Update: Kirby sez, "This is an excerpt from the same Disneyland U.S.A. film that was listed on BB last year. Although the file is gone from the original location in that post, a torrent is still available. Quality is much better. Also there was a Jim Hill article about the film. I really wish Leonard Maltin would put this film in a Disneyland pt. 2 collection."

Collect some insects and place them inside the unique sound chamber. A powerful 3X magnifier enlarges your performers so you can see every detail. Put on the headphones and listen as a microphone under the special sound stage picks up and amplifies every move and noise your bug makes!

Five 60-foot dish antennas at Stanford, known as the Bracewell Observatory, are about to be demolished by the school. Bob Lash organized the Friends of the Bracewell Observatory Association to help rescue the dishes and he's done all that he can do to persuade Stanford to stop the demolition...

The Bracewell Observatory is named for Professor Ronald Bracewell, a father of radio astronomy, who created this site and built the dishes that have been used to monitor sunspot activity and measure the speed and direction of our solar system. Since federal support for the Observatory was cut-off and redirected to other sites, the dishes have been idle. Now the brush growing up around them is considered a fire hazard and has served as an excuse to remove them. Bob Lash thinks they offer a wonderful opportunity for citizen science, a site that could be used by Stanford, high school students and the public in a variety of ways, including over the Internet.

Bob put together a team of volunteers who offer to maintain and repair the dishes. He's gotten support from NASA/JPL for use of the Observatory in its Deep Space Network with "little or no cost" to Stanford.

Saving these dishes should matter to all of us. They can be part of a new world of "open-source hardware" infrastructure that can be managed and shared, just as open-source software projects are done today.

Following up on earlier news this week of violent raids by government authorities on newspaper and television offices in Kenya, the Kenyan blogger mentalacrobatics writes:

Here are some stills taken during the raid from internal CCTV cameras. The raid were carried out by a rapid response unit code-named the Kanga Squad, detectives from Nairobi provincial CID headquarters and officers from the General Service Unit. They are wearing bright orange reflective vests with “QRU” for Quick Rescue Unit/Quick Response Unit which indicates their day job of fight hardcore criminals like carjackers, bank robbers and murder hit squads.

These pictures are very disturbing. In some of them they have an employee spread eagled on the floor with a gun pressed against his/her head and a boot in his/her face. Remember these are NOT criminals being man handled like this. These are Kenyan men and women who went to work only to be pistol whipped and roughed up by an elite police squad.

And investigative blogger Kathryn Cramer tells BoingBoing,

There's some really great stuff in Demosh's photostream (photos by Fredrick Onyango)that I think gives a good sense of why the existing kenyan government seems to want to put an end to the press. Just look at the expressions on these faces. Here are photos w/ captions & links. What it seems to come down to is that the government has been caught at really widespread corruption and they've been caught, and so they panicked.

(Thanks, Kathryn Cramer!)

Previously on BoingBoing:
Media shutdown in Kenya -- TV station, newspaper torched

no smoking in this theatre | my new movie | radio ads | trailers | feature films | the day the clown cried | shannon plumb | say nothing | kill bill mario style | kungfu | los angeles reviews movies | celebrity chemistry

Image: production still from the long-lost Jerry Lewis movie about a clown in Auschwitz, The Day the Clown Cried.

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Reverse Cowgirl says, "I'm pretty sure the secret key to answer all the questions in the universe is in this video." Link.

Pakistani bloggers are appealing for help, and ask fellow bloggers overseas to join them in condeming this act of internet censorship. Some resources:

• A support banner from Help-Pakistan.com (Link)
• Action Group Against Blogspot Ban in Pakistan (Link)
• Digg the story: Blogspot Censored in Pakistan.

Amateur science tinkering -- another casualty of the war on terror? Boing Boing reader Josh says,

Popular science and chemistry supplier United Nuclear (known by many for their amazing neodymium magnets) is faced with legal action from the United States CPSC. The CPSC proposes that all people attempting to purchase a slew of common chemicals, some of which are in children's chemistry sets, must have a current license to manufacture explosives issued by the ATF. This would extend to people who do not and will not have anything to do with explosives.

Previously on BoingBoing:
Dangerously strong magnets

Image: via theodoregray.

Tamatipico Is Your virtual flexworker: He works, he rests and he has fun when you want him to! Raise his productivity but pay attention to his energy and his happyness because he could get injured or strike.

Peter J. Biondi, NJ Assemblyman for District 16, has introduced A1327, a bill to force every ISP and website with comments/forums to demand user identification from every single poster (called an "information content provider" in the bill). While ostensibly an effort to stop defamation on the net, the identification requirements apply to all posters, not just those who defame others.

As much as girls bitch about their butts to begin with, I can't see why they would warm to the adjective "juicy." Juicy indicates soft and squishy, which anatomically seems to correlate to flabby. That's hot? Here's my proposition, and it's just so much cooler.

"Balderdash and piffle," replies Jennings. "Nothing's really changed. If users are complaining about some e-mail, service providers will block the sender, whether or not they pay some sort of a bond or fee. There's no substantive change here. If you're an existing sender with a good reputation, you should have nothing to worry about . . . well, nothing new anyway.

Update: Erik Olson sez,

My answer to AOL's two-tier email will be simple. Once they start doing this, this will be placed in my sendmail access file:

aol.com		550 AOL doesn't pay me to accept their email

I'd encourage others to do the same. Should enough do so, AOL subscribers might get annoyed that large portions of the Internet refuse to even accept their email.

For thirteen years, in the depressed inner city of south central LA, 250 families have been feeding themselves on with organic fruits and vegetables grown on a farm that was once completely paved and considered completely useless for growing anything on.

The farm has almost zero fossil fuel imput and zero transport cost. It's a model the whole world should be copying, but instead the city has decided to give them an eviction notice. The sheriff's office delivered the notice on March 1st. This farm does great things, and its in everybody's best interest that it survive.

The city wants to replace it with a Wal-Mart.

Reader comment: Glenn Fleishman says,

NPR did a balanced story about this a few weeks ago -- Link.

It's more nuanced than what's being cited here. The farm is on private property. The owner is not being compensated. If you buy into a world view that property is theft, then the victims are the farm owners. If you're interacting in our capitalist society, then both parties are victims and losers in this situation.

Reader comment: eric richardson says,

I'm glad to see boing boing giving visibility to the South Central community farm story.

It's a good bit off the truth to say that the City wants to replace the farm with a Walmart, though. The City got the site originally via eminent domain, intending to use it for a waste-to-energy plant. When that project didn't go forward they made a deal with the Food Bank to let the land be turned into farm plots.

In the process they got into a sticky situation with the original owner who still had some refusal rights on the land. Lawsuits and negotiations went on for almost ten years, and the City finally sold the land back to the original owner to clear out of a legal mess. Whether they should have done so or continued to fight is a very valid question, but clearly the City would have preferred not to give the land back.

Stewart was a follower of the Wiccan religion, which is not recognized by the Department of Veterans Affairs for use in its cemeteries.

Stewart's widow, Roberta, said she will wait until her family's religion -- and its five-pointed star enclosed in a circle, with one point facing skyward -- is recognized for use on memorials before Stewart's plaque is installed. "It's completely blank," Roberta Stewart said, pointing to her husband's place on the memorial.

She said she had no idea the pentacle could not be used on her husband's memorial plaque until she had to deal with the agency after the death of her husband. "It's discrimination," she said. "They are discriminating against our religion."

Reader comment: damion armentrout says,

Many of my dead female relatives have the Masonic symbol for the Order of the Eastern Star on their gravestones. It is a downward pointing pentagram that is sometimes colored in sections. Would the military allow this, and not the upward facing symbol of a fallen soldier's faith?

I heard the same Wiccan Tombstone article on Penn Gilette's radio show. But the following day, he announced the military had changed it's mind and was going to add the symbol. Couldn't find a website to support it, but I can't of been the only one to hear the show.

Here is the Pagan Headstone Campaign. They've been working for some time to get the pentacle (and eventually other Pagan symbols) allowed on military headstones and memorials. This has been a uphill struggle for years. Not too long ago Anissa Alford, the director of communications for the VA's National Cemetery Administration said this about the matter. "We want people to prove that there is a viable organization. ... We're not going to willy-nilly approve emblems until there is a need." (Link) So it remains to be seen how open they will be to our requests for equal treatment.

Artist Nathan Sawaya makes awesome Lego sculptures, but he also produces some super-sweet candy art. Case in point, this human heart fashioned from Necco Conversation Hearts, and "star bursts" made from Starbursts. (Thanks, Candy Addict, and more about Sawaya on his blog here)

I made a bunch of monster movies when I was a kid, and it was as fun as anything I can remember doing -- the make up, the sets, winding the camera, creating a cassette soundtrack with music and vocals. What a great way to spend summer.

Be sure to check out the trailer on the sites "Screaming Room." It's a hoot!
Link (thanks, pJ!)

The Transition runs on regular gas. But you can drive it to the airport, extend its origami-like wings, take off at double the highway speed and fly up to 500 miles away, then touch down and park it in your host's garage. With the wings folded, the Transition is about the size of an Escalade, with a little less cargo space. Of course, it's a little more difficult to maneuver—it requires a sport pilot's license—so it's not likely to replace your standard flightless car.

"It's not like every Joe Schmo and soccer mom on a cell phone is going to be driving one," says Dietrich...

Made on a Mac
Andy Cruz/Rich Roat
House Industries

House Industries: From Hot Rods to Swiss Modernism and All Graphic Design In Between

Andy Cruz and Rich Roat of House Industries will share the process by which they approach each project using a unique blend of traditional, commercial art techniques and state-of-the-art equipment to create a unique look and feel to all of their work.

Apple Store Santa Monica
Monday, March 6, 6:00 p.m.
1248 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica
http://www.apple.com/retail/thirdstreetpromenade

Apple Store The Grove
Tuesday, March 7, 7:00 p.m.
189 The Grove Drive, Los Angeles
http://www.apple.com/retail/thegrove

"I just posted a pencil test from the UPA cartoon, 'Grizzly Golfer.' It's animated by Art Babbitt, the guy who defined Goofy's character for Disney and animated the Chinese mushrooms in Fantasia.

"ASIFA-Hollywood is doing a retrospective of films by UPA at the Egyptian theater in Hollywood on March 26th. Jerry Beck has some amazing films lined up."
Link

Philip, 36, was today reported as saying: "The police have not respected my mother's wishes.

"They have been very insensitive - it's legalised body-snatching...

It was reported today that Philip and his father staged a last supper for his mother on February 15 where they placed her at a table before putting her in the freezer...

(Desmond) kept her in a chest freezer, similar to the kind used to store frozen food in a supermarket, in the family's run-down holiday home in the town and stayed there for 11 days grieving.

Philip said: "We did it because we had not said goodbye to her."

Desmond added that he did not expect to be arrested by police...

"I told the police how the chiller cabinet worked to keep my wife safe. I did not want to leave her at an undertaker's."

"I had to notify my relatives abroad - they couldn't just come at the drop of a hat."

This week, Shane posted a four-page Milt Gross cartoon from the 1930s, called "Hiawatta," and the art and words are terrifically charming. No wonder Gross is considered by many of today's best cartoonists to be the king of cartoons. Here are the first two pages of the strip.
Page 1 Page 2

But Andy isn't backing down -- instead, he's vowing to defend this in court. He's also collecting videos of well-funded TV shows parodying Cosby, and has already compiled a list that includes Family Guy, the Simpsons, South Park, Saturday Night Live and MAD Magazine -- none of which have received the legal threats that Cosby's lawyer seems to reserve for independent creators.

More than anything, this strikes me as a special kind of discrimination against amateur creators on the Internet. Mad Magazine, Saturday Night Live, South Park, The Simpsons, Family Guy, and countless other mainstream media sources have parodied Bill Cosby over the years (see growing list below).

But because it takes so little effort to threaten a small web-based artist (or the blogger who hosts their work), the Net is constantly targeted regardless of just cause. Justin Roiland, creator of House of Cosbys, and Channel 101 were forced to remove House of Cosbys because they couldn't risk the possibility of an actual lawsuit.

But I know my legal standing, and I'm not backing down unless ordered by the court. This is free speech and creative freedom, and even though it's just one guy's goofy labor of love, that's worth fighting for, dammit.

Update: Ed sez, "For clarification, channel101.com stood its ground for several months after receiving the ceast&desist. When Cosby's lawyers realized that channel101 was not going to fold to their bullying, they sent a legal threat to channel101's ISP who told channel101 to remove the videos or find a new ISP. Their strategy seems to be to keep sending legally baseless threats until someone finally folds. You can read the details here."

President Bush's family and members of the Bush administration have long-standing business connections with the UAE... Bush defying his very own party leadership and his party in defending the Dubai port deal... The oil-rich United Arab Emirates is a major investor in The Carlyle Group, the private equity investment group where the President's father once served as senior advisor, and is a who's who of former high level government officials... Just last year, Dubai International Capital, a government buyout firm, invested in an 8 billion dollar Carlyle fund. Another family connection, the president's brother, Neil Bush, has reportedly received funding for his education software company from UAE investors. Then there is the cabinet connection: Treasury Secretary John Snow was chairman of railroad company CSX. After he left the company for the White House, CSX sold its international operations to Dubai Ports World for more than a billion dollars.

Final costs:

* About 14,000 pounds of cement
* About $404 CND (including ISP installation) * Days and days of work

Getting high speed internet was the most challenging experience in my life. Now that I have it you can't even imagine how much I appreciate it! I’m pretty proud of this achievement. Some may think I'm crazy, and maybe I am... but when I want something THAT much, if there's a way to got it, I just can't turn back. I gave all I’ve got to this project, using every connection and workaround I could to achieve a complete success.

In other words, embarrass and shackle the progress of improvements of tomorrow by recording and registering as law the prejudices and errors of today.

Fergusun is committing political suicide. No constituent of Fergusun's woke up this morning wishing for a way to do less with her radio. There's no manufacturer who can sell more radios by advertising "Now! With fewer features!" This is a bill to steal from tomorrow's entrepreneurs, who'll never get to invent the next generation of awesome music tech, in order to line the pockets of yesterday's recording industry fatcats.

For a picture of what the RIAA considers permissible, take a look at the comments they filed with the FCC on this topic back in 2004. Here's the list of restrictions they asked for then:

* Receivers may only record or permit recording of covered content: (a) in direct and immediate response to a consumer pressing a record button; (b) based on a date and time preprogrammed by the consumer.

* Preprogrammed recordings shall be for a minimum period of 30 minutes in duration.

* A replay buffer may be used to initiate a recording of a previously broadcast transmission provided that the buffer does not exceed 30 minutes in duration.

* Each recording of covered content shall be stored and retrieved as a singe continuous session and may not be divided into recordings of individual songs on an automated or non-automated basis using ID information or audio characteristics...

(Image courtesty of Dan Lockton)

Update: Nathan sez, "A grassroots group here in NJ started a federal PAC called Blue 7th PAC that is geared towards defeating Mike Ferguson in the 2006 election, and this is just another reason to go after him. We created the blog, target letters to the editor, raise money for area candidates, hold candidates nights, publish fact sheets, and have an e-mail list of about 1200 people. We think that a small, targeted PAC of local folks can do a lot to change the results of an election."

Some trademark holders are confused to the point of ridiculousness on what TM does and doesn't protect. Trademark lets you sue people who use your mark in commerce in a way that's likely to confuse the public about the origin of goods and services. It isn't enough that Pepsi calls itself a "cola" when Coke invented and trademarked the word -- Coke has to prove that people who buy Pepsi Cola sometimes think they're buying Coca-Cola.

Elliott's site won't confuse anyone. It is, instead, a fan site about Cornell University, spreading goodwill about the institution. Priceless, genuine goodwill. They've squandered this goodwill and wasted the time of their expensive lawyers who have better things to do (or, if they don't, are a waste of money and should be laid off and their budget reallocated to teaching and research) because of the remote, infinitesimal chance that somehow, cornell.elliottback.com will be mistaken for Cornell University.

Chilling Effects gathers, publishes and analyzes letters that threaten web-writers with legal action in retaliation for free expression. I hope Elliott stands his ground and sends a copy of this notice to them.

I am writing to request that you remove the name Cornell University from the name of your blog and website at cornell.elliottback.com. While we appreciate your hosting a forum in which Cornell news and events can be discussed, your use of the words Cornell University on the blog is confusing and can easily be misinterpreted to mean that the blog is maintained and/or sanctioned by the university. In fact, neither is the case.

Cornell University is a trademarked name and can only be used with the permission of the university. More specifically your use of the Cornell University name in this manner is unauthorized, misleading, and in violation of Section 397 of the General Business Law of the State of New York.

"What I first noticed was their color. They are dark in color, like dark coffee, and have white markings on the tips and edges of their fins and tails which jump out at you because they are so dark," Perez told Reuters on Thursday...

"There must be more undiscovered species there but access is difficult. If we hadn't been on those boats I'd never have seen them because that's the only place they are caught. And it's not a region that attracts scuba diving..."

The Mustelus hacat lives in the ocean's depths feeding on shellfish and shrimp," Perez said, adding: "They have very, very small teeth. They are really not aggressive or dangerous."

Blogjects don’t just publish, they circulate conversations. Not with some sort of artificial intelligence engine or other speculative high-tech wizardry. Blogjects become first-class a-list producers of conversations in the same way that human bloggers do — by starting, maintaining and being critical attractors in conversations around topics that have relevance and meaning to others who have a stake in that discussion. If the contribution to that discussion happens through some seemingly mundane bit of networked dissemi- nated insight matters little in terms of their consequence. A Blogject can start a conversation with something as simple as an aggregation of levels of pollutants in groundwater. If this conversation is maintained and made consequential through hourly RSS feeds and visualizations of that same routine data, this Blogject is go- ing to get some trackback.

Animatronic (Head Nod/Head Tilt Animation)
These creepy little crawlers was scaring audiences on Halloween (2005) in the CBS movie "Vampire Bats". There were 32 pieces, made up of animatronic heroes, Crawlers, Flappers and static props that were used in the production.

This is a radio radio controlled rod puppet. Animations include a head nod and a head tilt.

Picture an MMORPG just like the ones today, but everywhere you see combat, replace it with healing. A six-man encounter would be a surgical operation that required teamwork. Soloing would be a brilliant doctor doing drive-by diagnostics. Raids would be massive experimental treatments.

Rather than spawning mobs, spawn ill people. Instead of weapons, have medicines. Instead of managing aggro, manage fever. Instead of armors, we have disinfectants.

Quests would include tasks to find and gather new plants for pharmaceuticals, and bespoke missions to fix the sanitation in a remote village. Puzzles might involve finding the standing water where the mosquitoes are breeding.

Collaborating with the Devilrobots design studio in Tokyo, Meltdown turned to Japanese sculptor Monster 5 to bring Mel to life. The resulting "Melto-Fu" figure is seen above on his return home to Sunset.

Plato and Aristotle taught that the body dies, but a conscious soul lives forever. There would be no sex for the Greek philosophers, but they could continue to do what they really loved — to learn, to teach and to think.

Segal said while modern Judaism focuses more on this life than the next, early Jews introduced the notion that martyrs would be bodily resurrected in the hereafter.

Early Christians believed that after the end of the world they'd all get their bodies back in heaven, and this led inevitably to questions about sex and marriage. On pondering resurrection of the flesh, St. Augustine decided we'd keep our sex organs for aesthetic reasons, but we wouldn't use them...

...Heavenly sex is problematic in Christianity, he said, since intercourse for pleasure was considered "depravity." That changed somewhat for Protestants after the Renaissance. They loosened some of the sexual prohibitions, and some started to lobby for it in the afterlife, said Segal.

In Islam and Judaism, sexual pleasure is not considered filthy, he said, making its possible appearance in heaven less shocking.

Zoroastrians, he said, believed there was sex in heaven, but people would wean themselves away from both food and sex as they got used to being dead.

Roy: Yeah, you do know how a button works, don't you? No, not on clothes. No, there you go, I just heard it come on. No, that's the music you hear when it comes on. No, that's the music you hear when... I'm sorry, are you from the past?

At home, Little Worker could do pretty much as she pleased, as long as she was there should Mister Michael need her. At the office-and in other public places-she had to be more circumspect and diligent. Little Worker was on duty her, in a way that was more intense than behind the electrified fence and active sensors of the estate. (Once, one of the men at the Training School had said: "Little Worker, you are the most diligent companion I've ever trained." The men of the school had been nice, in their stern way. But no one was like Mister Michael.)

Today, however, Little Worker's mind was not on her work.

Update: Here's an interview with Di Filippo from the Small World podcast -- thanks, Bazooka Joe!

Busby Berkeley choreographed dancers to mimic the motions of machines and modern inventions. “AutoGene” is the flipside of this. It’s a simple aesthetic looking robot composed of eight modified umbrellas mounted in a circular pattern. A cocktail of air hoses and electrical cables join these umbrellas to a central computer which enables “AutoGene” to produce a choreographed dance to music which erodes the machine's mechanical qualities and transforms the mundane umbrellas into magical animated objects.

Though scholars have never seen most of the material, they were made tantalizingly aware of its existence by Burroughs himself, who published a descriptive catalog of the archive in 1973. Oliver C. G. Harris, a professor of American literature at Keele University in Staffordshire, England, who edited a collection of Burroughs's letters published by Viking in 1993, said the material was the Holy Grail of scholars of the Beat generation.

"My sense is that it will really change the picture of Burroughs that scholars have known," Mr. Harris said, because that picture has been based almost exclusively on Burroughs's work in the 1950's. Much of his more avant-garde experiments, including most of his cut-ups — works created by slicing typewritten text into fragments and rearranging it to create a new narrative — came later, in the 1960's and 1970's...

Much of the archive sheds light on the relationship between Burroughs and the others of the Beat generation, including Timothy Leary, Paul Bowles, Gregory Corso, Terry Southern, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and, of course, Kerouac and Ginsberg.

"The archive is particularly interesting because Burroughs clearly intended it to be read and absorbed as a work of art," Mr. Gewirtz said. Handwritten notes by Burroughs adorn many of the folios of written material, explaining the contents, and the author often added collages of photographs, newspaper clippings or other media to the folders.

Get a Massive Box of Books: The Mount, Carmen Dog, Report to the Men's Club, Travel Light, Mockingbird, Perfect Circle, Trampoline: an anthology, Kalpa Imperial, Meet Me in the Moon Room · 9 good books: Only $59

Carol Emshwiller 3-for-1 Super Special: The Mount, Carmen Dog, Report to the Men's Club
Don't forget to tell us which titles you'd like! 1 book: $7 2 books: $12 3 books: $15

Waldrop Package Deal: Howard Who? and Howard Waldrop Interview
Readercon 7/03: Howard Waldrop interviewed by Ellen Datlow.
July 2006 Howard Waldrop, Howard Who? trade paperback $19

The final indignity is that, although other DjVu readers provide for text selection, The New Yorker has removed that feature from its DjVu reader. You can print, but you can't select or copy. As a teacher of several technology courses at Washington University in St. Louis, this limitation, frankly, completely sucks. Suppose I want my students to read ten paragraphs from a New Yorker story that I provide on a password-protected web page. Too bad! I want to copy and paste some sentences into a presentation? Nope! A student expresses an interest in a topic, and I want to send her a New Yorker article via email that would help further her education? No can do.

Investigative blogger Kathryn Cramer says,

I just went to the site of the Kenya Broadcasting corporation to look at something on Google News and it looks like they're in the middle of a fullscale media shutdown. Some subversive soul has found a way into the corporate site and has added the shot of the burning newspapers at the printing press while I've been looking at it.

Update, 715am PT: Lede from AP item -- "Masked, plainclothes police carrying assault rifles staged a midnight raid on the country's oldest newspaper and its sister television station early Thursday, burning tens of thousands of newspapers in the most dramatic attack on the press in Kenya's history." Link.

Kathryn adds,

A couple of days ago I spotted this hard-hitting set of photos from Flickr user mwasb having to do with the corruption scandal in Kenya -- here they are.

Charity Ngilu, shown in this photo, is the minister of Health in Kenya.

Further along in that stream is a photo of a freshly killed man taken a while back with the explanation that "A suspected robber who was shot by police in the streets of Nairobi, Kenya. Cold blood execution of suspects by police officers is a common occurence in Kenya due to high level of violent crime."

Some of those photos are from October, 2005 -- from a different or earlier scandal. However, the scenes do demonstrate the Kenyan government's relationship to the press.

I filed an item for Wired News about the new IMAX movie Deep Sea 3D (trailer). Yeah, you have to wear goofy glasses to watch it, but the results are pretty awesome. I attended the film's premiere with my nrrdpals Sean and Michael, and we were "dude!"-ing and "OMG!"-ing like 6-year-olds for hours after we left the theater. "Awwwthat mantis shrimp was kigASS, man, 20 feet high on that screen with ninja moves like Chuck Norris!1!11" Snip from report:

Narrated by Johnny Depp and Kate Winslet, Deep Sea 3D chronicles the interconnected lives of underwater critters -- and the destructive impact of human pursuits back on the planet's surface.

The film's cast of characters includes a feathery Rainbow Nudibranch, a giant Pacific octopus that shifts colors as fast as a strobe light and many other beings of diverse size and form. With claws as powerful as a 22-caliber bullet, a 10-inch shrimp squashes a mussel for lunch.

Huge sea turtles and supersized fish hang out in ocean floor "day spa" spots, where schools of tiny fish who would otherwise be prey whisk algae off their backs.

We witness what might be described as an undersea smartmob: off the coast of Mexico, eight nights after the August full moon, every coral organism on an entire reef spawns, at precisely the same time -- exactly one hour after sunset. How do such simple life forms coordinate such a complex act? Nobody knows, but text-messaging has nothing to do with it.

Image: click for large size. Reef fish nibble algae from a green sea turtle's shell off Hawaiian shores for the filming of Deep Sea 3D. Courtesy Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. / Peter Kragh.

See also this related Wired Magazine story:
Stereo-Vision Camera Dives Deep, by Sonia Zjawinski.

Update: Here's a phonecam snap of Sean "metblogs.com" Bonner and I inside the premiere, wearing stupid-looking goggles that made the movie (not us) look great: Link.

The most infamous part was "Desert Bus," a "VeriSimulator" in which you drive a bus across the straight Nevada desert for eight hours in real-time. Then you drive it home. Also, I'd read the bus veers to the right, so you can't just leave the joypad propped up. The rumor was that if you won the game, you got one point.

Australia was arm-twisted into accepting legal protection for DRM in its free trade agreement with the USA. The US version of this legal protection has been abused to stop people from making compatible software, backups, from time- and format-shifting, and allowing the enforcement of terms that are based on the idea of screwing you, not protecting copyright law as written.

The Aussies had a special, distinguished panel review the way that Australia should meet its obligations, and they've come back with a 186-page report full of recommendations for exceptions to the protections DRMs get. This is tantamount to a denunciation of the status quo in Europe, the USA and other places with DRM protection in place, a brave and thoroughgoing statement of the risks to the public interest that arise when you say to someone that it's illegal to break a lock, even if you've got a right to whatever it's protecting.

Among the recommendations are the right for Parliament to break DRM to get access to work, the right to break DRM for tinkerers, reverse engineers, backers-up, and getting rid of rootkits and other DRMs that are installed without your knowledge and permission.

It's a long doc, and I haven't time to get through it all, but I like what I see. Here's some analysis from Michael Geist:

There is lots more including exceptions for fair dealing, education, and libraries. Moreover, the committee made it clear that changes in the law that facilitate greater access (such as format shifting or backup rights) should be matched by a TPM exception. As Kim concludes:

"Two arms of government have now spoken: the High Court of Australia, and a committee of the Parliament. Both have affirmed that copyright law must be balanced; that anti-circumvention laws should be matched to copyright rights, rather than overly extending them . How will the executive react?"

Update: James sez, "The Disney mainstreet was part of an exhibit at the Supertrain 2006 show a couple of weekends ago in Calgary; you can see a LEGO version of the Calgary tower in the background of some shots. The display was put together by the Southern Alberta Lego Users Group, it was an amazing hit with kids and adults alike -- my 3 1/2 year-old was mesmerized."

Saturday's protest focused on educating consumers about digital rights management (DRM), which is one way companies protect digital media. It's come into widespread use only in the past few years.

With DRM-which is included on some new CDs and on mp3s purchased from online music stores-a consumer might not be able to play a CD on a computer, copy a CD, rip tracks to mp3 or play an mp3 on a computer not authorized by the company that originally sold the song, for example. (The most popular online music store, Apple's iTunes, allows a user to authorize up to five computers to play music purchased online.)

In case you were wondering -- here's a list of my eligible 2005 publications:

Best Novel: Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Tor, July 2005 Best Novelette: I, Robot, The Infinite Matrix, February 2005

Best Novella: Human Readable, Future Washington, October 2005, WSFA Press

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): After the Siege (podcast), Craphound.com, September 2005

Best Dramatic Presentation (Long Form): When Sysadmins Ruled the Earth (podcast), Craphound.com, October 2005

Brisbane:

Syracuse:

Chicago El:

(Note: some maps not included due to non-working links or illegibility)

(Thanks, Nicole, Jon, Jesse and Jon and Mike!)

See also: London Anagram Tube Map, Toronto Anagram Subway Map, Amsterdam Anagram Metro Map, Chicago Regional Transit Authority Anagram Map, Maps for Manhattan, Oslo, Boston and Atlanta, Vienna U-Bahn Anagram Map, DC Metro Anagram Map, Stockholm Transit Anagram Map, LA Red Line Anagram Map, Maps for Cleveland, St Louis (x2), BART, and Singapore, Maps for Berlin, Copenhagen, Baltimore (x2), Maps for Calgary, Vancouver (x2), Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, Hong Kong (x2), Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, Maps for Miami (x2), Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Glasgow, Portland, Ottawa, Houston, Maps for Montreal (x2), Helsinki, Monterrey, San Diego, Mexico City, Maps for NY/NJ PATH, Sydney

BoingBoing is blocked in the UAE, Qatar, and elsewhere. The presumed cause: in an update to its SmartFilter and Bess censorware products last week, Secure Computing blacklisted BoingBoing.net in a category populated by porn sites.

But today, we learn that another happy-fun-democracy joined the league of BoingBoing-deprived nations: so long, Saudi Arabia! We're blocked in your fair land, too. Above, a screenshot of what you'd see if you try to access our url by way of a Saudi ISP. Link to more info (Thanks FL).

- Internet filtering isn't just for mideast regimes. Since February 28, we've received many emails from readers in the United States who work at companies including Dell, Prudential, American Express, Fidelity Investments, and Halliburton, as well as libraries, academic institutions, and US government sites -- each reporting that Secure Computing's new "nudity" categorization has rendered this blog inaccessible.

- Stuck behind an internet filter? We've been updating our "HOWTO defeat censorware" resource page daily with tips. We welcome help with mirroring the information so folks who can't access the page because of 'net filters can still get to the info. It's not a wiki (yet), but "defeat censorware" is a living document, so expect many updates over time.

- While we don't know which internet filtering product/s is/are to blame in other cases, we're hearing that several other blogs with large audiences, including Wonkette, have just become inaccessible for many fans (including active duty US Marines overseas, hooray freedom!). Censorware is a blunt tool that renders harmless information inaccessible, and fails to prevent "bad stuff" from leaking in. The economic and social impact of internet filtering is a much bigger story than the fact that BoingBoing or Wonkette are blocked -- but if products like SmartFilter dump blogs that post Michelangelo's "David" in the same sandbox as porn sites, just how smart can these products really be? (Thanks, Dan Dadmun)

- Filter this! Censorware scofflaws who've posted an image of David on their blogs -- an offense Secure Computing tells us merits blacklisting as a "nudity" site -- include Wil Wheaton, Mark Pesce, Emmanuelle Richard, AtomicElroy, and Jason Turgeon. If you join that reader-suggested campaign, do tell us. We'll update this post with a list.

Previously:

- BoingBoing banned in UAE, Qatar, elsewhere. Our response to net-censors: Get bent!
- ISPs in Iran, Tunisia also use SmartFilter (which blocks BoingBoing as "nudity"
- Stick Michelangelo's "David" on your blog to protest censorware
- BoingBoing now censored in the UAE (and elsewhere)
- Argonne National Laboratory is blocking Boing Boing

We are deeply saddened to announce that science fiction writer Octavia Estelle Butler passed away in Seattle, Washington on Friday, February 24, 2006. Octavia served as an Advisory Board member of The Science Fiction Museum & Hall of Fame and was a treasured advisor and supporter of our mission. Her advice, knowledge, and candid humor will be greatly missed.

The museum will host a memorial gathering to honor and celebrate her life and work on Thursday, March 2nd at 7:30 p.m. on Level 3 of SFM. Local science fiction authors will read favorite passages from her work and speak about her life and influence. Speakers include Greg Bear, Joel Davis, L. Timmel DuChamp, Eileen Gunn, Rahwa Habte, Brian Herbert, Leslie Howle,Vonda N. McIntyre, Nisi Shawl, and others. All are invited to attend.

Amanda Palmer hardly fits the profile of an Internet outlaw, but her obsession with the ABC show "Lost" makes this self-described "bubbly, nutty mum" the television industry's worst nightmare.

Like thousands of other British fans, the 30-year-old personal assistant can't bear to wait the nine months it can take for new "Lost" shows to air in England. So, soon after the closing credits roll in America, she downloads each episode off file-sharing networks.

And most alarming to TV industry executives, Palmer admits not a twinge of guilt. "It's TV, isn't it?" she said. "It would probably be different if it was a movie. If it is free on everybody's TV, why worry about it?"

Reader comment: James Roe of videosift.com says,

In that piece you linked from the LATimes about TV piracy there was a brief blurb about the autistic basket ball player. That has been one of our most popular clips over at videosift.com (social video site.) Prior to that article I had not realized that YouTube had been issued a take down notice.

On realizing that I checked, and sure enough the video was defunct. So a quick search later and I found an almost identical clip from CNN using what must have been home footage that was also included in the CBS clip. This brings three questions to mind.

1. Why would CBS choose to give up free advertising and instead pass the buck to CNN?

2. If they filed a take down notice for a clip that includes home video do they actually own the rights to the home video now? If CNN is using the clip then my guess would be no, which makes their whole request for a take down more suspicious. I suppose they were just issuing a take down for their announcer's speech, which as a whole was much less interesting than the students phenomenal 6 3 pointers in the last 4 minutes of the game.

3. The CBS clip is still available over at Google video, Link , however they have disabled the ability to post it to another site. This locks end users into the crufty Google video interface.

I guess this is not so much of a question as it is pointing out that this seems more like a shameless attack on YouTube than an actual concern from CBS. CBS does sell video clips through Google, although i doubt the market for a 2 minute news blurb is high anywhere other than sports conventions, but this one is available gratis.

At left and center, in Paris, models sport designs from John Paul Gaultier's Fall 2006 prêt-à-porter line (Link to slideshow at Style.com).

At right, in Porn Valley, adult film performer Sabrina Jayde prepares for a bukkake shoot (Link to "Anatomy of a Bukkake," explanatory text with thumbnails at spectator.net)

Oh, and dogs wear 'em too. Link to related NYT story. (Thanks, Reverse Cowgirl)

Previously:
Classic landscapes on female gluteus maximi

At NPR's News and Notes with Ed Gordon , we're airing stories we taped last week in New Orleans. The ones which ran today are evocative of both the challenges facing surviors, and the solutions possible in the region. Both are updates on stories we did when Katrina first hit. Here's a link to a story about my recent visit with a survivor who, when we spoke to her during Katrina, was trapped with two seriously ill relatives. And this link will take you to a story by producer Christopher Johnson with a pioneering doctor running a free clinic for survivors near Baton Rouge (image above). Next Tuesday we'll take a broad look at the future of rebuilding New Orleans. And next Wednesday we'll catch up with "neo-griot" Kalamu Ya Salaam, who is recording oral histories of both displaced and current New Orleans residents.

He's preserving the neighborhood culture of New Orleans--one which may never exist again--in an ongoing video oral history project. His touring around the country funds the project. Next stops: New York and Dallas. His website, kalamu.com, links to his various projects, including "Listen to the People" (the video-histories) and the wonderful music site Breath of Life.

One problem with (neuropharmaceuticals) is that drugs work everywhere in the brain that their chemical target exists, regardless of whether those parts have anything to do with depression or any other disease, and that leads to side effects. Prozac, for example, has been known to reduce sex drive and can cause insomnia. Another problem is that brain chemistry varies from person to person, so no single drug will work in everyone.

The shared goal behind the new electromagnetic therapies, on the other hand, is to use electricity itself to restore the signaling, ideally, only in those parts of the brain affected by disease. Decades ago, neuroscientists demonstrated that electrically stimulating a neuron alters, in the long term, the strength of its connections to other neurons—making an electrical signal from one neuron more likely or less likely to jump to the next neuron. Though little is known in detail about how the new therapies work, it's likely that, to varying degrees, they depend on that phenomenon.

This backward instant replay may play a significant role in reinforcing learning, Wilson said. "Understanding this replay is likely to be critical in understanding how animals -- and humans -- learn from experience. This phenomenon may constitute a general mechanism of learning and memory..."

Wilson and MIT postdoctoral fellow David J. Foster measured the activity of cells in the rat hippocampus during periods of running and stopping. During each session, each animal ran several laps on familiar and unfamiliar tracks, occasionally stopping for a food reward. After eating, the animal paused to groom its fur, move its whiskers or just stand still before running again. It was during this pause that the reverse replay occurred, and it was most likely to occur when an animal ran an unfamiliar track, supporting the idea that this phenomenon helps the hippocampus reinforce a newly learned task.

Link to post on coolhunting blog. The blueprint for blendie, cropped below, is almost as funny as the video: Link. And my BB colleague David Pescovitz points out that Dobson and her project are profiled in MAKE's "Makers" book: Link.

(Thanks to, and all hail the glorious return of... the Reverse Cowgirl!)

Snip from description of a show opening this Saturday at the sixspace gallery in Los Angeles:

In Wrathmaster 3000©, Michael French creates an original video game (as opposed to the many hacked or modified games commonly seen in gaming art), that is surprisingly simple yet reflects today's complicated cultural climate.

Viewed as a projection, the video game really has no beginning or end but feeds us an infinite amount of parading soldiers marching down the screen. Rather than using a traditional controller to play, French has fashioned an absurd, yellow cartoon-like hand with built in sensors that responds to the participant's gesture of hitting or smashing it.

What appears on the screen is a giant god-like hand (with the audio to match) obliterating the soldiers in mass only to be replaced by countless more men.

The museum's conservation department is researching the chemicals in the gum to decide which solvent to use to clean it. The museum hopes to make the repair in two weeks and will keep "The Bay" on display in the meantime, (curator Becky Hart) said.

"Our expectation is that the painting is going to be fine," Hart said.

First though, an apology. File sharing is not theft. It has never been theft. Anyone who says it is theft is wrong and has unthinkingly absorbed too many Recording Industry Association of America press releases. We know that script line was wrong. It was a mistake. We're very, very sorry.

If copyright infringement was theft then I'd be in jail every time I accidentally used football pix on Newsnight without putting "Pictures from Sky Sport" in the top left corner of the screen. And I'm not. So it isn't. So you can stop telling us if you like. We hear you.

I wish, though, that he'd been a little more skeptical of the claims by cops that they need to be able to wiretap anyone and technologies that keep our conversations secret are bad for society. I'm pretty sure that no one's made a spook-friendly crypto that can keep the mafia out, for starters: if we can't keep secrets from cops, we can't keep them secret from crooks anyway. And crooks, being crooks, will go on using unbreakable crypto to hide their conversations even if it's illegal, so restrictions on privacy technologies only hurt non-crooks. Link (via Digg)

The biggest changes will be coming to the attic scene, as that's where the new plotline will be most evident. As it is now, the attic scene is simply a cluttered and dusty place with a ghost inexplicably dressed like a bride with that spooky beating heart. But when the additions are all installed, the bride will become a much more sinister character who has apparently been killing off all of her previous husbands. As the doombuggies pass through the attic, riders will see portraits of several dashing young gentlemen, with each portrait piled next to "the loot" that the man brought in to the marriage. Those portraits will look familiar as they'll be the same faces that were just beginning to appear in ghost form back in the seance circle. But a new special effect will allow the heads of these gentleman to suddenly disappear from the portrait, as if they had been decapitated in a grisly murder. And when riders arrive at the exit of the attic scene, the bride will still be there, this time in a new location and clutching a bouquet of wedding flowers that magically turns into a blood stained axe as each vehicle passes by.

Update: Todd sez, "This is actually an unattributed copy of news that Al Lutz reported yesterday on MiceAge."

Five stories went live today, including my story Anda's Game, as read by Alice Taylor of Wonderland. Lots more to come!

• Wolf in the Park, by Patrick McLean

• Barry Koleman, Hero, by Mur Lafferty

• The Journey of Jonathan Cave, by Paul S. Jenkins

• Pandas Just Want to be Dogs, by Jared Axlerod

• Anda's Game, by Cory Doctorow
  

Jenkins has posted the transcript of two of Butler's appearances at MIT, one a solo act, the other a conversation with novelist Samuel Delany, as well as a sharp essay Jenkins wrote following her visit.

Butler: I don't have access to this kind of thing on computer but, oddly enough, what you're talking about sounds very much like the way I start looking for ideas when I'm not working on anything. Or when I'm just letting myself drift, relax.

I generally have four or five books open around the house--I live alone; I can do this--and they are not books on the same subject. They don't relate to each other in any particular way, and the ideas they present bounce off one another. And I like this effect. I also listen to audio-books, and I'll go out for my morning walk with tapes from two very different audio-books, and let those ideas bounce off each other, simmer, reproduce in some odd way, so that I come up with ideas that I might not have come up with if I had simply stuck to one book until I was done with it and then gone and picked up another.

So, I guess, in that way, I'm using a kind of primitive hypertext.

Link to humorous MPEG clip. No idea what the backstory is here, or why the filename is my last name. Don't wanna know. Link (worksafe, but contains simulated baby-kicking) (Thanks, Siege)
Update: Thanks to the many readers who wrote in about this video. Yesyesyes, I knew that "jardin" means garden/yard in French and Spanish, but I did not know that jardin.mpeg is in fact a shortshort produced in 2000 by Spanish film director Javier Fesser, of the notodofilmfest.com.

The child is the son of the director, and the old woman is the lady who works at his home.

In each episode Lucy kicked Javi, and that was all, 30 seconds where the grandma kicked the boy. Here is a link with more videos.

Here you can find I think the full collection: Link

John Rynne explains,

Fesser's movies include "El Milagro de P. Tinto" and "Mortadelo y Filemón". (P.Tinto is amazing). AFAIK, the Javi & Lucy shorts (this is one of them, and there are at least 15) were produced for www.Notodfilmfest.com, a festival of Quicktime movies originally sponsored by Spain's Canal+ TV channel. They are no longer available on that site, but you can get "Hitler todavía está vivo" by Alex de la Iglesia.

You can see more of his videos here, and here, and here. If you like his slapstick kind of humour you have to see his short movies " El secledto de la tlompleta" and "Aquel Ritmillo."

"Yahoo! should urgently withdraw its content and email servers from this country before further requests of this kind are made of it. The fact that it operates in China through a local partner, Alibaba, does not in any way absolve it of its ethical responsibilities," said the organisation.

The verdict showed that Yahoo! Hong Kong Ltd and Sina Beijing had supplied information confirming that Li Zhi had set up an email account using their services. It did not however say if the content of messages he sent or received had been handed over to the courts.

It also showed that a local telecommunications agency had helped the authorities find Li Zhi's address and telephone number, based on the IP address used to access Yahoo! and Sina email boxes.

Some of Li's emails and transcripts of his discussions on forums on Sina.com formed part of the charges drawn up by the National Security Bureau. The verdict also quoted an article that was posted on his personal website, hosted by Muzi.com, headlined "Why is China lagging behind?"

Chinese police made use of "witnesses" to confirm that Li was putting the Internet to subversive use. One of them revealed that the official had asked his advice on how to get round online censorship.

Li was accused of getting in touch via the Internet with Xie Wanjun, head of the banned China Democracy Party. A membership form was apparently also found on his computer.

Previously on Boing Boing:
- NPR: Yahoo may have aided in jailing of second China writer
- Report: Yahoo helped jail another Chinese 'net dissident, Li Zhi
- Xeni's LAT op-ed: war, blogs, news, and profit.

In the 1960s and early 1970s, when abortions were illegal in many places and expensive to get, an organization called Jane stepped up to the plate in the Chicago area. Jane initially hired an abortion doctor, but later they did the abortions themselves. They lost only one patient in 13,000 -- a lower death rate than that of giving live birth. The biggest obstacle they had, though, was the fact that until years into the operation, they thought of abortion as something only a doctor could do, something only the most trained specialist could perform without endangering the life of the woman.

They were deceived -- much like you have probably been deceived. An abortion, especially for an early pregnancy, is a relatively easy procedure to perform. And while I know, women of South Dakota, that you never asked for this, now is the time to learn how it is done. There is no reason you should be beholden to doctors -- especially in a state where doctors have been refusing to perform them, forcing the state's only abortion clinic to fly doctors in from elsewhere.

No textbooks or guides existed at that time to help them, and the equipment was hard to find. This is no longer true. For under $2000, any person with the inclination to learn could create a fully functioning abortion setup allowing for both vacuum aspiration and dilation/curettage abortions.

Reader comment: Neurofuture says,

Here's a post that's compiled other approaches, costing less than $2K. Some nearly free. Bitch PhD features a DIY herbal abortion/miscarriage inducer requiring only parsley and vitamin C. It's generated quite a bit of attention from the academic and science community so she's updating her post to reflect some of the safety concerns around DIY abortion as well as more techniques.

It also includes a link to DIY emergency contraception, or the "morning after pill," using your regular birth control pills. Planned Parenthood provides this easy, medically safe info: Link. Information wants to be free. :)

Bitch PhD also links to feminists now organizing around this issue; personally I'd love to see an onslaught of women bloggers worldwide posting this kind of free, democratic and empowering info.

Less than Human (The Cunt, The Gun, The State)

Jasmina Tesanovic

BELGRADE, 22 February 2006

I refuse to speak the name of the Bad Guy Who Became the Good Guy. When Milosevic was in power, for years on end, his words and face everywhere, his and his alone, while those of us, the political idiots, the victims, were so baffled and mute, I gave a vow to myself: the Word is power. I will never mention his name, privately or publicly.

This Bad Guy who became a good guy, because he pleads guilty in front of his God: he wants attention.

He gives long speeches, speeches full of himself and his new way out of prison: out of himself. He pleads for our sympathy, for compassion as though this lessens his guilt, and the victims' relatives feel disgusted. So does his boss, the number one indicted, who gave the order, who conveyed those orders from somebody else... He, who plays the game of the big Serbian hero from past centuries, and displays his grandeur saying literally:

I care for only three things in life: the Cunt, the Gun and the State.

God knows how many women he raped, whispered a relative sitting next to me...

Link, $35 plus shipping. (Thanks, Robb)

Shock and disbelief clouded London's brow (despite the neurotoxin injections) as she stared at her lover. Marcel only shrugged. When one of his people scribbled a note and handed it to him, he read it cold.

"We're drifting apart. It's not you, it's me." He took the cigarette out of his mouth and glared at the hapless scriptwriter. She withered visibly behind her cheap haircut. "This is what I pay you for?" He shook his head and his stylist adjusted the tousled locks with a comb.

London sniffed, trying to muster some tears. Her special effects guy produced a squirt bottle of saline when she couldn't quite manage it on her own. Her personal trainer (Tony... or was it Toby?) glared at Marcel. "You can't leave me. I'm an heiress for god's sake. I'm leaving you."

Neil and Susanna, their respective PR generals, glowered at each other. Index fingers hovered over cell phones, ready to speed-dial the Associated Press.

Frequent travellers need juice between flights, and airports that sell WiFi without providing the electricty to use it are like coffee-shops without toilets. They're missing out on the revenue they'd get from people who'd buy the WiFi if only they had the power to use it.

Intricate, traditional landscapes painted on a female model's posterior.
Link to Flickr user Wallace's photo set, translated from the Chinese tags as "Human Body Art." (Thanks, Mark Mauer)

1. Get a toilet paper tube and crease two lines to form a flat sided tunnel.
2. Put a treat on one end of the tube: A cracker and dab of peanut butter works great.
3. Get a tall (at least 20 inches) bucket. A trash can works well.
4. Balance the tube precariously on the edge of a table or counter with the treat hanging directly over the tall sided receptacle...

Stickyrice blog says, "These billboards have been erected outside markets in the capital in the past week or so. The WHO and the Ministry of Culture and Information are corroborating on this 'no-pink-bird-meat-decree.'"
Link (Thanks, Armand)

Talking over the phones is easy. You put DC current through the phone and it transmits and receives audio. So two phones and a current source (about 25mA) all in series will give you a talking circuit. A suitable current source can be as simple as a 9V battery and a series resistor whose value is adjusted (with both phones offhook) till about 25mA flows. You can then bypass the battery and the resistor with a capacitor to couple the audio straight across and get a loud and clear connection.

What is much harder is signaling the other end. To ring the bell you need to put 90V (RMS) 20Hz AC into the phone (nominally). Lower voltages will work (down to about 40V) but different frequencies won't. You can't ring the phone at 60Hz. I have a ringing circuit in a PBX I built but it consists of a 20Hz sinewave generator, a push-pull power booster and a big transformer. Much too elaborate for a simple 2-phone intercom circuit, and anyway the ringing voltage could painfully zap a kid.

Air - Geoff Ryman (St. Martin's Press, Sep04)
Camouflage - Joe Haldeman (Analog, Mar-May 04, also Ace book Aug 2004)
Going Postal - Terry Pratchett (HarperCollins, Oct04)
Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke (Bloomsbury, Sep04)
Polaris - Jack McDevitt (Ace, Nov04)
Orphans of Chaos - John C. Wright (Tor, Nov05)

The Harrods owner wants to create a 50-bedroom country-house style hotel on a platform in the Cromarty Firth (...) by 2008. If approved, the attraction would also boast a visitor centre, a shop and a restaurant. Two unidentified oil companies have approved the use of their platforms.

Reader comment: Vetnoir says,

I thought it might intrest you to know that there is already a place like this down here in SE Asia. Link.

Reader comment: Cholten99 says,

Sounds a lot like Christopher Brookmyre's book "One Fine Day in the Middle of the Night".

The Anonymizer company has a contract with the Voice of America to provide anonymous internet access for users in a number of foreign countries, including Iran and China. Here's how an Anonymizer sysadmin describes the Iranian portion of the service: "It's based off of PrivateSurfing [...]. Added features for the Iran proxy is full time SSL, URL encryption, Farsi language support, and we switch the proxy website about once a month (every time the Iranian government blocks us). We perform checks on the service from within Iran to see if our site is actually blocked (yes, it works), and we maintain a database of all known e-mail addresses that we can detect as being located in Iran. Every time we switch the proxy site we send an e-mail informing them of the new free proxy location so the citizens of Iran can find it. The sites are also broadcast via radio and TV into Iran by the VOA. To be honest, we're usually about a day behind the blocks, due mostly to time zone differences."

See also: Defeat censorware

Mike Sandman reports that Telecom Digest moderator Pat Townson had a heart attack early Saturday morning (around 6AM). They took him to the local hospital, and then transferred him to a hospital in Oklahoma that's supposed to have the best heart department around there. At the moment he's in a critical care room with no phone, with luck he'll be moved to a regular room with a phone in the next day or two. Readers who want to send him a get well card or note can send it to:

Pat Townson
Jane Phillips Medical Center
3500 E Frank Phillips Blvd
Bartlesville, OK 74006

NY/NJ Path:

Sydney:

(Thanks, TehDiplomat and Chris!)

See also: London Anagram Tube Map, Toronto Anagram Subway Map, Amsterdam Anagram Metro Map, Chicago Regional Transit Authority Anagram Map, Maps for Manhattan, Oslo, Boston and Atlanta, Vienna U-Bahn Anagram Map, DC Metro Anagram Map, Stockholm Transit Anagram Map, LA Red Line Anagram Map, Maps for Cleveland, St Louis (x2), BART, and Singapore, Maps for Berlin, Copenhagen, Baltimore (x2), Maps for Calgary, Vancouver (x2), Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, Hong Kong (x2), Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, Maps for Miami (x2), Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Glasgow, Portland, Ottawa, Houston, Maps for Montreal (x2), Helsinki, Monterrey, San Diego, Mexico City

YouTube user "aretired" posted a clip from Thursday's CBS Evening News showcasing Jason McElwain, the autistic highschool basketball player who scored 6-3 pointers in the final four minutes of the game. The video clip shot up to #15 in alltime viewings on YouTube with 1.5 million hits in just three days -- then, it was suddenly and inexplicably pulled.

User "aretired" reposted the clip and was again pulled within a day, still no explanations.

CBS sent DMCA complaints for not just that McElwain clip, but all 11 of the user's other CBS-related clips that had up till now gone fairly unnoticed, by anyone. And, despite their huffing and puffing and pulling over a 2-minute feel-good piece of the year, you can still catch your fill of Oprah, Letterman, Degeneres, Dr. Phil and other CBS content at YouTube.

Reader comment: Gaynelle Grover says

As the parent of autistic identical twins who play on an NJB basketball team, I found this story incredibly moving. I wasn't alone. The link to the spot on YouTube made it's way around various autism online discussion groups--and undoubtedly disappointed many when it was pulled. However, you might let readers know it's available on Google Video: Link

hbo's real sports ran an almost identical story last year on a special ed student that got in a game and knocked down some 3s. watching the CBS piece was like watching a rerun. Link

"When asked where they would like to reside, [Hadza] women preferred the camp of good hunters, where more food would be shared with their families," explains Brian M. Wood (a graduate student in biological anthropology at Harvard University). "The choice was not so clear for [Hadza] men: living with bad hunters would showcase their own hunting prowess. Living with good hunters, however, would bring more food to their family, at the cost of lowered relative hunting status."

Josh says: "I recently went to Wonderfest here in Tokyo, a twice yearly (winter and summer) celebration of all things otaku. In other words, robots, cosplay and lots (and lots) of tiny figurines having tentacle sex. I went only equipped with my keitei (cellphone) so the picture quality isn't the best and I must warn you, most of the pix are definitely NSFW as I basically tried to document as much obsessive peversion as I could. Hope you enjoy them!"

A pay-to-send system won't help the fight against spam - in fact, this plan assumes that spam will continue and that mass mailers will be willing to pay to have their emails bypass spam filters. And non-paying spammers will not reduce the amount of mail they throw at your filters simply because others pay to evade them.

Perversely, the new two-tiered system AOL proposes would actually reward AOL financially for failing to maintain its email service. The chief advantage of paying to send CertifiedEmail is that it can bypass AOL's spam filters. Non-paying customers are being asked to trust that after paid mail goes into effect, AOL will properly maintain its spam filters so only unwanted mail gets thrown away.

But the economic incentives point the other way: The moment AOL switches to a two-tiered Internet where giant emailers pay for preferential service, AOL will face a simple business choice: spend money to keep regular spam filters up-to-date, or make money by neglecting their spam filters and pushing more senders to pay for guaranteed delivery. Poor delivery of mail turns from being a problem that AOL has every incentive to fix to something that could actually make them money if the company ignores it.

AFL-CIO, AIDS Foundation of Chicago, American Academy of HIV Medicine, Association of Cancer Online Resources, Chris Pirillo, Lockergnome, Common Cause, Communication Workers of America, Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project, Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility, Consumer Federation of America, Craig Newmark, Democracy For America, Democracy In Action, Democratic National Committee, Donor Digital, Drug Policy Alliance, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Free Press, Gun Owners of America, Human Rights Campaign, Humane Society of United States, Michael Geist, Moveon.org Civic Action, Oxfam America, Peacefire, RightMarch, RiseUp Networks, Tim O'Reilly, O'Reilly Media, United Farm Workers, Working Assets, American Rights At Work, Brothers In Action, Californians Against Waste, Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood, Center for Digital Democracy, Chicago Media Action Chin Music Press, Cleanpeace.org, Connecticut Parent Power, Defenders of Wildlife, Earthjustice, Earthworks, Englewood Ob/Gyn, Equality North Carolina, Free Schuylkill River Park, Life-Zone, M+R Strategic Services, Maryland League of Conservation Voters, Media Alliance, National Video Resources, North Carolina Harm Reduction Center Prometheus Radio, Roots of Promise, Sinapu, Working America

Hundreds of photos from that era were lost, sold, stolen or stored in archives. Some of those pictures appear today for the first time in the newspaper, in an eight-page special section titled "Unseen. Unforgotten."

The section is the result of research by Alexander Cohn, a 30-year-old former photo intern at The News. In November 2004, Cohn went through an equipment closet at the newspaper in search of a lens and saw a cardboard box full of negatives marked, "Keep. Do Not Sell."

Toronto's Fading Ways Music and Wireless Nomad Co-op are pleased to announce that the Fading Ways Share sampler series, licensed under Creative Commons, is available free on the Wireless Nomad wireless Internet network. 30 full-length songs are now available to download anywhere on the Wireless Nomad network, completely free, completely legal, and completely in support of our communities and artists.

Sections of the office's walls look transparent, but actually contain incredibly thin solar panels and as many as 320 light-emitting diodes that release whitish-blue light at night. According to NikkeiNet Interactive (paid psubscription required), the walls can convert 7% of solar energy into electricity and illuminate the building for an average of 4.6 hours every night.

And Craigslist's Craig Newmark is on this week's NeoFiles. Link

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement) All three painters work in extremely different styles, yet present similar ideology in their subject matters undertones, mainly the strife between man and the natural world.

Ryan Heshka is rapidly becoming well known for his “Vintage Pulp” style paintings. Using the themes of technology vs nature, Ryan presents his work in a retro type format, drawing visual inspiration from 40’s –50’s science fiction magazines and old B monster movies. Layering luscious jewel tone colors alongside cut out text from various sources, Ryan’s work tackles environmental themes while remaining slyly humorous.

Davey (aka Dave Wong) paints fanciful, dramatic scenarios using animal characters inspired by film (King Kong, Planet Of the Apes, Ray Harryhausen films) and comic books (such as work by legend Jack Kirby). His works contains a dark tension and undercurrents of hidden aggression, mixed with a dreamlike vision of an untamed prehistoric world.

Brian Despain's paintings combine science fiction sensibilities with a nod to retro mechanics. Surreal creatures powered by early Industrial Revolution era technology are rendered in a precise, perfectionist manner, dipped in a rich, dusty color palette.

Lone heroes can't slay dragons. It takes an army.

People are only good at one thing.

That's why it takes six people (all doing different jobs) to kill most anything.

You never, ever, ever change jobs. If you want to, you probably need to die.

You can be the best in the world at your job.

But so can everyone else.

And you will all do it exactly the same way.

Intelligent beings who have civilizations and languages of their own are generally evil and should be slain.

Many, if not all, wild creatures are highly aggressive and will attack on sight.

Evil is not redeemable; good is not a choice. Your morals are innate.

Podzinger will deliver you an RSS feed of any search result -- you can bake in a search for your favorite keywords and get an alert -- with timecode! -- every time the keywords show up in a cast.

This is all de-militarized technology from DARPA's EARS (Effective Affordable Reusable Speech-to-text) program, and it's been developed by the venerable BBN company, which was also part of the initial development of the Internet.

Podzinger only works in English right now, but they're rolling out "North American" Spanish and Mandarin shortly.

The only downside is that Podzinger doesn't run well on Firefox for the Mac, because of known bugs with the way that Quicktime and Firefox play together. Mac users have to switch back to Safari to use it. Still, it's a small price to pay for a killer free service. Link

Update: Dave sez, "Our product, Podscope, is like Podzinger, except that we also index video blogs and have a Firefox-friendly design."

In order to raise the spirits of an Italian prince burdened by the cares of his position, a musician created for him a cat piano. The musician selected cats whose natural voices were at different pitches and arranged them in cages side by side, so that when a key on the piano was depressed, a mechanism drove a sharp spike into the appropriate cat’s tail. The result was a melody of meows that became more vigorous as the cats became more desperate. Who could not help but laugh at such music? Thus was the prince raised from his melancholy.

Since January 2005, I've hosted a series of EFF-sponsored monthly-ish brunches at my office in London's Stanhope Centre. These "London Copyfighters' Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop" events have been semi-open: anyone who showed up was welcome, but I didn't advertise it much because I couldn't afford to feed an army.

But Stanhope Centre's lost its lease, I'm retired from EFF, and spring is upon us, so for the very last of these events hosted at Stanhope, I'm throwing it open to the wide world. If you're interested in issues of copyright, patent, trademark, free information, access -- that kinda thing -- you're invited to come to Stanhope on March 19th for an 11AM-1PM brunch and then to come and give a speech at Hyde Park's legendary Speaker's Corner, just over the road.

Giving a speech at Speakers' Corner is wild -- it's the ultimate soap-boxing experience, and everyone who's done it swears by it. You can check out pictures of previous declaimings, too.

Come April and through the spring and summer, the Open Rights Group will continue to run Copyfighters' Brunches as picnics in Hyde Park, and it's hunting for a nearby indoor home for the autumn and winter of 2006.

March's event is co-sponsored by EFF, Open Rights Group, the Foundation for Free Information Infrastructure and the Open Knowledge Forum Network.

"Hip-hop was born in New York but it's now a global phenomenon," said Valeska Hilbig, a National Museum spokeswoman. "It's here to stay, and it's part of American culture just like jazz is part of American history. It's part of the narrative we tell at the museum..."

Hip-hop impresario Russell Simmons, scheduled to attend Tuesday's announcement at the Hilton New York, wouldn't say what he planned to donate. But he called the Smithsonian's recognition a "great statement for hip-hop."

"It's not a signal to the end of hip-hop," Simmons, co-founder of the venerable Def Jam label, said of the Smithsonian's undertaking. "We know it will be a lasting fixture. And it should be. All over the world hip-hop is expression of young people's struggles, their frustrations and opinions."

The DCI is looking to address the current influence of mobile devices on our culture. Mobile devices have had a tremendous effect on our society and we are interested in how that new audience might best be communicated to in this new medium. It is our belief that this new medium offers special consideration that have yet to be suitably identified; the least of which is viewing size. Other considerations for this new form are cost per download, as well ergonomic concerns, etc.

The Festival is looking for mobile content submissions that explore the mobile lifestyle.

Back in November, I blogged about Hugo-award-winning author James Patrick Kelly's podcasting of his new short novel Burn, one chapter per week, for sixteen weeks.

Burn is the story of Prosper Gregory Leung, a native of a techno-primitive utopian planet called Walden, a planet that was purchased by a wealthy industrialist who turned it into a primitivist state modeled on Thoreau's book, chasing off the Pukpuks, the original settlers whose industrial civilization had denuded the planet's native flora and fauna. The Waldeners sign onto a covenant to eschew most technology -- including all the amazing, life-extending, faster-than-light magic of the universe outside of Walden -- except for genetically modified fast-growing forests that they use to replant the world, remaking it into a verdant and tranquil paradise.

But the Pukpuks aren't all content to be driven away. Some of them take to the hills, and attack Walden's forests and towns with firebombs that create the Burn, an ongoing, raging fire-fight that licks at the world's vegetation.

Leung is a firefighter, a kind of paramilitary role in this world, who has lost his best friend in a Pukpuk attack, and who is recovering in a high-tech hospital where he experiments with a souped up galactic phone that puts him in touch with the High Gregory, a kind of reincarnated Dalai Llama, but weirder and less tranquil, who surprises Leung by showing up with his entourage of prepubescent incarnations of divine powers to "make luck for him."

Like all Jim Kelly stories, Burn wrenches at your heart even as it makes you laugh out loud. I learned everything I know about reading aloud from attending Jim Kelly's readings at science fiction conventions (and he says he learned all he knows from reading to his kids, who are apparently a discriminating audience) and listening to him read Burn is a positive delight. One of my weekly highlights for the past four-or-so-months has been the latest Burn installment, and Jim's wonderful, warm readings of his book. I can't recommend it enough, and now that it's completed, it's the perfect thing to load onto a CD or MP3 player for a long trip or a week's worth of bike rides or workouts at the gym. Podcast feed link

In the first hour after death, the room is so still that every sound holds a terrible clarity, like the tap of a knife against glass. The soft pad of shoes as someone walks away and closes the door is profoundly solid—each short footstep weighted, distinct. The body lies against the floor, the sightless eyes staring down into the wood as if some answer has been buried in the grain. The back of the head is mottled by the shadows of the trees that sway outside the open window. The trickle of red from the scalp that winds its way down the cheek, to puddle next to the clenched hand, is as harmless now, leached of threat, as if it were colored water. The man’s features have become slack, his mouth parted slightly, his expression surprised. The wrinkles on his forehead form ridges of superfluous worry. His trumpet lies a few feet away… From outside the window, the coolness of the day brings the green-gold scent of lilacs and crawling vines. The rustle of leaves. The deepening of light. A hint of blue through the trees. After a time, a mouse, fur ragged and one eye milky white, sidles across the floor, sits on its haunches in front of the body, and sniffs the air. The mouse circles the man. It explores the hidden pockets of the man’s gray suit, trembles atop the shoes, nibbles at the laces, sticks its nose into a pant cuff.

Now they say that they deserve to collect for the use of the Web. Despite the fact that there's an implied license to read Web pages that goes along with publishing them (who puts up a web-page without expecting it to be read?) and despite the fact that the vast majority of pages online weren't created by Australians, and despite the fact that the vast majority of pages created by Australians weren't created by professional authors, the agency proposes that it should be able to collect a tax on behalf of all those authors in the world in order to line the pockets of its few lucky members.

This is a way to transfer Australia's tax dollars from its education system to its copyright sector. Australia already has an arts council that gives money directly to artists -- if it wants to give them more money, it should get a bigger budget and do so, not trump up some kind of ridiculous Internet tax that could cost schools their Internet connections:

Negotiations between the Ministerial Council on Education Employment, Training and Youth Affairs, representing the schools, and the agency have broken down over plans to change the scheme to include a question in the survey on whether teachers direct students to use the internet.

"If it turned out we'd have to pay them, we'd turn the internet off in schools," the council's national copyright director Delia Browne said.

"We couldn't afford it; it would not be sustainable. How on earth are we going to deliver education in the 21st century? How are taxpayers going to afford this."

I’m sitting in Montreal’s Trudeau airport, and noticing what appears to me to be a new trend. Airports have been capping off the power outlets. Where have they all gone? It used to be that you could find a power outlet on a wall or a pillar at the gate, but not anymore. In recent weeks, I’ve travelled through Seattle, San Jose, Chicago O’Hare, Toronto, and Montreal. The plentiful power that laptop users used to depend on is virtually non-existant. Here in Montreal, I am sitting in a phone booth, because it has a power outlet for laptop users.

Update: Glenn sez, "My friend Nancy Gohring just wrote from Paris (where she's about to fly back to Dublin) that Parisian airports will add 2,000 free electrical outlets for people to use; this was promoted in the airport magazine."

Update 2: Slavin reports, "Had the very same experience at Stansted (London) a few weeks ago. Same circumstances, had just paid for a British adapter, and for wifi." Crap. I used to fly out of Stansted 20 times a year. I guess not any more.

THE POSITION: The analyst thoroughly reviews information from open/public sources, official sources, and professional contacts, and conducts regular assessments of world events, regional/national security climates, and suspect individuals and groups. The analyst produces a range of written and verbal analyses for employees and management of the Company and provides tactical intelligence support to the Company's security and crisis management operators...

% of Total Duties and Responsibilities 45 [%] Monitors open source media, homeland security and law enforcement bulletins, and information from professional contacts, for international, national, and local news and intelligence that may affect the security and safety of TWDC. Maintains comprehensive files of intelligence on key issues and parts of the world; maintains record of threats received, assessments, and their disposition. Plays key information processing role in the Corporate-level Emergency Operations Center, when activated.

With the existing attractions, Park Operations has been known to disable actuators in animatronic figures and turn off special effects because they can't afford to maintain them. The auctioneer pirate isn't moving like a chicken because he was animated poorly, he's moving like that because an Operations person repositioned his arm so the figure won't wear down his costume. This lack of cooperation between WDI and park Operations undermines the work of the imagineers and leads to what we call, "bad show."

The goal of Park Operations exclusively needs to be maintenance of the best show possible. If meeting this goal conflicts with their budget then they need to be involved earlier in the design process to address maintenance issues and/or the cost of maintenance needs to be included in the design budget for all new attractions. Yes that would raise the cost of the attraction but it's not fair to hand Park Operations the keys to a 100 million ride and say, "keep her looking good as new." It's not that operations folk are unconcerned with quality (one would hope), they're just being practical. It's no fun to inherit a Lamborghini if you can't afford the insurance.

For a couple years now, the MPAA has been promising to "plug the Analog Hole" by getting the government to pass a law crippling all recorders, so that they'll refuse to record anything with a secret watermark that says it's a copyrighted work (heaven help you if your son's first steps take place in the living room while the TV's playing -- your camcorder will be of no use).

Hunt gave the talk to a group of high-tech suppliers who provide entertainment technology for Hollywood and its viewers, and they greeted the A-hole proposal with the skepticism it deserves.

One questioner asked who would be responsible for the extensive consumer education needed. Hunt's answer -- that he hoped retailers would do it -- drew dubious groans.

The final question summed up the problem: "This is a room full of people whose living depends on this working. You're getting pushback to the point of hostility. If you can't sell this to us, how are you going to sell it to the target 16-45 demographic?"

Hunt said the marketplace would ultimately sort it out.

Montreal (II):

(see this alternate Montreal map)

Helsinki:

Monterrey:

San Diego:

Mexico City:

(Thanks, Matti, Julien, Matthew, Edmz, Nick and Omegar!)

See also: London Anagram Tube Map, Toronto Anagram Subway Map, Amsterdam Anagram Metro Map, Chicago Regional Transit Authority Anagram Map, Maps for Manhattan, Oslo, Boston and Atlanta, Vienna U-Bahn Anagram Map, DC Metro Anagram Map, Stockholm Transit Anagram Map, LA Red Line Anagram Map, Maps for Cleveland, St Louis (x2), BART, and Singapore, Maps for Berlin, Copenhagen, Baltimore (x2), Maps for Calgary, Vancouver (x2), Philadelphia, Buffalo, Rochester, Hong Kong (x2), Seattle, Minneapolis, Detroit, Maps for Miami (x2), Dublin, Ontario, Dallas, Glasgow, Portland, Ottawa, Houston

Update: David made this alternate Montreal map.

The Feb 26 deadline set by Jill's kidnappers passed by yesterday with nary a word about Jill. But I believe, at this stage, no news is good news. This morning, some reports from notable sources emerged indicating that Jill is still alive. These statements came from an Iraqi official and US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, with the Iraqi official claiming to know the kidnapper's name and address...

Previous BoingBoing posts on Jill Carroll's abduction: Link

I've been hard at work on my scale model of early Disneyland and I'm now finally ready to reveal it. You will most definetely be impressed!... until you learn that my scale model is only a quick photoshop cheat. But it sure is fun!

Reader comment:Graham Lampa says:

Some fellow flickr users and I who were jazzed by your original post on boing boing put together a flickr group for tilt-shift miniature fakes. We now have 43 photos in the pool and 20 posters, and it's cool to see what teeny-weeny, itsy-bitsy effects others are coaxing out of simple blurring in Photoshop!

Tilt-shift miniature fakes group.

Also, my personal collection of miniatures (mainly from my trips to China and later Italy this summer.

Reader comment: Steve Lombardi, Microsoft's Virtual Earth Program Manager says:

Hey! thanks for that post on the photoshop tutorial. Made me wish I could work photoshop real bad. But some of my work buddies can, and created some great images.

I had posted on my blog about this guy earlier this month, and began to think about how to take the immense library of oblique imagery we were capturing from planes and 'miniaturize' them in this way. What Barbieri is doing is really expensive for each shot he gets. The tutorial you posted, along with a random birds eye image makes a really nice poor-man's compromise. In the end, it makes me want to get good with Photoshop even more!

* All Seasons Bistro, in East Lansing, Mich., which was cited for its streak-free mirrors, old-world floor tiles and fresh paint job. "This is one of a few public restrooms I would allow myself, my wife and children to use and not worry about it," the nominator said.

* Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, in Atlantic City, whose restrooms - with their stainless steel sinks, choice of hand towels or dryers and warm wood tones - "spare no expense."

* Hemenways, of Providence, R.I., a landmark waterfront restaurant whose restrooms are clean and have "simple elegance and charm."

* Quad City International Airport, in Moline, Ill., which has facilities that are "clean, simple, pleasant and exactly what you want in an airport washroom."

* Wendell's Restaurant, in Westerville, Ohio, whose sports-themed restrooms are "praised for being neat, clean and having lots of towels and even mouthwash."

Read with a mixture of dismay and pleasure today's BB article regarding blocking by SmartFilter. Dismay that a product with "Smart" in its moniker is so stupid, and pleasure that you've decided to stand up to it. Let me suggest an additional strategy.

What happens when the blogosphere uses so much tasteful nudity that the web is unusable for SmartFilter users? What happens when SmartFilter blocks so much content that the web is crippled for its users?

So, I have created the attached button (standard 120x90 size) that BB readers can put on their sites. It features the pubic region of Michelangelo's David sculpture, uses fairly neutral colors, and is taken from public domain stock photography. I release this work into the public domain, relinquish any claims over its use, and encourage BB readers to put it on their sites.

Maybe if enough of us do so, SmartFilter will just collapse under the weight of its own odious censoring.

Previously:
* BoingBoing banned in UAE, Qatar, elsewhere. Our response to net-censors: Get bent!
* Iran, Tunisia also use SmartFilter (which blocks BoingBoing as "nudity")

Reader comment: Kathryn says,

Along with the statue David, people could add the statue "Spirit of Justice," famous for Ashcroft's velvet draping: Link. Another famous topless babe is in Eugene Delacroix' Liberty painting: Link.

Dr Thomas van Hoof and his colleagues studied pollen grains and leaf remains collected from lake-bed sediments in the southeast Netherlands.

Monitoring the ups and downs in abundance of cereal pollen (like buckwheat) and tree pollen (like birch and oak) enabled them to estimate changes in land-use between AD 1000 and 1500.

The team found an increase in cereal pollen from 1200 onwards (reflecting agricultural expansion), followed by a sudden dive around 1347, linked to the agricultural crisis caused by the arrival of the Black Death, most probably a bacterial disease spread by rat fleas...

"Between AD 1200 to 1300, we see a decrease in stomata and a sharp rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to deforestation we think," says Dr van Hoof, whose findings are published in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.

But after AD 1350, the team found the pattern reversed, suggesting that atmospheric carbon dioxide fell, perhaps due to reforestation following the plague.

(The exhibit) is an exploration of the world of fantasy, mysticism, horror and sexual perversity that found expression in art and literature in Britain between 1770 and 1830 and which, fueled by novels, movies and even pop music, later became known as Gothic.

In literature, the iconic work was Mary Shelley's 1818 "Frankenstein." In art, the fad translated into paintings and drawings with strong narratives, muscular Michelangelo-inspired men and naked nymphs, as well as myriad fairies and demons...

The odd thing is that the man who came to personify the Gothic in English art was Fuseli, a Zurich-born self-taught artist who was in his mid-30's when he moved to London and who never spoke English fluently. Yet, more than any of his contemporaries, he turned to Shakespeare and Milton for material, attracted in both cases by the supernatural elements in their writing...

The 18th-century Swiss theologian Johann Casper Lavater wrote of Fuseli: "Specters, demons and madmen's phantoms, exterminating angels; murders and acts of violence — such are his favorite subjects; and yet, I repeat, no one loves with more tenderness."

The buildings in the Boase development utilize solar-collecting facades, and the common areas lie under a "solar membrane" that both collects energy and invites natural lighting inside. Modular walls permit indoor-outdoor living and abundant natural ventilation. The walkability of the area fosters a healthy lifestyle for its residents, in close proximity to the surrounding city.

Curated shopping--the concept of offering a selection of products as carefully edited as a museum collection--has become a retail buzzword in recent years (see "Shopping Etc.," March 2005). Colette, in Paris, and Moss, in New York, helped pioneer the concept, and both still set the standard for others. Now every major North American city seems to have at least one independently owned store with a decidedly unique approach to shopping. When it comes to furnishing interiors, these shop-owners-turned-lifestyle-curators assemble a contemporary mix of art, design, and craft that is exuberantly decorative and conceptual, even ironic. Unlike the pop-up retail trend--low-maintenance stores that appear temporarily in urban areas--boutiques that mix local and global designs are in it for the long haul, acting as incubators for lesser-known talents with bright futures.

Here's a nice little tutorial for faking the same effect using Photoshop. The results are very nice.
Link Scott Froschauer says:

While purchasing a "real" tilt-shift (as you were calling it, in my business we call it a "swing and tilt") is too expensive for most of us, there is a cheap alternative. For about $100 you can get a Lensbaby, which is a super analog lens. No focus marks, manual apeture (I mean real manual.) I've been shooting with one for over a year and it is easily my favorite single lens (particularly on the bang/buck ratio.)

6:30 p.m. Thursday March 2
195 Park Lawn Road, Etobicoke
@ Byzantine Knights of Columbus Hall

A full sale of mostly smalls, great picks for dealer, decorator, collector alike. Always a great selection, 15 boxes unpacked unseen. Vintage lighting – hanging and table, china, 40s Zenith radio, mirrors, 19th c. painted violin case, large Capo Di Monte vase, Pray Dieu for home, smokers stand (2), 30s sardine can camera, lucite table, older toys and games, Victorian prints (religious and secular), Japanese sword, Militaria – helmets, bayonets, World War 1 canteen, oil paintings, antique clocks, dolls trunk, nude oil signed Corbet Gray, silver plate candlabra, ornate nouveau clock c. 1900, working mission clock, quilts, 1920s onyx table lamps, bridge lamp, large native splint basket, Arabia Finland jug, Shorter cat teapot, mod items, Edwardian record player in Mahog, cabinet, Police badges from around the world, linens, West German pottery, costume jewelry and watches, mantle clock, art and reference books, Parianware recumbent figure, masonic tea service O.E.S.

Directions – Take Park Lawn 300 m N of the Queensway. Park Lawn runs N – S at the Western edge of the Ontario Food Terminal,

For more info call 416-253-6313 or e-mail – thecountrypolitan@hotmail.com

Boing Boing to net-censors: Get bent!

We've decided not to rejig our editorial process to make it easier for a censorware company to block us for their customers. Instead, we're creating a clearinghouse of information on how to defeat censorware.

Last week, we reported that Boing Boing was blocked by entire countries including the United Arab Emirates, and by many library systems, schools, US government and military sites, and corporations.

Today, we've learned that Internet Qatar, the sole ISP in the State of Qatar, has also banned BoingBoing.

We've heard from librarians in Africa who want to watch the video of the American Register of Copyrights denouncing Congress, employees at the Australian Broadcasting Company, students, and workers around the world who can't gain access to our work.

At fault in most of these cases is a US-based censorware company called Secure Computing, which makes a web-rating product called SmartFilter. But SmartFilter isn't very smart. Secure Computing classifies any site with any nudity -- even Michaelangelo's David appearing on a single page out of thousands -- as a "nudity" site, which means that customers who block "nudity" can't get through.

Last week, Secure Computing updated their software to classify Boing Boing as a "nudity" site. Last month, we had two posts with nudity in them, out of 692 -- that's 0.29 percent of our posts, but SmartFilter blocks 100 percent of them. This month, there were four posts with nudity (including the Abu Ghraib photos), out of 618 -- 0.65 percent.

In fact, out of the 25,000+ Boing Boing posts classed as "nudity" by SmartFilter, more that 99.5 percent have no nudity at all. They're stories about Hurricane Katrina, kidnapped journalists in Iraq, book reviews, ukelele casemods, phonecam video of Bigfoot sightings (come to think of it, he doesn't wear clothes either), or pictures of astonishing Lego constructions.

Why is SmartFilter content to deliver a product with a 99.5 percent false-positive rate? Because it has promised its customers that it will stop their users from seeing nudity (fat chance -- it's a dead certainty that Smart Filter has failed to class innumerable sites containing nudity), and punishing 24,875 nudity-free posts to get at 125 that contain mild or "art" nudity is fine by them.

Secure Computing told us that their categorization system protects kindergartners from being exposed to porn. We argue that not only are products like SmartFilter incapable of blocking all potentially kid-inappropriate sites, but why treat entire countries, or entire corporate sites full of working adults, as kindergartners?

The question of keeping your child from viewing content you don't want them to see can be addressed more efficiently locally, with tech tools like the browser Bumpercar. As BoingBoing founder (and father of two) Mark Frauenfelder explains, "My daughter and I found a bunch of great kid-friendly sites and have added them to the 'white list.' As a parent, I have local control of the sites she visits instead of handing over control to a remote group of people that I don't trust to do my job of being a parent."

The fact is, there's no effective way to censor the Internet in broad strokes. Only dumb CIOs and totalitarian governments like the UAE believe that adding censorware to your network will prevent the naughty stuff from slopping in. Having a human being review a few pages on a site every couple months is a perfectly adequate classification system, in SmartFilter's lights -- which is convenient, since a genuinely thoroughgoing review would be ruinously expensive.

Secure Computing offered us a devil's bargain: if we'd change the URLs of images with "nudity" (which, they assured us, included photos of Michaelangelo's David) to something they could detect and block, they'd let the rest of the world see us again. That guy in the UAE who was worried he'd be imprisoned for trying to read BoingBoing would be OK again.

We considered their offer, and decided not to do it. What happens when the next censorware company comes along with another editorial process they want us to engage in to help them censor the site?

More importantly: why should we let a company that helps corrupt dictatorships oppress their citizen dictate morality to us?

So instead we've decided to help put Secure Computing out of business. We're doing this in three ways:

• First, we're publishing a guide to evading the SmartFilter censorware. There are hundreds of ways to defeat these censorware apps, and we're going to catalog as many of them as possible.
  Link to "BoingBoing's Guide To Evading Censorware."
• Next, we're compiling a list of SmartFilter's dumb classifications. Send us your misclassified SmartFilter sites so we can add them to the list.
• Finally, we're producing a guide to convincing your employer to ditch SmartFilter. It consists of parts one and two above: a list of bad SmartFilter classifications and a list of ways that SmartFilter can be shredded like wet kleenex. Why spend money on bad technology that doesn't work?

Signed, the BoingBoing team:
- Cory Doctorow
- Mark Frauenfelder
- Xeni Jardin
- David Pescovitz
- John Battelle

Previous BoingBoing posts:
* BoingBoing now censored in the UAE
* Argonne National Laboratory is blocking Boing Boing
* ISPs in Iran, Tunisia also use SmartFilter (which blocks BoingBoing as "nudity")
* Stick Michelangelo's "David" on your blog to protest censorware

He committed to giving strict attention to one virtue each week so after 13 weeks he moved through all 13. After 13 weeks he would start the process over again so in one year he would complete the course a total of 4 times.

He tracked his progress by using a little book of 13 charts. At the top of each chart was one of the virtues. The charts had a column for each day of the week and thirteen rows marked with the first letter of each of the 13 virtues. Every evening he would review the day and put a mark (dot) next to each virtue for each fault committed with respect to that virtue for that day.

1. Temperance: Eat not to dullness and drink not to elevation.

2. Silence: Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself. Avoid trifling conversation.

3. Order: Let all your things have their places. Let each part of your business have its time.

4. Resolution: Resolve to perform what you ought. Perform without fail what you resolve.

5. Frugality: Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself: i.e. Waste nothing.

6. Industry: Lose no time. Be always employed in something useful. Cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. Sincerity: Use no hurtful deceit. Think innocently and justly; and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. Justice: Wrong none, by doing injuries or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. Moderation: Avoid extremes. Forebear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. Cleanliness: Tolerate no uncleanness in body, clothes or habitation.

11. Chastity: Rarely use venery but for health or offspring; Never to dullness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another's peace or reputation.

12. Tranquility: Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

13. Humility: Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

“The patients had a rather primitive language… they spoke to each other using their own language, using only a few hundred words” which the parents could partly understand, Tan wrote. “They were mentally retarded; they could not count from one to ten. They were not aware of time and space. For instance, they did not know where they live (which country, which village, which city). They were unaware of year, season, day, and time. Otherwise, they had quite strong legs and arms.” “The sitting posture was rather similar to an ape,” Tan added. “They could not hold their heads upright; the heads were flexed forward with their skulls. They could not raise their heads to look forward. This head posture with flexed skull was rather similar to the head posture of our closest relatives, like chimpanzees.”

Grab those hacked CVS video cameras and $14 steadycams. It's time for MAKE: Movies! MAKE: is hosting the first festival for makers to show off their DIY short video clips. Don't think of it as a contest, because there isn't much to win if you make the cut... other than the admiration of your peers, a bag of MAKE: goodies, and the chance to see your work on the big (well, medium) screen at the upcoming Maker Faire in April. Our favorite footage will premiere at a special MAKE: Movies! party at the Maker Faire and shown throughout the event. Of course, you're invited to walk down the asphalt carpet and say a few words about your work. After the Faire, the selections will be available for free download on Makezine.com. So charge those batteries, fire up Final Cut, and... Action!

Here's what we want to see:

* Project demos: Your project is the star here, like the famed Shopper Chopper shopping cart and self-driving motorocycle.
* How-to's: From video explanations to Flash animated diagrams to claymation step-by-steps, these are your explanations, tips, and guides put into motion.
* Maker mini-documentaries: Give Nova a run for its timeslot with a short profile of the eccentric inventor next door or a brief biopic of a maker from history.
* Maker music videos: Think MTV meets cigar box guitars and circuit benders.

You can also nominate any videoclip that you think truly embodies the maker mindset.

As part of his wish, Sinclair requested a means to allow architects, funders, non-governmental organizations and communities to collaborate on generating and implementing innovative housing solutions globally. Sun answered by offering to provide an online platform that will facilitate collaboration and sharing of designs and will use advanced technology to simulate geographic/seismic, political/cultural and financial ramifications of designs. Sun and Sinclair will gather additional support from the technology, entertainment and design industries represented at the TED conference.

"The technology industry is unique in being able to effect social, political and economic progress on a global basis," said Jonathan Schwartz, president and chief operating officer at Sun, and president of the Sun Foundation. "We take that responsibility, and our partners in innovation around the world, very seriously - that's why we're proud to provide the computing power needed for Architecture for Humanity to help improve living conditions for so many people."

The Giraffe Manor, built in 1932 by Sir David Duncan, is situated on 120 acres of land just a few miles from the centre of Nairobi, Kenya's capital city. In 1974 Jock Leslie-Melville, grandson of a Scottish earl, and his wife Betty, who also founded the African Fund for Endangered Wildlife (AFEW), bought the Manor. They then moved five babies of the highly endangered Rothschild giraffe to their property where they have been successfully reared and they now have their own babies.

Update: Matt sez, "I've been! I spent the first night of my Kenyan honeymoon in the Giraffe manor. A truly amazing experience. We were lucky enough to be hosted by the current owners of the house as opposed to the house sitters. Not only do the giraffes poke their heads in, you can stand on the front veranda and feed the giraffes, whilst the owners dog's chase warthogs around the grounds. "

I've written about Scott's YA novels here before: So Yesterday (a YA Douglas-Coupland-esque book about a cool-hunter), Peeps (a vampire novel built on hard-science parasitology) and Uglies/Pretties (the first two books in a trilogy about a future where teens are forced into cosmetic surgery at 16) -- he's a consistently sharp writer whose well-turned books zip along at speed.

The Midnighters trilogy is about a small group of misfit teens in a conservative town who all share the ability to inhabit the secret hour between 12 midnight and 12:01 AM, a secret hour when time stands still for everyone but them, when the light turns blue, when they gain special powers -- the power to run tirelessly and leap buildings, even to fly.

This is pure wish-fulfillment for the kids, who are picked-on losers in their straight-laced school, harassed by the law and stuck in bad home situations. But it turns out that the secret hour is also inhabited by Cthuluesque Old Ones -- ancient monsters trapped forever in the darkness of the secret hour. And these ancient ones must escape.

The trilogy tells the story of the kids' defense of the town that rejects them, and of the ancient, wicked secrets there. If Lovecraft had a sense of plot and character, he could have written these.

Now the final volume, Blue Moon, has come into print, and it ties the story up nicely. If you're looking for three books to give to a kid in your life (or looking for a romp of your own), these would be a great choice.

Midighters 1: The Secret Hour, Midighters 2: Touching Darkness, Midnighters 3: Blue Noon

The remixes from "dklo" on Flickr feature faithful copies of the setups and facial expressions, but with women in huge gothy platform shoes, leather corsets, and fishnets. Link (Thanks, John!)