During the press conference today, the president made what some felt was an odd reference to computer manufacturer Dell: Link to video. (Thanks, Sean Bonner)

Reader comment: Rodney Gardner says,

The official transcript at whitehouse.gov (Link) doesn’t have the “Dell” in it. “And it's tough in a time of war when people see carnage on their television screens.” I think you could make the argument that it was sort of a stutter, like he started to say “television”, but said it with a “d”, stopped himself, then started over. But I don’t think the video shows that at all.

At the risk of over-stating the obvious: This would not be the first time that President Bush has mis-spoken. It's conceivable that this was a shout-out to a homie who's donated heavily. But if evidence revealed by a quick search of The Google is any indication, it's also conceivably a mistake.

BoingBoing reader Kevin says the new chair of the subcommittee on Internet and IP is in the pocket of the MPAA and RIAA. Snip from Kevin's blog post:

In the wake of the Democratic win in the House of Representatives, some chairs will be rearranged. Democratic representatives will take over as chairmen of the House Committees. Of the committees most relevant to copyright in the digital age is the Internet and Intellectual Property Subcommittee which is currently chaired by Republican Lamar Smith of Texas. The ranking Democrat (and soon to be chairman) is the Honorable Howard Berman of California.

Mr. Berman, according to the National Journal, can be expected to support restrictive copyright and intellectual property laws. Representing the Los Angeles / Hollywood area, Berman will "protect his nearby Hollywood interests by cracking down on piracy and protecting against copyright infringement of TV, music and movie productions." In the past, he has supported legislation allowing copyright owners to "file blocking, redirections, spoofs and decoys" to fight piracy.

Link

Reader comment: Mike Masnick from Techdirt says

Just wanted to add that it's not yet clear that the head of the IP subcommittee will be Howard Berman. Some expect him to pass on that role to focus on different opportunities, in which case it will go to Rick Boucher, who is well known as being very much in favor of consumer rights and reforming the DMCA.

I wrote about it here: Link. William Patry has a great post here (on which I based my post): Link.

Alex says,

As long as we're forecasting on political issues BB covers, it's worth pointing out that the next chair of the also-pertinent Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet is likely Rep. Ed Markey (MA-07).

Rep. Markey is the ranking member on the E&C subcommittee right now, and has been a staunch advocate of network neutrality. (Of course, he was also the one who called for Chris Soghoian's head for the boarding pass generator...but to his credit, he did own up to his misjudgment two days later, and asked authorities to take Soghoian's intent as a researcher into account.)

All in all, the change in leadership (from the neutricidal Rep. Fred Upton) is a positive sign for fans of the internet as we know it.

University of Minnesota Law School Associate Professor William McGeveran says,

Further to your post about future congressional leadership on internet issues, I just put this blog post up (I used to work on Capitol Hill): "Election’s Impact on Info/Law." Link.

BoingBoing reader Tom Polley and friends (David DeBenedetto, Jeff Bayson, Richard Taylor and Matt Unger) created a 25-point manifesto for the new Democratic Congress -- and, maybe, the Senate -- which shows many of the right's assumption's about the left to be true. Brace yourselves for change, America:

# Comatose people to be ground up and fed to poor
# Quarterly mandatory abortion lottery
# Jane Fonda to be appointed Secretary of Appeasement
# Outlaw all firearms: previous owners assigned to anger management therapy
# Ban Christmas: replace with Celebrate our Monkey Ancestors Day

Link. And, "# Abandon spell-check," evidently, as the site is funny but loaded with typos. :-)

They're not kidding about the gun stuff, either. As a law-abiding, safety-respecting, soy-cappucino-drinking handgun owner, I wonder what (historically anti-gun) Pelosi's leadership might mean on Second Amendment issues. More restrictions for citizens who obey gun laws, and more bans? Gun laws don't stop law-ignoring criminals from arming themselves. (Thanks, Sean)

Speaking of firearms, look! Flavored shotgun shells! Link. Shoot "Cajun, Lemon Pepper, Garlic, Teriyaki, or Honey Mustard" ammo into that tofurkey's ass. "Watch as your bird is seasoned on impact!" (via jwalk, thanks Rocky Mullin)

Reader comment: woof In FoG says,

Just imagine, Ernest Hemingway's last thought could have been, "Mmm, Spicy!"

Link (thx Adam Selvidge).

This image is a fresh variant of the old and much-loved "I'M IN UR [noun] [verb]ING UR [noun]" internet meme explained here: Link. My favorite is the cat-in-fridge one: Link. Or maybe the parrot one: Link. I'm an easy target: nearly every time i see a new one of these, it makes me laugh uncontrollably.

Reader comment: Click to enlarge images. John Daniel says,

Here's my contribution: Link.

And though it may be too soon to call decisively... Link. Cheers, and thanks for all the fine reportage!

Ross Evertson says,

I made this one a few days ago when I first heard of the Army/etc Times calling for Rumsfeld's resignation: Link.

Not so fast, hopeful lefties, cautions BoingBoing reader Scott:

Link.

Created by BoingBoing reader Brian Topping. Previously: Rumsfeld to resign. Who is Bob Gates? Link, and more.

When Carla and I were in New York a couple of weeks ago, our hotel room faced a building that had beautiful colored lights in the windows. I shot a short video of the light show, which you can see here.

By the way, the Tribeca Grand is a great hotel. Our room (an "iStudio" room) had WiFi, a large screen Macintosh, and an iPod loaded with music. It also had two speakers that pumped out white noise, which did a great job of killing the sound that came from the bar below.

Link

UPDATE: Mitch Kapor won't be able to make it to next Tuesday's Giants of Cyberliberties talk at USC. Mitch had some minor surgery and his recovery -- though going well -- is taking longer than expected, and he's been advised against travel. He's given me a rain check, so expect him to come back next semester for my undergrad course. We'll still have two dynamite speakers, of course: John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore. See you next Tuesday!

Next Tuesday, November 14, I'm presenting a rare chance to hear technology legends Mitch Kapor, John Gilmore and John Perry Barlow speak at a free event at the University of Southern California.

All three helped found the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but that's just for starters.

Mitch Kapor: Architecture is politics
Mitch Kapor also founded Lotus and created the ground-breaking spreadsheet Lotus 1-2-3. He pioneered the "peering" that has become the norm for Internet service providers, and has gone on to lead social investing movements, as well as chairing the Open Source Applications Foundation and being a key player in the Mozilla Foundation.

John Gilmore: The Internet interprets censorship as damage and routes around it
John Gilmore was employee number five at Sun Microsystems and was key to the development of Solaris and the SPARC chip. He went on to cofound the USENET alt. hierarchy, The Little Garden, an early regional ISP, and Cygnus Support, the first big free software business (now Red Hat). He continues to initiate and/or fund ground-breaking free software projects like GNU Radio, BitTorrent, Gnash and FreeS/WAN. He's an activist for individual rights, including challenging secret laws and identification demands, starting the Identity Project, funding and strategizing to end prohibition of drugs, liberating and aiding the victims of Guantanamo, and supporting other freedom-oriented charities.

John Perry Barlow: We will create a civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace. May it be more humane and fair than the world your governments have made before.
John Perry Barlow has had several careers -- beginning as a Republican cattle-rancher who wrote lyrics for the Grateful Dead. In the early days of the public Internet, Barlow became famous as a kind of poet-laureate of the Internet, penning such influential documents as the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace. Barlow continues to serve as a powerful spokesman for online liberty.

It's exceedingly rare to have all three of these EFF founders on the same bill. In my five years of association with EFF, I've never been in the same room as all three, though I've come to know each of them well. These three activist/entrepreneur/artists were absolutely vital to the shape of the Internet as we know it today -- they are living legends. Any one of them is worth seeing, but I can hardly contain my excitement at the thought of hearing all three together.

Space is limited, and Gilmore and Mitch have to leave right after the talk, so there won't be any extended events with all three. Arrive early to stake out your place! I'll post audio and possibly video after the event.

Where: University of Southern California main campus, Annenberg School of Communications, Room 207 (Los Angeles)
When: Tuesday, November 14, 7PM-9PM.

Link

(Mitch Kapor photo via Smagdali's Flickr stream; John Gilmore photo by Carl Cheney; John Perry Barlow photo by Bart Nagel)

My student Lewis Haidt has written up a great report on the Remixing the Archive event at the University of Southern California last weekend -- especially interesting is this summary of the work of Barbara Lattanzi on the early film era where movies were interactive:

Next Barbara Lattanzi gave an amazing presentation. She traced back to early, early 20th Century film and showed how, at the beginning, there was a fork, the road not taken. This road gave audiences a hilarious degree of agency. We watched shorts from I think 1920's where audiences would sing back and follow songs, almost karaoke-like, before a feature. It's a radical thought: one would have happened in film became an active, agent experience where the audiences was mobilized?

She gave numerous examples in her work where she's breaking down the passivity model using idiomorphic software. My favorite was her work on the Zapruder-Kennedy assassination reworking and examples of her C-SPAN Karaoke, my favorite being the Alberto Gonzalez karaoke. I can't recommend enough that people check out her website and follow her work.

Link

Karsten sez, "IP Watch has obtained a confidential report from a WIPO meeting of developed countries. It took place just before WIPO's general assembly in September. In this meeting they decided, among other things, to sink the much-criticized Broadcast Treaty. The report also describes how these countries (US, EU, Japan and others) are honing their strategy to minimise the effect of the proposal for a development agenda."

WIPO is the UN agency that creates copyright treaties -- it has the same relationship to bad copyright law that Mordor has to evil. The Broadcast Treaty is a sleazy attempt to create new rights for broadcasters and webcasters that trump the rights of the public and of actual creators. It's been a flashpoint for activist groups, who have started to show up in force, questioning the treaty's legitimacy.

The Development Agenda is the plan to reform WIPO as a real humanitarian UN agency, something it promised to do when it was chartered. The idea is to force every WIPO treaty to justify itself in terms of international development for poor countries, instead of just creating windfall profits for multinational copyright companies. It's a global scandal that developed nations are planning to sabotage it.

On the proposed broadcasting treaty, the report said that several members, as well as others not in the room, "will be making sure the diplomatic conference does not go ahead smoothly this week." In the end, it was agreed to schedule the diplomatic conference, or high-level treaty negotiation, for late 2007, after more meetings and another General Assembly.

Link (Thanks, Karsten!)

US Defense Secty. Donald Rumsfeld will resign today. President Bush is set to make the announcement momentarily. In related news, here's today's NYT editorial: "First, Out With Rumsfeld."

Update: Former CIA head Robert Gates will succeed him.

And LOL and behold, Comedy Central's blog broke the news last night: Link to their pre-emptive scoop (via Gawker). Suck it, non-fake-news sites!

Here's a 22-page PDF comic book that shows you how to pick locks.

The Credo of the Lock Picker: You may only pick locks that you own, or those to which you've been given explicit permission to pick by the rightful owner.

Locksport is an honest, ethical, and legitimate hobby. Unfortunately, the whole world hasn't figured that out yet (though we're working on it!). Because the lay person has a tendency to perceive what we do as somehow nefarious, it is extra important that we commit to following a strict code of ethics. For this reason, the above credo is non-negotiable in the locksport community. Lock picking should never, ever be used to illegal or even questionable purposes. Please do not misuse this information. We assume no responsibility for your actions, and in no way condone immoral activity. Help keep locksport fun for all by following strictly the one rule.

Link

My former student Greg London has written a tremendous little book about copyright, in the form of a parable about the wild west. "Bounty Hunters: Metaphors for Fair Intellectual Property Laws" is a slim, Creative Commons licensed book available on demand from Lulu Press that tackles the economics of copyright through a fun, breezy little parable about a frontier town that hires bounty hunters to bring in the bad guys -- until the bounty hunters begin to fund mayoral races in exchange for ever-larger, longer-lived bounties.

London is a computer geek with a passion for economics, a subject that most techies (and non-techies for that matter) have only a rudimentary grasp over. London takes the economist's language and illuminates it with his whimsical examples in ways that make the reason that some copyrights and patents are good -- but lots more are bad -- clear.

London is a budding science fiction writer who was one of my students at this year's Viable Paradise workshop on Martha's Vineyard; he aspires to create books professionally, and it is with this in mind that he approaches his subject. How can we give creators a fair shake without undermining the public interest?

Bounty Hunters is a clever exercise in explaining the copyfight. I suspect it will resonate strongly with some readers who haven't encountered or understood the subject. Link

Jamie Boyle, copyfightin' law professor who sits on Creative Commons's Board, has just published a fun literary mystery about the true authorship of Shakespeare's works. It's called The Shakespeare Chronicles and it's available as a CC download (one chapter a week for free, $1.50 for the whole thing now) or as a print book. He notes, "It's a novel I started writing 19 years ago -- I am a slow worker -- when I was Shakespeare's lawyer in a televised mock trial in front of three Supreme Court Justices. He was accused of not being the real author of his own works."

A novel that is part literary mystery, part historical detective story, built around an obsessive search for the true author of Shakespeare's works.

Stanley Quandary is a professor of English and a very ordinary man. But then he starts to have the strangest, most realistic dreams, dreams that seem to solve one of the greatest mysteries of all time, to expose a conspiracy of silence that is over 400 years old. They even suggest a way to win back his estranged wife. Of course, he might be going insane... .

Link (Thanks, Jamie!)

Behold the Telecalculograph, a steampunk PC casemod complete with a "furnace door" behind which can be seen flickering, hellish red coal-glow.

I soon realized...steampunk was the way to go.

> Thus was born the Telecalculograph.

Not including the original PC, this project cost about $70 total. It took around two months of spare time, and was done with basic hand tools. The only power tools used were a drill and a Dremel.

Be sure to watch the video of the furnace in action here. *Note: The color of the "fire" is a little off in the video, in real life it is a more homogenous orange.

Link (Thanks, Brian!)

From the always-funny XKCD geek comic -- a grid of terms that can and have been mixed to make up ironic, Ted-Stevens-esque names for the Internet, such as "Interweb," "Blogotubes" and "Webnet." Link

The Canadian Tory minister who regulates the copyright industry has canceled a fundraiser sponsored by the companies she is supposed to oversee. Bev Oda won the Heritage Minister seat after the ouster of Sam Bulte, the Liberal Party minister who took enormous campaign contributions from the industry she oversaw. Oda, too, received these contributions, and had planned to let the broadcasters in her putative charge raise even more money for her. She denied any wrongdoing in Parliament when this issue was raised by New Democrat Heritage critic Charlie Angus, but canceled the event anyway.

It may be common for US committee chairs to take money from the companies they are supposed to oversee, but this is not the way it's done in Canada. The US copyright cartel has managed to export more than their cartoons and magazines and pop-stars to Canada -- they've also exported their corruption.

Yesterday, NDP Heritage critic Charlie Angus called attention to the fundraiser, noting that it promised to provide access to both Oda and guest speaker Industry Minister Maxime Bernier. He summed it up as "the broadcast review happens in two weeks. The cash grab happens next week. Why is the minister using her office to trade political access for political contributions?"

Oda responded by arguing that she was following the law ("I have observed every rule existing right now"). Hours later, she did an about face and cancelled the fundraiser. This should have been obvious - the Minister of Canadian Heritage simply cannot have a fundraiser hosted on her behalf by her friends in the broadcast industry.

Link

Lore "Brunching Shuttlecocks" Sjöberg has an hilarious riff on the Windows Vista EULA this morning on Wired News, including a nice little name-check for Boing Boing:

Windows DRM: You may not use this system to remove DRM protection from Microsoft-provided media. "Removing DRM" is defined as stripping out protection, reverse-engineering code, using third-party circumvention software, installing non-DRM versions of DRM media, refusing to purchase our media in the first place, or reading Boing Boing.

Future Licenses: By using Windows Vista, you agree to not only this license, but to any future revisions to this license. You also agree to any future licenses for other products from Microsoft, whether or not you actually purchase them, and to any revisions to those licenses, including terms that require you to agree to other licenses, and revisions to those licenses. You agree that if you attempt to not agree to these licenses, then you automatically agree to yet another license, and it's a lot harsher than this license, so just watch yourself.

Steve Jobs Is a Bozo: You don't have to agree to this. We just felt it needed to be said.

Link

Did your vote count this time? Link to synopsis at HBO website, and here's an excerpt:

Electronic voting machines count about 87% of the votes cast in America today. But are they reliable? Are they safe from tampering? From a current congressional hearing to persistent media reports that suggest misuse of data and even outright fraud, concerns over the integrity of electronic voting are growing by the day. And if the voting process is not secure, neither is America's democracy. (...) HACKING DEMOCRACY exposes gaping holes in the security of America's electronic voting system.

The entire 90 minute documentary feature is available online for free via Google Video: Link. (Thanks Cheebs and others)

Reader comment: My friend John Parres says,

On CNN Jeffrey Toobin just reported that almost all of Virginia's voting machines are electronic and do not have paper trails! This means the recount will only be of each machine's totals printed out at the end of the day. There is no way to audit each vote as you could with, say, optically scanned ballots. So, unless numbers got transposed or a few "missing" machine receipts magically appear, it's over and the Dems will have a majority in both the Senate and the House.

Stephen Pigott says,

A quite note concerning America's problem with voting fraud and/or incompetence when depending on "voting machines" for a result. In Australia we have an ingeniously simple voting system: a piece of paper and a pencil. The voter is given a ballot paper with the candidates' names, she goes into a little cardboard booth (of sorts), where there is a stubby little pencil. The voter votes, and puts the paper in a big box. When the polls close, the votes are counted and scrutinised -- by hand -- by thousands of people around the country. If there is a dispute in a closely-fought electorate, those votes are counted again. <> Simple, but almost 100% clean and effective. No power blackouts, no loose wires, no glitches. Maybe you guys should try it some time.

Peter Margasak at the Chicago Reader blog writes,

On Saturday the Sun-Times ran a small item about a man who had set himself on fire during rush hour Friday morning near the Ohio Street exit on the Kennedy. His identity had not been determined at the time, but members of the local jazz and improvised music community now say they are certain it was Malachi Ritscher, a longtime supporter of the scene.

At left, a photograph of Mr. Ritscher at an earlier anti-war protest in Chicago. More about his apparent self-immolation here: Link. (thanks, agnieszka)

Reader comment: Anonymous says,

He had a myspace page: Link; And even wrote his own obituary: Link. Another article about his death: Link.

bri adds,

There is also this "Mission Statement"/suicide note.

Joe Germuska says,

Thanks for posting Malachi's story on Boing Boing. I thought you might be interested in this local TV news coverage, including a chopper flyover of the scene. Link.

In celebration of the long-awaited Pranks 2 book, RE/Search Publications is hosting Pranksfest parties in San Francisco and Los Angeles. ((Previous Pranks 2 post here.) The Bay Area event is this Saturday, November 11, at the San Francisco Art Institute. The following weekend, Saturday, November 18, the antics move to the Beyond Baroque Literary Arts Center in Venice, California. Here are some of the shenanigans planned for San Francisco:

PARTY, SHOW AND SPECTACLE: Due to the "illegal" nature of Pranks, key speakers from the Billboard Liberation Front, etc, may be in disguise! Ex-hacker Marc Powell, Babalou and Karen Marcelo from SRL, Cacophony Society's Chris Radcliffe, and Prankster-Godfather MAL SHARPE will show their real faces (we think). Rare and inspiring pranks video clips will be narrated live, and questions from the audience will be taken. Cyclecide will bring a demo-cycle. Event is still being planned; other guests/events TBA.

Videos will include Mal Sharpe's new prank DVD release (excerpt), a special Billboard Liberation Front clip, Jihad Jerry and the Evildoers' "Army Girls Gone Wild," Reverend Al's "Art of Bleeding Safety Film," and excerpts from Ron English's "Popaganda," the wild & crazy "Yes Men" Film, the Cyclecide film, and Scott Beale's "You'd Better Watch Out" documenting the Cacophony Society's wild "Santarchy" escapade in Portland. (For the past ten years, groups of folks dressed up as Santa Claus have invaded department stores, hotel parties and other events, causing ideological havoc and consumer confusion--anarchic fun! Over the years, the Santas have spread to major cities over the planet.)

Far more than a video show, the Nov. 11 evening will encompass a Mad Celebration, Reunion, party, Panel, and Q&A's with local Bay Area artists who appear in RE/Search's newest book, PRANKS 2. All interested in RE/Search's 30 year history, pranks, and cultural subversion in general are urged to attend and meet-and-greet featured pranksters both before and after the show. Hard-to-find RE/Search Publications will be available for sale, and can be autographed, as well as other pranks-related videos, CDs and books.

Link to San Francisco event details, Link to Los Angeles event details, Link to buy Pranks 2

Researchers from Sandia National Labs and the University of New Mexico have discovered that human brain injury can occur less than a millisecond after a head is thrust into a windshield, during a car accident.

Snip from announcement: "This happens prior to any overall motion of the head following impact with the windshield and is a new concept to consider for doctors interested in traumatic brain injury (TBI)."

More infoz here: Link.

Trippy simulated car crash brainsmash videos: one, two (MPEG).

There were scattered reports of tech problems with e-voting machines all over the place, but the biggest documented problems occurred in:

- Montana
- Indiana
- Ohio
- New Jersey
- Colorado

...according to this article by BoingBoing reader Debra D'Agostino, who writes for CIO Insight Magazine: Link. See also this previous BoingBoing post: Link. Here's a related piece: "Was there e-Voting Fraud?" Link.

Reader comment: Joe says,

To clarify: to the best of my knowledge the problems in Colorado were not problems with the voting machines themselves. (Though as others have pointed out, there's no way te be sure there weren't problems with them also.)

Denver and Adams County both use an electronic system to verify a voter's identity and determine which ballot they should get. (This system is not state wide, as reported in the link; it's county by county.) This has the advantage of eliminating poll books--meaning a voter can go to any polling location and vote for all their local issues. But when the systems go down under the strain, as they did yesterday, no one can vote anywhere in the county. It wasn't an issue with the actual voting machines, however.

Jefferson County, where I was working on the Congressional campaign, had some machines that weren't properly set up the start of the day, but I believe that was resolved. While we did have some long lines towards the end of the day in some precincts, that seems to have more to do with how the voting machines were distributed than with using them.

There were also rumors of problems in Douglas County, but I haven't heard yet what caused them, or even if there actually were any.

Project Runway, indeed! The University of Tokyo recently hosted a spacewear fashion show with couture designed for weightless environments. You know how some raincoats are reversible, so you look as good in dry weather as you do in rain? So here, clothes must be directionally revsersible, and look just as good up as they do down. I've floated in microgravity a few times on Zero G flights, and it would sure be even more fun to float around in satin poufs instead of those pedestrian spacesuits.

The show was held by Rocketplane Kistler — a US company that plans to begin offering space tours in two years — and a group of Japanese fashion designers, as part of the Hyper Space Couture Design Contest. Winners of the contest, which is organized by Tokyo-based fashion designer Eri Matsui with the support of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and many others, will help design the clothes for use on Rocketplane’s space tourism flights set to begin in 2008.

The 11 garments appearing in the show were selected from over 880 designs submitted by college students. The clothes incorporate a variety of features designed for zero gravity, such as ruffles that expand under weightless conditions or small air-jet propulsion systems in the sleeves to help you change direction while floating.

Link (via jwz). Here's an earlier story by Dennis Overbye in the NYT about plans for the contest: Link.

Lauren McLaughlin says,

The New York Times ran a story this week about New York City's plan to permit people to change the gender on their birth certificates even if they haven’t had sex reassignment surgery. The move comes after much advocacy by transgender groups who believe that gender has to do with much more than anatomy. For many transgendered people, in fact, anatomy is itself a mixed bag. This new move allows individuals to decide for themselves whether they are male or female.

Link