After years of taking life for granted, Garfield is shaken by a horrifying vision of the inevitable process called ‘time.’ He has only one weapon...denial...

NAOSHIMA: JAPAN'S "ART ISLAND"
Naoshima is a small fishing island off the southern Japan coast. During the 1990s, Pritzker Prize-winning architect Tadao Ando used the island as the setting to build several spectacular contemporary art museums. Shrewdly, he designed the museums with hotel rooms in which visitors can stay. No less shrewdly, we stayed. Link to Flickr set.

OTAKU AKIHABARA
Akihabara, Tokyo's "Electric Town," is famous for its huge stores overflowing with the latest Japanese electronics. But the area is also a haven for "otaku" -- Japan's anime-inspired geek subculture. These are a just few of the otaku sights to see in the darker corners of the neighborhood. PARENTAL ADVISORY-- Contains anatomically-enhanced plastic action figures. Link to flickr set.

August 2, 2006
Trouble at the Border
By Daoud Kuttab, Ramallah, West Bank

For about three hours on Tuesday, I was really concerned. My sister Grace and her four children were traveling from Jordan to see relatives in the West Bank using the northern Jordan-Israel crossing point. The source of my concern was a news item I saw on TV saying that a Hezbollah rocket had fallen on Bisan in northern Israel.

Bisan, literally on the other side of the border crossing that the family was about to reach, is now called Beit Shean and is 100 percent inhabited by Israelis. I was debating whether to ask them to turn back or or let them take their chances.

When I finally called Grace on her cellphone, she told me that they had almost reached the crossing point. I told her what was happening. She said that they wanted to continue on. I then advised her that once they crossed into Israel, they should drive quickly south towards Jerusalem. I never expected her to be denied entry by the Israelis for a completely different reason.

A one-eyed child suffering from a rare chromosomal disorder known as cyclopia was born in a hospital in Chennai earlier this week. The disorder occurs during pregnancy when the cells that constitute the forebrain fail to develop properly and fuse into a single eye. Instances of cyclopia are generally attributed to outside factors like ambient pollution, radiation, drugs and the introduction of other agents that can alter fetal development.

The pictures bare an eerie resemblance to images of Love Canal, a suburban community built on top of the most notorious toxic waste dump in New York State. While the small town was still populated, several children were born without eyes and cancer was hundreds of times the normal rate.

Reader comment: Hal says,

The deformity of the cyclops baby is caused by a morphogen or "form-producing substance." that creates the shape of the brain and face. In this case, the morphogen did not work correctly. Here's the odd bit, the name of the morphogen is "Sonic Hedgehog" (or "Shh"). Links to cite: one, two, three.

Brazil is sick and tired of companies stealing their plant names, and they're not going to take it any more! Brazil has a wonderful rep for not just rolling over and accepting the increasingly draconian intellectual property treaties being foisted on developing nations by the first world. Their latest move comes in response to a growing trend. It goes like this:

1) Brazilians spend millennia eating some great tasting Brazilian plant that's also great for your health.
2) Foreign company learns about the plant.
3) Foreign company trademarks the plant name and creates a company to sell the plant (turned into a health drink, or shampoo, or anti-aging cream, or brain-tonic pills, or God knows what else).
4) Some poor guy in Brazil opens up a local business cooking up the plant for the locals. (He uses the plant name in his company's name). He starts a little export business selling his product.
5) He gets the pants sued off of him because some company 5,000 miles away trademarked the plant name. Never mind the fact that folks in Brazil have been calling the plant by that name forever.
6) Repeat over and over.

Brazil has now come up with a wonderfully pragmatic way to break this cycle. They've compiled a list (there's a pdf here) of more than 5,000 Portuguese language names of plants, seeds, roots, etc. They've shipped the list off to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the World Trade Organization (WTO), and trademark offices around the world. The idea is that if all of these organizations and countries know a term is already in use they will be less likely to grant some company a trademark on it. Clever!

Reader comment: Jason Bandlow says,

Brazil is not the only country trying to defend the knowledge its people have had for centuries. This article from the BBC last December describes India doing the same thing for medicine. Link

Despite Prostratin's promise as an anti-AIDS drug, its supply is limited by the fact that the drug has to be extracted from the bark and stemwood of the mamala tree. Researchers in the laboratory of Jay Keasling, UC Berkeley professor of chemical engineering, plan to clone the genes from the tree that naturally produce Prostratin and insert them into bacteria to make microbial factories for the drug.

A microbial source for Prostratin will ensure a plentiful, high-quality supply if it is approved as an anti-AIDS drug," said Keasling, who also is a faculty affiliate with the California Institute for Quantitative Biomedical Research (QB3) and head of the Synthetic Biology Department at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "We consider the actual gene sequences as part of Samoa's sovereignty, and every effort will be made to reflect this fact."

The agreement, signed by Prime Minister Tuila'epa Aiono Sailele Malielegaoi of Samoa and UC Berkeley's Vice Chancellor for Research Beth Burnside, gives Samoa and UC Berkeley equal shares in any commercial proceeds from the genes. Samoa's 50 percent share will be allocated to the government, to villages, and to the families of healers who first taught ethnobotanist Dr. Paul Alan Cox how to use the plant. The agreement also states that UC Berkeley and Samoa will negotiate the distribution of the drug in developing nations at a minimal profit if Keasling is successful.

* Simulating the Stars: modeling star formation in the computer

* Life 2.0: building synthetic organisms to fight cancer and make fuel

* Mapping the Future of Field Geology: replacing crayons and paper with tablet PCs and GPS

Arthur Lee, singer and guitarist of the influential 1960s band Love, has died in Memphis at the age of 61 following a battle with acute myeloid leukaemia.

A Memphis native who called himself the "first so-called black hippie", Lee formed Love in Los Angeles in 1965.

The multiracial band recorded three groundbreaking albums that fused rock, blues and psychedelia - the self-titled Love, Da Capo and Forever Changes.

"One of the insurmountable obstacles in my life has been how to get a gallon of Tuscan Whole Milk from Gristedes back to my apartment without finishing it first. Up until now it was necessary to buy a second gallon. Amazon has changed all that. Now I can get my Tuscan Whole Milk at my apartment in a sealed cardboard box that will protect it at least as far as the elevator. From that point the "No Milk Guzzling" sign in the elevator holds me back. In the short walk to my apartment door I may down a pint or two but for the most part the gallon stays intact. This has changed my life immeasurably for the better."

***

"I had a problem where my roof was leaking. I poured some Tuscan Whole Milk over it to seal it up and it just flowed right into the hole and didn't do anything. I now have milk constantly dripping down from the ceiling and it has stained the drywall as well. The milk trapped in the ceiling is now rancid and smells horrible. It has also induced a pest infestation problem. The pest control company won't deal with it because of the odor is unbearable in the house. My wife and children are now leaving me as well. This product has ruined my life. Do not buy this product, I suggest some roof caulking or tar instead."

***

"At first I was struck with despair when my cat got into my gallon of Tuscan whole milk, but what was once consternation quickly turned to joy as seconds later my cat became Halle Berry dressed in a black leather cat outfit. I cannot thank the creators of Tuscan whole milk and Gristedes Supermarkets of New York for the limitless pleasure which ensued."

(The device) sends pulses of energy to Earth's surface, where light particles from the lasers bounce off leaves, branches and the ground and reflect back to the instrument.

These signals give scientists a direct measurement of the height of the forest's leaf-covered treetops, the ground level below and everything in between, NASA said in a statement....

Knowing the thickness of ground vegetation, the density of tree leaves and other factors including closeness to water and age of the forest might help in the search, he said.

OUR NEWEST FUNNY BOTTLE OPENER--SEXUAL BOTTLE OPENER (rosh standards)

Dear Sir/Miss,

thanks a lot for your time to read this email.

I am Stephen Lee, The General Manager of COOOOOL TOY INDUSTRY LTD.

We make remarkable toys only. We specializes in the manufacturing and supplying toys at fully competitive market prices. The quality of our products is guaranteed to be excellent. We will do whatever possible to meet your requirements and to satisfy you in every respect.

NOW WE HAVE A NEW GREAT TOY. I THINK MAYBE SUIT YOUR MARKET:

Oh yes. You can see it's a very sexual and beautiful women!

AND she can open beer bottle for you!! Can you see how she open the bottle for you? So funny! Right?

I know you can not believe that she can moan!!! Every time you open bottle by she. She will moan louder and louder. Like you make she come.

It can be used in beer bar and coffee bar and hotel and home.
It's a so good promotion gift if your customer is young man.

Material: ABS and iron

It need 2pcs AA battery
We can make some change for you:
We can change the sentence on the ground for you.
We can make the color box along your design.

With pleasure we offer you our newest funny toy as follow.

"What is remarkable is that apparently one needs only to consume curry once in a while for the better cognitive performance to be evidenced," says Ng, who says he wants to confirm the results, possibly in a controlled clinical trial comparing curcumin and a placebo.

His idea, which has upset survivors of the prison camp, envisages recreating a tiny part of the Gulag complete with watchtowers, guards armed with paintball guns, snarling dogs, rolls of barbed wire, spartan living conditions - and forced labour...

The Mayor's idea is part of a growing trend in Russia for extreme tourism. Tour companies already offer the chance to work as a Volga boatman in their holiday - literally by pulling a barge along the famous river - or to undergo basic military training overseen by veterans of the Chechen wars.

In that same spirit the governor of Vladimir Lenin's native region recently floated plans to open aLeninland theme park that would also allow visitors to experience elements of the Gulag. Mr Shpektor contends that his "Club Gulag" holiday camp would remind people of the horrors of Stalin's repression in a way that dry history books cannot.

A flood-tide of filth is engulfing our country in the form of newsstand obscenity. It is threatening to pervert an entire generation of our American children. We know that once a person is perverted, it is practically impossible for the person to adjust to normal attitudes in regards to sex.

Reader comment:

That's not just any old "wooden, white male authority figure"... That's George Putnam! Putnam is one of LA's grand old newsmen, still doing commentaries after 72 years in the business. LA TV viewers remember Putnam from the 70s show, "Talkback"- a wild talk show that commented on current events. Like Joe Pine and Wally George, Putnam really knew how to keep the show entertaining. The basic concept of the program was that George represented white God-fearing Americans and Larry McCormick, a local black reporter (who was sorely outmatched) represented everyone else. I remember one particularly zany show where McCormick was talking about the student riots when George piped up, "I have a loaded revolver near every window in my house, and if any filthy hippies try to get in, I'll use them!" George Putnam is a treasure.

A few minutes ago here at the Wikimania conference, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that the One Laptop Per Child Project is including Wikipedia as the first element in their content repository. They've been talking about this for at least a year, but now it's official.

He also announced a new project called Wikiversity. It will serve as an online center for the creation and use of free learning materials and activities. It will create and host a range of free content materials, multilingual learning materials, for all ages in all languages. It'll host scholarly projects and communities to support these materials, and foster research based in part on existing resources in Wikiversity and other wikimedia projects. Launching in three languages, in a six-month beta, within a month.

Wikimedia Foundation will also now have an advisory board to help improve partnerships, public relations, financing, etc. Additionally, Wikia and SocialText is launching Wikiwyg. It will make it easier for more people to get involved in wiki editing. The technological barrier to entry keeps out really smart people who are uncomfortable with the Wikipedia interface, Wales said. "Wikiwyg, in some shape or form, will be the future of the Internet," because it will allow non-techies to become Wikipedians easily.

Update: Thomas sez, "The larvae are almost certainly from the butterfly Yponomeuta evonymella, Bird-cherry Ermine (or Häggspinnmal in Swedish). It has haunted areas of Sweden for several years, but the trees do come back after being stripped clean of their foliage."

We can detain any combatants for the duration of the hostilities," said Gonzales, speaking to the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"If we choose to try them, that's great. If we don't choose to try them, we can continue to hold them," he said...

The proposed rules would allow hearsay evidence to be introduced, including evidence obtained under duress, unless a military judge considers it unreliable, Gonzales said.

To prevent terrorists from having access to confidential information, judges handling the cases must be able to temporarily exclude defendants from their own trial if deemed necessary for national security.

Link (via Digg)

This mod is made of bronze-brazed, hammer-beaten copper. The drives' support is a hammer-beaten and bronze-brazed silver-plated skull. I am an HVAC Tech by trade and create most of my art work using the material that I work with during my day job. The spine that supports the hard drive and DVD and the skeleton hands that support the motherboard are constructed from used refrigerant piping that I beat into the shape of human bones. The "on" switch and "reset" switch are from defective setback thermostats.

The skull and face suspended from the spine that frame in the DVD writer and 300GB hard drive are made from silver-plated bowls purchased at a junk store. When the DVD writer or hard drive power up or go into "seek" mode, the skull face jiggles. I had to take apart the 500-watt power supply to reverse the biscuit fan, because I wanted it to blow up through the opening in the base to help cool the main board.

I would sum up my fear about the future in one word: boring. And that's my one fear: that everything has happened; nothing exciting or new or interesting is ever going to happen again... the future is just going to be a vast, conforming suburb of the soul. —J. G. Ballard

As our megalopolis expands, fragments, and warps, we look towards governments, industry, world leaders, and pop stars to guide the way. The party rhetoric echoes a future vision filled with beautiful, delicious urban technologies that will sooth the souls of our communities, generate playful neo-geo-landscapes, and celebrate our omni-connected harmony? But what do we truly aspire, desire, and admire? Emerge from the labs, galleries, homes, offices, and suburbs. Break free and engage in the first open forum Interactive City Summit.

Update: Scott sez, "The band is called Hurra Torpedo."

Update 2: Paul sez, "My friend worked on the film crew that followed them around during their North American tour. They will be producing a rockumentary."

Update 3: Nathan sez, "The band features Kristopher Schau, who also is also lead singer of The Cumshots. They made headlines two summers ago during the Quart Festival in Norway by featuring a live sex show by members of Fuck For Forest - a porn company that donates its profits to forestry charities."

Censorware and firewall companies are incapable of accurately judging and categorizing the Internet. Boing Boing's guide to defeating censorware can help you do something about it. Link

Update: Dave sez, 'The network at a previous job of mine had Barracuda, and at various times they blocked BoingBoing as "hacking," Wonkette as "pornography," and all sites associated in any way with computer games as "game playing" (while leaving open all sites having to do with sports, of course).'

Ntwiga says: "Your neighbors are leaching off your wireless internet connection.

What to do? Well this guy took the high road.

He suggests that rather than shutting down access to the router, have some fun. First, separate the networks into trusted and untrusted segments. Then, send all traffic on the the untrusted segment to kittenwar.com

Or even better, set up a squid proxy that takes all images coming in to the untrusted segment and turns them upside down before serving them up. Or just make all the images blurry . . . to create "blurry-net".

Have you ever been in a situation where you wished your cell phone would ring? Maybe you wanted to look extra important or popular on that hot date. Or maybe you just needed an excuse to escape from an unpleasant meeting.

With "The Popularity Dialer", you can plan ahead. Via a web interface, you can choose to have your phone called at a particular time (or several times). At the elected time, your phone will be dialed and you will hear a prerecorded message that's one half of a conversation. Thus, you will be prompted to have a fake conversation and will easily fool those around you.

I was walking down the street in New York City when I heard a light "thwap" followed by a sense of pressure on my chest. I reached for the area instinctively and felt only the Moleskine. notebook in the inside pocket of my jacket. It wasn't until I looked inside the jacket at my shirt that I found the small mangled piece of lead along with the shredded paper from my notebook. A rogue bullet had gone through my jacket and into my Moleskine. Evidently, the two outer covers and the tightly packed pages of the notebook were enough to slow the bullet down. The ink from my journal entries may have played a small role as well. For whatever reason, the bullet had stopped right between the notebook and my shirt - leaving me without a scratch....

Reader comment: Mack Reed says: "Hate to be the bearer of a correction, but the Moleskine owner just outed himself as a hoaxer."

My favorite conspiracy theory is the one that says the world is being run by a handful of ultra-rich capitalists, and that our elected governments are mere puppets. I sure hope it’s true. Otherwise my survival depends on hordes of clueless goobers electing competent leaders. That’s about as likely as a dog pissing the Mona Lisa into a snow bank.

...

I know some of you will say that it’s obvious that corporate money influences the government. But that’s not enough to make me feel comfortable. I want to know there’s an actual meeting of the puppetmasters every Thursday at 3 pm. I want to know that when one of them suggests a new policy that the group votes by pressing buttons on their chairs and if the idea is deemed bad, the offender drops through a hole in the floor and is eaten by a golden shark. You can’t tell me that democracy produces better policies than the golden shark method.

The aquarium believes Claudette's ability to re-generate lost limbs became confused and, rather than replacing a missing set of claws, she grew an extra pair instead.

"People working on carbons are always looking for improved properties," says Mildred Dresselhaus, a specialist in carbon materials at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She points out that coconut shells are already used as a source of porous carbon for water filtration and other applications. "Low-tech routes are commonly used when they do the job," Dresselhaus says...

The French team cooked alginate (abundant in brown seaweeds) in an air-free enclosure, turning it into a black powder. They then combined this with a polymer binder to make a hard material, which they shaped into electrodes for supercapacitors.

The amount of electrical charge and energy that these devices can hold is comparable to that of capacitors made from commercial activated carbons. But the seaweed capacitors can be charged to voltages twice as high without breaking down, and the material is twice as dense. They hold up well over time, too: their charge-storage capacity declines by only 15% after 10,000 cycles of charging and discharging.

For example, when the viewer is angry the colours are dark and appear to have been applied to the canvas with more violent brush strokes.

If their expression changes to happy, the artwork adapts so that the colours are vibrant and more subtly applied...

“The programme analyses the image for eight facial expressions, such as the position and shape of the mouth, the openness of the eyes, and the angle of the brows, to work out the emotional state of the viewer,” said Dr John Collomosse from the Department of Computer Science at the University of Bath.

“This kind of empathic painting only needs a desk top computer and a webcam to work, so once you have the programme and have calibrated it for the individual viewer, you are ready to start creating personalised art based on your mood.

“The empathic painting is really an experiment into the feasibility of using high level control parameters, such as emotional state, to replace the many low-level tools that users currently have at their disposal to affect the output of artistic rendering.”

In this hilarious send-up of Lovecraftian horror and steampunk adventure, President Abraham Lincoln's top spy is a bodyless head known only as Screw-On Head.

When arch-fiend Emperor Zombie steals an artifact that will enable him to threaten all life on Earth, the task of stopping him is assigned to Screw-on Head. Fortunately, Screw-On Head is not alone on this perilous quest. He is aided by his multitalented manservant, Mr. Groin, and by his talking canine cohort, Mr. Dog.

Can this unorthodox trio stop Emperor Zombie in time? Does Screw-On Head have a body awesome enough to stop the horrors that have been unleashed? Where can we get a talking dog?

All these questions (O.K., maybe not that last one) will be answered when you watch the thrilling tale of The Amazing Screw-On Head!

Update: Apparently SciFi is blocking access to this by region, here's a YouTube mirror, thanks, Sergio!

Update 2: Here's an alternate YouTube link: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 (Thanks, Raincaster!)

Spending credit illegally was difficult, but there were ways, if you were clever. There were always ways. Using a morph unit illegally was even more difficult, but to Mallory it was worth the risk.

Friends like Lorraine made it possible. Lorraine was a lab technician for Softec, and she was both clever and greedy; to make a little extra on the side, she allowed Mallory to use the units during off hours. Mallory had no idea if any of the other morph agents were also clandestine customers -- Lorraine could be trusted to keep her mouth shut.

"I don't understand why they don't market these things for entertainment purposes," Lorraine said as she adjusted the download cap on Mallory's head.

Kaminsky calls his technique "TCP-based active probing for faults." He says that the software he's developing will be similar to the Traceroute Internet utility that is used to track what path Internet traffic takes as it hops between two machines on different ends of the network.

But unlike Traceroute, Kaminsky's software will be able to make traffic appear as if it is coming from a particular carrier or is being used for a certain type of application, like VoIP. It will also be able to identify where the traffic is being dropped and could ultimately be used to finger service providers that are treating some network traffic as second-class.

The brewers claim that the water is at least 2,000 years old and free of minerals and pollutants.

The first 66,000 litres of the new dark and pale ales are on their way to the Danish market.

"Half the songs, I don't know what I'm saying," admits Joy, one of the diehards. She's attending the show despite warnings from her doctor - a recent injury has left her confined to a wheelchair. Lauran is equally obsessed: Pulling her striped socks up above her shin-high combat boots, she recounts how she took the red-eye to New York to see the band on Tuesday, flew back to the West Coast on Thursday, and joined the queue outside the Wiltern eight hours before showtime to secure a prime spot in the mosh pit. Lauran got hooked on Dir en grey five years ago when she stumbled across an audioclip on the Web. She bought her first Dir en grey DVD on eBay - a Chinese copy that required a region 1 decoder. Others discovered the group through its videogame music or merchandise displays at anime conferences. The band also maintains a popular MySpace page with blog entries and videoclips.

Update: Tom sez, "I tracked down free, legal full-length samples of several of their songs."

Update 2: DJ Kidna sez, "I'm a DJ for WKNC 88.1 FM in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I host a show called Made In Japan, specializing in music from Japan. Dir En Grey happens to be one of my top requests, and I play them pretty often"

Update 3: James sez, "The band has released their latest album, Withering to Death worldwide, and in the US on May 16th of this year. It's available at most major retailers such as Best Buy."

The engineer recently reviewed the "Burn to DVD" specification and found that the system has been designed really badly -- so badly that it's likely that DVDs burned with CinemaNow are likely to fail in many commercial DVD players.

The system is based on the deliberate introduction of errors caused by Digital Sum Value (DSV), a sum that represents the ratio of land to pits on the surface of the DVD. The DVD spec notes the possibility of DSV errors and instructs implementers to take care to avoid them, as these errors can cause a host of problems with reading and playing discs.

My source notes that the introduction of DSV errors is indiscriminate and uncontrollable -- the multitude of possible combinations of DVD burners' chip-sets, blank media, and other variables means that any attempt to introduce DSV errors will produce unpredictable outcomes.

The engineer tried burning Burn-to-DVD discs with a variety of test-bench equipment and found that many of his burners failed entirely, and of those that succeeded, many produced unplayable, error-ridden discs.

For the "successful," marginally playable discs, the news is still bad, since those discs will already be at the limit of their players' error-correction threshold, so that minor scratches and dust would render them useless.

My source also believes that this technique infringes on several patents, including this one.

My source sums it up neatly in this outraged paragraph: "I'm against people being fleeced by this kind of crap. How can you sell someone content on media that is so heavily compromised, especially on a format that so heavily relies upon its error correction system to maintain playability? It's mind boggling!" (Thanks, anonymous engineer!)

Update: Tian sez, "Recently, my local news crew has tested out the service and found it to be crap. I have also wrote about the crappy service especially CinemaNow's Burn To DVD's DRM. Even though my local news crew was able to burn one DVD successfully, CinemaNow's "one copy only" DRM can be easily defeated."

The lines between reality and perception blur in this comic journey into the life and mind (literally!) of one of sci-fi's most brilliant authors. Paranoid conspiracies of the highest order, drug-fueled interdimensional shifts, and 1970's pop culture combine for the mind-bending adventure of the century.

Update: Aaron sez, "This is a Channel 101 series - not a youtube series."

* Sleep only as much as you need to feel refreshed the next day.
* Get up at the same time, 7 days a week.
* Exercise regularly.
* Make sure your bedroom is comfortable and free of disturbing light and noise.
* Make sure that your bedroom is at a comfortable temperature during the night.
* Eat regular meals and do not go to bed hungry.
* Avoid excessive fluids in the evening. Cut down on caffeine products.
* Avoid alcohol, especially in the evening.
* Smoking may disturb sleep.
* Don't take your problems to bed.
* Train yourself to use the bedroom only for sleeping and sexual activity.
* Do not TRY to fall asleep.
* Put the clock under the bed or turn it so that you cannot see it.
* Avoid taking naps.

The first Professor of Physics at the University of Queensland, Professor Thomas Parnell, began an experiment in 1927 to illustrate that everyday materials can exhibit quite surprising properties. The experiment demonstrates the fluidity and high viscosity of pitch, a derivative of tar once used for waterproofing boats. At room temperature pitch feels solid - even brittle - and can easily be shattered with a blow from a hammer (see the video clip below). It's quite amazing then, to see that pitch at room temperature is actually fluid!

In 1927 Professor Parnell heated a sample of pitch and poured it into a glass funnel with a sealed stem. Three years were allowed for the pitch to settle, and in 1930 the sealed stem was cut. From that date on the pitch has slowly dripped out of the funnel - so slowly that now, 72 years later, the eighth drop is only just about to fall.

The history of human expertise begins with hunting, a skill that was crucial to the survival of our early ancestors. The mature hunter knows not only where the lion has been; he can also infer where it will go. Tracking skill increases, as repeated studies show, from childhood onward, rising in "a linear relationship, all the way out to the mid-30s, when it tops out," says John Bock, an anthropologist at California State University, Fullerton. It takes less time to train a brain surgeon.

Without a demonstrably immense superiority in skill over the novice, there can be no true experts, only laypeople with imposing credentials. Such, alas, are all too common. Rigorous studies in the past two decades have shown that professional stock pickers invest no more successfully than amateurs, that noted connoisseurs distinguish wines hardly better than yokels, and that highly credentialed psychiatric therapists help patients no more than colleagues with less advanced degrees. And even when expertise undoubtedly exists--as in, say, teaching or business management--it is often hard to measure, let alone explain.

Skill at chess, however, can be measured, broken into components, subjected to laboratory experiments and readily observed in its natural environment, the tournament hall. It is for those reasons that chess has served as the greatest single test bed for theories of thinking--the "Drosophila of cognitive science," as it has been called.

How did the U.S. Air Force respond on 9/11? Could it have shot down United 93, as conspiracy theorists claim? Obtaining 30 hours of never-before-released tapes from the control room of NORAD's Northeast headquarters, the author reconstructs the chaotic military history of that day—and the Pentagon's apparent attempt to cover it up.

They asked the men to rate how hungry they were on a scale of one to seven. Using these responses, the researchers selected 30 hungry and 31 satiated men to take part in the study.

The men were then asked to rate the attractiveness of 50 women of varying weights, all within a healthy range, who had been photographed wearing tight grey leotards and leggings.

The hungry men rated more of the heavier women as attractive than the men who were full up.

1. Mainstream, top-down, professional journalism will continue to play a vital role in covering news events, and in shaping our interpretation of those events, as it should.

2. Bloggers will grow increasingly adept at covering certain kinds of news events, but not all. They will play an increasingly important role in the interpretation of all kinds of news.

3. The majority of bloggers won't be concerned with traditional news at all.

4. Professional, edited journalism will have a much higher signal-to-noise ratio than blogging; examples of sloppy, offensive, factually incorrect, or tedious writing will be abundant in the blogosphere. But diamonds in that rough will be abundant as well.

5. Blogs -- like all modes of contemporary media -- are not historically unique; they draw upon and resemble a number of past traditions and forms, depending on their focus.

Superman Crunch
It's good to see Superman and Cap'n Crunch -- the two most powerful beings in the universe -- collaborating. Clearly they enjoyed working together, because this isn't just another damn boring cereal with unidentifiable marshmallows. No, this is regular, mouth-flaying Cap'n Crunch with red Superman insignias. OK, admittedly they don't have the actual "S" in the middle. And the low levels of quality control over on Crunch Island have resulted in the shapes looking like anything from a heart to the opening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, but I give them points for trying. Even better, the cereal turns the milk blue. I have no idea how that works. The Superman symbols turn this kind of mottled, leprous purple, and the milk turns a lovely shade of blue, just like Aunt Beru used to make. And the flavor, well it tastes like Cap'n Crunch's Crunchberries, which is great, but at this point I'd take anything that would wash the taste of Ice Age 2 cereal out of my mouth.

What exactly will this punitive harassment accomplish? It certainly won't encourage meth offenders to assume a lawful place in society. Minnesota State Attorney General Mike Hatch, the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party candidate for governor and no softie on the drug issue, considers the meth registry a referral service for users. "What better place to find a meth dealer than on an Internet Web site," Hatch said last week.

The individual parts that make up a shiv tend to be everyday objects, innocent things furtively reconstituted as lethal weapons. Each design choice is essential, but what’s particularly notable is that shivs, at their core, are not so much evocations of minimalism as they are symbols of survivalism. A shiv is all about masked utility: it’s an innocuous object with improbably toxic intent (whether used to attack others or to protect oneself...).

However, the actual reason why the top selling antivirus applications don't work is because malware authors are specifically testing their Trojans and viruses to make sure they can bypass these applications before releasing them in the wild.

"The most popular brands of antivirus on the market… have an 80 percent miss rate… So if you are running these pieces of software, eight out of 10 pieces of malicious code are going to get in," said Ingram.

Hoeflin is fascinated by the idea of a "maximum human potential." Every afternoon, he goes to Wendy's in Hell's Kitchen and reads for several hours with a magnifying glass—he's legally blind—as preparation for his three-volume treatise, The Encyclopedia of Categories: A Theory of Categories and Unifying Paradigm for Philosophy With Over 1,000 Examples. He is kind, awkward, and modest, and tends to explain things with charts. When talking about his childhood, he goes to his bookshelf unprompted and offers the results of a personality test. "I should probably just show this to you," he says. "As you can see, I have this extreme sensitivity factor. So some things are really hard."

In college, Hoeflin joined Mensa, the largest IQ society, originally created after World War II as a forum for brilliant people to come up with political solutions. As more members joined, people became less preoccupied with world peace than with finding mates and doing puzzles. Hoeflin felt too shy for the group—on one occasion, he drove 50 miles for a meeting and then got nervous and turned around—and began associating with newer, more selective organizations.

Me: Why are your Pierrots always wearing blue and sometimes have their faces painted black? Is there any symbolism?

Amy: Well, they started out in white, but ended up blue. I needed some color, I guess, to contrast with red. But, blue is appropriate, I think. Like Picasso’s blue period. My pierrot is a mischievous and melancholy imp. He gets into trouble a lot. But, the girl is fond of him and they have a sort of ambiguous relationship. The black face is a twist on the white make up that he usually wears and also relates to music/entertainment that was popular back in the 1920’s. And I think the black face adds something graphically to the paintings.

"At $849,900, it's a little out of my price range, but man, what kinda crazy vibes must be in that place.

...

"I wasn't ready for Trout Mask. In fact, it freaked me out, and not in a good way. It was weird, crazy, chaotic noise, and I didn't listen to it again until a few years later. By then, I was a little older, and although no wiser, I had involved myself in enough bad-for-my-health recreational activities to have a new-found appreciation for the complex sound of The Magic Band's masterpiece. Now it's one of my favorites, (though my all-time favorite Beefheart LP is still the out-of-print follow-up, Lick My Decals Off, Baby.)" Link

AU: They created what they call a Camp Darfur. So it's like... tents and campfire and photos of real life refugees in the real life Darfur... This guy found a flaw in the building and he was able to trash the whole camp. And some of it was racist. They started shouting anti-African slurs and they started attacking the camp day after day.

Meanwhile on the other side of the camp, there's a group called The Green Lantern Core... One of the guys is the Green Lantern -- he's got the Green Lantern outfit on and he's this huge dude and he's got the magic ring -- he heard about Camp Darfur getting attacked... And so now the Green Lantern Core guards Camp Darfur.

"Mash it, chop it, layer it, turn it upside down. Your remix can have a dance feel, or be completely avant-garde. Let your imagination be your guide."

Police surrounded Mr. Cardoso inside the restaurant but he escaped by jumping through a broken window. Outside, Mr. Cardoso encountered a police dog, punched it in the mouth and neck, and jumped back through the broken window into the restaurant.

The police re-entered the restaurant and found Mr. Cardoso standing on top of a shake machine. As the police approached, Mr. Cardoso "began throwing handfuls of milkshake at the police and the police dog, officers allege."

When Mr. Cardoso pulled the machine from the wall, the dog attacked him and knocked him to the ground. The quick-thinking Mr. Cardoso put the shake machine's 220-volt power cord in his mouth and announced, "I'm going to kill us all." When he bit into the electrical cord, the dog and three officers received electrical shocks. Mr. Cardoso released the cord after a police officer struck him on the shoulder with a fighting baton.

Mr. Cardoso was arrested and charged with cruelty to animals, breaking and entering, assault on police officers. and resisting arrest. Link (Thanks, Brokbrok!)

As the waitress called police, the woman apparently got suspicious and took off, according to police. She was identified by a friend as Maria Bergan, 23.

Bergan was arrested at her home Saturday night and remains in the Westlake City Jail. She has been charged with identity theft and receiving stolen property.

DRY YANKEE HUMOR is puzzling guards at a German base prison camp for Allied airmen, since American POW’s there decided to adopt insignia to show their new status. The postcard below, sent by Capt. Robert H. Bishop, a bomber navigator now at the camp, brought the design at the right from the Walt Disney studios to Germany, via the Red Cross.

Police in Crawley, West Sussex saw the video and are now looking for the kids -- presumably to arrest, DNA test, interrogate, and lock up (as they did to some kids who committed the grave offense of climbing a tree).

A spokesman for Crawley Borough Council described the stunt as "phenomenally dangerous" and said it could have ended in a fatality.

"It is a bit like Jackass but this is a lot more dangerous because it involves children rather than people old enough to know better," he said.

Reader comment: Corey says: "With regards to the motor scooter/merry-go-round story: a girl was killed two years ago doing this same stunt." Link

Here's a recent article from the Des Moines Register about Cory Neddermeyer, a recovering alcoholic who was fired from an ethanol plant for drinking spilled ethanol. From the article: "I am a recovering alcoholic, and I thought about the availability of this alcohol throughout the day," he wrote in a statement later provided to state officials. "Curious about the taste and its effects, I dipped into this lake of liquor and drank what I considered to be 2 to 3 ounces. The next thing I remember is waking up in Crawford County Memorial Hospital."

What makes this story even better is the following legal battle for unenmployment benefits where Mr. Neddermeyer argues that his employers are partly to blame for this because the spill provided an opportunity for him to drink the fuel. Unfortunately for him, the judge found that "The employer has a right to expect employees not to drink the fuel...Just because some of the ethanol leaked onto the floor is not a good reason for the claimant to drink automobile fuel."

PROTECT YOUR FACILITIES

* Attach equipment and cabinets to walls or other stable equipment
* Place heavy or breakable objects on low shelves
* Move workstations away from large windows
* Elevate equipment off the floor to avoid electrical hazards in the event of flooding * Install fire extinguishers and smoke detectors in appropriate places
* Consider if you could benefit from automatic fire sprinklers, alarm systems, closed circuit TV, access control, security guards, or other security systems
* Secure all the ways in which people, products, supplies and other things enter and leave your facility

“Experimentalism was one of alchemy’s hallmarks,” said Lawrence M. Principe, a historian of science at Johns Hopkins University and a trained chemist. “You have to get your hands dirty, and in this way alchemists forged some early ideas about matter.”

Bent over boiling crucibles in their shadowy laboratories, squeezing bellows before transformative flames and poring over obscure formulas, some alchemists stumbled on techniques and reactions of great value to later chemists. It was experimentation by trial and error, historians say, but it led to new chemicals and healing elixirs and laid the foundations of procedures like separating and refining, distilling and fermenting. “What do chemists do? They like to make stuff,” Dr. Principe said. “Most chemists are interested not so much in theory as in making substances with particular properties. The emphasis on products was the same with some alchemists in the 17th century.”

Jeff Han's talk from TED 2006 just went live -- in it, he demonstrates his multi-touch interactive computer interface. Tthe interface has been blogged before but this talk offers a really solid explanation of how the technology works and its kinda mesmerizing. Link

As an aside, a completely different tedtalk i'd recommend you check out is Larry Brilliant - he tells his story of leading the W.H.O.'s eradication of smallpox in india (and the world).

Unfortunately, this is not a joke...and this is not an old video. Appalachian State University put out this video last year and it instantly became a viral hit amongst the educational community. It's probably THE worst educational recruitment video ever and possibly one of the worst songs ever recorded. From the production values to the obsessive use of the same transition to the incredibly lame imagery used in the video, this one takes the cake on almost every level. It's so bad that it's destined to become a classic.

Their shoes were removed and mugshots, DNA samples and mouth swabs were taken.

Questioned by police, the scared friends admitted they had broken some loose branches because they had wanted to build a tree house, but said they did not realise what they had done was wrong.

Officers considered charging the children with criminal damage but eventually decided a reprimand - the equivalent of a caution for juveniles - was sufficient.

Although the reprimand does not amount to court action and the children do not have a criminal record, their details will be kept on file for up to five years.

Reader comment:

Jay pointed out this news story about the incident:

"Superintendent Stuart Johnson, operations manager at Halesowen police station, said: 'I support the actions of my officers who responded to complaints from the public about kids destroying an ornamental cherry tree by stripping every branch from it'"

Incidentally, most DNA swabbing methods aren't really an invasive procedure, and no less scary than having your finger prints taken. They've been a part of standard processing in all police detainments in the UK because of 'public outcry' and claims that they could have been stopped some high profile child abuse cases if 'the police had known who they were'. It's vaguely hypocritical of the Daily Mail to be complaining about something they were partially responsible for in the first place.

Basically, a case of a pair of young yobs being caught vandelising a public park, and being run through the 'system' to give them a shock before being let of with a warning.

All you need to do is decide whether you prefer your eggs soft, medium or hard-boiled, and buy accordingly.

A spokeswoman for Lion Quality Eggs, the service’s quality assurance scheme, said: “We had a lot of inquiries. We said OK, this is a big issue — people can’t even boil an egg.”

The studio is a workshop packed with tools and equipment, some of which Mueck has invented for his own ends. Scattered on the floor were anatomical text books, photography, hair pieces and bits and bobs of semblances of human anatomy. The pinboard displayed shots of babies' faces, mythological creatures, grotesque faces, cartoon-like figures, and close-ups of eyeballs. Susanna Greeves, a former director of the Anthony d'Offay Gallery, who has worked with the artist for many years, says that Mueck 'lavishes extraordinary care on hand-making his model's eyes in many stages, building up a transparent lens over a coloured iris and deep black pupil. When he finally inserts them, the effect is startling...'

Advances in technology have enhanced his technique, but much of his actual process has been used by sculptors down the ages. He makes plaster maquettes to test ideas, does drawings of various sizes and takes decisions on the scale of the piece. He then sculpts the figure in clay with all the lifelike touches that will appear in the final sculpture. A mould is made of the clay figure and he casts it out in fibreglass resin and silicone. The skin of his figures, which tempts people to peer at it to see if it could be real, is built up from layers of silicone. The lower layers are impregnated with pigment, resulting in a finish that has the slight transparency of the real thing. Each hair is sewn by hand.

Illegal cosmetic surgery by unlicensed doctors appears to be a growing problem in the United States, and authorities have discovered similar underground clinics in California and Florida in recent years. They are especially prevalent in immigrant communities, where women may not have the money to pay for surgery from a licensed physician and where strong community networks easily circulate the names of illegal practitioners who speak the immigrants' language...

Renata Lagares, 28, said in an interview conducted in Portuguese that a friend told her about the illegal clinic. Luiz Carlos Ribeiro injected her lips, did a procedure on her nose, and performed liposuction on her midsection Saturday, which took two hours.

``My lips turned black, and they began to hurt, so I went to the MetroWest [Medical Center] Sunday night," she said. She said that doctors gave her antibiotics for an infection and that the Ribeiros charged her $1,400. ``I never heard of anything bad happening to anyone in the whole time he's been doing this," she said.

Lagares said the basement was tidy and contained a small brown sofa and a washer and dryer. In the middle of the room was a massage-style table covered with white sheets. ``A friend of mine, she had the liposuction done while I was there, and she bled a lot," Lagares said. ``The sheets were covered in blood, but when it was over, he took the sheets and put them in the washer."

1) A collection of Star Trek bears from the Hall of Collections, possibly the coolest hall ever;

2) A cartoon machine gun on a shooting gallery booth on the midway;

3) A booth that offered not just deep fried Twinkies, Oreos, and pickles, but also a chicken sandwich served on a Krispy Kreme donut.

Now it was time for Officer Barnum to ask questions. He asked Holland,

"What would you do if your chain broke?"

Holland:

"I would use my feet."

Officer Barnum:

"What if your leg muscles had a spasm?"

Holland:

"I'm not sure...these are emergency situations."

Ginsberg interjected with a question for Holland:

"Did any of these situations happen on the day you were stopped?"

Holland:

"No."

Update: Emily sez, " Fixed gear bikes can have a front brake, and often do. Track bikes, TRUE track bikes, do not have a place or a way to attach a front brake."

On Monday the Bush administration appealed its loss in the AT&T/NSA wiretapping case to the 9th Circuit. U.S. District Judge Vaughn Walker had ruled on July 20 that EFF's case alleging illegal cooperation with the NSA could proceed.

I've placed some of the briefs filed today online here: PDF Link to DOJ motion, PDF Link to Plaintiff's brief, PDF Link to ATT brief.

That eMusic has found any traction is surprising, as it doesn't have any big hits. No music from major labels means nothing from chart-toppers such as Shakira, Beyoncé or U2 — but plenty from Scott H. Biram, the Pipettes, Dashboard Confessional and Peaches.

They are some of the popular eMusic artists, a roster that also includes household names: Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Credence Clearwater Revival, Miles Davis, Van Morrison, Moby, the White Stripes and Diana Krall are a few of the independent label notables, in a roster more heavily weighted to jazz, classical and indie rock than pop.

Update: Aaron sez, "Emusic doesn't charge a subscription anymore. It's just a straight $0.25/download now."

Update 2: Max sez, "eMusic is still a subscription service; if you sign up for the basic plan and download 40 songs a month, it works out to 25 cents per song."

Update: Kent sez, "Here's the Etsy shop for the wooded specs."

Update 2: Scott of Urban Spectacles sez, "I prefer that people interested in wooden frames contact me directly."

See also this related New York Times story -- "In Beirut, Cultural Life Is Another War Casualty," by Jad Mouawad: Link.
Update: Ah, wow -- there's a fascinating story behind this magazine cover, involving two editors: one from "Time Out Beirut," the other from "Time Out Tel Aviv." Lisa Goldman, a freelance Israeli journalist, blogs:

This is the story of two men, one from Beirut and one from Tel Aviv, who met less than four months ago and formed an instant friendship. They believed that the things they had in common were far more significant than politics - until the twisted reality of the Middle East interfered with that conviction.

This is the July 20 cover of Time Out Tel Aviv, published one week after the current conflict began. It is based on a famous 1970's New Yorker cover, A View of New York from Ninth Avenue. But whereas the world beyond New York's Hudson River is portrayed as a quiet, peaceful place, the world beyond Tel Aviv's Yarkon River is one of turmoil and violence. To the right are Baghdad and Tehran; on the left are Haifa, Tiberias, Carmiel, Acre and Kiryat Shmona - areas that have been under constant bombardment since July 12. The cluster of buildings at the top is Beirut.

Link to an illo-quiz by Greg Gutfeld, in which the immortal term "Toffee Twat" is coined. Here's more. (Thanks, Coop!)

Bonus: BoingBoing reader Travis says, "Joey Chestnut ate 8.4 pounds of pork rib meat at the Chinook Winds Casino in 12 minutes on July 16, 2006. Link to great video of the event. Here's Joey's web page: Link."

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Reader comment: Jeremy says, "I received this link in an email today, then saw the web Zen entry on BoingBoing and, well, the photo is mostly SFW."

Handy-fashions.com is a Norwegian based corporation and offers fashionable and specially designed textile products for cellular phone users.

Our products are made of a special fabric, normally used by the military to shield missiles in extreeme mircrowave exposed environments.

Handy-fashions.com presents the cutting edge of microwave shielding technology for mobile phones, and it looks fancy and fashionable, too.

Not that it's particularly related to the discussion of the animation behind Monster House, but I thought you guys would be interested in how the Monster House PR folks twisted a review from the NY Times into blurb fodder:

A.O. Scott, The New York Times: " 'Monster House' is the best child-friendly movie of the summer so far...smartly written and a lot of fun."

Actual line: "If I say that 'Monster House' is the best child-friendly movie of the summer so far ('Ant Bully' and 'Barnyard' will expand the competition in the next few weeks), it may sound like extravagant praise—or maybe like faint praise.

"If I was your creator and you mocked me in this manner I couldn't think of a hell hot enough for you."

"I hope you die in a lake of fire and get your eyes pecked out by crows, so that you may go to hell and exist for eternity in a lake of fire getting your eyes pecked out by crows."

"people like you are scum, I hope you die by the hands of some sick perverted guy who will skullfuck you and then use your skin to make lampshades."

"Charles Darwin went insane when he was 28 anyways (didn't know that did you?) Let me put it this way to you concerning your bologna flying spaghetti monster. If we are created in the image of what you believe God to be, we would look like spaghetti."

Upon examining the inner workings of one of the most popular paperless touch screen voting machines used in public elections in the United States, it has been determined that with the flip of a single switch inside, the machine can behave in a completely different manner compared to the tested and certified version.

"Diebold has made the testing and certification process practically irrelevant," according to Dechert. "If you have access to these machines and you want to rig an election, anything is possible with the Diebold TS -- and it could be done without leaving a trace. All you need is a screwdriver." This model does not produce a voter verified paper trail so there is no way to check if the voter's choices are accurately reflected in the tabulation.

The solution to this problem is to write an encrypted version of the combo directly on the lock itself using a sharpie, and then all you have to do is work back from the encrypted version if you forget the lock combination. This can be as simple as adding your birthday to the number, and when you need to recover the number, you just subtract your birthday from it.

Just as he is on the verge of packing it all in, he receives some interesting news. A former member of his congregation has died and left the Rabbi a significant amount of money.

A blessing? Or the start of something far more sinister? Can Rabbi Stone just accept the money and move on? His conscience says no. Step into his shoes as he travels all over Manhattan in his attempt to uncover the truth.

Features rabbinical conversation methods, a unique method of fighting, an original score, and three different endings!

I agree. LaSalle doesn't know what he's talking about. His assessment of this crummy movie is profoundly wrong. The most egregious statement in the review had to be this one: "There was never any point to a close-up in an animated film -- there was never really anything to see." -- Woah! I mean, Winsor MacKay was blowing away audiences with the adorable and expressive Gertie the Dinosaur in 1914.

I know there's no accounting for taste, and if someone likes the animation in Monster House or A Scanner Darkly , I'm envious that they're so easily amused. But LaSalle's review reveals such a supreme lack of understanding about animation that true aficionados of the artform and talented industry pros are dumbfounded by LaSalle's astoundingly clueless review.

Pixar story artist Jeff Pidgeon sent a polite letter to the SF Chron in an attempt to educate LaSalle on the fact that animated cartoons weren't half bad before motion capture arrived to rescue the artform. (Excerpts from LaSalle's review in italics, followed by Pidgeon's response.):

Animated films always had the advantage of being able to go anywhere and show anything, to defy the laws of physics and follow the imagination as far as it could go. But they never had the ability to show the human face. There was never any point to a close-up in an animated film -- there was never really anything to see.

Nothing? No tenderness as Lady and the Tramp eat spaghetti together? No grief when Dopey stands at Snow White's coffin? No longing as Dumbo and his mother embrace at night, straining to reach one another through the wall of a circus wagon? No terror in Lampwick's face as he transforms into a donkey? You saw nothing in those faces?

Imagine what Disney might have done with this in the creation of the Seven Dwarfs. Imagine all the things that will be done with this in the future. "Monster House" looks like the ground floor of something important.

The emotional power and vibrant entertainment "Snow White" created almost seventy years ago will live on long after current techniques have come and gone. It hardly seems lacking.

Thank you for a thoughtful message. I appreciate it. (Don't agree with it, any of it, but I appreciate being accurately quoted and not being cursed at.)

As animation historian Amid Amidi says:

It's one thing to have a subjective view of a film —- it's another to be so glaringly ignorant of the art form you're discussing to completely dismiss one hundred years of accomplishments and proclaim something so obviously inferior as a technological advance.

Storyboard artist Jenny Lerew says:

[LaSalle] makes a mockery of 100 years of often beautiful, heartbreaking, breathtaking, real acting achievement in animated films. It's one thing to write about a "new" technique in film as the flavor of the month served up in a holy grail -- it's another to backtrack and demean the plain fact of past successes as somehow terribly lacking, which is what this reviewer thinks of, well, basically all Disney animation output from 1937 until "Monster House" with its supposedly improved presentation of animated facial performances.

The message boards for the society of digital artists are also full of head-shaking bewilderment over LaSalle's proudly ignorant review. Link

"I didn't believe what I saw," Boyle said Thursday. "I didn't believe it until my wife said something, and I was just like, 'Oh my God.' You think things like that only happen in movies...."

Holtrust was pinned underneath his bike, which was pinned underneath the car, said Boyle, who is 6 feet 4 inches tall and weighs 300 pounds.

"As soon as I get to the car, the boy is just screaming his head off, and I could tell he was in a lot of pain," Boyle said. "As I was lifting the front end of the car off of him, he was just saying, 'Mister, mister, higher, higher.' Then when it was high enough, he said, 'OK. I can't move. Get me out.' "

They were shut down by the websites that hosted them - Tibetcult.net, a Tibetan cultural portal, and Daqi.com, a local blog platform - presumably on government orders amid a continuing wave of online censorship in China.

(...) Woeser used her two blogs - oser.tibetcul.net and blog.daqi.com/weise - to post her poems and essays about Tibetan culture, as well as articles written by her husband, Wang Lixiong, an independent Chinese writer. Most of the visitors to the blogs were Tibetan students who, like Woeser, had received their education in Chinese and who wanted to renew contact with their original Tibetan culture.

Woeser is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese. She is committed to the defence of Tibetan culture and her book "Notes on Tibet" was banned in 2004 because of its favourable references to the Dalai Lama. She was fired from her job, evicted from her home and lost her social welfare entitlement. She was also forced to write articles recognising her "political errors." But she has continued to work and several of her books have been published in Taiwan in recent years. The disappearance of her two blogs comes a few days after the closure of the forum of her husband's website Dijin-democracy.net, and that of a site that was very influential among Chinese intellectuals, Century China.

Many people like the look of a towering, fully mature marijuana plant. Our 6 foot plant will not disappoint you. Whether you want to decorate your living room or large office or your hotel lobby or outdoor garden, our 6’ marijuana plant is a great choice! The large and leafy 6 footer is big enough to provide shade and classy enough to add a hip dimension to your living space.

These 6’ plants are so life-like that a dozen in an open field is sure to get noticed by all the right people. If you plan it right, you can have the last laugh!

"I believe the problem is potentially considerable," said Torsten Berg, the official bird flu spokesman for the International Badminton Federation.

The shortage has been particularly felt in Southern California, home to some of the country's best players, coaches and clubs.

Prices on premium shuttlecocks, which cost up to $25 for a tube of a dozen, have risen 25% in the last few months.

Manufacturers are competing for the limited feathers, and players are scrambling to buy the best birdies in bulk, further restricting supply.

The machines are programmed to act like the insects and are even doused in pheromones that mimic eau de roach – the primary way cockroaches recognize each other. “It’s not vision, it’s not sound, it’s pure chemistry,” says scientific coordinator José Halloy from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. The droid enters a roach nest, charms the locals with movements and scent, and then slowly lures its minions into a better-lit area (these quintessential pests usually avoid light).

This is a textbook example of how security systems can fail: if you strengthen only the door of your safe, thieves will go in through the sides. Like the biometric fingerprint-reading car locks in Malaysia that thieves defeat by amputating your fingers, an RFID car lock merely pushes the security problem to a different place:

[...]Montes fed the guy a barely credible story about a cousin who had dropped his keys down a sewer. The dealership employee was at home but evidently could access the Honda database online. I gave Honky’s VIN to Montes, who passed it along to his friend. We soon had the prescribed sequence of pulls, which I scribbled down in my notebook.

I walked outside and approached Honky. The door lock would have been easy – a thief would have used a jiggle key, and a stranded motorist would have had a locksmith cut a fresh one. I just wrapped the grip of my key in tinfoil to jam the transponder. The key still fit, but it no longer started the car.

Then I grabbed the emergency brake handle between the front seats and performed the specific series of pumps, interspersed with rotations of the ignition between the On and Start positions. After my second attempt, Honky’s hybrid engine awoke with its customary whisper.

... If you had gone to Babylonia or whenever 10,000 years ago, and said 'Hey, 10,000 years from now, the economy you think of as the economy, the growing of grain and baking it and distributing it and all that stuff, and the system you think of as sort of spiritual and ephemeral, the priestly stuff of knowledge work, those roles are going to be completely flipped around, with esoteric, highly mediated financial transactions constituting BY FAR the majority of economic activity on the globe...' they would have laughed at you. Or made you their rain god.

And the evolution of a play economy would work very similarly, with the economy itself creating its own needs, which feed on themselves with especial voracity and velocity because there's less and less physical stuff involved to slow it down. Until voila, yeah, we still need agricultural workers and accountants and systems analysts and so forth, but of course all the REAL wealth of the world is being made here in these little worlds that used to be dismissed as mere games.

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5 (Thanks, Nic!)

(Image thumbnail from a larger picture in Mystphoto's Flickr stream)

Bill Goggins, who died unexpectedly while running the San Francisco Marathon Sunday, was Wired's man-behind-the-curtain for years until he recently moved on. Bill's meticulous yet hilarious verbal skills, coupled with a work ethic rarely seen outside New England milltowns, quietly improved most of Wired's feature stories and countless others in the late 90's and early 00's. Bill had an exceptional ability to take a good story and make it better—clearer, catchier, more consistent—usually by changing only a few words, sometimes by making both editor and writer go back and re-examine their basic premises. Whenever people comment on my ability to write clearly, I know Bill had a lot to do with it.

Case in point: I once spent weeks crafting a short piece on Ray Kurzweil that concluded with this paragraph.

Skeptics may say he's flown off the charts himself, but Kurzweil is sure they'll live to regret it. "The really surprising thing to me is how many Nobel Prize winners haven't internalized the implications of the exponential rate of increase in the rate of knowledge itself," he says. "It's easy to explain these things in the language of mathematics. But to really understand them, you almost need to resort to religious terms."

Bill read it and tacked on one more word:

Amen.

But I'll remember Bill most for his dry yet pointed wit around the office. When Chris Anderson's first Wired cover, "Is Japan Still the Future?" was punched up by Condé Nast's editorial director to "Japan Rocks!" Bill protested by posting a note above his desk in the same font: "If Japan's a-rockin', don't come a-knockin'."

Update: Snip from an item at Wired News by Mark Robinson:

Goggins was a legendary figure at Wired magazine, where he started as a freelance copy editor in 1995. He went on to become the managing editor and an articles editor, and eventually rose to become deputy editor. His colleagues admired him tremendously.

“Bill was that rarest of things: a true original,” says Chris Anderson, the magazine’s editor in chief. “He was brilliant, witty and culturally omnivorous, all of which combined in his signature headlines. They usually worked on at least three levels of meaning, from some remixed cultural reference to at least one pun. In many ways his winking style and clever turns of phrase became Wired house style for nearly a decade, and to look at our covers and headlines over those years is to hear Bill's voice again.”

One of my countless career regrets was that I turned down a great offer from Wired back in the late nineties in order to keep chasing the white lady of a big dotcom ripoff. Bill was very cool before, during, and after that fiasco, and was a reliable good-time guy and great conversationalist. I always enjoyed hanging out with him. His writings for Wired are pretty sparsely represented on a quick Google search, but here's his complete Suck archive, my favorite of which is this Jack-Kemp-is-gay chestnut. I'll miss Bill.

Nina Alter of Survival Research Laboratories (SRL) tells BoingBoing,

I used to work at WiReD, and fucking adored him. Deeply regret loosing contact with him- but I'm a hermit, and tend to do that with a lot of people.

He was just a brilliant mind, and an incredibly kind and wonderful human being. Many in SF and around the world will miss him a great deal. A very, very rare breed of wit, authenticity, passion, compassion, and intellect.

Rumors abound that the annual gaming industry convention E3 may be severely cut back next year -- or canceled entirely -- due to decisions by some top sponsors to focus funds on smaller, brand-focused events. Link, and previous BB posts about E3.

Update: Count Dookie sez, "That Sanrio Darth Vader is a quick Photoshop I did for a thread on The Dented Helmet, a Boba Fett prop-making site."

For the first time, you can hit your computer and get a meaningful response! Using Linux and the Hard Drive Active Protection System (HDAPS) kernel drivers, you can access the embedded accelerometers on Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPads, then process the accelerometer data to read specific sequences of "knocking" events -- literally rapping on the laptop case with your knuckles -- and run commands based on those knocks. Double tap to lock the screen, and knock in your secret code to unlock. Tap the display lid once to move your mp3 player to the next track. The possibilities are endless.

But using cellular, modular, interactivogular surveillance cameras with supersonic laserphonic wingding plugins, astronauts on the International Space Station shot an aerial photo which looks shockingly identical... and reveals a whopping 60% 150% more humans in BoingBoing. Image Link.

From left to right, BoingBoing is Mark, Pesco, "band manager" Battelle, Cory, and me. And truth be told, Bart Nagel took the photo right here on earth.

Correction: BoingBoing reader Weeble says,

Your recent Boing Boing post, "Astronauts reveal BoingBoing 60% larger than reported by WSJ" uses "% larger" in a slightly confusing way. While 2 is 60% *smaller* than 5, 5 is not 60% larger than 2. It is in fact 150% larger than 2. This is a common mistake, and discussed in the Wikipedia article on Percentages [Link]. In general, when describing a percentage change in something, the percentage should be as a proportion of the initial figure, not the final one. Correct headlines might be "Astronauts reveal BoingBoing 150% larger than reported by WSJ" or "Astronauts reveal 60% of BoingBoing missing from WSJ report."

Alright, but only if the other 80% agree to wear high heels.

* Does the law allow border agents in the US and Canada to search your laptop? Yes. Link, Another Link, and court decision PDF Link. (Thanks, JahWarrior and John Sawers)

* She's a convicted fraudster, she's running from the law, and she's liveblogging on the lam: Link (thanks, Cyrus)

* RIAA attacks guitar tab sites: vengeance sought against dastardly amateur guitar-strumming scofflaws who learn to play music from internet tablature ("tab") websites (and eat babies). Link (thanks, AngryHerb)

* "Secret" terror watchlists have nabbed more congressmen than terrorists: Link.

* Members of the American Psychological Association are preparing a "revolt" at the group's next convention to protest what they believe to be psychologists' unconscionable assistance in torture at Guantanamo and other terror-war detainment facilities. Link

* Government officials in Malaysia are considering extending the country's "Printing and Presses Act" to cover blogs and other electronic media. The 1984 law requires all print media in Malaysia to obtain a license and abide by strict regulations, including restrictions on political speech. If the PPA is extended to internet media as well, would bloggers and webmasters need a license, too? Link to news article, here are more links: one, two.

* Websites that use kid-friendly words like "Mickey Mouse" or "Snoopy" to lure traffic but instead feature sexually-explicit content are now subject to felony charges, thanks to a bill approved in the U.S. Senate this week: Link. Free speech proponents say the bill is overly broad, impossible to enforce accurately, could villify law-abiding adult sites, and generally a bad thing for online democracy.

Some bloggers say a provision of the bill means that pulling a goatse (worksafe explanation) could land you in prison for twenty years: Link:

‘‘§ 2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet

‘‘(a) IN GENERAL.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a person into viewing material constituting obscenity shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 10 years.

‘‘(b) MINORS.—Whoever knowingly embeds words or digital images into the source code of a website with the intent to deceive a minor into viewing material harmful to minors on the Internet shall be fined under this title and imprisoned for not more than 20 years.

‘‘(c) CONSTRUCTION.—For the purposes of this section, a word or digital image that clearly indicates the sexual content of the site, such as ‘sex’ or ‘porn’, is not misleading.

‘‘(d) DEFINITIONS.—As used in this section—HR 4472 EAS

‘‘(1) the terms ‘material that is harmful to minors’ and ‘sex’ have the meaning given such terms in section 2252B; and ‘‘(2) the term ‘source code’ means the combination of text and other characters comprising the content, both viewable and nonviewable, of a web page, including any website publishing language, programming language, protocol or functional content, as well as any successor languages or protocols.’’.

(b) TABLE OF SECTIONS.—The table of sections for chapter 110 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 2252B the following:

‘‘2252C. Misleading words or digital images on the Internet.’’.

Reader comment: Regarding the legal code cited above, Craig Hughes says,

Now as I read it, that part about "successor languages" means that if you publish content today, and in the future some language or protocol renders that content in a way covered by the law, even if that wasn't your intention when you published -- then you're infringing. In other words, if someone were to write a codemonkey extension which displayed a link to goatse.cx whenever it encountered the word "Iraq" on the homepage of the New York Times, then the NYT would be breaking the law. Nifty.

There was a scene in Miami Vice where they were discussing the big bad drug dealers, and how international they were. The good guys listed all the thing the bad guys were capable of bringing into the US, Cocaine, Heroin, etc etc. They listed it as coke from Coumbia, heroin from Afganistan, X from Y and A from B. Pretty normal stuff. At the end, they added 'pirated software from China'. Blink.

Now, had they listed anything other than drugs and software, it might not have been so blatant. If they had listed pirated software any other time in the movie, I might not have noticed, but this one was pretty obviously a plant. Don't go see the movie, it isn't worth it, but if you do, pay attention for this bit, you will see exactly how much it stands out. The movie makers could not afford people to do decent dialog, and it seems the DRM infectors could not either.

First, there are many other public broadcasters who not only reject DRM, but have adopted open licenses (RadioBras in Brazil makes all of its content available under Creative Commons licenses). Second, there is no legal requirement to use DRM under Canadian law. If certain rights holders demand DRM use, the CBC has an alternative. It can reject those demands and choose instead to use only music that rights holders permit to be broadcast without DRM.

There is no shortage of such music. In addition to the hundreds of thousands of Creative Commons licensed songs and the thousands of classical music recordings in the public domain, the majority of Canadian independent labels reject the use of the DRM. Those labels are responsible for 90 percent of new Canadian music, so it seems to me that the CBC will have lots of Canadian content to choose from in its broadcasts and streams. Most of the music that may require DRM protection is likely that from foreign labels promoting foreign artists. While it would be great to include them in CBC broadcasts, Canada's public broadcaster should be rejecting DRM and moving toward as open a platform as possible. The inclusion of greater Canadian content and the ability to truly meet its mandate to be as accessible as possible to all Canadians make this the obvious path to take.

Naive Australians have aided the cause of terrorism by walking around with their own cameras, taking photos of the "no-photography" signs, not suspecting that their cameras are secret members of Al-Qamera, and that many of the photons they "innocently" capture are sent via steganographic means to Afghanistan Iraq Iran for processing at secret photon-camps.

"At no times do we permit photography in our back-of-house areas, in or surrounding our restrooms and within individual retail tenancies," a spokeswoman said. "There are safety, security, privacy and copyright issues which need to be considered with all photography and filming within the centre, and we reserve the right to ask people to stop filming or photographing if it is deemed inappropriate."