These 18" x 18" panels of cunningly arranged squirtguns cost $50, but it seems like it's the kind of thing that would be pretty easy to duplicate on your own. It'd be wild to do a whole wall this way! Link (Thanks, Candy Addict!)

Mother Jones, a left-wing magazine, has published a Harpers-Index-style guide to copyright's worst excesses; it's notable that this week both they and their ideological opponents at the libertarian Cato Institute have both published material supporting the copyfight. It's truly a nonpartisan fight:

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said "destroying their machines" might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.

AMONG THE 16,000 people thus far sued for sharing music files was a 65-year-old woman who, though she didn't own downloading software, was accused of sharing 2,000 songs, including Trick Daddy's "I'm a Thug." She was sued for up to $150,000 per song.

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on "intellectual property theft"; finalists had to sign away "all intellectual property rights" on "terms acceptable to Microsoft."

Link (Thanks, Dave!)

Is FlashOnTheBlog's photos of a little "firefox" cute enough for you?
Link

It turns out that Barbara Bush's donation to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund is going straight to Ignite!, an educational software company owned by Neil Bush, the current administration's very own "Billy Carter/Roger Clinton" type character. (You may remember Neil as the fellow who headed Silverado Savings & Loan in the 80s. When the bank failed under his watch, he walked away with a mere sanction while taxpayers were forced to clean up his mess by forking over a $1 billion bailout.)

In his Talking Points Memo, Joshua Micah Marshall says Ignite! makes its money by jetting Neil to exotic locales, where he visits "international statesmen, bigwigs and criminals who want to 'invest' in Ignite! as a way to curry favor with the brother in the White House."

(Bush's international influence-peddling jaunts have also proven to be a great way for him to get laid, according to CNN:

[Bush] admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.

The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.

"It was very unusual," Bush said.)

It turns out that lots of people besides Barbara Bush believe in her energetic young man: the rich kids of China's rulers, the United Arab Emirates, and Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky (who has been accused of trying to overthrow Putin's government to help his company) are all eager investors in Ignite!. Now, who's to say that the individuals in this rogues' gallery are only interested in getting the president to think kindly of them? Perhaps they truly want to help children learn.

Let's have some fun: what kinds of children's educational software might be produced buy Ignite!, were these investors to have a say in their development? Email your ideas for titles and descriptions to me and I'll post the best on Boing Boing. Link (Thanks, Haybales!)

Reader comment: Phil says:

After seeing the post earilier today about Neil Bush, I got to wondering what other Bush siblings have been up to. Here's an interesting [Wikipedia] entry on Marvin Bush (the youngest of the Bush brothers):

"He was a director of the Sterling, Virginia company Securacom, also known as Stratesec, from 1993 until fiscal year 2000. The Securacom/Stratesec company was publicly traded and backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corporation. Securacom/Stratesec was in charge of security at the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport, and United Airlines on September 11, 2001."

Reader comment: Leslie says:

The Wikipedia claim about Marvin Bush's ties to 9/11 seemed a little too "conspiracy theory" to me. A quick Google search turned up what looks like a more balanced view. I'm no Bush fan, far from it, but there is enough REAL evil stuff about these guys without manufacturing conspiracy.
Link

Reader comment: John says: "THIS is the funniest Bush I've seen all year." (It's a video of 19-year-old Pierce Bush, the President's nephew, out of his mind on coffee at 6:30 am)
Link

Technology Review magazine has posted a special report on ten emerging technologies they think are poised to have a big impact. The technologies they cover include:

Epigentics: Alexander Olek has developed tests to detect cancer early by measuring its subtle DNA changes.

Nuclear Reprogramming: Hoping to resolve the embryonic-stem-cell debate, Markus Grompe envisions a more ethical way to derive the cells.

Universal Authentication: Leading the development of a privacy-protecting online ID system, Scott Cantor is hoping for a safer Internet.

Cognitive Radio: To avoid future wireless traffic jams, Heather “Haitao” Zheng is finding ways to exploit unused radio spectrum.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging: Kelvin Lim is using a new brain-imaging method to understand schizophrenia.

Comparative Interactomics: By creating maps of the body’s complex molecular interactions, Trey Ideker is providing new ways to find drugs.

Nanomedicine: Kames Baker designs nanoparticles to guide drugs directly into cancer cells, which could lead to far safer treatments.

Link

Boing Boing reader Poopdog says,

This is a Murderlicious cake my sister made for a Mortal Kombat themed party she and her friends had. They watched both the movies and played the video game all night and enjoyed this delicious tribute to the finest fighting game franchise of all time.

Link

Nicole says: It's a lie detector - or, more accurately, a galvanic skin response sensor - made out of Legos, aluminum foil and velcro. What more need be said?

"I found this link through a post about 'Demonstrations of Implicit Knowledge' from Colorado's Cognitive Science comunity on LiveJournal (full disclosure: I am an employee of Six Apart, Ltd., and work on LiveJournal)."
Link (Some other cool demos)

Elizabeth Hickok's amazing San Francisco In Jell-O sculpture will be on display only for the opening day, April 1, of the Exploratorium's new exhibit series Magnitude X: Quake Science and Survival. The entire series sounds quite intriguing though. From the exhibition description:

Magnitude X includes an offbeat, quivering, large-scale Jell-O model of San Francisco made in the primary-colored shimmering medium by artist Liz Hickok... Meet dog heroes. See earthquakes pop up on an international map as they occur throughout the world. A sampling of a month-long collection of exhibits and demonstrations cover liquefaction -- the cause of major damage to homes built on sand and landfill -- the physics of waves, resonance, seismic action and the mathematics of sine waves. Meet geologists, first-responders, survival kit experts, and structural engineers. What do you want to know about your survival kit, your structure or your neighborhood, or how you can best be prepared? Every weekend, the Exploratorium provides a range of opportunities to pose all your pent-up personal questions to a series of experts.

Link to Exploratorium exhibit info, Link to Elizabeth Hickok's site

BB pal Alan Rapp just blew my mind with a link to the work of incredible photographer and installation artist Stephen Berkman. His subject matter, composition, and use of archaic processes results in deeply spooky, dreamy, and wonderful works.
Link

Earlier this week, I posted about a video clip of a purported Bigfoot stumbling in the snow in Ely, Minnesota. Apparently the shooter, Richard Sade, just realized he had a little more footage of the animal. Comments are welcome over at Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo blog.
Link

UPDATE: Sade as removed the video from YouTube. Link

UPDATE: The video is back again. See Loren Coleman's post for more info. Link

Make haste! Get thee to the Melbourne aquarium in Australia! Only three more days left to see the world's most ginormous frozen squid!

The 250-kilogram creature, caught by commercial fishermen off New Zealand’s South Island earlier this year, has cost the aquarium more than $100,000, which included purchasing and transporting the squid. The bill also included displaying the squid in a purpose-built 3½-tonne block of ice.

Link to item on the world's first all-squid, all-the-time SquidBlog! Image: courtesy Melbourne Aquarium. (Thanks, Scott Beale!)

Update: Alex Loke says,

The article mentions that there are only a few days left to see the squid, but the Aquarium website says the exhibit has been extended to September 30. That being, said I've seen it and it's pretty damned amazing.

Following up on yesterday's BoingBoing post about a proposed state-mandated internet filtering system in Australia, reader David points us to a Sydney Morning Herald report about the political maneuvering behind the deal, and says:

While the Labour plan was originally scoffed at by the Coalition government, they are now being placed under pressure by members within to support such a system. Family First, an emerging religous right party, has already expressed support for the idea. It's worth noting that the leader of the opposition (Labour) is so unpopular at the moment that he could head-butt Godzilla and still not stand a chance in hell of being elected.

Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch writes from Ecuador (via Rainforest Action Network):

The country is about to burst at the seams. There have been provincial strikes and road blocks since i got here. Although they subsided over the weekend, they’re gaining strength again, and the repression has been brutal.

There is now a state of emergency called in five provinces, with more to come tomorrow. The two demands of CONAIE, the national indigenous group, which is finally starting to be joined by other social sectors and universities, are: NO to the signing of the TLC, spanish acronym for the Andean Trade Pact, and the nullification of OXY’s contract and essentially the expropriation of their operations.

Never in my wildest dreams would i ever have thought that OXY would become the focal point of an entire nation, and it now looks like it has become such a flashpoint for the GoE that any offers by OXY to re-negotiate its contract or offer Ecuador more money are moot. I don’t think this government will survive without kicking OXY out.

The grassroots radio stations are calling on the forajidos, the loose knit community neighborhood groups responsible for the ousting of Gutierrez last April, to auto-convocarse (self mobilize and autonomous actions) to the streets in protests neighborhood by neighborhood, because large marches are now prohibited by the state of emergency, and they’ve been getting crushed by the military and police.

Link (thanks, Brant) Here's a related NYT story: Link to "Ecuador's President Declares a State of Emergency," by Juan Forero.

Image: "An indigenous Ecuadorean woman walks in her community of San Miguel del Prado, north of Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, March 22, 2006. Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed to clear blocked highways Wednesday after President Alfredo Palacio's government declared a state of emergency in four provinces to curb protests against a proposed free-trade deal with Washington. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa R.)". Full-size photo here, here's another, and another.

Players who misbehave in the Roman online role-playing game Roma Victor will be punished by having their characters crucified and displayed in public spaces for other players to mock and throw things at. The first crucifixion is being doled out to "Cynewulf," played by a 27 year-old electrical engineer from Flint, Michigan, whose crime is "ganking" (ripping off) new players as they first appear in game. Cynewulf will be hung on the cross for seven days.

Crucifixion is to be used as a form of player 'ban' within the virtual world of Roma Victor, with the length of the ban reflecting the severity of the punishment. For cheating by exploiting a bug and advancing his or her character's skills unfairly, for example, a player might typically receive a seven-day ban; multiple or more serious offenses will result in a longer (or even permanent) ban.

Link (via Terranova)

Responding to South Dakota's statewide abortion ban, the Oglala Lakhota president on the Pine Ridge reservation -- a former nurse -- says she'll provide access to sovereign tribal land for clinics. Snip:

"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," [Cecilia Fire Thunder] said to [Lakhota Times editor Tim Giago] last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

Link to Native Times article (subscription required), or read excerpt on indybay website here. (Thanks, drogheda, Ryan and others!)

Reader comment: For those wishing to donate cash for the project, or extend messages of support, BoingBoing reader Lampbane says, " Contact info for president Fire Thunder can be found here."

Reader comment: A.V. says,

Careful with the Sioux abortion clinic donations. Although it's a great idea for the clinic, be careful about donations which may not actually go towards the desired destination.... definitely read that post before blindly sending money: Link.

Reader comment: Adam says,

The Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota posted this reponse on their site. Read it before making any donations. They thank the OGLALA SIOUX but indicate that they have no plans to open a clinic on the reservation. Of course, Planned Parenthood is a worthy charity and accepts donations through their official site. Link

The Minimum Security webcomic sends up South Dakota Senator Bill Napoli, who helped push through the state ban on abortion. It features a woman unable to choose what sort of salad dressing to have, who calls up Napoli's office to get him to make the choice for her -- the strip includes his office and home phone numbers in case you want to try, too. Link (Thanks, Steeltoe!)

This site contains instructions for building your own semi-automatic air-cannon designed to fire rolls of toilet paper.

This will be handy if we're invaded by the kind of Klingons that hang around Uranus.

The real ingenuity lies within the auto loading mechanism of the cannon. It uses a bolt-like system which grabs and places the ammo in the barrel, directing the air flow only to the projectile being fired, and springs back to catch another projectile automatically. This in turns enables this cannon to be a semi-automatic cannon. As said earlier this loader can be used to design a full-auto air cannon relatively easily. Xinventions, is in the process of designing this full-auto cannon, and more info will be available to the public soon.

Link Corrected Link (via Red Ferret)

This HOWTO explains how to turn yourself into an early riser. I've always been an early riser -- when I was a kid, I used to get up at 4AM; these days, it's more likely to be between 5 and 6 -- and I love it. I get so much done while everyone else is asleep, by the time I get to work, I've already gotten my blogging done, worked on my novel, cleared out my inbox, done some physiotherapy exercises, Tai Chi and yoga, eaten a healthy breakfast and gone for a walk.

Apparently, non-early-risers make a lot of mistakes when they try to switch -- like just going to bed earlier, or going to bed whenever and waking up whenever. This article, written by someone who's tried many approaches, explains one approach that worked for him.

The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy (and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week). So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5am), but I go to bed at different times every night.

I go to bed when I’m too sleepy to stay up. My sleepiness test is that if I couldn’t read a book for more than a page or two without drifting off, I’m ready for bed. Most of the time when I go to bed, I’m asleep within three minutes. I lie down, get comfortable, and immediately I’m drifting off. Sometimes I go to bed at 9:30pm; other times I stay up until midnight. Most of the time I go to bed between 10-11pm. If I’m not sleepy, I stay up until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Reading is an excellent activity to do during this time, since it becomes obvious when I’m too sleepy to read.

When my alarm goes off every morning, I turn it off, stretch for a couple seconds, and sit up.

Link (via Evhead)

FreedomHEC is an alternative to the annual Microsoft "WinHEC" conference. At WinHEC, Microsoft explains how you need to suck up to them and screw your users if you want your stuff to work in a Trusted Computing world. FreedomHEC (timed to follow WinHEC, also set in Seattle) explains how to use GNU/Linux to set your users free and make better programs.

Who: Hardware engineers and driver developers

What: High-intensity learning, networking and taking-back-the-PC-industry unconference

Where: Seattle, Washington, USA

When: May 26-27, 2006

Why: Take control of your own destiny and make your hardware valuable to the growing Linux market.

Link (via Vitanova)

Marcel Neundörfer's On Target urinal has a pressure-sensitive screen recessed into it -- score points by shooting the moving images onscreen. Not only does this add much-needed entertainment to otherwise dreary elimination functions, but it also improves aim -- if you stay on target, you'll avoid splashback and misses. Link (Thanks, Vipula!)

Update: Jeff sez, "This is a pretty flagrant copy of this project for the Media Lab, by Dan Maynes-Aminzade." (see this BB post from 2003)

A new Firefox plugin rewrites all the US prices in the pages you load into the equivalent cost in barrels of crude oil. Link (via CNet Blog Esoterica)

Wired News reports on Daniel Wright, a standup comic who gets his material by looking at new patents filed at the USPTO and making fun of them, keeping track of the best on his blog, Patently Silly:

Hardly a week goes by without Patently Silly featuring some new invention for pampering pets, be it the dog umbrella, pet product vending machine or meat-filled flying disk.

In the course of skimming thousands of patents each week, however, Wright also encounters an abundance of patents geared for the poultry and livestock industries. These patents -- which bear names like "spinal cord removal tool with adjustable blades," and "animal sorting and grading system using MRI to predict maximum value" -- offer a rather striking contrast to the soft and cuddly pet genre.

"If you're a dog, you get umbrellas and all kinds of good things," notes Wright. "But if you're a cow, you get stuck in an MRI that'll tell you how good your meat is going to taste...."

Link

Paul Robertson's LiveJournal has tons of delicious looping animated GIFs, apparently from his forthcoming animated short film Pirate Baby's Cabana Street Fight 2006. Most of them show shambling baby zombies that look a little like undead Stortroopers, including a standout one showing the undead getting their asses thoroughly kicked by a kung-fu kid. Link (Thanks, Josh!)