can avoid a huge fee? You could even include specific parameters. Not everybody will want to bother, but those of us with acrobat or whatever are already paying for the ability to save our works in many different formats. At least give us a reduced fee."

Reader comment: Nate MC says: "I was using Staples almost weekly because the woman at the copy center was very cute and she never mentioned a fee. A month later I had a different person help me out and he didn't even tell me about the fee until he made the copies. I was able to get him to waive it and he said that some people don't charge for it and it was optional. I made a point to tell him that it's a pretty big fee to sometimes have to pay and sometimes not based on who is working, but it was the last time I ever used them to make my copies.

"I always saved my documents as a PDF to help them out as I used to work in a press related industry and understand the importance of correct file formats. FedEx Kinkos & OfficeMax have never charged me a fee for bringing them PDFs on disk.

"Vote with your wallets, if you stop using them they will stop charging the fee."

Firefox -- 43 %
MS Internet Explorer-- 32.1 %
Safari -- 11.3 %

BoingBoing was at one time included in the Firefox bookmarks as one of the "Crew Picks" - This is how I (as a Firefox user) come across BoingBoing. :-)

WGN TV in Chicago traditionally broadcasts the video Yule Log. This year, along with an online version, they've become even more tech-savvy by offering a downloadable version for the iPod video. Warm and fuzzy yuletide-ness to go!

Ultima V is back, guys. The 1988 retro classic RPG Ultima V: Warriors of Destiny has been remade, being released for free this Christmas 2005.

It's been FIVE YEARS in the making, an up-from-the-ground fan-made remake of the original using the Dungeon Siege engine (required to play: last seen on Amazon has it for under $10 USD), with all the modern bells and whistles: 3D graphics; all the original tunes re-mastered; every single character in the entire game re-written; and of course, a vast and challenging world to explore.

It's available for Windows and Mac, and is also being released in French & German. A first game for under ten bucks. Anyone who owned an Apple ][e, or a Commodore 64 or an early PC remembers the Ultima series of tile graphics RPGs, known for their in-depth plots and awesomely detailed worlds. The project has the personal blessing of gaming industry legend Lord British (AKA Richard Garriot).

Of course, the best thing about this project is it's being released for free (as in love, beer & thought) in a couple of weeks. Team Lazarus is responsible for all this - featuring the talents (not to mention blood, caffeine-enriched sweat and salty tears) of a bunch of Americans, an array of Australians, a plethora of Finns - and we all hope you enjoy our effots: Ultima V: Lazarus is finally finished.

Take a gander at the teaser trailer (10mb) available from the main site OR start downloading the game via BitTorrent and please seed it if you can (again, we're not making any money out of this, so please share Lazarus if you can.)

The guys at Blue Collar Distro say,

We've really been into The Lonely Island and were stoked when they joined Saturday Night Live this year. Like pretty much everyone else, we thought the Chronic(what?)cles of Narnia short was totally hilarious, especially the "Mr. Pibb + Red Vines = Crazy Delicious" part of said comedy piece. In fact, our designer Micah really wanted to make a "Crazy Delicious" shirt this morning, so we printed up a few dozen as a one time thing. Since the dudes publish their Lonely Island material under a Creative Commons license we thought it was only right that we donate the proceeds from these sales to the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

And Boing Boing reader thewebguy says,

Looks like NBC is taking full advantage of their new deal with Apple, and is showing a little bit of common sense. The popular Lazy Sunday rap skit is now on iTunes for free. Drag and drop to your ipod video! Direct iTunes link.

Related Boing Boing posts:

Wired Magazine feature: "Live From New York"

SNL short: Chronic of Narnia rap

Reader comment: Chris McMahon says,

Apple will only let US credit card owners (or Palpal users with US credit cards) download free content from the US iTunes store. So people like me, with Australian credit cards and Australian iTunes accounts can't download any (including free!) content from the US iTunes store.

Octavio "Winkytiki" Arizala's retro pinup photography is the subject of the forthcoming book Modern Vixens.

Snip from an editorial review: "[T]his is dirty/beautiful at its very best, kitschy Hawaiian sets, vintage decor and everything from Barbarella to 50s Housewife imagined in bright, wicked colours. Winkytiki's images are serene, spectacular, dripping with ultra-Kodachrome saturations and demure smiles."
Link to book, and link to website with tons of retrolicious photos. (Thanks, Joseph Francis)

The transaction could be the first step in ending a nine-year partnership between the companies, and puts NBC squarely in control of the network, which has lagged behind the Fox News Channel and CNN in the ratings race for years. NBC said it has an option to acquire 100 percent of the cable channel within two years.

The deal comes after nearly a year of negotiations to undo the partnership, in which each side was increasingly frustrated with the other. Within NBC, executives complained that they did not have enough control of the network's budget to hire the right talent and market its programs.

Executives at Microsoft have worried that media business is outside their primary mission and may be a black hole. Microsoft sold its stake in Slate, the online magazine, to The Washington Post last year.

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

Reader comment: Doug says,

Your chicken zen remided me of another awsome chicken page. It's a tic-tac-toe game where you play against a virtual chicken. It's way hard, and I've only won a couple of times. More often than not it's always a draw. Link.

You cannot have Chicken Web Zen without "Chicken Soccer Bowling." A photo set on Flickr shows off all the action and explains the rules of this hallway sport, which was invented by avant gamer Jane McGonigal. Reader comment: chris corwin sez:

i have a set of pictures of fake chickens at my flickr stream.

Reader comment: Nonominous says,

How could you forget good old Rat Chicken, the original Oriental chicken-in-disguise?

Reader comment: Florian says:

The Chicken Zen list reminded me of a cartoon series featuring an intoxicated chicken. Ugly Mean Chickie features a heavy metal soundtrack and the consumption of fuel, washing powder and bathroom cleaner. It was once featured in the Wired Animation Showcase, but is gone now. There are plenty of other flash series on the main site (see "Hot Duck"), featuring hillybilly and metal soundtracks. Kind of underground screwball comedy.

Subservient Chicken

"In humans, consciousness is basically a state in which the behavior of the self and another is understood," said (scientist Junichi) Takeno.

Humans learn behavior during cognition and conversely learn to think while behaving, said Takeno...

Imitation, said Takeno, is an act that requires both seeing a behavior in another and instantly transferring it to oneself and is the best evidence of consciousness.

[Cheney] is an iPod fan, and keeping it charged is a priority for his staff. Normally that isn't an issue, even when he's flying around the world. Air Force II is equipped with outlets in each row of seats. But when Dick Cheney was traveling home overnight Wednesday from his diplomatic mission, most of the outlets went on the fritz.

Working passengers began lining up their laptops to share the power from a couple of working outlets — particularly the reporters who urgently needed to prepare their articles to transmit during a quick refueling stop in England.

But when Cheney said his iPod needed to be recharged, it took precedent above all else and dominated one precious outlet for several hours. The vice president's press staff intervened so a reporter could use the outlet for 15 minutes to charge a dead laptop, but then the digital music device was plugged back in. That way, Cheney got his press coverage and his music, too.

Reader comment: Tom says,

This just shows how inefficient the executive office is. The iPod charges via USB -- any USB -- so a laptop could easily have been plugged in and charged Cheney's iPod simultaneously. This would work out better than charging just the iPod.

My iPod charges via firewire. My laptop doesn't have a firewire port. I have to charge it from my desktop or from the wall.

Much as I detest the guy, maybe he had a reason for not plugging it into somebody's laptop. If you accept the default installation of iTunes, it will open the iPod automatically. Maybe the Veep didn't want anyone to see what crappy music he listens to. Or what he got for free online...

Cheney then looked up at Rumsfeld. His dark gaze leered at Rumsfeld, hypnotizing him to overcome a feeling of lust. A desire. "Oh, Dick..." Rumsfeld nudged Cheney against a wall and stared deeper into his dark eyes. Rumsfeld couldn't help but touch Cheney's lips with his.

“Holy mackerel...that’s funny! I had a similar feeling about you!” Rumsfeld giggled as he kissed the side of Cheney's mouth hysterically. Rumsfeld let his tongue go for Cheney's ear.

Surgeon General-recommended Unicorn Chaser.

NASA's Hubble Space Telescope photographed a new pair of rings around Uranus and two new, small moons orbiting the planet.

The largest ring is twice the diameter of the planet's previously known rings. The rings are so far from the planet, they are being called Uranus' "second ring system." One of the new moons shares its orbit with one of the rings. Analysis of the Hubble data also reveals the orbits of Uranus' family of inner moons have changed significantly over the past decade.

"The detection of these new interacting rings and moons will help us better understand how planetary systems are formed and sustained, which is of key importance to NASA's scientific exploration goals," said Dr. Jennifer Wiseman, program scientist for Hubble at NASA Headquarters.

In related news, NASA is preparing to launch an exploratory mission to the planet icy dirtclod Pluto. Link to WaPo story.

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or Pastafarianism, turned into a phenomenon, appealing to scientists, academics and many others, who flock to Henderson's website to pick up FSM mugs and T-shirts, play games and learn about other school boards hostile to evolutionary thought. The site now draws as many as 2 million hits a day.

Meanwhile, public debate over intelligent design is intensifying. One Georgia suburb recently put warnings on biology texts stating evolution was "a theory, not a fact," prompting a legal challenge by the American Civil Liberties Union heard last Thursday in the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals -- a ruling is expected next year. And Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that intelligent design couldn't be mentioned in biology classes in Pennsylvania public schools, deciding a closely watched case that evolved from a Dover, Pennsylvania, school board policy that steered students to the intelligent design textbook Of Pandas and People.

Now Henderson -- a 25-year-old physics graduate -- has banked a reported $80,000 advance for the still unfinished The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, scheduled for publication in March. He isn't talking much publicly while he writes, but he took time for an exclusive conversation with Wired News about the Gospel, a future influenced by intelligent design, and his plans to build a pirate ship to convert heathens.

Previous Boing Boing posts about FSM and Pastafarianism.

See also Federal judge rules on Dumbass Design: science wins

Reader comment: Dougal Campbell says,

When I saw your entry about the Gospel of FSM book, I immediately checked out the page about it at Random House. However, I was disappointed to see that it's being filed under "Fiction, Humorous", rather than in "Religion, Bible, Reference", where it belongs. Shouldn't we be petitioning them to fix this grievous error?

Link to download and tracklist for Dagmar's Hotpants Incorporated (Includes "Let's Get Drunk & Truck," Tampa Red; "Soixante Neuf Annee Erotique," Serge Gainsbourg; "Two Girls In Love -- With Each Other," The Johnny Otis Show; and "Dub Your Pum Pum," Lee Perry & the Silvertones).

Here's a second killer mix from Coop this week -- Safety Pin Stuck In My Heart (Includes "Orgasm Addict," Buzzcocks; "I Don't Care About You," Fear; "Baby, You're So Repulsive," Crime; and "What's This Shit Called Love," Pagans).

Update: Holy crap, Coop just posted two more mixes! You Can't Beat Gas, and Sexy Coffee Pot. Note: all of his holiday mixfiles are guaranteed to be 100% holiday-music-free.

Sucks-Less-Mirror-Goodness: Scott Jacobson says,

OK, I couldn't stand the crazy rigmarole involved in snagging the mixes from rapidshare. I'm mirroring them on a friendly server. They'll at least be there through the weekend. I've taken the liberty of re-archiving them (as zips) to include both t he cover art + track listing (as Coop did) and just the plain cover art for all the iPod purists. There's only 2 ATM, the others are in progress. [mirror Link]

Metropolis.avi
Plan_9_From_Outer_Space.avi
The_Little_Shop_of_Horrors.avi
Buster_Keaton1.avi
Night_of_the_Living_Dead.avi
flash_gordon_ep01.avi
Monster_from_a_Prehistoric_Planet.avi
The_Memphis_Belle.avi
Kong_Island.avi
Nosferatu.avi

Many are available as PDA/iPod-sized versions. Link (thanks, Sven!)

Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.

Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years.

"[T]here are such things as roving wiretaps. Now, by the way, any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so. It's important for our fellow citizens to understand, when you think Patriot Act, constitutional guarantees are in place when it comes to doing what is necessary to protect our homeland, because we value the Constitution."

Here is a short Quicktime video clip: link, mirror. (Thanks, Nate, via this devoter post)

If we needed any more evidence that the Federal Communications Commission believes it can rule the Internet by administrative decree, consider the growing backlash against its wiretapping regulations.

An FCC edict from September orders broadband providers and some Internet phone companies to rewire their networks for police wiretapping convenience. In the bizarro world of federal bureaucracies, of course, it doesn't matter how much complying with this order will cost, whether it's technically feasible, or even whether the requirements are legal or not.

But in the real world, engineers and managers who actually build networks have to worry about those questions. That's why the FCC's pronunciamento worries everyone from Internet providers to universities--and now, even local governments.

Reader comment: Rob Williams says,

The extension has been reduced to 1 month by the House (according to the Washington Post). Interestingly it has been shortened with Republican support. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) said, "The fact is that a six-month extension, in my opinion, would have simply allowed the Senate to duck the issue until the last week in June."

Here's the original Boing Boing post, and here's yesterday's batch of update links.

Today, Boing Boing reader Gary McGath, a software engineer with the Harvard University Library, writes:

Just to add more confusion to the situation of Homeland Security and the unidentified UMass Dartmouth student: in a reader comment on a previous BB post, Jessamyn West reported that the Mao book "was from a library in nearby Providence." But SouthCoastToday is now saying it came from UMass Amherst -- Link.

A random stranger on a train told me that UMass Dartmouth does use SSN for student ID and claimed they'd issued a press release acknowledging that. I can't find any such press release on Google news, though.

Note that the UMass Dartmouth Library Dean states that her library did not process the interlibrary loan. It went through another library -- they were not involved. Note also that neither the reporter nor the professors ever seemed to try to verify any part of the story with the UMass Dartmouth Library or with Homeland Security for that matter. Neither people professionals at research bothered to even try to do the research for the facts. Odd, very odd. This is aside from the unlikely elements requested in the so-called form...like the SSN. Link.

The followup quotes some very skeptical DHS and FBI staff, and indicates that neither the student nor the student's parents have agreed to speak directly with Nicodemus. Link to blog post with more analysis.

So -- i spent some time at the UMass Amherst branch, and did a little ILL myself...

Until a few years ago, most ID numbers at UMass Amherst, and i suspect the other branches, were your social. If you wanted to, you could throw a fit and they'd give you a non-SSN number. Maybe three years ago they swapped to random ID numbers. Incoming freshmen didn't know their socials, but knew their ID numbers. upperclassmen didn't know their ID numbers, but only their SSN. I worked computer helpdesk there during the transition, and got used to accepting either number -- it was a massive headache. When I graduated the system had pretty much gone on to ID#s only, and only upperclassmen were still using their socials. Anyone with an ID card maybe prior to fall 2002 still would have their SSN, and not their other random ID.

UMass Dartmouth's ILL request page (Link) asks for the UMass ID -- so if they have an old-school ID it could be a social. WIth the umass amherst one, at least, they had you enter it once and then kept it on file FOREVER...

I'm a grad student at UMass Boston, and I know that their ID system just changed over from SSNs to random numbers last semester, and they rolled out a new online student data system to go with the change (see link here.) New ID numbers were mailed out to existing students in October or November. If you look at this website, it indicates that UMass Dartmouth changed over their system during the spring semester. They might have just changed their IDs as well, and, like the Amherst school, they may not have made existing students change over their IDs.

One very smart fellow in Germany received the German version of that Sober.Y spam, then, presuming it was real -- turned himself in to authorities. The polizei examined his hard drive and discovered an abundance of kinderporn.

Link to synopsis on f-secure, and here is the original report (in German). (Thanks, Ben the Geek)

Various people in the BFRO have seen sasquatches in the field and know what they look like.

We've seen plenty of hoaxed footage over the years as well.

With that said, we are confident the Sonoma footage is not fake (i.e. not animation or a man in a costume).

This figure is most likely a real sasquatch -- a survivor of the gigantopithecus line of apes.

If the amendment survives, France would be the first country to legalize so called peer-to-peer downloading, said Jean-Baptiste Soufron, legal counsel to the Association of Audionautes, a French group that defends people accused of improperly sharing music files.

The law would be a blow to media companies that increasingly use the courts worldwide to sue people for downloading or sharing music and movie files. Entertainment companies such as Walt Disney Co., Viacom Inc. and News Corp.'s Fox say free downloading of unauthorized copies of TV shows and movies before they are released on DVD will cost them $5 billion in revenue this year.

(...) The amendment, which is attached to a bill on intellectual property rights, states that ``authors cannot forbid the reproduction of works that are made on any format from an online communications service when they are intended to be used privately'' and not for commercial use.

I time-warped to the secluded mountain resort where my co-editor Cory Doctorow is holidaying, and asked him for his take on this news. Cory crawled out of a snowdrift just long enough to say:

Here's what I think's going on with P2P thing in France:

The French govt has been captured and is on the way to passing a terrible French copyright law that will implement the provisions in the EUCD (the Directive that was given rise to through accession to the WIPO Copyright Treaty, the same treaty that created the US DMCA). The French EUCD is really bad: bans open source, requires mandatory universal wiretapping, etc. Making matters worse, the govt called its hearings on this for Dec 22/23, when no one would be around to make a stink.

So the French Parliament has retaliated by passing this legalize-P2P bill, which still needs govt approval. The message appears to be: if you create this dumbass copyright law, we'll respond by legalizing P2P, so just back off, all right?

Reader comment: thibaut sailly says,

Did you know that the morning the debate started, the minister of Culture (author of the law) invited Virgin and Fnac to demo their online music stores to representatives >inside< the Assemblée Nationale ? Virgin even offered 10€ certificates to those who were going to vote the law. Nice aye ? Link to article (in french)

Yahoo bought Musicmatch, and has deep-sixed its service team for the software product while still allowing folks to download it and subscribe to it. In the meantime, paying subscribers to Musicmatch get shoddy service, and lifetime purchasers of the software feel (and are) very screwed. It's hardly a good business plan to alienate users of one of the more poopular music programs out there -- the free version shipped loaded on millions of PCs over the past 5 years. I've been a loyal user since about 1998.

Linksys was using embedded Linux for the WRT54G gateway, a Wi-Fi access point, router, and Ethernet switch, that sells for as low as $50 these days. A couple of years ago, Linksys and Broadcom (the company that makes the device's Wi-Fi chips and created the reference platform that Linksys uses) were pushed to meet GNU and other license terms and release the modified OS and accompanying packages. They're routinely released each update since.

Now folks who hack the WRT54G with their own firmware noticed that newer models stopped allowing these hacks and were, in fact, now running the proprietary VxWorks OS. Linksys started talking publicly about this switchover--which happened in fall--just a few weeks ago, and noted that they needed to get the cost of goods down. They were able to halve the volatile and non-volatile memory with the VxWorks OS. (I and others think it is much less reliable in its early firmware releases, however; that's another story that's ongoing.)

The WRT54G v1 through v4 has the Linux kernel. The v5 (and ostensibly beyond) is VxWorks. Linksys opted to introduce a new model they're calling WRT54GL which is basically the same as the v4 release, but it'll have a street price of more like $70 than $50.

Interestingly, Linksys slipped sales numbers. The WRT54G sells "several hundred thousand" units per month, which could mean four or five million per year. They expect to sell about 120,000 WRT54GLs a year, which is quite sizeable, too, and shows the scope of the firmware hacking market for those commodity devices.

"Verizon gets all anal and prevents a Maryland town from putting up its Christmas lights. Townspeople get revenge by putting an inflatable Grinch next to the local Verizon office."

The dispute started when townsfolkses decided to upgrade the light system, and contacted the telco about new outlets and sensors to be installed on telephone poles. Verizon spokescritters replied "no," saying the specifics of the proposed plan were unsafe.

Link to a summary of news reports on Scott's blog, and here is the Boston Globe's account.

Reader comment: Eric Farris says,

I drive through Lonaconing ("Coney") every day to work and the absence of the lights is very noticable this year. I never noticed the sign on the Grinch, I'll have to check it out! :) I'm not one for holiday cheer, but I always enjoyed driving under the lights in Coney. Happy Chrismahanukwanzaa to you and yours.

Boing Boing reader Craig Sender says, "The New Years Eve feed is clean (no bugs burned in or other ID) and uninterrupted (no commercials) so they can customize and use however they like. It will consist of an eight-camera mixed feed including panoramic views of Times Square and the ball from proprietary camera locations on rooftops and on the street."

Here is a related article in Broadcasting and Cable magazine.

Reader comment: David A. Gilman says,

The Worldwide Feed for NYE has always been available commercial free via satellite. The coordinates and info go out in a press release to the industry, and anyone who has the ability can suck it down and repurpose it into a news broadcast. The money to pay for the event is provided by sponsors, and in return, the Worldwide Feed covers those sponsors' logos and signs a certain percentage of the time.

"Some Assembly Required" is a radio show on 770 AM radio K in Minneapolis, MN. It's about mashups and sound collage -- Jon Nelson, who does the show, made a great 50- minute X-Mas Mix. Take a listen!

DJ John – “The Christmas massacre of Charlie Brown" * John Oswald – “White” * Corporal Blossom – “The Christmas song (chestnuts)” * Corporal Blossom - “Little drummer boy” * Escape Mechanism – “Elf song” * Dummy Run – “Jolly holiday” * The Evolution Control Committee - “The Christmas wrong” * No-L – “Have yourself a merry little Christmas” * Cassetteboy - “XFM Christmas cut up” * Diffusion – “dnbchristmas” * Lovecraft Technologies – “Frosty the snowman” * Poj Masta - “Santar Klaws” * Mr. Fab and The RIAA – “Santa's acid hawaiian space disco” * Corporal Blossom – “White Christmas”

Reader comment: K7AAY says,

The formalities of the season must be observed, and one of them is the Original MashUp, brought to us by The First Blogger, the esteemed Dr. Jerry Pournelle: Link. One might wish to go back to the original source, however, and short of a trip to Fort Mudge in the depths of the Okeefenokee, this site may be a viable reference for serious scholars wishing alternative references.

Hi! I received word that someone posted to boingboing about my SAR Xmas Mix - a special christmas mix of sound collages I posted to my radio show's podcast. I guess it was too popular though, because the server crashed! We've got it back up now, at a new server - I'd love it if the original post were amended to let your readers know where they can find the mix, on its new server: MP3 Link

Nestler's application for a restraining order was accompanied by a six-page typed letter in which she said Letterman used code words, gestures and "eye expressions" to convey his desires for her.

She wrote that she began sending Letterman "thoughts of love" after his "Late Show" began in 1993, and that he responded in code words and gestures, asking her to come East.

She said he asked her to be his wife during a televised "teaser" for his show by saying, "Marry me, Oprah." Her letter said Oprah was the first of many code names for her and that the coded vocabulary increased and changed with time.

Understanding this circuitry has important practical implications because blocking the cannabinoid receptor, CB1, offers a promising approach to treating obesity. One such compound, rimonabant (trade name AcompliaTM) is already undergoing clinical testing.

In an article in the December 22, 2005, issue of Neuron, Young-Hwan Jo and colleagues report how the circuitry of CB1 is integrated with signaling by the appetite-suppressing hormone leptin.

According to Frank Costanza, the Festivus celebration includes three major components:

The Festivus Pole
The tradition begins with a bare aluminum pole, which Frank praises for its "very high strength-to-weight ratio." During Festivus, an unadorned aluminum pole is displayed, apparently in opposition to the commercialization of highly decorated Christmas trees, and because the holiday's creator, Frank Costanza, "find[s] tinsel distracting." Local customs vary and you may be able to decorate your pole with non-threatening plain decorations, or ordinary green garland.

The Airing of Grievances
At the Festivus dinner, each participant tells friends and family all of the instances where they disappointed him or her that year.

The Feats of Strength
The head of the family tests his or her strength against one participant of the head's choosing. Festivus is not considered over until the head of the family has been pinned to the ground. A participant is allowed to decline to attempt to pin the head of the family only if they have something better to do instead.

Mike Langlie, who makes wonderful music with kids' instruments, says: "I had an interesting experience at Staples today. In case you feel like sharing with boingboing readers, here is an email I sent to Staples."

Today I visited a local Staples to print some color files. As an employee wrote up my order, he mentioned there would be a $2.49 fee per file for virus scanning. Incredulously, I asked if I am really expected to pay for my files to be scanned for viruses, to which he replied yes. I canceled my order and left. This experience brings up some very disturbing thoughts. Should I assume that until now Staples has never scanned customer files for viruses before processing? I've worked in many offices and service bureaus and consider virus scanning a necessary and common sense practice when handling any unknown files. I doubt that this is a new concept to Staples, and am even more dismayed by the next logical reason for this fee. Most likely, Staples is trying to bilk naive customers for a "service" that should be routine to any sensible and responsible computer user. Will customers be expected to pay for their cash register receipts next? Staples has lost me as a customer, and my respect.

Reader comment: Erin says: "I worked in a Staples copy center for over five years (up till this fall), and am familiar with the 'service fee' they charge. Technically, its not a 'virus scanning fee' -- it's just a 'rip fee' for taking a file off a disk. Because it is generally 1-3 minutes faster to copy an actual piece of paper, a few years ago Staples implemented the 'rip fee' to account for the time it takes to open a file off of a cd or floppy and send it to print. Not only is there the $2.49 initial charge, but employees were instructed to charge $.99 for 'each additional file' they wanted printed off the disk. This was certainly irritating to those who wanted their novels printed out, and had saved their work in 40 separate .doc files. I rarely charged for the 'ripping' as it is a clear example of corporate theft. It's not like the employee gets a commission for the File > Print effort either."

Reader comment: Chad says: "I would be interested to know if Staples is in violation of its antivirus software license agreement by providing the 'service.' Most enterprise licenses include language along the lines of 'Licensee may use the Software only for Licensee's internal business purposes, and Licensee shall not permit the Software to be used by or for the benefit of third parties, including via a timesharing, service bureau or other arrangement.' By selling access to their antivirus software for $2.49 a file, Staples has arguably created a antivirus scanner rental service, or at least a managed service (since they do the scanning).

"It's possible Staples has a special license where they pay royalties to the antivirus company on a per-file basis, but those are not common outside of the outsourcing industry."

Update: Mylissa Tsai, the program manager for public relations at Staples emailed the following to us today: "As a frequent reader of BoingBoing, I wanted to make sure to reach out to you and your readers regarding your post this week, "Staples Charges for 'virus scanning'".

We wanted to make sure that the blogosphere and our customers have the most accurate information about the company. Below I have included some information from our Vice President of Business Services, Rob Schlacter which should help your readers. I'd like to ask if you can post our enclosed comments."

$2.49 Raster Image Processing Service Charge Ensures First Generation Digital Output; Virus Scanning Claim Is Inaccurate

I understand how customers can be upset by inaccurate information. Let me clarify. At Staples, our commitment is to deliver quality work with a 100% satisfaction guarantee. The $2.49 charge is a "Raster Image Processing" fee; it is not a virus scanning fee. This is used industry wide and retailers often charge it as an additional fee or include it in the overall printout cost.

As we have added expanded media acceptance to our service capability, many customers bring multiple file types using different software applications. The Raster Image Processing process is a part of Staples Copy and Print Centers production standards, ensuring first generation, high quality output to our digital copiers. As technology improves and the industry implements new processes, we will continue to evaluate our service level fees just as we do our everyday retail pricing.

We also understand that customers are getting more tech-savvy. So, stay tuned on how Staples can provide easier solutions like a free file conversion software package coming soon to stores next spring.

Thank you for your continued patronage at Staples. Feel free to reach out to any store manager with questions or customerrelations@staples.com

Rob Schlacter

Vice President of Business Services, Staples Inc.

Make room, meat-lovers. Vegetarians, take note. Jason Matheny, a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, has proposed methods of tissue engineering—cloning the muscle cells from farm animals and producing them outside of the animals’ bodies—that could lead to the affordable production of lab made meat that does not require the killing of animals. It’s a good idea in theory, and one that would be easier on the environment. Because of all of the water, grains, chemicals, fertilizers—and everything else it takes to turn the grass into cows and the cows into meat and get the meat to your house—getting food from animals takes a lot of energy, generates lots of waste, and can even make us sick. But how does lab made meat taste? Texture is one area that still needs some work. The biggest obstacle, however, is an economic one. Perhaps the technology will be there in five or ten years. Right now, however, a kilogram of beef would cost about a million dollars--no small sum to pay just for a hamburger.

There's been much debate online in recent days about the veracity of this story in a Massachussetts newspaper.

According to the article by Standard-Times reporter Aaron Nicodemus, a student at the University of Massachussetts was visited at his parent's home by Homeland Security agents after he requested a collection of Mao Tse-Tung quotes known as "The Little Red Book" via interlibrary loan.

Many questioned whether all of the facts in the story added up. Questions remain -- is the assertion that DHS visited the student confirmed as fact? If so, how did DHS obtain the book loan request data? -- but here are some reactions from librarians and university officials close to the story. If all of the facts reported are confirmed, as the reporter maintains, it is indeed a troubling story.

Here is a statement from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, lifted from a listserv for librarians:

University of Massachusetts Dartmouth officials are investigating reports that a student at the university was visited by officials from Homeland Security after the student requested a copy of Chairman Mao's "Little Red Book". UMass administrators have interviewed the student who has requested that his identity be shielded, and the University is complying with that request.

At this point, it is difficult to ascertain how Homeland Security obtained the information about the student's borrowing of the book. The UMass Dartmouth Library has not been visited by agents of any type seeking information about the borrowing patterns or habits of any of its patrons and did not handle the request for the book in question. The student has indicated that another university library processed the request.

The UMass Dartmouth library has established policies for handling requests under the Patriot Act and has taken every lawful measure possible to protect the confidentiality of patron records.

The Library subscribes to the American Library Association Library Bill of Rights and was a signatory to the MCCLPHEI (Massachusetts Conference of Chief Librarians of Public Higher Educational Institutions) resolution on the USA Patriots Act submitted to the Massachusetts Civil Liberty Union in 2003.

UMass Dartmouth Chancellor Jean F. MacCormack said, "It is important that our students and our faculty be unfettered in their pursuit of knowledge about other cultures and political systems if their education and research is to be meaningful. We must do everything possible to protect the principles of academic inquiry.''

Ann Montgomery Smith
Dean of Library Services
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Library

We do not believe that the story is a hoax. One of the professors named in the story, Brian Williams, is the son of two of our Stetson University professors. We emailed him about the story being on the ILL listserv and he replied:

"I am delighted to hear that librarians are aware of this outrage. I was wondering if you could possibly give me a link to the site that displayed the story. All is well here in Boston, the story has caused a surge of interest in academic freedoms and I have been inundated with emails from people urging me to teach my class."

Of course, the big question still remains: WHAT was being monitored -- the local system or OCLC or what?

Susan Ryan, Associate Director
duPont-Ball Library
Stetson University. DeLand, FL

What a mysterious and fantastical book. This hefty softcover is a facsimile collection of thousands of exotic and sensational photographs dating from around the turn of the century when news of any sort from far away lands was rare. It's sort of a combination of early uncensored National Geographic and Ripley's Believe It or Not. Reproduced without a known author, or copyright, or even authentication of the captions, it was for many years a "secret" underground publication. And for pure gawking pleasures it still can't be beat. Cannibals, executioners, and fakirs, oh my! Toolwise, it serves as a mighty sourcebook of amazing costumes, body modifications and hairdos, architectural novelties, and extinct strange rituals. (I'm convinced science fiction film directors mine this for alien worlds.) I like to think of this book as the best one volume catalog of cultural diversity on Earth. For the most part these societies are long gone, and remain only in rare books like this one. It's a super bargain at $25.

Reader comment: juddy says: "They're 'Zip-zaps'; crummy radio controlled Radio Shack toys, formerly endorsed by Shaquille O'Neal. Neat photos to be sure, however, they are definitely not slot cars. They're no where near as cool as a slot car, and I'm kind of hurt by your disregard for true slot car *magic* (sniffle)."

http://www.slotcargarage.com/vintage.htm
http://www.slotcargarage.com/gallery.htm
http://www.slotcarillustrated.com/InTheGroove.html
http://slotcarillustrated.com/Gallery.shtml

This is a full-sized, authentic stuffed horse. Real animal hair, hooves, mane, tail. Stuffed in a very unusual position. Measures approximately 60" x 36" x 75" Free standing, doesn't need pedestal. Old style taxidermy, not done anymore. Highly unusual prop for stage or theatre, wonderful gift for horse-lover, conversation piece for living room, unique and rare. Chestnut color, black mane and tail. Front right leg is missing, approximately 3". Some tears in skin - approximately 5-10, no longer than 1". Two tears in back, approx. 8". More pictures on request.

We're trying to make high quality texture maps for game models. Using an FX-1 psuedo HD Sony camera, (its 1440 pixels, which is Sony's anamorphic short-hand for a 1920 16:9 image,) placed sideways, I filmed Yoshi as he rotated on a turntable in front of the camera. The bank-robber cap was his idea. This resulted in about 1200 frames of a 360 degree pass around the head.

(Founder Bill Martin is) confident that Christians will flock to Natura to experience the spiritual benefits of a lifestyle “free from body shame”. He is spending more than $2m on a nudist recreational complex that will also feature a hotel, campsites and a children’s water park.

“As evidenced by Adam and Eve, we believe that when God’s children are in the right relationship to Him, they will be naked and unashamed,” explains one of Natura’s brochures...

Martin and his supporters argue that nudism is unhealthy, especially for children, unless it occurs in a proper Christian context. He has criticised non- religious nudist camps for encouraging alcohol and sensuality. “We are going after a totally different group, a group that doesn’t want a sexual atmosphere,” he said. “There is absolutely no relationship between nudity and sex.”

Scans of HOOKED!, an anti-drug comic book distributed at New York City methadone clinics in 1966. Link.

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program, according to two sources.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson, one of 11 members of the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, sent a letter to Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. late Monday notifying him of his resignation without providing an explanation.

Two associates familiar with his decision said yesterday that Robertson privately expressed deep concern that the warrantless surveillance program authorized by the president in 2001 was legally questionable and may have tainted the FISA court's work.

[T]he president's wartime powers, with its armies, battles, victories, and congressional declarations, now extend to the rhetorical "War on Terror": a war with no fronts, no boundaries, no opposing army, and -- most ominously -- no knowable "victory." Investigations, arrests and trials are not tools of war. But according to the Yoo memo, the president can define war however he chooses, and remain "at war" for as long as he chooses.

This is indefinite dictatorial power. And I don't use that term lightly; the very definition of a dictatorship is a system that puts a ruler above the law. In the weeks after 9/11, while America and the world were grieving, Bush built a legal rationale for a dictatorship. Then he immediately started using it to avoid the law.

This is, fundamentally, why this issue crossed political lines in Congress. If the president can ignore laws regulating surveillance and wiretapping, why is Congress bothering to debate reauthorizing certain provisions of the Patriot Act? Any debate over laws is predicated on the belief that the executive branch will follow the law.

Reader comment: JonS says,

This is the link to Schneiers op-ed in the Minneapolis Star Tribune on his own blog, and includes a bunch more links plus reader feedback. He's written a couple more blogs about the NSA thing over the last couple of days[/url], and the rest of his postings on security are interesting too.

Reader comment: Greg Tulonen says,

Thanks for the It's a Wonderful Life link. Lux Radio Theatre was a curious and wonderful show wherein the stars of major motion pictures recreated their roles for a live radio version (with no retakes!) It ran for over twenty years, from 1934-1955. I can't imagine the movie stars of today agreeing to a similar arrangement with television.

The great otrcat.com offers mp3 CDs of every Lux Radio Theatre episode ever broadcast, as well as hundreds of other radio shows: Link

You know that the film used to be in the public domain? It was copyright free from 1974. Then in the early 90s, all prints and underlying elements got bought up by Republic Pictures; stopping the free-to-broadcast showings on US TV? Shame, isn't it? Link to Wikipedia entry with history.

All of the cards in the linked to collection are, in fact, New Year’s cards, not Christmas cards – they bear the New Year greeting С Новым годом! (Pronounced: s’novy godom). New Year’s was the main holiday celebrated in the former Soviet Union (officially atheist), replete with a New Year’s tree and the appearance of “Dyet Moros” (Grandfather Frost) – not Santa. Christmas was banned after the 1917 revolution and not celebrated again until 1992. Also, in Russia, Christmas is celebrated by the Orthodox church according to the Julian calendar, on January 7, and was/is a much different type of celebration than New Years. (Link).

The pronunciation for the Russian "Happy New Year" phrase isn't quite right. It should be "s'novym godom" (missed the M on the end of the first word). And if you wanted to focus more on pronunciation than transliteration, then the second O in 'godom' might be changed to an A. It's written "godom" in Russian, but pronounced more like "GO-dam."

"[I have visited] several times, and thoroughly enjoyed each visit," he says, "The building and grounds are beautiful, and the whole process of both making and selling Phaetons is totally different than that for any other car in the world."
Link to messageboard post with helpful tips on how to arrange a visit of your own. (Thanks, Barney Stephens)

Two students at our school, the University of Michigan, dressed up as Pac-Man and the Ghost respectively, ran through the UGLi (the Undergraduate Library) and the Fishbowl (a huge computer lab on Central campus) during finals week. Pac-Man screams in horror as the Ghost chases him yelling "Waka Waka Waka." This video has spread like wildfire on our campus, and killed the original hosting site's bandwidth.

Reader comment: Will says,

Their idea is not an original one, and was probably derived from one a few months ago at Case Western Reserve. The event happened during a freshman chemistry (CHEM 111) lecture. Our version has instructions on how to create your own Pac-Man costumes, so spread the joy at your own university! Link

My friends and I dressed up as Pac-Man and all four ghosts this halloween, complete with reversible sides to turn our regular ghosts into scared ghosts. We don't have any movies of it, but you can read an account of it in this issue of the Telegraph (and there's some pictures, too). PDF Link

If the Pac Man routine was meant to be a re-enactment, it isn't very accurate. Plus the videography is crappy.

Of course, in the real game, the "waka-waka" sounds only occur when Pac-Man eats the pills. The ghosts are silent.

Reader comment: Chris Robison says,

When I saw this post, I immediately thought of a video I'd found on Google Video a few days ago -- in fact, I thought the link you provided would be pointing to it. It's a *brilliant* spoof of the iPod Nano advertisement, featuring a mac classic II. It's immediately funny, but keep watching, it gets better. Link.

Art Center in Pasadena isn't the only school involved in space art. Carnegie Mellon University is offering Space Art as an undergraduate class next semester, taught by Professor Lowry Burgess, a pioneer in the genre.

Previously: Art school offers interplanetary flight course

The "Newton Museum," which has a complete collection of every Newton model ever made is closing down and selling the entire collection as one giant piece. There are some good pictures covering everyone's favorite PDA whippingboy.

[Francis] testified that an armed intruder stole cash and possessions and then forced him to make a humiliating, half-naked video. Francis identified his assailant as Darnell Riley, 28, who is accused of six felony counts of burglary, robbery, carjacking, kidnapping and attempted extortion.

In Los Angeles County Superior Court today, Riley's lawyer fired back at Francis, grilling him on his own police record. Defense attorney Ronald Richards asked Francis about a theft arrest in North Carolina, and a case pending in Florida alleging that he filmed minors for one of his videotapes and was charged with racketeering, prostitution, obscenity, child pornography and possession of an illegal drug.

Finally, the CRTC in Canada has decided that Canadians will get cell phone number portability, too. "all Canadian wireless telephone companies to implement wireless number portability (WNP) by March 14, 2007, in most of Canada"

Relive the era of the mountain man with this authentic full-body coyote Mountain Man Hat. The hat drapes down in the back for added warmth and protection on your neck and shoulders. From reenactments of famed mountain man triumphs along the frontier, to displays and decor befitting America's pioneers and settlers, the classic styling and authentic coyote hide make this hat a conversation starter at any gathering. Soft, white-tanned interior holds up to years of wear. The professionally cleaned fur is exceptionally soft and holds its sheen extremely well. The perfect gift for rendezvous black-powder re-enactment enthusiasts.

Finally, it's time to ink. I use a #2 brush for most of it, except the lines on the tie, and some of the components of the chair, for which I use a Pitt Artists pen. I find that my brush lines tend to be a bit wonky at times, going from thick to thin, and while that's great for figures, it looks kind of bad on non-organic objects like cars and, well, wheelchairs.

Speaking of wheelchairs, I'm pretty happy with how this one has turned out. It looks good, the perspective is correct, or at least, I've faked it in a believeable way. I struggle drawing vehicles of any kind, anything with wheels, so this a pretty satisfying result.

Letter writing and clubs were a solace to people passing through the Depression, especially when the topic of discussion was another world or a better future. Fanzine production, however, proliferated after World War II, following the curve of developing technology of reproductive printing devices accessible to the amateur. Some see a "golden age” of fanzine fandom occurring in the late 1950s through the 1960s. At this time, a split occurs in terms of editors’ and readers’ approach to the activity of fanzine writing and to the content of the fanzine. On one hand, there are fanzines that follow the “faanish” way, that is, focus on the activity of fandom rather than its “content” (SF literature). The motto here is the acronym FIJAGH, or “Fandom Is Just A Goddam Hobby.” These hobbyist fanzines are filled with gossip columns about events and members of what becomes, over the years, an increasingly incestuous group of fans. On the other hand, there are the “sercon” fanzines, meaning fanzines “of serious content,” focused on the sacred task of commenting on, and judging, the increasing output of SF/fantasy literature.

6. There is much need for a simple audio amplifier. There are many ways to do this, one is to use a darlington transistor like my 1-watt amplifier, and another way is to use an opamp like my post on the CMOY pocket amplifier, but the best way is to use an LM386 chip. The different gains can be changed by changing the resistor values. C5 filters out the DC, and C4 and R1 act as a low pass filter. Go to warplink.com for the values to use for the comonents.

Zoo manager Kath Bright said the bird, who was taken from a compound where he lived with his parents and four other penguins, would probably die of malnutrition if not urgently returned.

"Toga is very, very vulnerable. The penguin is still being fed by his parents and we don't believe it could survive more than five days," she told The Associated Press.

The comic book gem GRENADA: Rescued from Rape and Slavery was produced by the CIA and air-dropped over the island nation after the 1983 US-led invasion.

Link.

According to Moscow newspapers, Stalin told the scientist: "I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat..."

Mr Ivanov's experiments, unsurprisingly from what we now know, were a total failure. He returned to the Soviet Union, only to see experiments in Georgia to use monkey sperm in human volunteers similarly fail.

A final attempt to persuade a Cuban heiress to lend some of her monkeys for further experiments reached American ears, with the New York Times reporting on the story, and she dropped the idea amid the uproar.

...More than 70% of San Francisco's downtown outdoor space is dedicated to the private vehicle, while only a fraction of that space is allocated to the public realm.

Feeding the meter of a parking space enables one to rent precious downtown real estate, typically on a 1/2 hour to 2 hour basis. What is the range of possible occupancy activities for this short-term lease?

PARK(ing) is an investigation into reprogramming a typical unit of private vehicular space by leasing a metered parking spot for public recreational activity...

By our calculations, we provided an additional 24,000 square-foot-minutes of public open space that Wednesday afternoon.

"When I thought we were coming back to Earth I was planning my speech. I was going to say it had been my childhood dream. Now I'm a little bit heartbroken," (contestant Keri Hasset) said.

Ms Hasset, plasterer Paul French, 26 from Bristol, and footballer/recruitment consultant Billy Jackson, 25, from Kent, had suspicions they were being tricked when they had to hold a ceremony for a celebrity Russian dog called Mr Bimby on the spaceship.

"This is a spacecraft but it feels like a caravan," Paul told his fellow astronauts.

"And if we were going to space and they were weighing us for our health, they wouldn't use scales like you get at home, would they..."

"Aw man," said Paul. "We're not astronauts. We're just asses."

Reader comment: TheGilmanator says: "Because of the murmurs about the show I read on Boingboing I decided to search around for torrents of Space Cadets (I live in the US). Found the whole series two days ago (and the show ended 4 days ago). It's a bit lame, but it's a good watch, especially if you're interested in the psychology behind the whole thing."

NYC bloggers are reporting events in detail. On the NYC Metblog, the group promises to cover everything "Blow by freakin' blow!"

Boing Boing reader Adam Fields says, "I took some pictures at the 96th Street blockades this morning, where the NYPD was preventing cars with fewer than 4 people from passing. Link."

Link to more photos tagged with "transit strike." Image by Flickr user "jenchung."

Boing Boing reader Jim Parsons wonders if this morning's strike announcement sounded anything like this.

A federal judge in Pennsylvania ruled today that the Dover Area school board violated the Constitution when it required that Intelligent Design be taught as part of the biology curriculum.

But more than that, the judge apparently found that the school board members who supported the policy lied about their true motives: "We find that the secular purposes claimed by the Board amount to a pretext for the Board's real purpose, which was to promote religion in the public school classroom," he wrote in his 139-page opinion.

Pending a thorough review of those 139 pages, it is unclear whether there was an mention of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Joshua Shapiro adds,

The Dover "Intelligent Design" trial is over, and the good guys won! The Pennsylvania ACLU has excerpts and the full decision on their site: PDF Link. The judge fully recognized the absurdity of the ID proponents. Oh, that and acused them of lying. Not that he had much choice in the matter; they were pretty blatant. Link.

Reader comment: DrakeGTA says,

You might be interested in the local paper's writeup on the subject.

That would require changing an existing regulation, he added. But some theaters are already testing a no-cellphones policy, asking patrons to check their phones at the theater door.

A spokesman for a cellphone lobby said the group would object to any regulatory change. "We're opposed to the use of any blocking technology, because it interferes with people's ability to use a wireless device in an emergency situation," said Joseph Farren, a spokesman for CTIA-the Wireless Association, based in Washington.

Link to NYT story, Link to UPI item, (Thanks, Bonnie!)

The name of a cancer-causing gene has been changed from "Pokemon" to Zbtb7 after Pokemon USA threatened legal action to keep scientists from referring to the gene by the game's name, according to an article in science journal Nature.

In January's issue, geneticist Pier Paolo Pandolfi of the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York describes the cancer-causing POK erythroid myeloid ontogenic gene, calling it Pokemon.

The gene in question is part of the POK gene family that encodes proteins that turn off other genes. POK proteins are critical in embryonic development, cellular differentiation and oncogenesis, according to the National Cancer Institute.

Reader comment: Aki Zeta-Five says,

You know there's a gene named after Sonic the Hedgehog? Link. I guess Sega is just more science-friendly than Nintendo.

Reader comment: Ethan says,

Slovenian artist Marko Peljhan (who created the Makrolab, kind of an art/space environment on land) teaches a cool class at UC Santa Barbara called The Art and Science of Aerospace Culture. He has some software to do simulated satellite launches, uses XPlane for aerodynamic simulations and has fieldtrips to SpaceX among others in the LA area. As well they watch Barbaraella. Come on, that's cool. I TAed the class last year. The final project for the class is the design of an art/science object for low earth orbit.

The letter just above the bar code on the product packaging lets you know which firmware version your PSP will come with before you shell out $250 for what may be something you did not want.

I have verified this to be true, my PSP was 1.51 and has a B on the box. As long as the version is 2.0 or lower, it can be upgraded to 2.0 (if necessary) and then downgraded to 1.5, allowing for homebrew programs such as the awesome pspradio (which allows me to listen to shoutcast stations anywhere with WiFi) or other OK programs like the notepad or filemanager, even ports of Quake and Doom. Using the quick guide (which could use some comments to confirm D and E), one can decide which PSP to give to your loved one for them to enjoy in more than just the Sony Approved ways.

Links: Firmware 2.0 (US), to upgrade to if you have anything higher than 1.5 but lower than 2.0; MPH Downgrader (to go from 2.0 to 1.5); Firmware 1.5 (To upgrade to from the fake 1.0 after the MPH Downgrade); PSP Homebrew; PSP Quake; Doom; PSP Radio (awesome).

Why is this news now? Salon tread here first (“Candy from strangers”), long ago, back in 2001. What’s new now is that a former teen webcam site operator and owner, the subject of the lengthy and multiply sidebar-ed feature, after being approached by the Times journalist — who was, at the time, posing as a customer and fan — was urged by the journalist to end his involvement with his and related sites, and to pursue criminal charges against those he still knew in the online circles in which he profited, with legal assistance supported by the journalist.

All of which begs the question — how can one even report thoroughly on this issue without becoming a part of it, and how does that fundamentally compromise that reporting — which Slate’s Jack Shafer ("The New York Times Legal Aid Society: The newspaper helps a very young pornographer find a lawyer") candidly asks. Because we know the Times is having hard enough time lately with such issues. Adding teenagers and porn to the pot hardly clarifies things.

Update: Boing Boing founder Mark Frauenfelder covered the teen webcam porn subculture for Yahoo! Internet Life magazine way, way back in 2002: Link.

We just launched a major update of our search results pages over at Technorati.com. You can read my blog post about it here. The idea was to make things much easier to use and understand, especially for newbies, while giving some kickass features for experienced users -- like dynamic charts of all search results and the ability to easily scope a search down to understand what a particular community was saying about the topic you're interested in.

Might go nicely with some Cup O' Pussy.
Reader comment: John Black says,

This product is a favourite of Vice Magazine's tidbits...there is a Tidbits issue out now with many many more amazing products. Link

Librarians, reporters, and bloggers are today debating whether this story about a student visited by DHS agents over a famous book of Mao Tse-Tung quotes is real or hoax.

Standard-Times reporter Aaron Nicodemus, who filed the article, maintains it is "is real and factual to the extent [he] reported."

But Jessamyn West, an elected Councilor of the American Library Association, says "The jury is still out... parts of the newspaper story don't add up."
Link to updated Boing Boing post with details.

It is a wonderful old-fashioned tome on the discovery of the giant pandas - one of last century’s most remarkable stories - and the relatively untold details of the woman who should get more credit for "finding" them. The search for the first live giant pandas is a fascinating but true tale of cryptozoology discovery, captured with adventure in The Lady and the Panda .

Vicki Croke’s book is an exciting, warm, and intriguing volume about Ruth Harkness’ personal journey to be the initial Westerner to catch and return with the first live giant pandas. This is a book I’ve wanted to write myself for years, and I’m glad to finally see someone, appropriately a seasoned woman writer, do a great job with this subject. The Lady and the Panda also gives due credit to Harkness’ Chinese guide and eventual lover Quentin Young, who showed her how to find the giant pandas.

San Francisco's KRON recently became the first major-market TV station in the US to supply much of its newsoom staff with laptops and digital video cameras, then train them to shoot, write, and produce stories on their own. KRON calls them VJs. Others in the biz sometimes refer to the combo role as "sojo" (solo journalist) or "one-man-band," while a producer + editor mashup is a "preditor."

Here is the blog of one of KRON's VJs, Charley Bill: Link. Image above: Charley's VJ gear, in his office.

Snip from a critical analysis on Grade The News blog:

KRON hopes that low-cost techniques perfected on reality shows will bring the once high-flying station back to both journalistic excellence and competitiveness in Nielsen ratings. But critics say forcing journalists to become "one-man bands" who report, shoot and edit at the same time will lead to shoddier journalism, and eventually leaner news staffs.

The collapse of three distinct jobs into one delights the station's tech-savvy consultants for the same reasons it alarms some union officials and veteran journalists. KRON reporters, who rarely used to touch a camera, now are shooting their own video every day. Many photographers are reporting for the first time, which is sometimes apparent in video that ignores obvious story angles.

Cameraman Charles Clifford described himself in a blog entry about his retraining as "a guy who hasn't done any real writing since college." The reorganization has eliminated most editors. While a producer is supposed to review every story, outside observers worry about the loss of quality control.

Media Orchard blog interviewed KRON's online news manager Brian Shields about the initiative, and he says:

Television is the ultimate 1.0, 'We talk, you shut up and watch' industry. That means the business model of local television news is fundamentally out of date. It's based on the concept that you're going to wait until 6:00, then we'll show you some things you may or may not care about, show you some commercials, show some more stuff you may or may not care about, show you some more commercials by which time it's quarter after the hour and lucky you, Scott, now we'll tell you the weather. Of course, now you get the weather when you want it online or on the Weather Channel or by RSS or...

So now we have a choice as an industry. We can sit around like many of the people quoted in this article, break open the scrapbooks, and pine for the good ole days of local TV news' mythical golden era. Or we can try to create something new that makes sense within today's economics and that at the same time fixes many of the existing problems with the genre.

Ask anyone outside our industry and they'll tell you, local television news SUCKS. It's the same stories, told in the same way and the only things different from one station to another are the blonde and the graphics package. Despite all of the money they used to have, television news executives never really changed the format from "the guy at the desk with the box over his shoulder." Despite the extravagances of the old system, it was still just six crews covering the market on any given day... never taking risks... just getting the easy stuff... the crime and the regurgitated newspaper story from that morning.

The VJ concept is, to me, a good try at fixing that.

"Anyone included in the settlement who haven't already opted out can sign onto the 27 page objection at netflixsettlementsucks.com."

Perhaps most ironically, if a significant number of class members do in fact submit claim forms, the result will be that NetFlix has to distribute hundreds of thousands of extra DVDs over a short period of time. Since there is no indication that NetFlix plans to expand its DVD inventory for this upsurge, the natural result will be that all of its subscribers will face significant delays in receiving the movies of their choice, all without being informed in advance of these delays; in other words, the “cure” will actually exacerbate the disease.

A visit to the Department of Homeland Security website reveals that the nation's present threat level is under yellow status, elevated for "Significant Risk of Terror Attacks." Perhaps the imminent, closely-guarded travel trajectory of a certain North-Pole-dwelling magnate with mysterious funding ties is to blame?

Regardless, here are a few other things under yellow status today: an orchid, Big Bird, a spider on a flower, a phone book, rubber duckies, a Rockford Files ad, and grains of heirloom corn.

Bonus: While you're visiting the DHS homepage, check out this crazy photo of border patrol agents reaming frontera dirt on their dune buggies!

Reader comment: Warren Grant says: " I think its a bit disingenuous to claim he was 'The First Man in Space' when even NASA agrees that the first man in space was Yuri Gagarin (see http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/multimedia/display.cfm?IM_ID=1832). It just struck me as kind of like rewriting history to make that claim, and although its a small point, its in effect a form of disinformation that seems out of keeping with the spirit of Boingboing. I am sure you don't want to misinform your readers and leave them with the impression that the US had the first man in space when even NASA doesn't make that claim. I know the US as the time was in tremendous shock to learn they hadn't been first, but posting stories that suggest otherwise is only contributing to the wishful thinking of those who would rewrite history."

Reader comment: Jason Finley says: "Warren Grant did well to point out that Yuri Gagarin was in fact the first human in space. To his comment I'd like to add the awesome fact that there is now an annual worldwide Space Party called Yuri's Night, held every April 12th to commemorate Gagarin's ground(space?)-breaking flight and celebrate unity in looking to the stars. 'Circling the Earth in the orbital spaceship I marvelled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world! Let us safeguard and enhance this beauty - not destroy it!' -- Yuri Gagarin.

"Also: I don't read Russian to confirm this form the website, but this would appear to be a video of Gagarin's flight."

Reader comment: Mitch says: "I just wanted to put in my 2 cents on this. The headline should definitely be changed from space to stratosphere. Whatever the source stated it is poor journalism to take such claims as fact. Especially when this is patently incorrect. "While the boundary of space as it relates to earth isn't 100% defined, 30 km is much too low. The United States defines space as 50 miles above sea level (approximately 80 km). Which is 2.6 times the height attained by this gentleman. I am not trying to play down his achievements, but the thought that a balloon which operates on the principle of being inside an atmosphere is in space is rather ludicrous. "He would have to move above 100 km above the earth to begin to be in air so rarified that normal aerodynamic surfaces no longer function. A balloon is of little help in this endeavor. "A useful introduction is on Wikipedia here."

RU Sirius: The video definitely increased my respect for the police. A pretty well done cheesy video. The Charlies Angels parody was more like a parody of the soft core porn films that, in turn, parodied Charlies Angels in the 1970s. Very hip, self-referential, post-modern attempt by these members of the San Francisco Police Department.

Previously: Dorothy Gambrell pie charts Google's "necessary" things

You guys posted a clip a while ago of Japanese pop group Morning Musume wearing meat on their heads and being chased by a lizard.

This is the same group, same game show, chasing American fighter Bob Sapp around the TV studio and trying to grab foam balls off his body.

Previously on Boing Boing, we've chronic-WHAT-cled the rise to fame of three comics who released shorts online under a Creative Commons license, then got big gigs on Saturday Night Live.

This week's Jack Black-hosted SNL episode included a digital short produced by the Lonely Island guys at their new NBC post. Thankfully, network television does not kill all good things: The Chronic-WHAT-cles of Narnia kicks just as much tuckus as the online shorts that made Andy Samberg, Jorma Taccone, and Akiva Schaffer web celebs in the first place. Watch the video: YouTube link, WMV link. (Thank you, Macki, thanks Jeff Holmes!)

A quick blog search Sunday returned tons of results for the video, ripped and hosted by fans. Wonder why NBC/SNL isn't offering clips on the official site? Seems like an obvious opportunity lost, given that they branded it as "AN SNL DIGITAL SHORT," anyway. Took 'em two days, but this short and others are now on the SNL site!

Bonus: I wrote a piece about the Lonely Island guys for this month's edition of Wired Magazine. Live, from New York!. Related Boing Boing posts:

Video: Bing Bong Bros (Ying Yang parody by "Lonely Island" SNLers)

"Creative Commons Comics" debut on SNL this weekend

"Creative commons comics" join Saturday Night Live cast

The German government has been moving forward with their plans to make linking to BME illegal, and have just had me de-listed from Google as an illegal content site.

(...)[When you Google 'BME' in Germany, you see a note which says] they have responded to a legal demand to remove three websites (ie. BME) from the search results. When you click through to the info site, here's what you get: A URL that otherwise would have appeared in response to your search, was not displayed because that URL was reported as illegal by a German regulatory body.

This is a process that the German government started back in 1999. To make a long story short, it is the contention of the German government, I believe incorrectly so, that BME must entirely block underage viewers from seeing anything on the site.

(...)I'm not sure what recourse I have, if any. I'm at additional risk because I'm a German citizen.

Reader Comment: Anonymous in Germany says,

i thought i'd chime in that the BME zine/google issue is real and at the end of the page i got this (same as the screenshot on the zentastic blog):

"Als Reaktion auf eine gesetzliche Forderung, die Google nach lokalem Recht gestellt wurde, haben wir 3 Seite(n) aus dieser Suchergebnisseite entfernt. Sie können die Beschwerde, die dieser Entfernung zugrunde liegt, unter ChillingEffects.org lesen."

Where "die Beschwerde" links to.

A simple work around is to click on the "google.com in english button" and search for BME there. The site is reachable from Kiel. So what's actually being accomplished here? Why is the German government harrassing these guys? What recourse do they have? And why are they doing such a half assed job?

Surely there must be a way to forge such notices and cause google to unlist parts of the german government!

There is no room for doubt or question about whether the President has the prerogative to order surveillance without asking the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court] -- even if the FISC is a toothless organization that never turns down requests, it is a federal crime, punishable by up to five years imprisonment, to conduct electronic surveillance against US citizens without court authorization.

The FISC may be worthless at defending civil liberties, but in its arrogant disregard for even the fig leaf of the FISC, the administration has actually crossed the line into a crystal clear felony. The government could have legally conducted such wiretaps at any time, but the President chose not to do it legally.

Ours is a government of laws, not of men. That means if the President disagrees with a law or feels that it is insufficient, he still must obey it. Ignoring the law is illegal, even for the President. The President may ask Congress to change the law, but meanwhile he must follow it.

Our President has chosen to declare himself above the law, a dangerous precedent that could do great harm to our country. However, without substantial effort on the part of you, and I mean you, every person reading this, nothing much is going to happen. The rule of law will continue to decay in our country. Future Presidents will claim even greater extralegal authority, and our nation will fall into despotism. I mean that sincerely. For the sake of yourself, your children and your children's children, you cannot allow this to stand.

Eight detainees now held at Guantánamo described to their attorneys how they were held at a facility near Kabul at various times between 2002 and 2004. The detainees, who called the facility the “dark prison” or “prison of darkness,” said they were chained to walls, deprived of food and drinking water, and kept in total darkness with loud rap, heavy metal music, or other sounds blared for weeks at a time.

The detainees offer consistent accounts about the facility, saying that U.S. and Afghan guards were not in uniform and that U.S. interrogators did not wear military attire, which suggests that the prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency.

The detainees said U.S. interrogators slapped or punched them during interrogations. They described being held in complete darkness for weeks on end, shackled to rings bolted into the walls of their cells, with loud music or other sounds played continuously. Some detainees said they were shackled in a manner that made it impossible to lie down or sleep, with restraints that caused their hands and wrists to swell up or bruise. The detainees said they were deprived of food for days at a time, and given only filthy water to drink.

Deputy Chief Carl Sferrazza said the Montano Road house was searched in November and that no charges have been filed against the woman, Michelle Silva. He would not say what kind of criminal activity is being investigated. Sferrazza said investigators seized computers along with a number of other items, which he would not specify.

He said police started investigating Silva early this year after neighbors complained of suspicious activity that included lots of traffic and people often coming to the house at night. Sferrazza said neighbors also saw a number of cars with out-of-state license plates. The computers are being examined at state police forensic computer lab. Sferrazza said the outcome of that examination will determine what police do next.

Silva said she obeyed all local and state laws in running the website and said the search violated her rights.

Bonus round: Why yes, my replacement liver will have another eggnog. An ad agency in San Francisco is sending out a grosser-than-gross holiday-party invite: a replacement liver in a bag.
(Thanks, Kim Cooper, also seen on screenhead; thanks Tim Nudd)

Reader Comment: John Mark Ockerbloom says,

Al-Anon did in fact spin off Alcoholics Anonymous. (It was founded by Lois Wilson, the wife of Bill. W who started Alcoholics Anonymous, and was designed for family and friends of alcoholics rather than alcoholics themselves. Link).

Later, Narcotics Anonymous and Nar-Anon were formed, in the spirit of Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon. I don't know if the same people were involved or not, but they both clearly walk in the AA 12-step tradition.

L. Ron Hubbard's drug rehab quackery and Scientology front is "Narconon". It has nothing to do with the other groups above, except for trying to sound like them.

Both Laughing Squid and Bookmans have posted flickr sets from the holiday party at Last Gasp [Ed. note: one of the world's largest, oldest, greatest publishers and sellers of underground comix].

Link to Bookman's photo set, Link to Laughing Squid's.

From the Laughing Squid blog -- "Ron and Colin let us into the hall of oblivion early and we got some great shots of the collection....even the back room. Later, V. Vale and Charles Gatewood stopped by and party started and a great time was had by all for a good cause."

Timothy Leary had a theory that the edge of culture is moving westward, from China to Western Europe, to the new world and now, the westcoast. Sometimes on a Sunday evening We’ll stand on a hillside in San Francisco and look westward to the pacific and beyond. It’s then, in the numinous glow of magic hour, We can see the soul of San Francisco twinkle.

Dessarae Bradford -- the wacky former phone-sex operator who sued Colin Farrell for harassment this year and self-published a book about an alleged erotic encounter with Alec Baldwin -- has recorded a dance single. Bradford kindly sent us a copy of the song, "I [bleeped] Alec Baldwin (Colin Farrell Is My Bitch)," in which she utters the tasteless title over a vintage house-music beat and purrs, "Sit! Beg! Fetch!" Bradford failed a lie-detector test concerning her allegations about Farrell, who claims he's never met her, on PAX-TV's "Lie Detector" show. Bradford cussed out host Rolonda Watts and claimed the test was rigged.

And IFABIHA -- her tell-all tome about that night with Alec Baldwin, a dog, and a chocolate bar -- is still for sale online. Snip:

In Sept. 2002, I fu**ed Alec Baldwin in his a** in a hot, sweaty, nasty sex romp. Read the story that will change lives. Be the first one on your block to have the nitty gritty about that night, that will be only told in my book. Grab the scoop before my story gets into the hands of the media, and they attemp to censor it. I had Alec Baldwin on all four's for me, and S/M was involved.

Previous Boing Boing posts about the lovely and talented Miss Bradford:

I F***ED ALEC BALDWIN IN HIS A**, Update 1, Update 2.

Reader-submitted reality mashup request: Using his "serious" voice, reader Michael Slater asks,

What happens if I request I Fu*ked Alec Baldwin In His A*s via interlibrary loan? Does DHS visit?

Widespread debate today over whether the South Coast Today story "DHS visits student over Little Red Book" is a hoax, or contains unsubstantiated non-facts. But the reporter who filed it maintains otherwise; update and details at bottom of this post.

A Massachussetts paper is reporting that a college student was visited by Department of Homeland Security agents in October after requesting a copy of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung -- better known as "The Little Red Book" -- from a university library:

Two history professors at UMass Dartmouth, Brian Glyn Williams and Robert Pontbriand, said the student told them he requested the book through the UMass Dartmouth library's interlibrary loan program.

The student, who was completing a research paper on Communism for Professor Pontbriand's class on fascism and totalitarianism, filled out a form for the request, leaving his name, address, phone number and Social Security number. He was later visited at his parents' home in New Bedford by two agents of the Department of Homeland Security, the professors said.

The professors said the student was told by the agents that the book is on a "watch list," and that his background, which included significant time abroad, triggered them to investigate the student further.

Attention, comrades! Subversive cesspool Amazon.com sells copies of this watchlisted terrorist manual. Here's the link where you can buy a copy before you invite the DHS over for eggnog. (Thanks, Nat, and the approximately ten gajillion other fellow travelers who suggested this item.)

Reader comment: Glenn Fleishman says,

Not that this excuses the government's action, but, in fact may chill us further: the student requested "the official Peking version." So it's not JUST he asked for Mao's book, but rather he asked for original source material (an authorized, unabridged translation into English).

Reader comment: Michael Benveniste says,

1. UMass Dartmouth does not use SSN's for student ID's. An interlibrary loan request by SSN would seem to violate the University's own privacy policies (Link).

2. The reporter has not talked to the student. He has talked to the professors, who told him what the student claimed happened. The professors have no first hand knowledge of the incident.

3. It seems a little unlikely that UMass Dartmouth wouldn't have the Little Red Book on Campus. [Ed.: see below]

4. The professors only "went public" with the story in response to a query about domestic wiretapping.

I think it's at least equally likely that the student made up an excuse for not doing some work, and that the professors bought into it enough to advance their own agenda.

UMass Darmouth does not in fact have an unabridged version of the little red book on campus as far as their library system can tell: Link

There is now another version of this story about a Dartmouth student who received a visit from Homeland Security after requesting an original version of Mao's Little Red Book. The latest version takes place at University of California/Santa Cruz and mentions History Professor Bruce Levine. I emailed Levine to see if he could verify the story, but my email was the first he'd heard about it. He was a bit amused, as his specialty is Civil War history, and curious about his name got tacked on to the story. ALA's Public Information Office is digging into the story as well. More details as they become available!

UPDATE: Standard-Times reporter Aaron Nicodemus, who wrote the news report in question, responds to allegations that the U.Mass incident is a hoax, and to "copycat" reports of DHS visits to student(s) at another college in California:

The UCSC story is a fake, someone merely replaced the names of the professors I quoted and took the story as his own.

But my story, published in The Standard-Times on Saturday, Dec. 17, is real and is factual to the extent I reported.

I am trying to convince the student to come forward, and for the university library loan system to come clean about its involvement, and of course, for the Department of Homeland Security to admit it visited the student.

I hope to have an update published soon.

UPDATE: Jessamyn West says,

I maintain the website librarian.net. I'm also an elected memeber of the Council of the American Library Association. We've been going back and forth on this issue for most of the day. Here is what we know.

1. I emailed with the reporter. He claims the story about the UCSC library is copied form his, that his is the original and cites the two professors as sources. He says that he has been trying to get the student to come forward to tell his story. Link

2. the book does not come from UMass Dartmouth, that is why it needed to be ILL'ed. The library belongs to a consortium and the copy of the book [that the agents brought to the student's house... I know, sounds fishy to me too] was from a library in nearby Providence, not part of Dartmouth's virtual catalog. Link

In any case, I think the jury is still out, Lots of parts of the newspaper story don't add up BUT the reporter is contactable and so is at least one of the two professors who has been cited in the article [my emails to the second professor have not yet been returned] which is not the case withe the bizarre reprinting of the story with a West Coast school implanted in it. Council has been sort of paying attention to this issue, so more may turn up on the listserv as the day goes on. Link

This is from the blog maintained by the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), who are the folks who know the most about anything going on with college or university libraries. UMass Dartmouth issued a statement providing reassurance that the library did not participate in violating the student's rights. The student requested the book through another library, not UMass Dartmouth's. The author of the blog entry checked UMass Dartmouth's ILL form and discovered it doesn't ask for social security number. Link.

twin peaks 12 days of christmas
letters to walken
snow globes
helicopter
santa snaps
hack santa
plush nativity
christmas cards
sugarplums
fruitcake
soda
eggnog
ny snow globe
mutant snowflakes
spiky star
mac ornaments
mistletoe and meat

and the annual...
chaoskitties in snowsuits

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

In 1989 one of the main objectives of the WWW was to be a space for sharing information. It seemed evident that it should be a space in which anyone could be creative, to which anyone could contribute. The first browser was actually a browser/editor, which allowed one to edit any page, and save it back to the web if one had access rights.

Strangely enough, the web took off very much as a publishing medium, in which people edited offline. Bizarely, they were prepared to edit the funny angle brackets of HTML source, and didn't demand a what you see is what you get editor. WWW was soon full of lots of interesting stuff, but not a space for communal design, for discource through communal authorship.

Now in 2005, we have blogs and wikis, and the fact that they are so popular makes me feel I wasn't crazy to think people needed a creative space.

Here's the changelog, with lots of nifty new features. Read warning label carefully before installing the beta: "Side-effects include awesomeness, dumbfoundedness, dry mouth and lava."Link (via /.)