The Plan59 Gallery of Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine feature scans of vintage food advertisements in which children leer at plates of foood with expressions that transcend mere eagerness and shade over to scary, demonic malice. Link (via Neatorama)

Update: See this excellent Cthulhu mashup with the demonic kids, courtesy of Dave!

John McDaid's amazing, Nebula-shortlisted science fiction story "Keyboard Practice" is now available as a free MP3.

Earlier this month, I blogged about how John had posted a free electronic edition of his groundbreaking story "Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals," which I had the good fortune to workshop with him some years ago. Keyboard Practice is a mind-bending, playful, hilarious story about artificial intelligence and the Goldberg Variations, and it has earned John a spot on the shortlist for the 2005 Nebula Awards.

I made the same list with my story Anda's Game, and I recently released an MP3 of game-blogger Alice Taylor reading it aloud in three parts (1, 2, 3). (Incidentally, Anda's Game was workshopped by John as well).

Now John has released his own reading of Keyboard Practice as a 60MB MP3. I can't wait to listen to this on the way to the office today. I wish every story on the Nebula shortlist was available this way! 60MB MP3 Link (via John McDaid)

Update: Remmelt's posted a torrent of this file. BTW, I finished listening to it today and MAN is it ever good. Better than I remembered, even.

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international organization of cops, district attorneys, judges, corrections officers and others who oppose the war on drugs.

I've lost a few friends to prohibition, people who took unknown street drugs and overdosed as a result, and I lived in a crack neighborhood for years in San Francisco. Though I don't take narcotics (I did when I was younger, but ran out of time to indulge in either liquor or drugs when my life got very busy in my mid-twenties) I believe that prohibition of drugs leads to far worse evils that even the abuse of drugs engender.

I further believe that the war on drugs criminalizes otherwise law-abiding people and forces them into criminal contexts to engage in something that is intended only to change their own mental state. Finally, I believe that the law has no business telling adults which chemicals they can take to change what and how they think.

After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over half-a-trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, our confined population has quadrupled over a 20 years period making building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.6 million for nonviolent drug offenses‹more per capita than any country in the world. The United States has 4.6 percent of the population of the world but 22.5 percent of the world's prisoners. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!

Link (Thanks, Mike!)

The January issue of Nature Genetics reports on the identification of a gene that determines whether your earwax is dry or wet; people of African and European ancestry have predominantly wet earwax. Asians, Inuit and Native North Americans have predominantly dry earwax, as they have a gene that prevents cerumen from mixing with their earwax.

Researchers identified a gene that alters the shape of a channel that controls the flow of molecules that directly affect earwax type. They found that many East Asians have a mutation in this gene that prevents cerumen, the molecule that makes earwax wet, from entering the mix.

Scientists believe that the mutation reached high frequencies in Northeast Eurasia and, following a population increase, expanded over the rest of the continent. Today distribution of the gene is highest in North China and Korea

Link (Thanks, Chris!)

A little Flash application provides a compelling example of Benford's Law, making it possible to see intuitively something that is otherwise quite abstract.

Yesterday, I blogged about Benford's Law, which predicts that in a set of numbers, numbers that begin with the numeral 1 will appear more often than other numbers. This can be used to catch cheats by checking to see if the data they give in their tax-returns, research data-sets or homework have more numbers that start with 1 than other numerals.

William Fawcett, who made the Flash app, sez, "A couple of years ago I attended an excellent lecture by Simon Singh - he writes popular science and maths books like Fermat's Last Theorem and Big Bang - and this was one of the mathematical curiosities he mentioned. I was intrigued but sceptical, so built a quick Flash app to test it." Link (Thanks, William!)

Update: Gary sez, " If you use a close approximation of PI (say 3.14159265) as a factor, you can avoid getting numbers that start with 1 at all. Using a factor of 3.14159265 and a start number of 3, you get no numbers starting with 1. Change the start number to 6, you get only numbers starting with 1, 4, or 5. I don't know how the modeler is coded, so I wonder whether this is a quirk in the modeler or an exception to the rule."

Update 2: Bob solves the mystery (also thanks to Bernardo for his explanation):

This result comes not because he used pi, but because pi is an approximation of the square root of 10. (3.16 is closer than 3.14.) If you use 3.16 as the multiplying factor (31.6 and 316 also work), the signifigant digit will always be one of two numbers (this works best if you use a single-digit number for the start number).

If you use 1 or 10 or 100 as the multiplying factor, of course all numbers will start with the same digit (the starting digit of the start number).

If you use the cube root of a power of 10 such as 2.154 (21.54, 215.4, and 2154 also work), all results will start with one of 3 digits. And so on.

The results using decimal approximations depend on the Flash app stopping when the 25th occurence is reached. Since an exact square or cube root of ten can't be expressed as a decimal, the distribution would eventually comply with Benford's Law if the 25th occurence limitation was removed.

James Gosling took a series of photos of Thailand's Longtail water-taxis, which are made by attaching a propeller-equipped diesel truck engine to the end of an oversized canoe. The photos are pretty impressive.

When you look at them when they get closer, you see a truck engine mounted on the stern with a long piece of pipe stretching out toward the bow that the boatman holds on to. There's another piece of pipe welded onto the transmission pointing out toward the stern.

When the boatman pushes on his piece of pipe, it rotates the engine left, right, up or down. When he pushes down, it rotates the tail upward and you get to see the business end of the beast: a naked propeller just hanging out there.

Link (Thanks, Simon!)

Inspired by Xeni's post about Google's active role in the supression of information in China, Han Shan sent us this graphic from The Students for a Free Tibet, showing Google's logo over a sniper-and-barbed-wire checkpoint. JPEG Link

Justin Mullins, an artist who produces framed equations with textual material explaining their meaning to everyday life, is having his first exhibition in London, Feb 1-12, at Lauderdale House. Mullins's work -- which he calls "mathematical photography" -- goes beyond gimmicky amusement. Sustained attention to the equations and diagrams he's chosen really does inspire the same kind of moving feeling that photos of the physical world can bring.

The connections between ordinary objects are fleeting and superficial. Two atoms may collide and separate, never to meet again. Others can stick together by virtue of the chemical bonds they form, until the day that bond is broken.

But there is another type of connection that is far more powerful and romantic. Certain objects can become linked by a mysterious process called entanglement. Particles that become entangled are deeply connected regardless of the distance between them. If they become separated by the width of the Universe, the bond between them remains intact. These particles are so deeply linked that it’s as if they somehow share the same existence.

Physicists do not yet fully understand the nature of entanglement but there is growing evidence that it is a fundamental property of the universe. Unfettered by the restrictions of space, entanglement may be the ghostly bedrock upon which reality is built.

Link

Update: David wrote about Justin's photos in October -- all the more reason to go to his opening!

In the LA Times, Mark Mazzetti reports that the secret military program which paid Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-US stories may have violated a Pentagon directive signed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2003. Excerpt from the text of that directive:

Psy-op is restricted by both DoD [Department of Defense] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets.

Link to LAT story (via Romenesko), and here are PDF copies of related Defense Department documents from the National Security Archive, including the Information Operations Roadmap directive (2.4MB PDF Link) to which this report refers.

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet -- including a number of Tibetan nationals -- gathered in front of Google's headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company's launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (Thanks, Telendro)

Paul Boutin has discovered that one way to thwart internet filters is too spel yur serch qweries inkorreckly. Link.

Over at News.com, Declan McCullagh reports that Google.cn not only omits politically sensitive material, but "goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes." Link

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (Thanks, Robert)

Here's another comic by Metin Seven: Link.

Reader Comment: Simon says,

Someone on the IP list spotted that the blacklist is case sensitive. Link.

Reader comment: Suomy Anona says,

I saw Googlecompare posted on a blog forum. You enter a search term and it compares the english results to the chinese results then gives you the links that are in the Google.com results but not the Google.cn results. Some of the things blocked (or put miles down in the results) are quite interesting (including BoingBoing's "Photo: lesbian kiss in Tiananmen Square under guards, Mao"). Obviously it is affected both by ordereding of results and complete censorship, but it can check the first 300 chinese results: Link

Tiara S. from Malaysia says, "Here's an update on the whole Black Metal saga in Malaysia. The government has banned 'Black Metal culture,' and whoever's suspected of practicing it could be arrested."

Snip from story in Malaysia's Star newspaper:

Black Metal culture has been declared as a deviation from Islamic teachings and those found practising it could be penalised under syariah law. The National Fatwa Council ruled that Black Metal culture was totally against the syariat (Islamic principles) and could lead its followers to being murtad (apostate). The council issued the decree after deliberating on the matter at its bi-monthly meeting yesterday.

“We discussed the issue at length to understand what Black Metal is all about and its effect on our culture,” council chairman Prof Datuk Shukor Husin told newsmen after the meeting. “It has been established that Black Metal practices are way against the syariat and every effort must be taken to stop its spread.”

Link to report. Link to blog for the Council of Independent Journalism, where you'll find a good collection of media reports on the Black Metal crackdown in Malaysia.

Image: JITU, an early 90's hair / thrash / power ballad / metal band from Malaysia. Proto-Malay-metal bands in those years also faced censorship and government bans. (Thanks, DJ Carlito!)

Previous "black metal" posts on Boing Boing: Link.

Reader comment: Syaza in Malaysia says,

I've read ur article on black metal in malaysia. It is always easy to assume thins when u r not at the place, huh? Being a malaysian, i know exacly why our gov is worried with the black metal in malaysia, as many of us did. We know that not all underground music is the same, but the effect that they have on our teenagers are just @#$%!!!! You would feel the same too if you can see it yourselves.

Their belief is that to be against the norm. A total counter-culture. So what did they do? They go against all our Malay and Islamic belief. Here's what they've done - drink goat's blood, pee and jump on our holy Al-Quran, worship satan....etcetc

And i know that you would have realised that this is not just against Islam, but to Kristians and Buddish too. I am suprise that you think this is not a big deal. Try think, why do we think so? Think.

ps. dont judge or make assumption when you dont know the truth.

Reader comment: Edwin Gore says,

"pee and jump on our holy Al-Quran." So, the real problem at Guantanamo is not a culture of torture, but rather the spread of Black Metal throughout the ranks of interrogators...

CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment tonight about the bureaucratic red tape blocking availability of Neumune, a drug developed by San Diego biotech firm Hollis Eden to treat Acute Radiation Syndrome. Snip from story intro:

We can no longer ignore the worst-case scenario of a nuclear terrorist attack on an American city. Osama bin Laden has made it clear he wants to obtain nuclear weapons and use them against us. The 9/11 Commission considers such an attack the No. 1 threat today, not because it’s the most likely disaster scenario, but because it would be the most devastating. The chairman of the 9/11 Commission even says he expects to see such an attack on an American city in his lifetime.

Hundreds of thousand of people could die in a nuclear attack, but hundreds of thousands of others could be saved. That’s because the Pentagon — after decades of searching — believes it has found a drug to treat radiation exposure. Why isn’t that drug available?

Link. Disclaimer: I worked on Hollis Eden's first-ever website years ago, when I was a grunt coder at a San Diego web development firm.

revenge unlimited
shhh
road rage cards
stopping traffic
drunk couple note
mind molester
revenge test
lousy tippers
trembicky
ivr cheat sheet
life's little annoyances
clientopia
Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Chinese-American artist Yun Bai makes "porn flower" collages from adult magazine snippets. She laquers them together to create trompe l'oeil scenes that look like traditional mother-of-pearl tableaus at a distance. Up close, however, you can see the dirty bits. Link to artist website. Use the pull-down menu to select "porn flowers," and choose the heading marked "Sold" to see more. (Thanks, Hillary)

This existentialicious video shopping website differs from all others in one respect: here, you pay for the ephemeral joy of shopping itself. Whatever product you buy will never be sent. Instead, you receive a video of the shopping experience, so you can relive your purchasegasm as many times as you like.

Link to Mofukunosusowokarage, "THATS SO CUTE NOW ON LIVE!!," and here's a sorta-English version. (Thanks, Eduardo Sciammarella!)

Adam Fields has published an extensive post on his blog about the importance of IP address logging by search engines. "Given the recent fuss about the government asking for search terms and what qualifies as personally identifiable information, I want to explain why IP address logging is a big deal," he says. Snip from post:

While an IP address may not be enough to identify you personally, there are strong correlations of various degrees, and in most cases, those correlations are only one step away. By itself, an IP address is just a number. But it’s trivial to find out who is responsible for that address, and thus who to ask if you want to know who it’s been given out to. In some cases, the logs will be kept indefinitely, or destroyed on a regular basis - it’s entirely up to each individual organization.

Up until now, I’ve only discussed the implications of having an IP address. The situation gets much much worse when you start using it. Because every bit of network traffic you use is marked with your IP address, it can be used to link all of those disparate transactions together.

Despite these possible correlations, not one of the major search engines considers your IP address to be personally identifiable information. While this may technically be true if you take an IP address by itself, it is a highly disingenuous position to take when logs exist that link IP addresses with computers, physical locations, and account information… and from there with people. Not always, but often. The inability to link your IP address with you depends always on the relative secrecy of these logs, what information is gathered before you get access to your IP address, and what other information you give out while using it.

Link

White Castle is a US burger chain known for its tiny, steamed burgers, nicknamed "sliders" and best purchased "by the sack." Commonly eaten with greasy onion chips and syrupy orange soda, White Castle is perhaps the quintessential fast food spot in the Midwestern and Eastern United States. Indeed, White Castle predated McDonald's and, some argue, helped launched the fast food hamburger industry. Now the company is offering special Valentine's Day dinners. Reservations required. (The idea was previously test-marketed at select locations.) From the New York Daily News:

"Some people come for a laugh, but most have a story to tell about their first date at a White Castle, or maybe they went there after the prom," said Kelly Collins, a marketing supervisor for the chain, who said in other cities some dates arrive blindfolded or in limos....

Canoodling couples will arrive at the franchise of their choosing - 48 in the New York area are participating in the promotion - and be greeted at the door by a hostess dressed to the nines, instead of in the usual White Castle uniform.

The lovers will then be escorted to their cloth-covered, candlelit table as romantic music is piped in.

Link (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

On MTV last week, Kevin "former Mr. Britney Spears" Federline looked pretty stupid headthwomping to his new "Brazilian ass shaker" PopoZao. Replacing that soundtrack with the internet-famous "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" makes the segment infinitely mais estúpido, and may answer the question of exactly what substances K-Fed turns to for the squelching of weed-munchies. Link to remix video. (Thanks, Nathan and Teco)

Update: G4TV host Kevin Pereira tells Boing Boing,

Check out Attack of the Show's take on the clip. We (AOTS) literally slapped this parody video together this morning after we came up with the idea in a news meeting (that ended at 10:00am), and we had it ready for air by 3:00pm. Links to both Kevin Federline's video and the parody video are here.

Update: tian says,

In Mandarin Chinese, in Mandarin Chinese, po po means “old lady” or “mother-in-law”, and zao means “in a mess”. [Also] James Lipton recited "Popozao" on Conan O'Brien's show. Link

What does popo zao really mean in Portuguese? The t-shirt knows. Link

Reader Comment: Tom B in Brazil says,

Popozao is written as one word and with a tilde over the 'a' like this: Popozão. It comes from Rio Funk slang and just means 'large, yummy ass'. A woman endowed with a Popozão is called a Popozuda. (Google image search link). Theoretically, a man would be a Popozudo but, arguably, large asses on men aren't yummy.

Boing Boing reader Joe in Shanghai, China says:

Your city may have a lion dance and some firecrackers, but check out how Shanghai celebrates. There is nothing like it in the world. Fireworks EVERYWHERE for hours and hours and hours. It is a sight to behold, and if you can't be there in person, these videos and photos are the next best thing. Wild, wild, wild.

Link. Photo: Brad Ferguson, more here.

Boing Boing reader Alex says,

Recently, I found this smoke shop on the corner of Lafayette and Spring in Manhattan which seems to have chosen Chuck Norris' mythical face for their logo. Also, here's a Goatse-esque shoe store sign. I spoke to a clerk in the store who said (in broken English) that the logo was supposed to be "Like a woman, you know...showing herself." I asked him if he knew what Goatse was and he seemed oblivious.

Boy, when Mr. Norris learns about this unlicensed use of his likeness, it's highly probable that he'll show up on the corner of Lafayette and Spring and roundhouse kick that sissy store manager's head 'til his brains turn into foie gras. Recent BB posts about the man whose tears cure cancer: Link

Reader Comment: @rt says,

I believe the image has a closer resemblence to the Paladin from the 60's TV series "Have Gun Will Travel" which starred Richard Boone (Pat Boone's cousin) in the lead role.

Snip from NYT story by Andrew Revkin:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists. Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."

Link

Gaijin Biker says,

I swung by the 2006 Tokyo Fuel Cell Expo, where I saw the ENV hydrogen-powered motorcycle from British company Intelligent Energy. Its expected price is somewhere below $10,000, and it should be available in about 18 months. Apparently, riding it feels more like skiiing or windsurfing than like riding a normal motorcycle. Also, it is completely quiet. Interestingly, the fuel cell that powers the bike is removable, and can be used to run other items in your home.

Link

Regular Boing Boing readers may recall a recent post here about Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, the self-described vampire who ran for governor in Minnesota. Sharkey's wife, Julie Carpenter, worked as a bus driver for a school district in that state for four years with a flawless record -- but was fired last week when the school district superintendent learned she was a pagan. Ms. Carpenter responded in a Metafilter thread on the matter with a scanned image of the letter (JPEG link) sent by that official to her former employer. Note to intolerant bureaucrats: it's not wise to fuck with witches. Particularly those who are consorts of sword-wieldin', blood-drinkin', batik-wearin' politicians. (Thanks, Craig and Jeremy)

Reader comment: Anonymous says,

Is The Impaler's "real" name "Rocky Adonis Flash" or "Darth Hurricane"? The images directory has a restraining order against him and several emails from the republican party to Rocky Adonis Flash. A simple google search and it seems that he ran for senator in Florida in 2002, and New Jersey in 2000.

Reader comment: Ronald L. Jones says,

What the Princeton School District did was illegal. Paganism is a religion and even the United States Armed Forces recognizes Paganism as a religion. And according to the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), jobs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Also, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. She should definitely sue and ultimately win the resulting lawsuit. When people can get away with crap like this, it makes me start to lose faith in this world.

I'll be speaking at the LIFT conference later this week in Geneva. My session is on Thursday, 2 February, at 1:30PM, on DRM and the European Broadcast Flag. Also at the event are Bruce Sterling, Robert Scoble, Euan Semple, Bruno Giussani, Xavier Comtesse, Régine Debatty, Anina, Jeffrey Huang, Matt Jones, Chris Lawer, Hugh Macleod, David Galipeau, Aymeric Sallin, Paul Oberson, Jean-Luc Raymond and a ton of other amazing people. Hope to see you there, too!

When: 2006, February 2 and 3 (that would be Thursday and Friday)
Where: The conference will be held at the International Conference Center (CICG) of Geneva, Switzerland.
The attendee list is full, but there's a waiting list if you're game.

LIFT is organized around five major topics, or tracks.

Big ideas -- From co-creation to citizen journalism via the copyright-less economy, technology and communications are changing the rules. Big ideas are those that concern us all.

Design -- Design is about making the life of people better. We've invited designers from across the spectrum of design, from strategy to pixels, from screens to devices, from business structures to experiences.

Emerging technologies -- From RFID (the identification chips embedded in all objects) to nano tech, we are going to discuss technologies that are just starting to create an impact on our world. Folks from the labs are going to take off their white coats and tell us what's coming.

Global Solidarity -- Geneva is not only the place that saw the web come to life. It is also a major humanitarian center of excellence with hundreds of organizations having their headquarters around the lake. We invited speakers representing this constantly evolving field, in which solutions to complex problems don't merely improve lives, but save them.

Internet -- Last but not the least, the spine of all of the above. It gave many of us our careers, our passions, and it sustains much of our daily life. We are inviting speakers who are pushing the evolving definition of what the Internet is and can be.

Link

Princeton DRM researchers Alex Halderman and Ed Felten have posted the latest in a continuing series of excerpts from a long technical paper analyzing the Sony DRM debacle, in which the company was found to have deliberately infected its customers with malicious software covertly included on audio CDs.

In today's installment, Ed and Alex talk about "deactivation attacks" on DRM -- that is, how do the people who supply user-hostile anti-copying software keep users from uninstalling it? Keeping users from uninstalling software is also the goal of spyware and other malicious software, and "rogue" spyware and the DRM distributed on CDs use common approaches to sinking their roots into their victims' computers.

In this piece, the researchers go into depth about the tactics used in the malware that Sony distributed -- it's fascinating reading.

Though it is not surprising that spyware tactics would have attraction for DRM designers, it was a bit surprising that mass-market DRM vendors chose to use those tactics despite the risk of harming users. If only one vendor had chosen to use such tactics, we could write it off as an aberration. But two vendors made that choice, which is probably not a coincidence.

We suspect that the explanation may lie in the DRM vendors’ platform building strategy, which relies on keeping the software installed on as many computers as possible, coupled with the risk tolerance of DRM startup companies. The vendors may not have realized the extent of damage they could be causing, but they must have known that they were doing some harm. Our hypothesis is that the vendors allowed the lure of platform building to override the risk to users.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)