Boing Boing reader Joe says "Once I learned from a Youtube link in your article that the world was going to end, I started surfing around Youtube and found that the followers of Overseer Yisrayl Hawkins have posted quite a cornucopia of scary little videos about the upcoming nuclear war. I got so inspired that I had to remix some of them. Hope you enjoy it." Link

The Armor of God PJ's were inspired by a mother reading Ephesians 6:10-18 every night to her daughter to give her a safe and secure feeling in the dark. As they read the scriptures, they put on each spiritual and powerful piece of the Armor of God to keep them safe and peaceful while they slept. At that moment, God gave me the idea how wonderful it would be if all children could have the opportunity to put on a pair of pajamas that symbolized the Armor of God for the same purpose... that with their belief in Jesus and His protection they will feel safe and secure during the night as they sleep. As they dress in the mornings, they should replace them with the spiritual Armor of God to protect them in their daily activities.

"The bomb squad is on site and the woman is being interviewed by the FBI," the TSA's Amy von Walter said. "It looks like there were four items containing liquids ... two of those containers tested positive."

But law enforcement sources say the substances that tested positive were cosmetic-based products and not a threat CBS News reports.

There is a test rig with wheels and cogs and four magnets meticulously aligned so as to create the maximum tension between their fields and one other magnet fixed to a point opposite. A motor rotates the wheel bearing the magnets and a computer takes 28,000 measurements a second. The magnets, naturally, act upon one another. And when it is all over, the computer tells us that almost three times the amount of energy has come out of the system as went in. In fact, this piece of equipment is 285% efficient.

In Steorn's theory, fixed magnets could act upon a moving magnet in such a way as to make it a virtual perpetual motion generator. In an electrical appliance - a computer, kettle, mobile phone or toy - that would provide all the power for its lifetime. Of course, free-energy cars, power plants and water-pumping systems could follow. A better world indeed.

Hummingbirds are native to the Americas only, but the Hummingbird Hawkmoth does a decent job of mimicking a true hummingbird, much to the delight of easily fooled Europeans. Link (Via Neatorama)

Reader comments: Jan says:

I saw these buggers in France a few years ago, where I went to attend a friend's wedding in the country side. My wife and I were awestruck and more than a little confused at to what we were looking at, so you're absolutely right that the name is most likely given to cover all the bases (though hawk seems a bit off, but what the heck).

I saw a bunch of these fluttering around a bush, drinking the nectar, and we stood there for quite some time debating whether it was a hummingbird or not.

Joe says:

Fabulous find, the photos of the hummingbird hawkmoth. Sometime these creatures are stranger than we imagine.

I tooks some similar shots of what I thought was a hummingbird last fall. Investigation showed it, too, was a moth -- a hummingbird clearwing moth. Photos here.

Menger’s Sponge - named for its inventor Karl Menger and sometimes wrongly called Sierpinski’s Sponge – was the first three dimensional fractal that mathematicians became aware of. In 1995 Dr Jeannine Mosely, a software engineer, set out to build a level 3 Menger Sponge from business cards. After 9 years of effort, involving hundreds of folders all over America, the Business Card Menger Sponge was completed. The resulting object is comprised of 66,048 cards folded into 8000 interlinked sub-cubes, with the entire surface paneled to reveal the Level 2 and Level 3 fractal iterations.

Recipe for a Menger Sponge: Take a cube, divide it into 27 (3 x 3 x 3) smaller cubes of the same size; now remove the cube in the center of each face plus the cube at the center of the whole. You are left with a structure consisting of the eight small corner cubes plus twelve small edge cubes holding them together. Now, imagine repeating this process on each of these remaining 20 cubes. Repeat again. And again, ad infinitum … To make a Level 3 sponge, stop after 3 iterations.

PART 1: Here is the link to the piece, Here is the link to the whole webcast.

PART 2: Here is the link to the piece, Here is the link is the whole webcast.

ABC has now been webcasting news for about 9 months, and it's interesting to watch this take form. Some stories are not part of the normal World News Tonight broadcasts -- they appear exclusively in the webcast (what I love about their web delivery interface: it's *not* WMV, unlike some of their competitors; what I don't like: unless I'm missing something, it seems you're not able to navigate forward or back within a video once it's begun playing).

But the network is also making these available as video podcast quicktime files (for free), so you can noodle around to your heart's content. And some longer-form ABC News specials are available via iTunes now, for $1.99 or so a pop: Link.

Incidentally, CNN International ran a "Techwatch" segment this week about the Tibet series, too (video isn't available for blogging at this time).

Now Haunted Memories is offering custom verisons of these portraits, where they'll turn you into a haunted, changing portrait. I'm ordering one now. Link

Update: Is this Flicker set from the stack of missing stripper polaroids? (Thanks to everyone who pointed me to this!)

Manifesto went live today, filled with amazing-looking games, the likes of which I've never seen. Congrats, Greg!

The NOKs

It's Delightful, It's De-Lovely, It's... Pretty Damn Strange

The Noks is about the weirdest game I've seen this year. I'm tempted to call it "indescribable," except we need to describe it, eh?

Partly, it's a game of collectibles. There are several hundred "Noks" in the world at present, and the developers plan to add more over time. You can think of Noks as something like, say, Magic: The Gathering cards, except that they aren't cards. They're animated 3D avatars with backstories. Some of them sing songs or perform music. And most have something to tell you about the game itself, or the backstory of the Noks universe. To understand that universe, you'll need to collect--well maybe not "them all," but lots of them.

Update: Ellie adds, "This is still in beta, within a couple of weeks the site will be an order of magnitude better."

Here are data files you can load into your GPS device or Google Earth.

This year's Burning Man camp is located at a site about a mile and a half north of the 2005 edition.

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(Thanks, Wayne Correia!)

Previously:
Burning Man Bingo is Back
Burning Man 2006 - come all ye roving art-cars

What are pranks? For us, pranks are any humorous deeds, propaganda, sound bites, visual bites, performances and creative projects which pierce the veil of illusion and tell the truth. Pranks unseriously challenge accepted reality and rigid behavioral codes and speech. Pranks deftly undermine phoniness and hypocrisy. Pranks lampoon sanctimoniousness, self-glorification, selfmythologizing and self-aggrandizement. Pranks force the laziest muscle in the body, the imagination, to be exercised, stretched, and thus transcend its former self.The imagination is what creates the future; that which will be.

We radically distorted the size of the long table and rows of chairs to heighten the room’s sense of receding depth, and did the same thing with the silhouettes of characters from the novel used as the pattern for the wallpaper. These details let us create a space that felt long and narrow, as though it was pulling in visitors. The scale of the installation changed just like Alice after eating the cake. We shrank some of the chairs so that visitors could barely squeeze into them, and enlarged others until visitors’ feet couldn’t touch the ground.

This excellent system walking cane boasts an extendable spyglass as the handle that is made of brass. The handle is hand carved out of appealing dark red Mahogany in the shape of two folded hands that are actually holding the removable telescope. At the narrow end the lens cap of the spyglass can be unscrewed and it can be removed from the circular opening in the hands.

The telescope comes in working condition and the view is very good. The hand carving applied is of high quality and the bronze collar as well as two gilt copper collars at the upper end of the shaft, match the overall appealing look perfectly.

A home for storefront fiberglass mascots from around the world. The Big Boy. The Doggie Diner. The ubiquitous Col. Sanders statues outside of KFC outlets in Japan. From Tulsa to Tokyo and everywhere in between, feel free to post your photos of fiberglass mascots here.

"Sorry, I moved some stuff around. It now lives here: Link. Please note that I predicted the Chuck Norris meme by a full three years. I am the Oracle of Ephemera."

Alternate Link (Thanks, Sherman!)

Previously: Burning Man 2006 - come all ye roving art-cars

David Goldenberg from Gelf Magazine says,

Remember those silly JFJ pamphlets you guys featured on BoingBoing not too long ago?

Well, comedian Jackie Mason didn't find them nearly as funny as you guys (and presumably Steve Jobs) did. He's suing the JFJs for $2 million, saying "While I have the utmost respect for people who practice the Christian faith, the fact is, as everyone knows, I am as Jewish as a matzo ball or kosher salami."

After reading about blogger Raed Jarrar's experience at JFK (he was forced to take off a shirt with Arabic writing on it or miss his flight), I finally stopped being depressed about the war on terror and began being proactively pissed off. I made this shirt, which says "I am not a terrorist" in Arabic. I plan to wear it every time I go to the airport from now on.

Reader comment: George Murray says,

Xeni, Thanks for linking to the Arabic shirt. I just bought one. I'm a 6' 2", 220lbs white guy with red hair and an Scottish last name. I wonder what will happen when I try to wear it while flying from St. John's to Toronto in September. I'll let you know.

One thing: are we sure it doesn't say "I've got the mother of all bombs up my ass, please check"? Cause that would be bad.

black lava, has had a shirt reading the same thing for a while. a muslim friend named mohammad wears the shirt all the time, but leaves doesn't wear it when he's going to fly somewhere. i guess he has enough trouble with the name mohammad. Link

A World of Warcraft forum member posts this bizarre story: a guy accidentally drops his iPod into an airplane toilet, and a terror alert freakout follows: Link. It's a very wordy tale, and I don't quite grok all the details or have resources to factcheck right now -- but if it's all true, it really is "overreaction at its worst," as Bruce Schneier said. (Thanks to Sean Bonner and everyone else who suggested)

Every Friday, BoingBoing pal Coop sends around an email to a small list of buddies with pointers to great, funky songs worthy of rocking out to on the last work-day of the week. Today, iowahawk picked up the schtick and compiled this extensive list of links to super-funky video clips: Link.

Terry McBride has an idea. Another idea. A good – no, a great idea. McBride, CEO of Nettwerk Music Group, is sitting in his Vancouver, British Columbia, office with his local marketing staff discussing strategy for the release of a new album by Barenaked Ladies. The marketing departments in three other cities are conferenced in. The conversation ping-pongs from Nascar promotions to placement in a Sims videogame. McBride is on a roll.

"This one's a real wingdinger," he says, leaning into the speakerphone so New York, Denver, and Los Angeles won't miss a word. "Let's give away the ProTools files on MySpace. Vocals, guitars, drums, and bass. We'll let the fans make their own mixes." The room falls quiet. Musicians usually record their instruments and vocals on separate tracks; the producer and mixer combine those tracks into a finished product. McBride wants to make the individual files available so that amateur DJs can use them like Lego bricks to create something all their own. The record industry likes control. McBride is proposing unfettered chaos.

A voice from LA breaks the silence: "For the single, you mean, right?" McBride's features screw up in concentration, then quickly expand into a grin. "What I'm proposing," he says, "is that we make all 29 songs available as ProTools files. In two weeks." The Internet marketers in Vancouver look worried. "But," he adds, "we'll get the files from the single up on MySpace by Monday." Libby White, a member of the department, shoots McBride a skeptical look. Can they make it? McBride asks. White sighs. "We'll make it," she says.

SafariPod craftsmen make each object sold here to his own design. We determine the need for a specific type of product... say, an iPod stand. Then, we tell the artist what we need the object to do, and he then develops a design to his own taste and standard. Each of our artists have been sculpting native wildlife pieces for many years. Now, they are applying those years of thoughtful experience to creating technology accessories just for you. And, each of our objects is made of renewable tropical woods, so as not to contribute to Kenya's horrific wood depletion problem. This makes your SafariPod object not only a wonderfully beautiful possession, but one that is also made to respect the environment.

Many Very Earnest Men Just Snubbed Unfortunate Ninth Planet (Dave Child)

"My vision, erased. Mercy! Just some underachiever now." (Delia, as spoken by Pluto discoverer Clyde Tombaugh)

Most vexing experience, mother just served us nothing! (Bart Baxter)

USC has a pretty crummy track-record here: A USC student who was downloading copies of Larry Lessig's FreeCulture, a book distributed via BitTorrent and Grokster at the behest of its author, was censured by USC for installing the app. He got kicked off the campus network and told that he would not be allowed back on until he promised to uninstall all general-purpose file-sharing software. He wrote letters of protest to the university about this, but never heard back.

BB reader Dave says,

I'm sure I'm not the first to have noticed this, but if you watched The Colbert Report on tuesday night you saw a bit about the Fields Medal and the Poincaré conjecture, in which he smooshed a doughnut into a ball, providing a (somewhat shaky) demonstration that the Poincaré conjecture is b.s.

However, if you watched The Show with Ze Frank that morning, you would have notice that Ze did a suspiciously similar bit, where he too smooshes a toroidal doughnut into a ball and eats it (as well as making a gag about everyone's favorite spherical doughnut, the Munchkin, which Colbert also does!).

Was Ze ripped off? Links to the two video clips are here.

I was a bit sad at first... but someone in my forum pointed out that whether or not it was a rip off, it was not a great joke to begin with :)

Regarding the Stephen Colbert seemingly ripping off Ze Frank post, I was a bit sad myself after watching that segment on the Report just a few hours after watching the same bit on Ze's show. But you know, this isn't the first time I've seen Colbert "ripping off stuff" from the Internets. In fact, his shows of late seem to be almost mirror projections of what is 'hot' on the Internets that day, or at least that week.

As someone who spends a good deal of time swimming in the tubes, The Colbert Report is feeling more and more like a rerun of what I read and saw throughout the day. When I say rerun, I mean just that. It's like he takes the stuff that, say, received 1,300 diggs that day and does the same thing on show and passes it off as his own. Unlike Keith Olbermann who takes something that was popular on the Internets that day and files his own, original report on it.

Now I wish I had a bunch of examples to give you to back up my point, but I don't. I know, bad me. But it's something I've only started noticing in the last few weeks, and I really didn't start taking notes or anything like that. The first thought that came to mind after reading your post today was: 'hmmm, maybe I'm not the only one who feels Colbert is beginning to pass certain content off as his own, knowing that only a small percentage of people are going to know where it originally came from. And who's going to have the balls to say anything about it. Colbert's a geek/nerd/dork hero right now.'

Now, I could be wrong of course. I've been a big fan of Colbert since his days on The Daily Show. I would hope he's not starting to stake claim as his own the content created by folks like you or me. Now, I'm also a big fan of fair use, but Colbert getting paid the big bucks telling the same jokes Ze Frank and others created aint cool or fair in my book. Or maybe it's all in my head, and there's only been a few isolated instances that I'm making a mountain out of. I think I'll start paying closer attention...

BB reader Todd Jackson says,

As someone who worked as a humor writer and editor, I can say in full confidence that Colbert didn't take anything from ZeFrank. They're both using a simple construction for a joke implied by the article itself - that you can't turn a doughnut into a sphere. It's a common structure: one character saying "it can't be that simple" and then another character doing it just that simple. Both came to it because it's a time-tested formula for a gag that works.

To all you dirty hippies our esteemed friends traveling to Burning Man this year: be safe, stay hydrated and sunscreened, please don't floss your butt with el-wire, and watch out for these characters.

The event has a new theme this year: Hope and Fear. But, bla bla bla, theme schmeme, we all know it's about the pink-haired girls and real-life Magritte tableaux, awesome footwear, naked people on hobby-horses, beautiful fire, and all the other indescribable stuff that flashes in your head when someone asks "What's Burning Man?" and you can't explain.

BoingBoing reader Turgan has created a neat interactive map website that lists events, camps, and artwork at Burning Man 2006 here. More information about that site here, here, and here:

Update: Wayne Correia says there's a problem with some of the data in Turgan's map:

The camps map google maps overlay stuff is using the wrong location data, overlaying camps on a satellite photo from a previous year that doesn't reflect this year's location -- which is north about 1.33 miles from the 2005 site. These files can be loaded into your GPS or Google Earth to see exactly where the event is located this year. This BRC layout is accurate for this year and should be disseminated.

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* fence.gpx

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I am helping host the Canadian Street Hockey Tournament -- better known as the Xeni Cup -- this year at Burning Man at The_Many theme camp, located at 9:00 near Guess.

The time is set for Thursday at 3:00 PM. Equipment will be provided. Bring your own favorite hockey stick and (Canadian) beer.

Update: Alas, the Burningman bingo image link is dead. Anyone have an archived copy somewhere? Going to Black Rock City without it is like going to see Snakes on a Plane without your audience participation script!

Update 2, yay: Here is is.

Reader comment: Phil Stripling says,

The Civilized Explorer is having its annual geek fashion show on Friday September 1 at 2:00 pm, Chance at 8:30. Photos from last year here. We give away free clothes to geeks with no fashion sense so they don't look like tourists at the Burn on Saturday night. As you can see from the photos, many arrive as geeks, but no geeks leave.

British photographer Malcolm Venville's photographs of real Mexican wrestlers are captured in a new book, and there's more on the project here at pleasantmorningbuzz blog: Link.

QTVR panorama of a giant mantis invading Prague yesterday at 8:30pm in the city's old town square. Link (Thanks, jeffrey martin)

Reader comment: Rich B says,

We posted some additional info yeserday on the praying mantis in Prague: Link.

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Image: From Lost America, "Whorehouse art collection. Bobbie's Buckeye Bar, Tonopah, NV. Abandoned bar and whorehouse. Shot summer 2004, 35mm film. Abandoned for about a year before I found it (judging by the expired liquor license), the place was unlocked and wide open that day, but on my last trip to Tonopah it was locked up tight. No idea if it has been vandalized or ransacked."

"Tokyo is a particularly unique city," says Fosta, "Pedestrians are treated like traffic, with pedestrian 'roads' on floating skyways, and one way systems. It's truly odd."

Link. The video's great, but what I want to know -- who's that soundtrack? Update: wasabi_pz says,

The song is "Beef or Chicken", done by the Teriyaki Boyz, a Japanese rap/hip-hop group (obviously). The band is composed of members of Rip Slyme and m-flo. Here's the wikipedia article on them. They have a song on the soundtrack for "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift."

Ron Fricke has a similar segment in his art-house documentary, "Baraka." Definitely worth checking out. Also, the first part of that clip was of the six-way intersection in Shibuya. My girlfriend and I made a video of the same interesection from street level. (We're standing beneath the ginormous video screen). It's here. Oh, and some flickr photos: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Reader comment: Andy Sternberg says,

Yahoo vid is hosting the segment here: Link.

BoingBoing has covered Mikey Sklar's projects before. He RFID chipped his hand and also built a trampoline controlled flame thrower. He was on The Daily Show yesterday for a segment on nano machines along with Ray Kurzweil.

Reader comment: Mark says,

Wow... Mikey's a wild one. I blogged last month about a cool video (both in style and soundtrack) he did awhile back on making a pizza. Here's the original link to his Youtube post, and here's my permalink.

Mikey's friend Dan Lane (also chipped) has uploaded the short clip to YouTube: Link.

I live in Fallbrook, CA which is a conservative rural town in San Diego county. What I didn't know was that Ned Flanders lived in our town. Some guy wrote a letter to the editor in the local paper about his fear for his 6 year old daughter's future because some teenagers put a reference to Barney's penis on a sign outside the local store.

She said, “Look, Daddy, a Barney movie!” I couldn’t see it, so she guided my eyes to the vulgar obscenity arranged there on the sign. “Look! Up there! Barney’s p***s!” I was shocked when I saw the words arranged on the sign. I quickly averted her eyes and escorted her into the store.

Since then, she has not stopped mentioning Barney’s p***s. This has shaken the bedrock of our family. I made an emergency call to our church’s pastor about this bombshell in my daughter’s life and he is unsure how it will affect her future.

(Ed. Note: Photos by Bruce Sterling.)

Mermaid's Trail
by Jasmina Tesanovic
DUBROVNIK -- August, 2006

The bus from Belgrade to Dubrovnik costs 4700 dinars for a return ticket, and takes 13 hours one way. It goes through Bosnia, Republika Srpska, and stops in several former-Yu war sites, such as Mostar, where the famous bridge was destroyed and recently rebuilt. Mostar's old face was blown away and it has a new face. Except for shrapnel and craters, it has a happy look.

The border crossings are easy, a busywork of transfers and passport-stampings, inflicted on all passengers just alike and done without a word of explanation. The foreigners look scared, but everyone else just does it. The bus stops too often, and people get on and off without schedule. Strange black packages are unloaded from the bus and delivered into private cars in the middle of nowhere. Some Americans in the bus seem troubled by this, but all the locals sleep peacefully.

On our arrival in Dubrovnik, local grannies are waiting with signs about private rooms to rent. I pick the one with mustache, no teeth and a fake smile. She speaks English and tells me she does not like renting rooms to Italians. I reveal that I am a Serb and my friend is American. Now that's nice, says Granny with her fake smile: Serbs and Americans!

We come across a Croatian monument talking about Serbs as aggressors here. I speak with my heavy Belgrade accent, but no hostility is in the air. My American pal is suspicious about Granny: is she really going to shelter us without any American-style paperwork? I say, that how we do it around here: if she is not a serial killer, it should be all right.

[Story continues after the jump]

While listening to this piece on All Things Considered, Tony Jabbour mentions that ice is now prohibited from being carried onto aircraft - because it is a liquid. Though both Tony and Robert Siegel call ice a liquid, I am confident that both men are aware that ice is, in fact, a solid. Only the TSA could decide to either change the laws of physics or to put something (ice) into a category in which it clearly does not belong (liquid).

Reader comment: Lone Locust of the Apocalypse says,

I'm not sure I agree with reader Dan's synopsis, or your headline. Nowhere in the linked interview did either person say the TSA has banned water ice. The TSA's "full list of prohibited items" FAQ does not list water ice.

The whole time during the interview it sounds pretty clear they are talking about gel ice packs being banned. The one time the interviewer says "ice" I infer from context that he is using as shorthand for "gel ice pack."

Note: I am a fairly leftish liberal who thinks we're going about airport security in a stupid way, subscribe fully to Bruce Schneier's ideas about "Security Theater" being ineffective etc. Just so you don't think this is just a knee-jerk political reaction.

1) After talking about gel packs, Robert Siegel specifically says in the audio: "or you couldn't use ice, because that would be ... liquid." (52 seconds in)

2) The discussion is about the shipping of lobsters. Including live lobsters.... sounds like a set-up for a sequal in the making: "Lobsters on a Plane" !?!?!

Siegel may have referred to ice as a liquid, but that doesn't mean the TSA classifies it as such. While I share Dan's confidence that Siegel and Jabbour know ice is a solid, anyone can momentarily slip and say the wrong thing when speaking extemporaneously.

If someone produces a statement from the TSA that ice is banned *** specifically because it's classified a liquid ***, then I'll agree the headline is justified. Until then, let's go back to mocking them for stupid things they've actually done.

Link. Price: $99,000.

Reader comment: The Liberal Avenger says,

1964 didn't sound right to me for Gilligan's Island. Even though I was born in 1970, I remember black and white episodes of Gilligan's Island. IMDB shows Gilligan's Island starting in 1962: Link.

Reader Tom L. says,

The Gilligan's Island Fan Club web site page on the Minnow makes it look like this probably is one of the four actual Minnows: Link. They have a story about Minnow #3 being found and restored by a guy in British Columbia. They list the model as 1964 Wheeler, and say it was used in the second season.

Though this is miles and miles better than the privacy that plain webmail delivers, there are a couple of ways in which this is less than perfect -- the system doesn't protect the To: and From: and Subject: information in your email; an adversary might be able to harm you just by knowing the fact that you've gotten encrypted mail from a specific person. Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

"We are appalled to learn that our phone calls with Vietnamese cyber-dissidents have been monitored with equipment provided by European and US companies. Coming a year after it emerged that Yahoo! cooperates with the Chinese police, this new case reinforces our conviction that telecommunications companies must be forced to respect certain rules of ethical conduct. In particular, they should be banned from selling surveillance equipment to repressive governments."

The sales were revealed by Robert Karniol in an article headlined "Vietnamese army enhances mobile phone monitoring" in the 31 October 2005 issue of Jane's Defence Weekly (JDW). He said the London-based Silver Bullet had recently sold two P-GSM stations (portable mobile phone listening devices) to Vietnam for $250,000 each. Elta (a subsidiary of Israel Aircraft Industries) and Aikap Group, another Israeli company, acted as intermediaries in this transaction.

Jason D says, "The organizers of the Sixth Hackers on Planet Earth convention that took place last month in New York City have posted all of the audio from every presentation." Link.

And this billboard is a likely Photoshop job, but who can argue with a phrase like "Friends of Pluto"? Link (Thanks, Adam Selvidge) UPDATE: Free-vo says, "The billboard you showed about Pluto is from the worth 1000 pluto contest."

Here's a snip from the battery recall info page at apple.com, with instructions on how to apply for the exchange program:

Apple has determined that certain lithium-ion batteries containing cells manufactured by Sony Corporation of Japan pose a safety risk that may result in overheating under rare circumstances. The affected batteries were sold worldwide from October 2003 through August 2006 for use with the following notebook computers: 12-inch iBook G4, 12-inch PowerBook G4 and 15-inch PowerBook G4.

It isn't clear if you just scan the recall details, but if you (like me) purchased a replacement battery for a G3 iBook, you may still have a problem battery. I noted that the replacement was slightly more powerful than the original battery.

"If you participated in a previous battery recall for any of these computer models or recently purchased or received from Apple an extra battery for an iBook G3, please check your battery serial number in case you received a replacement battery that is affected by this program."

Unfortunately, the iBook I need to check is in Ghana right now! Anyway, unless you read all the way down you may not realize that G3s are also affected.

Almost since the Industrial Revolution began in the 1750s, engineers and managers have sought to make factories more efficient and productive. Industrial engineering and operations research developed in the mid-twentieth century to put factory design on a more scientific foundation. Total Quality Management and Six Sigma brought a new focus to these efforts: they made quality improvements the centerpiece of factory reform, and made quality a key consumer benefit. They also generated vast quantities of information about factory operations, and required large amounts of information to succeed. Likewise, robotics and supply chain management made manufacturing more information-intensive.

Industrial engineers are now looking beyond the production line: Georgia Tech dean William Rouse argues that industrial engineers will design supply chains and entire enterprises, not just factories. Meanwhile, new technologies are moving into the factory floor. Put most simply, they’ll make products more intelligent; make manufacturing more information-intensive; and turn the factory floor into a center for a new kind of knowledge work...

So what will the factory of the future be like? It will be aware of how users are reacting to both its latest products and still-under-NDA prototypes, feeding off streams of information coming in from prototypes, recycled units, market-watching software agents, and blogs and discussion boards. It will be able to shift production lines in a matter of days or hours, and will constantly incorporate the latest insights from the lab and the natural world. The combined effects of cascades of information and pressure for constant innovation will turn the factory floor from a space populated only by machine-tenders, into a space in which production and innovation happen simultaneously. The factory will follow a transformation similar to the recording studio. Until the 1950s, music studios were places where groups just made recordings: they were production lines. Then, rock and roll musicians like Buddy Holly and the Beatles turned the studio into a place to write songs, improvise, and experiment with new sonic effects. As Brian Eno put it, the studio became an instrument, a space for creation and experimentation as well as production.

Snip from an article by John Schwartz in the NYT:

When the floodwaters receded, the yard was a moonscape of cracked mud and debris; the shrubs in front were bleached gray by salt water. Three-foot-high drifts of muck fouled the interior, and the scummy waterline was just four inches from the first-floor ceiling.

In a city that still seems largely stuck in the mud, this nearly restored home represents 11 months of sweat-drenched labor by its owners, Artie Folse and Tonja Osborne, two of a multitude of New Orleans residents who never stopped pushing ahead.

From the earliest weeks after the storm, Mr. Folse and Ms. Osborne defied the conventional wisdom that little could be accomplished in the city, and overcame the doubts and worries even of their own families. Their efforts, observed since last winter by a reporter for The New York Times, were born of an urge to rebuild that is as primal as the force that pushes grass up through cracks in a sidewalk. Rather than wait for advice, direction or help from the city, the state or the federal governments, Mr. Folse and Ms. Osborne simply got to work.

"Any next-generation high definition content will not play in x32 at all," said Riley.

"This is a decision that the Media Player folks made because there are just too many ways right now for unsigned kernel mode code [to compromise content protection]. The media companies asked us to do this and said they don't want any of their high definition content to play in x32 at all, because of all of the unsigned malware that runs in kernel mode can get around content protection, so we had to do this," he said.

Update: An anonymous Microsoft employee sez

Media Player won't play HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, but you'll still be able to play them (on XP, even) with third-party programs like WinDVD and PowerDVD, in full HD.

Why? Because the media companies are willing to certify WinDVD and PowerDVD, but they won't certify Windows, basically for the reasons described. The other problem is indemnity - Microsoft has much deeper pockets and the risks of someone hacking Windows and getting the Microsoft keys is too high; Microsoft's payouts to the studios would be enormous. The DRM contracts essentially say that you forfeit all money lost to the studios if your key is hacked. The money "lost" to the studios is of course calculated using the estimate most favorable to the studios - i.e. every copy downloaded off LimeWire is a full-price loss. Intervideo (WinDVD) and Cyberlink (PowerDVD) are small companies and figure they're not the largest targets, or they'll just go bankrupt and start again as a new company. Cyberlink is based in Asia, and suing them would be pricey.

The screwball thing about all this is that essentially the same risks of hacked drivers and whatnot exist with PowerDVD and WinDVD; there's no good reason for the studios to certify them if they really are worried about people using the PC to copy movies. This leads folks at Microsoft to conclude either:

A) The studios don't understand the technology enough to see these risks clearly, or

B) They just want to screw Microsoft

The studios all have tech consultants, and many of them are not fools, so A seems unlikely. B also doesn't seem completely likely. It's probably the usual: human stupidity rolled up in a big ball.

It purports to inform students about the contours and boundaries of copyright, but actually presents a collection of scare-tactic half-truths and astonishing statements about the purpose of the university.

In the letter, USC's officers promise to spend students' tuition on policing them on behalf of the entertainment industry, but make no comparable promise to protect them from the thousands of automated, baseless accusations generated by the RIAA, MPAA and BSA.

Worse, the letter completely mis-states the relationship between copyright and scholarship, omitting any mention of fair use and the other user rights in copyright (especially important in an institution like USC with excellent arts programs, where students are apt to making daily unauthorized uses of copyrighted works for the purpose of criticism and study), and making the extraordinary statement that "USC's purpose is to promote and foster the creation and lawful use of intellectual property." (If this is true, the USC will be "successful" when it generates copyrights and patents, not when it generates scholars and diplomas)

It would be interesting to compare USC's policies on this to those at competing schools like UCLA and produce a ranking chart showing which schools side with scholarship and academic integrity, and which ones take USC's approach of putting non-legal notions of copyright ahead of its students' education.

Link

Update: Aram sez, "I got busted for using BitTorrent on the USC network last year. Here's a link to the (unanswered) letter I wrote back to the university's CIO:

3. File sharing is my area of study and expertise.

Although I admit to downloading content I wish to view for entertainment purposes (i.e. [TV show]), my primary purpose in using file sharing networks is research, not entertainment. I am an "expert" in the field of online file sharing, with a paper trail to prove it. I have published both corporate and academic research on the subject, and served as a public voice in the media and at conferences regarding file sharing since the phenomenon first emerged six years ago. In fact, I was an expert witness for the defense in the recent lawsuit MGM vs. Grokster, which was eventually decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Before I am referred to Student Conduct, I would ask that you consider my research and pedagogical purposes for file sharing, and even consider granting me permission to continue file sharing for these purposes.

Another thought experiment: Imagine for a moment that the British government arrested the 23 suspects without fanfare. Imagine that the TSA and its European counterparts didn't engage in pointless airline-security measures like banning liquids. And imagine that the press didn't write about it endlessly, and that the politicians didn't use the event to remind us all how scared we should be. If we'd reacted that way, then the terrorists would have truly failed.

It's time we calm down and fight terror with antiterror. This does not mean that we simply roll over and accept terrorism. There are things our government can and should do to fight terrorism, most of them involving intelligence and investigation -- and not focusing on specific plots.

But our job is to remain steadfast in the face of terror, to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to not panic every time two Muslims stand together checking their watches. There are approximately 1 billion Muslims in the world, a large percentage of them not Arab, and about 320 million Arabs in the Middle East, the overwhelming majority of them not terrorists. Our job is to think critically and rationally, and to ignore the cacophony of other interests trying to use terrorism to advance political careers or increase a television show's viewership.

Much-maligned Pluto doesn't make the grade under the new rules for a planet: "a celestial body that is in orbit around the sun, has sufficient mass for its self-gravity to overcome rigid body forces so that it assumes a ... nearly round shape, and has cleared the neighborhood around its orbit."

Pluto is automatically disqualified because its oblong orbit overlaps with Neptune's.

Instead, it will be reclassified in a new category of "dwarf planets," similar to what long have been termed "minor planets." The definition also lays out a third class of lesser objects that orbit the sun -- "small solar system bodies," a term that will apply to numerous asteroids, comets and other natural satellites.

Update: Jon sez, "the graphic with the flies & matchsticks is from an Esquire of a few years back."

FC64 is the first low level Commodore 64 emulator for the Flash Player. Yes, Flash! It emulates most of the C64 hardware and executes the original Kernel and Basic ROMs. Under the hood, it even features an 6502 assembler, disassembler and debugger. Best of all, it's all open source and extensible so you could quite easily go ahead and write an emulator for *your* favourite eightbitter (NES, Apple ][, Atari 2600, BBC, you name it).

We put some original game ROMs online with it, so go ahead and enjoy some old Llamasoft titles like Matrix (released as public domain), or just hack in some Commodore Basic.

10 PRINT "C64 R0XRZ ";
20 GOTO 10

Ape Lad says,

Here's another one hour alphabet, this time with a theme. I listed all the characters before I started the hour though and it is pretty heavy on the Jack Kirby creations. Not that that's a bad thing.

During the 18th century, British caricaturists changed the shape of speechballoons from gothic speech-bands or flags into fluffy balloons, our modern speechballoons.

I'm using the word speechballoon as the general, inclusive term. (The gothic form of speechballoons are speechbands, flags, scrolls or sheets of paper, the modern form of speechballoons are balloons, but also little rectangles, often rounded at the edges, or simply little blocks of text above the heads of the speaker etc, etc).

The 18th century term for speechballoons was 'labels'.

Excerpt from a Harpers excerpt of the previously-BoingBoinged tell-all by Kola Boof, who claims to have once been the lover of Osama bin Laden:

He would humiliate me by making me dance naked. It was such a strange thing, because for the most part he believed music was evil. If a guest at the estate played music, he would cover his ears until the “poison” was silenced. But other times he would become this devout party boy who wanted to hear Van Halen or some B-52's. To this day I hear the song “Rock Lobster” in my sleep. I would be jerking around like a white girl—“Dance like a Caucasoid girl!” he would say—and his eyes would track me from one side of the terrace to the other. “Your ass is too big, show me the front,” he said. Osama, you understand, did not know the difference between being vicious and being tender. (...)

“Why do you wear your hair braided?” he asked.

“Because my braids are beautiful,” I replied.

Osama said only monkeys braid their hair. He told me that the singer Whitney Houston was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen and that she never wore her hair braided. “I want you to fix your hair like hers from now on,” he said. “I can't put my fingers through it when it's braided.”

From the 2002 BB vaults:
Kola Boof: 'Net persona, writer, Bin Laden's ex-girlfriend--or hoax?

Here's a screengrab of NASA's in-house censorware blocking Wikipedia as a pornography site. Link (Thanks, Jennifer)

Update: jwf says,

NASA's censorware was blocking wikipedia.com, not wikipedia.org. The .com site is indeed pornographic.

Our house was selected as one of the locations for the Steve Martin/Laura Dern/Helena Bonham Carter bomb, Novocaine. Because it was a low-budget film, we were allowed to stay downstairs while the filming went on upstairs (note all of our bedroom furniture piled up in the background). My husband knew that Steve Martin had a banjo just like one of his so he left it at the bottom of the stairs as bait. Sure enough, Martin saw it, asked who played, and then the two of them played at every filming break for the rest of the day. I handed my camera to the still photographer, who shot this photo.

Update: It's true. A moment of internet silence please, while we all shed a single, collective, airbrushed tear like the miserable wage whore in the stock photo that once accompanied the article in question. Jess Hemerly says,

They pulled the article down from Forbes.com about an hour ago, but thanks to readers in the forums I got the text. Unfortunately, I don't have the "In Pictures" part with 9 reasons not to marry a career woman. If you're interested, I posted it here. You also might want to check out [the article's author] Michael Noer's recently updated Wikipedia entry.

BoingBoing reader Tim Altom wrote:

I am an avid reader of BoingBoing posts, a supporter of ‘net freedom, a user of open source software, someone who does the family laundry and scrubs the toilet, and a proud husband of a late-life college student, yet it causes me some pain to read your gleeful post on Forbes’ removal of its “don’t marry a career woman” article. Am I the only person who notices the irony of such gloating on the same page with a prominent link saying “defeat censorware”?

Update 2, at 630PM PT: Jess Hemerly says,

Yet another development. The article is back up, but next to a counterpoint article. Interesting attempt at redemption, eh?

BB reader L. Perg says,

Forbes has also taken down the Michael Noel article, "The Economics of Prostitution." It is still available for the moment via Google cache. Comparing the Google cache vs. the current version of the special report shows that the article was deliberately removed, and is not part of the "site redesign." (Searching the Forbes site for the article also brings no joy.)

This is your chance to own a (very heavy) piece of supercomputing history. The EL98 was Cray's "low-cost" -- mid six figures -- line extension to the very successful Y-MP. The exact provence of this unit is unknown. (I purchased it four years ago from an Arizona warehouse; the manager of which *thought* that the Cray came from Lawrence Livermore. But given the repeated memory lapses he suffered from in casual conversation, I don't put a lot of stock in this recollection.)

This supercomputer does not currently work. While it has plenty of internal wiring, power supplies, interconnects, and the like, it is missing some key subsystems. However, the exterior is in good shape, with the great big red power-on button on top, finger flip switches for the different "capacitor banks", and just some fairly minor cosmetic blemishes. Included with the Cray is a new, custom, museum-quality display stand...

My present strategy is simply to post a few stories by myself and my friends. I have some good stories for Issue #1, with possibly a few more coming in. You might think of this as the Cyberpunk issue.

We'll see where it leads. I still have a backlog of writer friends to hit on, so, at least for now, rather than sending me stories that you'd like me to post for you --- do it yourself!

Rudy Rucker and Paul Di Filippo,
“Elves of the Subdimensions”

Richard Kadrey,
“Liner Notes for Luchenko's Third Symphony (The Arcades of Allah)”

Marc Laidlaw,
“Evaluation of the Hannemouth Bequest (A.k.a. Hannemouth Self-Configurable Combinatorial Array)”

John Shirley,
“Provocatourist”

Terry Bisson,
“Billy and the Circus Girl ”

Also, The RU Sirius Show serves up part two of the GettingIt.com reunion, featuring funny stuff about dot com junkies, speed seducers, San Francisco politics, and insane editorial meetings. Link

Very odd article from a 1957 Mechanix Illustrated which tackles the big question of "What makes a man a hero?".

The best part is that there is a test you can take to judge your "Courage Quotient" which is full of some truly absurd questions.

A few statements from the quiz that a man with courage would agree with:

* Desk work is more for a woman than a man
* Any man should love camping and hunting
* I’d rather read a detective story than a humorous story

Here are few statements that reflect poorly on your courageousness:

* A totalitarian system of government is more efficient
* After most wars, the U.S. came out the loser in the peace treaties
* A cowboy movie is more interesting than a good love story

The Imperial Hibernian Ministry of Insanity wishes to invite you to the dedication by the Hibernian Ambassador, his Honorable Dr. Hal, of Neverwas Haul, that is about to disbark on its exploratory adventure of the Black Rock Rendezvous. Festivities will begin at 7:30pm on Wednesday, August 23rd at the Shipyard (1010 Murray St, Berkeley; near San Pablo and Ashby). H'ors doevres and libations will be served to all who come. This is technically a fund-raiser, so bring wealthy friends and checkbooks. This is a Jules Verne inspired event - please dress accordingly! T-shirts will be available for purchase at this event.

"I guess there's just two kinds of people, Miss Sandstone - MY kind of people, and ASSHOLES. It's rather obvious which category you fit into. Have a nice day."

Link to video montage of her work -- here's her website, and good heavens, she's on Myspace. (Thanks, Coop)

Reader comment: Bonnie Burton says,

I figured since you gave Mink Stole some props, you'd like to know about my fan site for her co-star in all the Waters films -- Mary Vivian Pearce: Link. Here's a YouTube clip of her in action in "Mondo Trasho" (she's the bombshell): Link.

"This oblique image (looking at an angle) from the International Space Station (ISS) captures an ash cloud first observed on satellite imagery at 11:00 GMT on August 14, 2006. An ISS astronaut took this picture one hour and 45 minutes later. The ash cloud caused the Buenos Aires Volcanic Ash Advisory Center to issue an aviation hazard warning." Link. (Thanks, Spluch)

Reader comment: Evan Thoms of the U.S. Geological Survey, PNW mapping project says,

Earlier this summer my wife, Michelle Coombs, was acting as Duty Scientist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) when she got a phone call from the ISS to report an eruption in the Aleutian Islands. She spoke with astronaut Jeff Williams for a few minutes while she and and others at AVO determined it was a volcano called Mt. Cleveland. Jeff later sent them this picture. This and many other amazing photos of Alaskan volcanoes are available from the excellent AVO website.

The icecap may not be the only thing shrinking in the Arctic. The genitals of polar bears in east Greenland are apparently dwindling in size due to industrial pollutants. Scientists report this shrinkage could, in the worst case scenario, endanger polar bears there and elsewhere by spoiling their love lives and causing their numbers to diminish.

In fact, all marine mammals could get affected by these pollutants, "especially the Arctic fox, killer whale and pilot whales," wildlife veterinarian and toxicologist Christian Sonne at the National Environmental Research Institute of Denmark in Roskilde told LiveScience. These animals bodies also carry extremely high levels of these contaminants.

William Dennes says: "I saw a posting on your site several weeks ago to a sublime, one-panel comic of Sluggo from Nancy floating along saying only 'NO' to the world. I fell in love with it instantly and got a tattoo of it on my arm. I wanted to send it to you guys to let you know how deeply happy this makes me and I’d never ever ever had seen it had it not been posted on your site."

Can I bring my favorite sword or knife?

Every convention is different when it comes to a weapons policy - some allow them when worn as part of a costume (though they usually have to be “peace bonded” meaning they are secured to the scabbord and cannot be quickly drawn or dropped in accident. Some conventions have a strict weapons policy - check with the convention staff or web site before taking it with you.

Source: www.scificonventions.com

How can I use a Barney Fife Impersonator at my next event?

The Deputy can operate in many ways. From a quick surprise “Hit and Run” appearance - to a wandering act all day at a fair or festival. At a company party, for example, Barney may show up during dinner and “arrest” a few retirees. Or he may interrupt the Big Cheese as he addresses the employees. He may help hand out name tags, awards or check ID’s at the door. He’s interrupted bands that were playing “cheesy music” and even improvised a song about the group while the band played back-up! At a fair or festival Fife can emcee the main stage, welcome guests at the gate, remind them to travel safely as they exit, or follow folks around and pose for photos.

Source: http://www.fifeismylife.com/

What do you think Mr. Hawkin's excuse will be in the event that nuclear war does not break out on September 12? Please email your suggestions and I will post the best ones here on Boing Boing. Link

A list of excuses Mr. Hawkins can use when the world doesn't end on 9/12/06:

• "Did I Say 9-12-2006? I meant to say 9-12-2007." (Dave Kriesel)
• "The war has broken out as I predicted and it's only a matter of time before the missiles will launch. Some day. Soon." (James King)
• “I write dates in the European fashion, so the date of the end of the world is actually December 9, 2006.” (Brother Mike Bube)
• "Satan himself intervened and saved the world in a diabolical plot to discredit me." (Dave Gottlieb)
• "The Lord listened to our prayers and saved us from doom." (David Pescovitz)
• “The world did end, but God recreated it, so as to give people another chance. Like in Groundhog Day.” (David Bedno)
• "Thankfully for all you sinners I appealed to God directly via prayer, he heard my plea and has spared you non believers from certain damnation." (Steve)
• "I said nuculer war, and whether that's happened or not already is none of your business, thank you." (Ben Smart)
• "There was some shmutz on my Bible. Turns out it really prophecies a breakout of tubular Wii which one third of all humans will cherish." (Dorian Baldwin)
• “God works in mysterious ways. Still.” (Craig Howard)
• "It's the terrorists' fault." (Adam Morgan)
• "President Bush saved the world from terrorism by increasing troop strength in Iraq." (Scott)
• "I was under a hypnotic spell of that white buffalo on the shelf behind me!" (Harold Hays)
• "Mr. Hawkins is not available for comment at this time." (Chris Null)
• "What was I thinking? I forgot the verse that says: 'Watch therefore, for ye know neither the day nor the hour wherein the Son of man cometh' (Mat 25:13)" (Christopher M Palmer)
• “Damn you Pat Robertson!” (Tim Slipp)
• "The missiles did launch on the day in question, but they'll remain in the atmosphere, invisible, just as the second kingdom of Jesus Christ did back when the Jehovah's Witnesses's original prediction didn't pan out." (Wyrd)
• He's going to follow the same sequence as previous kooks: First, he will wait until September 12 has fully expired around the world--maybe up to 48 hours just to make sure. Then, he will say that his efforts to publicize the date resulted in increased prayers--and the increased prayers will have averted the disaster. He will consider his prediction a success. I'm looking forward to this farce being played out once more. (Frank Williams)
• "It's a miracle! Disaster has been averted through my direct communication with the Lord! However, I fear that disaster will strike soon (perhaps tomorrow!) without your financial support for my work. Send in your faith pledge today!" P.S. - Leon Festinger (one of the giants of social psychology) did some interesting work on a doomsday cult in the 50's in which he infiltrated the cult and investigated what happened when the doomsday prophecy failed. Of course, the failure of the prophecy only further convinced most believers in the vailidity of the prophets (who fed the followers some line about a miracle). It turns out that it takes about three failures before most people abandon the group/prophet. The work is summarized in the book When Prophecy Fails. (Fred)
• "If it wasn't for all those peace loving liberals getting in the way the world would have ended as we want it too....I mean as it is prophesied to end." (Andersson)
• "God won't end the world until He finds out who Flava Flav picks to be his honey on The Flava of Love 2." (CG Browning)
• "I did not say, and no one in my administration has ever said, that the world was going to end" (Robert Spina)
• "There is an ongoing investigation into why the world did not end on September 12. And I have a policy that I do not comment on an ongoing investigation." (Robert Spina)
• "There is no consensus in the scientific community that the world has not ended. The jury is still out on that one." (Robert Spina)
• "All this talk about the world not ending is just more liberal, pre-9/12 thinking." (Robert Spina)
• "Last night God and I had a powwow. I rescheduled with God because I read this:

  "Deuteronomy 23:1 He that is wounded in the stones, or hath his privy member cut off, shall not enter into the congregation of the LORD"
  

  "My urologist wasn't going to be able to check that my stones weren't wounded until the 15th. Thanks be to Satan's HMO's, seeing a specialist can take forever." (Meadowlark Bradsher)
• "Now that we've averted yet another terrorist plot, we need you to give up even more of your rapidly dwindling freedoms so this can never happen again." (Courtney Silverthorn)

Horse fat is unusual among quadruped fats in having a lot of highly unsaturated fatty acids, which are reactive and finicky and readily go rancid, but on the way there can give an aromatic complexity to whatever is cooked in it. The general flavor of horse may also be different enough from beef and pork to add something unusual and enriching to the fried flavor. As for the texture of the fries: horse fat isn't so different from other animal fats as to do something different to the structure of the fried potato, either crust or interior. So I think horse-fat fries come out well because the people doing the cooking in horse fat are clearly obsessives and making sure they do the best they can with this rare ingredient!

beauftiful // lamin at gmx.at
gril // jg at monochrom.at
psychiartist // jg at monochrom.at
New Zork // Aileen Derieg (a.derieg at eliot.at)
frenburay // dorkbotsthlm at dorkbot.org
melnoma // francesca.birks at gmail.com
huse // francesca.birks at gmail.com

Emiliano Mercado del Toro, who was a boy when the United States seized Puerto Rico from Spain in 1898, attributed his long life to a healthy diet and avoiding alcohol.

"I never damaged my body with liquor," said Mercado, who quit a 76-year smoking habit when he was 90.

Mardin Azad Amin found himself in a tight squeeze last week when security at O'Hare Airport discovered a suspicious-looking object in his luggage. So Amin, 29, handled the delicate situation this way: He told security the object was a bomb, Cook County prosecutors said. The security guard then asked Amin to repeat what he'd said to a supervisor. This time, Amin was chuckling as he spoke, prosecutors said. In fact, Amin was trying to disguise the fact that the black object -- resembling a grenade -- was a component for a penis pump. ...

Reader comment: Pedro Pinheiro (Peter Pinetree) in Portugal says,

I don't know the origin of the gentleman in question, but in some languages (such as in Portuguese, my first language), the word for "bomb" and "pump" is the same, thus perhaps the reason for the story.

Wired News: Are there any myths about music that neuroscientists have exposed?

Daniel Levitin: I think we've debunked the myth of talent. It doesn't appear that there's anything like a music gene or center in the brain that Stevie Wonder has that nobody else has.

There's no evidence that (talented people) have a different brain structure or different wiring than the rest of us initially, although we do know that becoming an expert in anything -- like chess or race-car driving or journalism -- does change the brain and creates circuitry that's more efficient at doing what you're an expert at.

What there might be is a genetic or neural predisposition toward things like patience and eye-hand coordination. (On the other hand), you can be born with a physiology that gives you a pleasant-sounding voice, but that doesn't guarantee you'll have a career as a singer.

When: Wednesday, August 30, 2006, 12:00 PM

Where: University of Southern California, Annenberg Center, Room 207, 3502 Watt Way, LA CA

I was really interested to hear how deep a chord the MPAA-ordered police raid on The Pirate Bay's Swedish servers struck in the heart of Swedes, who quite rightly view threats of trade sanctions and US corporate intervention in their national laws as a serious incursion on their national self-determination.

It's a kind of macrocosm for the way that industry customers feel when they find themselves frustrated by DRM: I bought this DVD, I own it, I want to use it in my house in the way that I want. Who is Hollywood to take away my autonomy and impose their policies on me from a distance? Link (Thanks, Jamie!)

I gave the first publication rights to the story to Esli, a Russian science fiction magazine, and they've given me the Russian translation to release under a Creative Commons license online (the English version will follow later this year, in The Infinite Matrix). Link

* Small amounts of Baby formula and breast milk if a baby or small child is traveling
* Liquid prescription medicine with a name that matches the passenger’s ticket
* Up to 5 oz. (148ml) of liquid or gel low blood sugar treatment
* Up to 4 oz. of essential non-prescription liquid medications including saline solution, eye care products and KY jelly
* Gel-filled bras and similar prostethics
* Gel-filled wheelchair cushions
* Life support and life sustaining liquids such as bone marrow, blood products, and transplant organs carried for medical reasons

Let's hope that the non-bomber diabetics don't need six ounces of sugar-water in-flight, though.

Link (via Consumerist)

BoingBoing reader Aaron Young says,

The Photoshopped bark body in this BoingBoing post is similar to this piece of mine, though I use live models and light projectors. It's a lot of fun.

Heather Firth has been doing 'earth erotica' for a while now. Have a look at how sexy geology can be. Link.

Girls: A word of advice. Marry handsome men or ugly ones. Short ones or tall ones. Bald or hairy. Just, whatever you do, don't marry a man with a career.

Why? Because if many social scientists are to be believed, you run a higher risk of having a rocky marriage. While everyone knows that marriage can be stressful, recent studies have found professional men are more likely to get divorced, more likely to cheat, less likely to have children, and, if they do have kids, they are more likely to be unhappy about it. A recent study in Social Forces, a research journal, found that men -- even those with a "feminist" outlook -- are happier when their wife is the primary breadwinner.

Reader comment: Nichole takes a break from baking a casserole and detailing her bathroom grout with a toothbrush to say:

The author of the "Don't marry career women" article, Michael Noer, also wrote "Economics of Prostitution" that starts off with the memorable line, "Wife or whore?" ...so he's kind of just an ass. His other stories as executive editor, news for Forbes.com, are frequently about cars, video games, and sports.

Angel City Blues has this response for Mr. Noer:

I turned 32 in July and have been single for nearly seven years, for a few reasons. It’s partly by choice; I mean, from the college-dropout losers living two to a room and working customer-service, to the attorneys living high up in fancy condos over Hollywood, I dated them all, and somehow, no matter who they were, I was never good enough for them, and I gave up. After that many years of trying to please other people, I decided it was better to please myself, and you can read that any way you’d like, thanks everso. (...) But mostly? I’ve been single for that long out of fear – yes, fear - because I am deathly afraid of ending up with a jackass like you.

Reader comment: Donna says, A rather skewering item-by-item response, for any of the "slower" boingboing readers who thought Mr. Noer had the right idea: "Why You Should Marry a Doormat."

"They could find absolutely no sign of air contamination," he said. "It's important that people recognize that we don't have any indication that this was a deliberate act to disrupt airport operations."

Given the workers' symptoms and that the air tests did not find anything, Hogan said, the likely culprit is discarded Mace or pepper spray. Travelers often carry the chemicals and forget about them until they enter a checkpoint, he said. The chemicals are prohibited past the checkpoint.

Lewis said this might be so because that's the anniversary of Mohammed's journey from Mecca to Jerusalem. (Makes sense, doesn't it?)

As it turns out, instead of attacking anyone, Iran announced it was going to "resume negotiations with the group of 5+1," much to the disappointment of folks like John Bolton and Lewis, who are looking for any excuse to invade Iran and get the US stuck in another horrifically wasteful, deadly, and unjustified foreign occupation.

I'm curious to learn what Bernard Lewis's reaction to today's non-event was. Did he make a statement?

You don't want to mess with the RI-double-A
They'll sue you if you burn that CDR
It doesn't matter if you're a grandma
Or a seven year old girl
They'll treat you like
the evil hard-bitten criminal you are...

The NeverWas Haul explores the theme of the intrepid explorer, boldly adventuring into the unknown, seeking golden cities, mysterious artifacts, fame and glory. This pre-turn of the century, steam powered, mobile Victorian house is 3 stories in height, and is decorated with the relics and artifacts collected in its journey around the globe, as well as a few more specimens collected in Black Rock City. Participants are interviewed, measured and documented in arcane and amusing scientific experiments. Traditional Irish tea is served every afternoon, and visitors may tour the Haul and be impressed by our advanced steam technology and finely polished brass scientific instruments.

Authorities allege that Gentry purchased the bear from Greenly, a wildlife photographer and hunting guide, then killed it with a bow and arrow in an enclosed pen on Greenly's property in October 2004.

Gentry allegedly paid about $4,650 for the bear, named Cubby. The bear's death was videotaped, and the tape later edited so Gentry appeared to shoot the animal in a "fair chase" hunting situation, the government alleges.

Reader comment: Jon says:

You should really check out some of this guy's "music." There's one video for a song called "You Do Your Thing" where's he's driving around the city with dead dear strapped to the hood of his SUV. The song has such priceless lyrics as "I ain't tradin' in my family's safety just to save on a little gas" and "And I ain't gonna spare the rod because that ain't what my daddy did." It's like a parody, except he's actually serious.

Now, I say "film" but it's environmental, so we have in-house gags like when something gets destroyed there's dust that spews out over the audience, when rain occurs there's actual physical rain in the theater. We've got 360-degree sound. There are gags that go all the way around the theater. And obviously this one is quite whimsical compared to the other film that they are doing, Walking With Buddha, which is directed by my producers on this film, Allen Yamashita and Oric Scott De Las Casas. It's much more serious, about the life of Buddha. I think they cast me right to do the funny one.

Folk artists have used just about every material on earth. That includes earth and dirt, as last week linkers were interested to see perfectly round, highly polished balls of dirt as folk art from Japan.

When the US first minted the buffalo nickel in 1913, the practice of carving a new face onto the nickel was started, because the coin was thick and its metal was malleable.

Update: Looks like the blogger I pointed to earlier ripped 'em off from another site, which in turn collected them from various places around the 'net. Bloggers get awful sensitive about this stuff. Quang Pham says,

I'm chief editor of haha.nu. I've just received mail from our reader, that boingboing.net has posted the 'Nature is sexy.' It is originally started on haha.nu and you can check both the original post date and the comments + more pictures.

At least one of those pics is probably Poser'd and Photoshop'd -- there is apparent texture mapping stretch marks on the figure's hips...and the branches sort of grow from nowhere (as the figure was simply pasted into and over a tree image) -- etc. Too bad it's a phony!

At least two of the images are from Worth1000: Link, and I know the other tree/nymph image is also a Worth1000 entry, but I have been unable to find it in my search. However, here is another large collection of items in a similar vein, (with some repeats from your original post) that have some images I think are real. The crossed legs picture appears to come from this guy: Link.

Reader comment: Quinn Norton says:

No mention of such things so go without Edward Weston's famous Pepper No. 30, which I studied in college photography as a demonstration of light, perception and composition. It's genuine, and for my thinking, sexier than the rest: Link.

Reader comment: Michael says:

It was nice to see the screw worm mentioned in the article "Six horrifying parisites". My father works for APHIS helps fight the battle against these pests down in Panama. Most of us in the U.S. haven't heard of them although they were once a quite a problem in the Southwestern United States. The U.S. government has since eradicated them here and down through most of Central America. To get rid of them they irradiate the male flies with very low level radiation which makes them sterile then release them into the wild to mate. The females can only mate once so when they hook up with a sterile male... no more flesh eating maggots. All this without pesticides too.

I took a tour of the plant in Tuxtula Gutierrez, Mexico and it was quite a gruesome experience. It is a quarantine facility, so we had to shower and change clothes to enter. It is five-football fields under roof, divided in to large rooms where the flies were raised in different stages of their lives. 

There isn't much to see in the egg room, just flies laying eggs. In the pupae room the action is starting to happen. There was tray after tray (tray= 18"x36"x6") of black stuff. On closer inspection it is all moving, thousands of little screw worms only a few millimeters long. My father's coworker turns to me and says "This is when they are most dangerous, say you get one on your finger then scratch your eye." He left it up to me to imagine what would happen. (I do know that one screw worm isn't going to kill you, but a bunch of them left untreated will.) In the larvae room the smell almost knocks you down. I almost didn't think I could handle it. The smell comes from their feed. It is a mixture of animal blood and other nutrients. The larvae are about an inch long now and are kept in trays stacked eight high on rolling carts. There were many, many carts.  When it is feeding time there is a guy standing in a vat of blood on wheels and using a bucket, he sloughs the blood into the trays. When the maggots are full, they crawl out of the trays and into gutters on the floor. Then they are swept up, literally, and go on to the next room to grow into adult flies. Males get to be irradiated, females get to make more flies to be irradiated, and so on.

"Six horrifing parasites" gives you an idea of what kind of damage these things can do but to give you a real world example... My father once saw a brahma bull that was badly infected. From across the field he could see a large red patch across the bull's shoulders. When they got closer he could see the wound was covered in screw worms. To get rid of them, they had to sedate the bull and douse the screw worms with alcohol. Nasty huh?

"The link between facial features and character may be tenuous at best, but that doesn't stop our minds from sizing other people up at a glance," said Todorov, an assistant professor of psychology. "We decide very quickly whether a person possesses many of the traits we feel are important, such as likeability and competence, even though we have not exchanged a single word with them. It appears that we are hard-wired to draw these inferences in a fast, unreflective way..."

Why the brain makes such snap judgments is not yet entirely clear, (professor Alex) Todorov said. However, he often works with a sophisticated technological tool for probing brain activity called a functional magnetic resonance imager (fMRI), and Todorov said some of his general research suggests that the part of the brain that responds directly to fear may be involved in judgments of trustworthiness.

"The fear response involves the amygdala, a part of the brain that existed in animals for millions of years before the development of the prefrontal cortex, where rational thoughts come from," he said. "We imagine trust to be a rather sophisticated response, but our observations indicate that trust might be a case of a high-level judgment being made by a low-level brain structure. Perhaps the signal bypasses the cortex altogether."

This is such a steaming pile that it desperately needs to be remixed. Someone out there needs to make a version where every lie is interrupted with an explanation of the real story, to be shown alongside of it.

You think it can't happen to you. You need to meet Derek.

Derek: I was in my morning Spanish class when the teacher went to the door and said Derek, you need to leave the class. I went outside and there was a campus police officer and an FBI agent in my room... They showed me some paper and asked, 'Is this you?'

[[Welcome to 1984 -- every Internet connection is wiretapped to preserve the business model of the music pirates who got rich ripping off composers to make records, back when that was illegal]]

You may not know Derek, but he's one of tens of thousands of people whose lives are now entangled in legal actions all over the country...

[[With 70 million more to come]]

Sharing copyrighted music files is stealing, no different from shoplifting music from a store.

[[Except that you pay a thousandth of the penalties for actual stealing, because this isn't about stealing, it's about controlling the future of music distribution, and the RIAA wants to stay right in the middle of it]]

Derek: I work 40 hours a week to pay legal bills... The weight on my mind, knowing for the rest of my life, having to explain why I'm a felon.

[[Like this fell out of the sky, like the RIAA didn't decide to ruin this kid's life]]

Look, it's simple: Unless you get permission if the music you find on the web is owned by someone else, you can't share it, download it or copy it, period.

[[Except for fair use, which is especially available to scholars]]

And in most cases if it's free, it's not legal.

[[Except for the 160 million Creative Commons works that have been created in the last three years]]

Making copies for your friends, giving it to them to copy...is just as illegal as downlaoding it.

[[In other words, making a mix-tape is illegal]]

Update: Brandon sez, "Apparently that Derek 'Mickey' Borchardt in the video was on the far extreme of 'file sharing' and prosecuted by the feds, and not just the RIAA. He was a member 'Apocalypse Crew' which was convicted of prereleasing music."

I'm looking for someone with hustle, and solid contacts in the gadget world. Someone who is technical, but can still write around the jargon. Someone who has a good sense of humor, a strong work ethic, and a competitive streak. Someone who has a few years magazine experience, but isn't scared of the blogging pace. Someone who can spot news fast, and has an innate ability to write strong headlines and leads. Someone in NY, who can spearhead the day, hit up the NY junkets, and help manage our NY writer, and intern. One caveat: The job does come with a boss who runs the site like its a sailboat driving hard against tide and weather. It's just more fun that way.

...Animals such as trap-jaw ants and mantis shrimp (which formerly held the record for swiftest strike in the animal world) utilize energy stored within their own bodies. The mandibles of the trap-jaw ant, for instance, are held cocked by a pair of huge, contracting muscles in the head. The muscles are sprung when their corresponding latches, each on a shield-like plate called the clypeus, are triggered.

...O. bauri ants can launch themselves into the air with a mere snap of their jaws, achieving heights up to 8.3 centimeters and horizontal distances up to 39.6 centimeters. That roughly translates, for a 5-foot-6-inch tall human, into a height of 44 feet and a horizontal distance of 132 feet, an aerial trajectory likely to be the envy of circus acrobats and Olympic athletes.

Websense, an Internet censorship company that I've criticized here, has apparently decided to punish me by censoring every podcast I've ever made. The files are hosted on the Internet Archive, and consist of me reading non-pornographic, award-winning science fiction stories. It's hard to believe that someone accidentally mistook these files for "free software download" (the category that Websense has used, one that is selected for blocking by many corporate and school customers); as between that explanation and the notion that Websense has sought petty revenge against its critics, the latter is more credible to me.

I spoke with Cas Purdy, the Websense PR manager, but he was unable to provide any information or comment at this time. Link

Update: Websense added all of archive.org/download to its "free software download" category after this post was published.

Update 2: Websense has reclassified the Internet Archive and my podcast. This morning, archive.org/download was not classed as "Software Download," but archive.org/download/ (with trailing slash) was, hence the appearance that my podcasts had been singled out. Websense has since reclassified all of the Internet Archive, including my podcasts, as "Search Engines and Portals." (Thanks, Salim!)

Did you know the FCC is gearing up to relax restrictions on big media again, like in 2003?

They will be in Los Angeles at USC for a Town Hall Meeting on Aug 31st to talk about localism in media... ask us what we want, etc... They are required to do this and all comments will be a part of the public record.

Some orgs (like Media Alliance from Oakland) are getting together to promote attendance as well as to offer some prep workshops! The goal is to inform about what to expect at the Town Hall Meeting, what to think about when you prepare your "3 minutes", etc... These are this Thursday at the CWA local 9000, 5855 Venice Blvd at noon and again at 6pm.

But the big gaping hole is the absence of unions. The report makes no mention of them, but even Apple's own code of conduct recognizes the right of workers to organize and bargain collectively. (Replying to a query, Apple sent an e-mail with PR boilerplate citing its commitment to workers' dignity.)

Of course, the ban on unions isn't Apple's dictate, nor its contractors. It's the Chinese government's.

Unions are out of fashion in the Western world, but the benefits we enjoy at work were hard fought by our predecessors. There may be a limited role for unions in my white-collar workplace, but that's not true in China and elsewhere manufacturing has been outsourced.

At the top of the pyramid is the Worldwide Anti-Globalization Alliance, which sets things off by calling for cyber sit-ins and denial-of-service attacks against U.S. interests. WAGA's radical arm, the villainous Black Hood Society, ratchets up the tension on day one by probing SCADA computerized control systems and military networks, eventually (spoiler warning) claiming responsibility for a commuter rail outage and the heat going out in government buildings.

The Black Hoods are a faction of Freedom Not Bombs, whose name is suspiciously similar to the real Food Not Bombs,[1] which provides vegan meals to the homeless.

Another allied lefty-group called the Peoples Pact joins in, crashing portions of the power grid. Things get confusing when the "Tricky Trio," three evil hax0rs who are 50 percent more devious than the Deceptive Duo,[2] hacks the FAA, issues false Amber Alerts, and manipulates the communications system of the U.S. Northern Command.

Then someone posts the No-Fly List to a public website (third act shocker: it's all nuns and Massachusetts Democrats), and opportunistic cyber thieves raid a medical database looking for identity theft targets. Logic bombs explode, wireless communications devices are corrupted, DNS caches are poisoned.

This means that while it's possible to sue millions, it's impossible for millions to defend against those lawsuits. The RIAA has practically invented this; a friend in the know confided about 18 months back that the RIAA's litigation was actually turning a profit: that is, the RIAA's network of sleazy bounty-hunters, boiler-room intimidators, and software-generated legal threats were costing less to run than they were bringing in through the persecution of American music fans.

That means that there's no technical reason the music industry can't individually sue all 70 million American file-sharers. Indeed, that might be their last profitable business-model in an era when they refuse to give sell what people will buy: DRM-free music at a reasonable price.

The RIAA strategy is an example of a new legal phenomenon that I have dubbed "spamigation" -- bulk litigation that's only become practical due to the economies of scale of the computer era. We see spamigation when a firm uses automation to send out thousands of cease and disist letters threatening legal action. We saw it when DirecTV took the customer database for a vendor of smartcard programmers and bulk-litigated almost everybody in it...

The RIAA uses systems to gather lists of alleged infringers, and bulk-sues them. It has set a price that seems to be profitable for it, while being low enough that it is not profitable for the accused to mount a defence, as they do not get the economies of scale involved.

Update: Ken sez,

I was able to make a Firefox 1.5.0.x search plugin that uses the site in that Greasemonkey script. You just put the files from the zip into a folder named "searchplugins" in your Firefox profile folder. For help with locating your Firefox Profile folder go here.

I also created a Firefox 2.0 and IE7 Google Anon OpenSearch plugin. Here's a link to the SearchPlugins.net search that shows "Google Anon Search" that I made.

You click on the "I" to install it. Here's a link to the direct source of the search plugin if you'd rather have that.

They're onto something here. If the existence of a plot to use implausible liquid explosives against aircraft creates a global war on moisture at the airports, imagine what a similar plot to smuggle a bomb up a terrorist's ass would engender. The war on moisture is bad, but it's nothing compared to the inevitable war on body cavities.

The terrorists hate our freedom, so by eliminating the freedom, we can stop the terrorists from hating us. Link (Thanks, Michael!)

Update: Eileen sez, " Looks like the outtake from a Spencer Tunick photo shoot."

Update: Site's slammed, here's a Coral Cache mirror

Link to video made by Deadwood fan Justin Schlegel. It wafts just right. (thanks, Geoff)

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Apparently I am the last person in the world to know about this. The short version:

(1) get in your car and drive
(2) *while* your car is moving forward
(3) step out of the driver's seat and dance around in the road
(4) optional: jump on top of your car, which remains in motion, and vamp on the roof.
(5) refrain from dying
(6) post video on the internet, boyyyeeeeee.

There's another term for this: "natural selection." (Thanks, Oxblood and Pat!)

Reader comment: Jami Dwyer says,

After way too much time on YouTube, my favorites are the cop ghostriding and a guy ghostriding his little sister's bike.

Of course, when dumb teenage boys do this at full speed on busy streets, this is a huge safety worry. What we need are about twenty more videos from yuppies ghostriding in PT Cruisers, and ghostriding will be over before an innocent bystander gets killed.

If you don't wanna be the last on the block to know about THIS, then you should start workin' your tray surfin' skillz. Search "Tray Surfing" on YouTube.

'Ghostride da Whip' reminds me of the Monty Python's Flying Circus' UpperClass-Twit of the Year sketch. "...and Oliver has ran himself over!" Screen Shot, and Video link.

To keep people from using the High Lighter when Mikey isn't around, he has equipped it with an RFID reader. Mikey has an RFID chip implanted in his hand, so only he can activate it. Mikey says:

Just wanted to drop you a line about the fire trampoline finally reaching version 1.0. This is one overbuilt piece of back yard trash. Infrared Camera, text LCD, video LCD, RFID Reader, Ultrasonic Sensor, and of course up to 5' flames depending on the jumpers bouncing abilities. The control panel is hand made from 3/4" plexiglass so that is pretty sexy.

Oliver's next owner was New York appellate lawyer Michael Miller, who promoted Oliver as a "missing link". Oliver appeared on Japanese TV with fraudulent promotions picturing him as a miniature and hairy human being. Though he was sent to Japan in a normal chimpanzee cage as cargo, Oliver was depicted as flying in the passenger cabin. Oliver's trip coincided with a concert promotion of the rock 'n roll group The Monkees and he was presented on Japanese television shows with Micky Dolenz spouting inaccurate scientific observations.

Miller claimed he was promised genuine scientific examination of Oliver including genetic testing by the Japanese promoters. Some Japanese results, later proved false, held that Oliver had 47 chromosomes. Some anthropologists observing Oliver's head, nose, ears, and preference for bipedal walking asserted the possibility that the chimp was a hybrid.

Reader comment: Max says:

I am an avid Boing Boing reader and when I came across the posting about Oliver the Humanzee I figured I’d recommend a documentary that you will almost certainly find pertinent and interesting. The film is called Kanzi, Ape of Genius. I think it was made by the University of Georgia, but I can’t seem to get my hands on it, so I’m afraid I can’t verify that bit.

Kanzi is a Bonobo chimp that lives in captivity. He has been taught to communicate through sign language, images and gestures and he can cook – with a bit of help. The emotions that Kanzi exhibits are incredible – he’s so human like it’s embarrassing…for us I think. The film shows Kanzi’s interactions with his human trainer, his fellow chimps and a dog – for whom he has nothing but jealousy, and contempt, which are but two of many complex traits he displays.

Good luck finding the film. If you do, I’d love to know where.

A similar mania gripped the country in 1995 when thousands of Hindus fed milk in spoons to marble idols of Lord Ganesha.

That rumor spread across the globe and there were reports of Hindu deities drinking milk in London, New York and Italy.

"It is very natural for any stone idol to absorb any liquid and the older the stone the more it absorbs," M.P. Singh, a geology professor at Lucknow University, told Reuters.

The largest nest (entomologist Dr. Charles) Ray has inspected this year filled the interior of a weathered 1955 Chevrolet parked in a rural Elmore County barn. That nest was about the size of a tire in the rear floor seven weeks ago, but quickly spread to fill the entire vehicle, the property owner, Harry Coker, said. Four satellite nests around it have gotten into the eaves of the barn, about 300 yards from his home.

"I'm kind of afraid for the grandkids. I had to sneak down there at dark and get my tractor out of the barn," Coker said. "It's been a disruption..."

In previous years, a yellow jacket nest was no larger than a basketball, Ray said. It would contain about 3,000 workers and one queen. These gigantic nests may have as many as 100,000 workers and multiple queens.

This betatted fellow isn't worried about disappointing box office returns or concomitant studio whinery -- or, it would seem, the fact that ink in flesh lasts longer than internet fads.

BoingBoing reader Adam explains,

A gentleman named Jim Dozier ("Doz," or "iBgerd") decided he was so excited about the movie that he would have its logo tattooed on his arm. (Link) Doz has been a cherished member of our site for years now, so we all cheered him on when we realized the tattoo was real. One of our members photoshopped the picture of the tattoo replacing the logo with one from "Howard The Duck" and reminded Doz that he was really going to regret this in a few years.

A few days after getting the tattoo, New Line Cinema announced the "Snakes on a Plane #1 Fan Sweepstakes." (Link) Doz immediately entered the contest, and as of today, he's firmly in second place. Max (of YTMND.com fame) has a commanding lead thanks to his army of followers, but even he has admitted that Doz is clearly the #1 fan.

At this point, it's easy for people to roll their eyes and write Doz off as some creepy old guy living in his mom's basement. Indeed, he's gotten a bit of media exposure because of all this, and has been treated poorly by some. A few mouthbreathing DJ's on some morning show decided to interview Doz, and tried their best to run a bunch of cliche jokes into the ground while embarrassing and demeaning him. Doz handled it beautifully, turning their jokes around on them, and making the group look pretty dumb in the process. (Link) I couldn't be more proud of an "Internet guy" for shattering the stereotype in beautiful fashion.

We've collected many of the relevant links to Doz's story (along with plenty of childish banter) on the post we've been using to promote his contest entry the last few weeks. (Link).

GM: Do you think you're too old to be so infatuated with movies?

Doz: I don't think I'm too old. We all have our fads as we go through life—remember Beanie Babies, Cabbage Patch Dolls (I NEVER got into either of those!)? It's just human nature. This was just something that struck a nerve in me and sounded like something fun. And I'm always looking for fun things to occupy my time with.

Adam says,

The Alamo Drafthouse Cinema in Austin, TX is hosting a "Blanks on a Blank" filmmaking competition inspired by "Snakes on a Plane." All of the parody films are available on their site, and some of them are outstanding. Link

Perhaps one of the most interesting and colorful phrases in the English language today is the phrase "Snakes on a Plane". It is the one magical phrase, which, just by its sound, can describe pain, pleasure, love, and Samuel L. Jackson.

In language, "Snakes on a Plane" falls into many grammatical categories. It can be used as a verb, both transitive (John snaked Mary on a plane) and intransitive (Mary was snaked on a plane by John). It can be an action verb (John really snakes on a plane), a passive verb (Mary really doesn't snake on a plane), an adverb (Mary is snaking-on-a-plane interested in John), or as a noun (Mary is a terrific snake on a plane). It can also be used as an adjective (Mary is snaking-on-a-plane beautiful) or an interjection (Snakes on a Plane! I'm late for my date with Mary). It can even be used as a conjunction (John is ugly, SNAKES ON A PLANE, he's also stupid). As you can see, there are very few words with the overall versatility of the phrase "Snakes on a Plane."

Aside from its R-rated-because-that's-what-the-fans-demanded connotations, this incredible word can be used to describe many situations:

God sends sign as a chocolate dripping.
Sweet Mary! Workers at a chocolate company in Fountain Valley, CA have discovered a 2-inch-tall column of chocolate drippings that they believe bears a striking resemblance to traditional depictions of the Virgin Mary. “For me, it was a sign,” Cruz Jacinto says of finding the chocolate icon that matches her prayer card.

Update: Odiumjunkie sent in the following thoughtful analysis of TrackMeNot's robustness:

Priggen's music is a delight. Bun E. Carlos plays on a couple of songs, which makes sense, because much of Priggen's work has the same sensibility as Cheap Trick. You can listen to a sample song on his blog. Link

On Friday, the Leipzig Games Conference people asked us not to show BloodSpell at the conference.

They feel it is too violent.

They feel that German journalists are looking for violent scenes in video games*, and wish to show Machinima as "a positive example of what players do with games." The implication, of course, is that BloodSpell is not one of those positive things.

I'm quite angry about this. I'm angry that we're being singled out - EA and Take Two are both showing games at least as violent as BloodSpell. I'm angry that I'm being asked to censor my work, and by doing so to implicitly agree that BloodSpell is unwholesome, or at least suspect. And I'm angry that the reason we make Machinima - the chance to tell stories - is being treated as a mere by-product, something that can be chopped, changed or censored at will.

Previously: Part one of machinima epic "Bloodspell" online under CC license

Update: Charlie Stross points out:

Actually, the first that I know of in the UK was Net.wars by Wendy Grossman -- admittedly published by NYU Press, but she's based in London and it went out online in, um, 98 or 99 or thereabouts.

And ACCELERANDO was released under CC with the kind permission of Orbit back in 2005.

What: Waking City
When: September 16
Cost: $27.80/team member. Team sizes must be between 4 to 7 people.
Contact: info@torgame.com
For more details, attend an info session: 7:10pm on Thurs, Aug 24, and Thurs, Sept 7, at Lillian H Smith Library (239 College Street, at Huron)

Get in as early as possible. Turn the thermostats to "Lunar nightside" and the AC to "Siberian blizzard". You're going to have a lot of radiant bodies in the room. Start laying down a basal layer of cold now.

Give yourself prep time: order dinner from room service.

You have a moral obligation to feed your party prep minions, if you have them.

If you're in a very nice suite, remove any fragile ornaments to the top shelf of a closet. Remove all the phones (except for one, if you're sure you'll need it) to a dresser drawer or closet shelf. If you're staying in the room, secure your possessions.

Optional: rearrange the furniture. If you're using the big conference table for refreshments, move the chairs away. They'll do more good over by the sofa and easy chairs, and removing them will keep social maladroits from sitting there and chowing down on your munchies.

Most companies, including ours, spend a great deal of time trying to turn our brands into household names. In fact, we just kicked off a marketing campaign called "Your Yahoo! has changed" that is meant to encourage people to have fun with our brand by creating their own commercials.

Two weeks ago, veterinarian Larry Owen tranquilized the cat at the Alexandria Animal Hospital about 30 miles northeast of Indianapolis so Steele could do the dentistry work, which took about 15 minutes to complete.

Owen said putting gold crowns on teeth can be done for any pet with a dental problem.

"Mostly, though, it was a fun thing to do," Owen said.

These photos, from the collection of Ray Aragon, were taken in June and July 1958 at Disney Studios. Most of the artists in these pics worked in the layout and background departments at Disney. At the time they were completing work on Sleeping Beauty and beginning production on 101 Dalmatians.

"I have two machines here running in an isolated network. I infect one with the malware, and I have the other machine pretending to be the entire Internet," he explained. The second machine, known as a sandnet, is a custom-made tool for analyzing malware in an environment that is isolated, yet provides a virtual Internet for the malware to interact with. "I can sit back and see all the interaction up to point where it [the infected machine] joins botnet's control channel. Then I can take that information, go outside and replicate it. I can see what the real server is doing to get an entire picture of the operation," Stewart said.