[T]he best food, or at least the best protein, is that which is most like our own. Of course, eating others of our kind gives rise to social problems, and is rare as a result, but it happens. In times past, among some of the Pacific Islands peoples, since a butchered human very much resembled a butchered pig, it was referred to as "long pig". I presume these cannibals ate only their enemies, not their family members, no matter how tasty they may have looked. Most of us have accepted that humans are precious in the sight of God, while ordinary pig, or "short pig", is OK nutrition.

''Once again, the Defense Department seems to be operating in -- even constructing -- its own universe,'' said Larry Cox, executive director of the human rights project's U.S. division.

``The new rules for the proposed military commissions . . . have not been made public, and not a single charge has been filed under the new system. And yet the Pentagon wants to build a permanent homage to its failed experiment in second-class justice.''

The Defense Department has notified would-be contractors that it seeks a design and construction plan for a military commissions compound at the U.S. Navy base in southeast Cuba.

It would have two courtrooms; housing for up to 1,200 U.S. forces, lawyers, members of the news media and other visitors; a 100-car motor pool; an 800-person dining facility; conference and closed-circuit television facilities and a secure work space for classified material.

In coming decades will we: discover that we are not alone in the universe? Unravel the physiological basis for consciousness? Routinely have false memories implanted in our minds? Begin to evolve in new directions? And will physicists finally hit upon a universal theory of everything? In fact, if the revelations of the last 50 years are anything to go on - the internet and the human genome for example - we probably have not even thought up the exciting advances that lay ahead of us.

Delve into those visions of the future by author in the story list of this special report, or navigate forecasts by topic...:

Life: Ageing, alien life, consciousness, ecology, embryology, environment, evolution, genetics, health, humans, language, neuroscience, oceans, psychology, sex and social science.

Space and technology: Artificial intelligence, communications, computing, cosmology, space and technology.

Physical sciences: Chemistry, energy, materials, maths and physics.

Installing an “Other OS" on PLAYSTATION3 requires two files. One is the “Other OS Installer” distributed by Sony Computer Entertainment Inc. (which is called installer hereafter), and the other is the “Other OS boot loader” (called boot loader hereafter) provided by the third party.

The installer installs the boot loader of an "Other OS" on a boot‐loader‐dedicated storage area of PLAYSTATION3. Once the boot loader of an "Other OS" has been successfully installed, it automatically starts up instead of the PLAYSTATION3’s system software at every power on by selecting it as”Default System”in the menu of the PLAYSTATION3’s system software.

The installer installs only the boot loader of an "Other OS". It is assumed that any further installations, such as the installation of "Other OS" files on the built-in hard disk of PLAYSTATION3, are performed when the installed boot loader starts up. For more details, please contact the provider of the boot loader you are using.

Jon Carthew, 45, who makes the sausages, said yesterday that he had not received any complaints about the absence of real dragon meat. He said: “I don’t think any of our customers believe that we use dragon meat in our sausages. We use the word because the dragon is synonymous with Wales.”

"A tumor cell population is constantly evolving through natural selection," says Carlo C. Maley, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Molecular and Cellular Oncogenesis Program at Wistar whose own research focuses on this area. He is senior author on the new review. "The mutations that benefit the survival and reproduction of cells in a tumor are the things that drive it towards malignancy.

"Evolution is also driving therapeutic resistance," Maley adds. "When you apply chemotherapy to a population of tumor cells, you're quite likely to have a resistant mutant somewhere in that population of billions or even trillions of cells. This is the central problem in oncology. The reason we haven't been able to cure cancer is that we're selecting for resistant tumor cells. When we spray a field with pesticide, we select for resistant pests. It's the same idea."

In this paper, I argue that there is a constitutional right to not have a highly punitive statutory damage award stacked hundreds or thousands of times over for similar, low-reprehensibility misconduct. I point to the rationale behind criminal law's single-larceny doctrine, identify the concept of wholly proportionate reprehensibility, and use this to explain why the massive aggregation of statutory damage awards can violate substantive due process.

What does Wesabe do?
Wesabe is a community of people who share our experiences with our money so we can help each other make better financial decisions. We do this by aggregating and analyzing our community members' personal financial data, and showing tips — recommendations to get the most from our money. These tips and recommendations come from the collective wisdom of our entire community. When one of us figures out how to make a great decision, we all learn.

What makes your product unique?
As soon as you sign up with Wesabe, we show you ways to start saving money based on your actual spending. Existing software products do a good job of helping you figure out where your money went — as long as you keep them carefully maintained and updated every few days. They don't, however, help you figure out how to get more from your money, and they certainly don't help you get from a place of stress with your money to a place of control and better value.

But the problem with readers, the idea we’re given of reading is that the model of a reader is the person watching a film, or watching television. So the greatest principle is, "I should sit here and I should be entertained." And the more classical model, which has been completely taken away, is the idea of a reader as an amateur musician. An amateur musician who sits at the piano, has a piece of music, which is the work, made by somebody they don’t know, who they probably couldn’t comprehend entirely, and they have to use their skills to play this piece of music. The greater the skill, the greater the gift that you give the artist and that the artist gives you. That’s the incredibly unfashionable idea of reading. And yet when you practice reading, and you work at a text, it can only give you what you put into it. It’s an old moral, but it’s completely true.

The proposed $100 machine will be a Linux-based, with a dual-mode display—both a full-color, transmissive DVD mode, and a second display option that is black and white reflective and sunlight-readable at 3× the resolution. The laptop will have a 500MHz processor and 128MB of DRAM, with 500MB of Flash memory; it will not have a hard disk, but it will have four USB ports. The laptops will have wireless broadband that, among other things, allows them to work as a mesh network; each laptop will be able to talk to its nearest neighbors, creating an ad hoc, local area network. The laptops will use innovative power (including wind-up) and will be able to do most everything except store huge amounts of data.

No matter your stylistic preferences, it's difficult to keep it 100% black all the time. The folks at Dunecraft have created the Graveyard Gothic Garden Terrarium Kit, which lets you maintain your gothic sensibilities, but adds plants you can grow that bleed. (Yes, bleed.) Just add water and some sunlight, but don't worry-- despite their affinity for the light, you won't have to go out in the sun to enjoy this nifty indoor terrarium!

Bridgeport is an unwelcome addition to the music world: the "sample troll." Similar to its cousins the patent trolls, Bridgeport and companies like it hold portfolios of old rights (sometimes accumulated in dubious fashion) and use lawsuits to extort money from successful music artists for routine sampling, no matter how minimal or unnoticeable. The sample trolls have already leveraged their position into millions in settlements and court damages, but that's not the real problem. The trolls are turning copyright into the foe rather than the friend of musical innovation. They are bad for everyone in the industry—including the major labels. The sample trolls need to be stopped, either by Congress or by court rulings that establish sampling as a boon, not a burden, to creativity...

George Clinton is otherwise known as the King of Interplanetary Funk and, along with the late Rick James, the world's most famous funk musician. In the 1970s, Boladian and Bridgeport managed to seize most of the copyrights to Clinton's songs. How exactly they did so is highly disputed. However, in at least a few cases, Boladian assigned the copyrights to Bridgeport by writing a contract and then faking Clinton's signature (as described here). As Clinton put it in this interview, "he just stole 'em."

An unusual type of fractal that comes from a simple equation, the Mandelbrot Set (image at right) is popular outside of mathematics because of its aesthetic appeal and its complicated structure. No one has been able to prove the Mandelbrot Set is true, according to Mandelbrot. "But no one has been able to prove it's not true, either," he said, as large pictures of fractals filled the screen behind him.

Mandelbrot recently began to apply his knowledge of fractals to explain stock markets. "Markets, like oceans, have turbulence," he said. "Some days the change in markets is very small, and some days it moves in a huge leap. Only fractals can explain this kind of random change."

To buy original formula Sudafed, Wal-fed, or other pseudophedrine sinus medicine that actually works (not the new Sudafed PE), go to your supermarket or drugstore and look in the cold remedies sections where it used to be. They now have little fake boxes or cards you take to the pharmacist to say "I want one of these." The pharmacist checks your ID and you sign for it.

Why can't you buy Sudafed over the counter anymore?

The renewed USA PATRIOT Act signed into law in March includes a "Meth Act" aimed at reducing production of methamphetamines, which can be manufactured from pseudophedrine, aka Sudafed. That's why Sudafed changed their over-the-counter formula to Sudafed PE. You can still buy Sudafed original if you go to the pharmacist at Safeway or Walgreens. But you can only buy one box a day and three a month, and you need to present a photo ID and sign a log for the pharmacist. The idea is to keep meth dealers from buying Sudafed in quantity to cook it into methamphetamine. The bill was attached to the Patriot Act after co-authors Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Jim Talent (R-MO) were unable to get it passed by other means.

Update:

Several people have emailed to let me know they think that people who suffer from debilitating sinus headaches should stop whining and let the government do its job ridding the planet of drug abuse. (Because the government has a really good track record in the War or Drugs.) I disagree with these people.

For one thing, I'm one of those crazy (small l) libertarians who thinks drug laws, on the whole, hurt society more than they help society, so I don't like this law. It's a shame that some people ruin their lives and their families' lives by using meth and other drugs, but the innocent people killed by muggers who need money to buy expensive drugs, the enrichment of street gangs and organized crime rings that sell illegal drugs, the corruption of government officials who take bribes from smugglers, the people who are falsely arrested on trumped up drug charges, the people who are killed by crazed bounty hunters and police raiding the wrong houses, the seizure of property belonging to people who didn't know there were drugs on their property, and the imprisonment of non-violent drug users amount to a bigger problem, I think. I am in favor of abolishing all drug laws.

For another thing, the meth epidemic has been hyped out of proportion. Jack Shafer, editor of Slate, did a nice job debunking the meth epidemic myth last year.

Tons of comments in link below.

"As a constant reader of Boing Boing I know that you have quite a few stories about this kind of abuse come through your hands. If you would be willing to put my email up on Boing Boing for readers to submit their real world problems, I'd be in your debt." kulervo@yahoo.com

See also Jimmy Wales to Beijing: Wikipedia won't censor

In three studies, about 400 children ages 3 to 6 heard about something new and had to say whether they thought it was real or not. Some children heard the information defined in scientific terms ("Doctors use surnits to make medicine"), while others heard it defined in fantastical terms ("Fairies use hercs to make fairy dust"). The researchers found that children's ability to use contextual cues to determine whether the information is true develops significantly between the ages of 3 and 5.

Moreover, when new information is presented to children in a way that relates the information in a meaningful way to a familiar entity, they are more likely to use the contextual cues to make a decision about whether the new information is true than if the new information is simply associated with the entity.

Cemetery 2.0 is a concept for a set of networked devices that connect burial sites to online memorials for the deceased. The prototype, at left, links Hyman Victor's gravestone in Chicago, to his surviving Internet presence, including his:

* Flickr Genealogical Repository
* Facebook Memorial Profile
* Pedigree Resource File (GEDCOM)
* Family Tree of the Jewish People entry (GEDCOM)

The Cemetery 2.0 device maintains a live satellite Internet connection. Visitors to the physical memorial can view related memorials on the device display, while visitors paying their respects at any of the online memorials will recognize that their browsing is associated directly with the actual burial site.

Represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington, three library users and a nonprofit organization today brought suit to ensure that patrons of a library system in Eastern Washington have access to useful and lawful information on the Internet. The lawsuit challenges the library system's policy of using a restrictive Internet filter to bar access to information on its computers and of refusing to honor requests by adult patrons to temporarily disable the filter for sessions of uncensored reading and research. The suit was filed in U.S. District Court in Spokane. ...

The North Central Regional Library District (NCRL) operates 28 community libraries in Chelan, Douglas, Ferry, Grant, and Okanogan Counties. The NCRL has used a blocking software product called SmartFilter, Bess edition, manufactured by the California-based company Secure Computing Corporation, to filter Internet content on all public computers at its branch libraries. Bess blocks a very broad array of lawful information, and the NCRL has refused to unblock sites for patrons. ...

Libraries that receive funds for Internet access under two specific federal programs are required to have the ability to block minors from seeing "visual depictions" of sexual activity. But the U.S. Supreme Court has interpreted the law to mean that libraries should disable those filters upon the request of an adult. The ACLU believes that the NCRL filtering policy goes far beyond what is allowed under federal law.

See also BoingBoing banned in UAE, Qatar, elsewhere. Our response to net-censors: Get bent!

Now the UCLA Acting Chancellor Norman Abrams has issued a mealy-mouthed statement defending his policy of requiring ID after 11PM (because anonymity becomes less constitutionally protected and more deadly after 2300h), essentially blaming the student for going to the library without his student card in his pocket. He says that compliance is critical for everyone's safety and well-being, presumably because failing to comply means that you'll be shackled and tortured by the campus police. It's like carrying garlic to protect you from vampires.

UCLA students should corner the Abrams every time he shows his face on campus and demand to see his papers. What a jerk.

University police are investigating an incident late last night in which police took a student into custody at Powell Library. Investigators are reviewing the incident and the officers' actions. The investigation and review will be thorough, vigorous and fair.

The safety of our campus community is of paramount importance to me. Routinely checking student identification after 11 p.m. at the campus library, which is open 24 hours, is a policy posted in the library that was enacted for the protection of our students. Compliance is critical for the safety and well-being of everyone.

Update: Jordan sez, "This is a link to the personal/job description of the acting chancellor, or should I say 'high chancellor.' This is a blurb from the last part of the page that explains quite well where this man is coming from. Prof. Abrams' most recent book, Anti-Terrorism and Criminal Enforcement, (2nd ed., 2005), also published in an abridged version, is the first casebook to deal comprehensively with the rapidly evolving field of anti-terrorism law and the criminal enforcement process. This book analyzes how that process is affected by the government's invocation of the concept of a 'war on terrorism.'"

Update 2: Brian sez, Tasered UCLA student gets high profile lawyer.

Attorney Stephen Yagman said he plans to file a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing the UCLA police of "brutal excessive force," as well as false arrest. The lawyer also provided the first public account of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library from the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, a 23-year-old senior.

Now Microsoft's Chief Rageaholic Steve Ballmer has explained the deal: Novell's $40 million "payment" is an admission of guilt. Every Linux user who doesn't use SUSE (the only "licensed" Linux) is a patent infringer. All Linuxes except the ones that Microsoft blesses are illegal.

A key element of the agreement now appears to be Novell's US$40 million payment to Microsoft in exchange for the latter company's pledge not to sue SUSE Linux users over possible patent violations. Also protected are individuals and noncommercial open-source developers who create code and contribute to the SUSE Linux distribution, as well as developers who are paid to create code that goes into the distribution...

At the time, Microsoft officials, including Ballmer, were mum on whether the Linux kernel, which is governed by the General Public License and takes contributions from programmers all around the world, violated Microsoft's patents.

Ballmer was more open Thursday.

"Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered," Ballmer said. This "is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability."

"If you can read the chip, then you can clone it," he says. "You could use this to clone a passport that would exploit the system to illegally enter another country." (We did not clone any of our passport chips on the assumption that to do so would be illegal.)

Grunwald adds: "The problems could get worse when they put fingerprint biometrics on to the passports. There are established ways of making forged fingerprints. In the future, the authorities would like to have automated border controls, and such forged fingerprints [stuck on to fingers] would probably fool them."

But what about facial recognition systems (your biometric passport contains precise measurements of key points on your face and head)? "Yes," says Grunwald, "but they are not yet in operation at airports and the technology throws up between 20 and 25% false negatives or false positives. It isn't reliable."

A reminder that my next speaker is Xbox hacker Bunnie Huang, next Tuesday night at 7PM.

Link

Deepsignal's Welcome to the Orgy ("Share music=get laid/but then the next morning the music you share is gone, just like a one night stand/DRM, it's like that empty feeling/it's ok. you weren't compatible anyway")

Appleeqlove's Welcome to the Social (bong hits and Zunes)

(Thanks, Ingo and Ivan!)

See also Weird screenshot of failed Zune install

According to the suit, Load 'N Go sells both DVDs and iPods and loads the former onto the latter for customers who purchase both. The company then sends the iPod and the original DVDs to the customer. So the customer has purchased every DVD, and Load 'N Go just saves them the trouble of ripping the DVD. The movie studios' suit claims that this is illegal, because ripping a DVD (i.e., decrypting it and making a copy) is illegal under the DMCA. The suit also claims that this constitutes copyright infringement.

Although this lawsuit happens to be aimed at Load 'N Go, the DMCA theory in the complaint makes it crystal clear that the MPAA believes it is just as illegal for you to do the same thing for yourself at home. Apparently, Hollywood believes that you should have to re-purchase all your DVD movies a second time if you want to watch them on your iPod.

I'm in Guatemala, researching some stories here. I'll be posting photos, video, and other notes from the road on a "reporter's notebook" blog at xeni.net/trek, and linking to clusters of that material from BoingBoing. Hello to you from Antigua, Guatemala -- where I can hear 400-year-old church bells ringing right now in the dark, along with night birds. The air smells like cooking fire smoke. Twin volcanoes of ash and water are sleeping soundly tonight (this is a good thing), and I will be in a few moments, too.

Image: The weeping virgin, at a 400+ year old church here in Antigua (2004, Xeni Jardin, under this CC license)

Nintendo games are marvelous — Super Mario Sunshine is my favorite. I love the world of Mario and his friends. My only problem with the games is the controller — I just can't make my fingers and thumbs move the right way, or fast enough, to be very good at most of the games, especially the competitive ones. My daughter beats the pants off me in Monkeyball. One time, after a particularly humiliating loss to her in MonkeyBall, she said, "I feel bad winning; it's like playing against a baby."

When the Wii arrived in its very Mac-like box, I didn't know what to make of the controller, other than to think that it looked like a big iPod Shuffle. I hooked the system up to the TV (which took all of 30 seconds) and realized that there was no cable to plug into the controller. It was wireless. If that wasn't cool enough, I soon learned that the way you moved the cursor on the TV screen was by waving the controller around. It was like using a laser pointer. What's more, the controller uses haptics (touch technology) to help you navigate. When the cursor goes over a button or icon, the controller produces a physical "bump" to help you navigate. It feels like magic. I love it.

The Wii cames with a sports game, and it makes great use of the controller. To play baseball, you hold the controller like a bat and swing it. A tiny speaker on the controller makes the sound of a ball hitting the bat, and the haptics let you feel the crack of the impact.

My favorite part of Wii Sports, though, is the boxing game. My daughter and I had created avatars that looked like us and we used these avatars to box with each other. We each held a controller in out fists and punched at the air, making our little avatars punch at the same time. When the bell rang, I started pummeling my daughter. Yes, it felt a little funny hitting a cute cartoon avatar of my daughter wearing glasses and pigtails, but after losing to her so many times in MonkeyBall, I wasn't going to let the fact that I was her father get in the way of my chance to get revenge. I pounded away furiously, sending a jab to her head that knocked her to the ground. The referee started counting, but she was out cold. I finally won a game against her! The simplicity and intuitiveness of the controller had leveled the playing field between my daughter and me. Her days of treating me like one of those TV commercial idiot dads were over.

"Hey, no fair!" she said. "You're bigger than me."

"Payback is a mother, honey," I said. "Wanna try again?" Link

Like a trained athlete, this mouse enjoyed increased capacity to exercise, manifested by its ability to run three times longer than a normal mouse before exhaustion. One particularly striking feature of the finding was the accumulation of muscle glycogen, the stored form of carbohydrates—what many athletes seek by "carbo-loading" before an event or game...

"Our genetically altered mouse appears to have already been on an exercise program," says (Dartmouth professor) Lee Witters... "In other words, without a prior exercise regimen, the mouse developed many of the muscle features that would only be observed after a period of exercise training..."

"We now wonder if it's possible to achieve elements of muscular fitness without having to exercise, which in turn, raises many questions about possible modes of exercise performance enhancement, including the development of drugs that could do the same thing as we have done genetically," he says. "This also might raise to some the specter of 'gene doping,' something seriously being talked about in the future of high-performance athletes."

‘Like the UN, the Jedi Knights are peacekeepers and we feel we have the basic right to express our religion through wearing our robes, and to be recognised by the national and international community...

‘Tolerance is about respecting difference where ever it lies, including other galaxies. Please don't exclude us from your important work. May the Force be with you.’

OfficeMax is transporting the World’s Largest Rubber Band Ball in early-November from the Eugene, Oregon garage of creator Steve Milton to downtown Chicago for its official November 21, 11:00 a.m. weigh-in ceremony at State Street and Jackson with Guinness World Records official Sarah Wagner. Experts predict the OfficeMax-sponsored rubber band ball – created by Milton with help from his 6-year-old son, Bryce – will break the earlier world record of 3,120 pounds, set by John Bain of Wilmington, Del. The 26-year-old Milton, who started his ball in November 2005 with a number of small OfficeMax rubber bands, says the ball now contains 175,000 individual rubber bands. The rubber ball stands 5 ½ feet-high and has a circumference of 19 feet.

At first glance they just looked like your run of the mill woman's recipe and crafts magazine, but with each one I picked up I was stunned; I had never seen such despair wrapped up in so much yarn. The woman running the sale, gave them all to me for a dollar, saying "Take them all, they are just going in the garbage."

"Woman's Household" was a monthly crafts publication which sold for 25 cents an issue. Their slogan was "Meet Other Friendly Woman Just Like You". The key phrase being 'just like you'; middle aged women isolated in small towns across America.

Today, Rocketboom has an interview with Huong that includes video of NYC park authorities making her remove the Pop-Up Studio from a park because it supposedly isn't safe for the children at the park. I'm not sure how a big inflatable cube could be dangerous to children, unless they tried to eat it. Link

The CSOs left, returning minutes later, and police officers arrived to escort the student out. By this time the student had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack when an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, at which point the student told the officer to let him go. A second officer then approached the student as well.

The student began to yell "get off me," repeating himself several times.

It was at this point that the officers shot the student with a Taser for the first time, causing him to fall to the floor and cry out in pain. The student also told the officers he had a medical condition...

Laila Gordy, a fourth-year economics student who was present in the library during the incident, said police officers threatened to shoot her with a Taser when she asked an officer for his name and his badge number.

See also I come to praise Transmetropolitan

Tug the cord to activate, squeeze to talk and hold to the mouth and ear...

The form and function of the Cup Communicator refer to the ‘two-cans and string' children's toy and the physical factors involved with that device. This typology and its associations remind us of the magic and playful intrigue of our first communication devices that has been lost by the desire for more efficient forms of telecommunication.

Two of the Dead Sea Scrolls note that the latrines should be situated northwest of the settlement, at a distance of 1,000 to 3,000 cubits — about 450 to 1,350 yards — and out of sight of the settlement.

Tabor and Joe Zias of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, an expert on ancient latrines, went to the site and took samples.

Zias sent samples to anthropologist Stephanie Harter-Lailheugue of the CNRS Laboratory for Anthropology in Marseilles, France, who found preserved eggs and other remnants of roundworms, tapeworms and pinworms, all human intestinal parasites.

Samples from the surrounding areas contained no parasites. Had the waste been dumped on the surface, as is the practice of Bedouins in the area, the parasites quickly would have been killed by sunlight. Buried, they could persist for a year or longer, infecting anyone who walked through the soil.

Making the perfect boiled egg isn't easy--especially in a microwave, since eggs tend to explode under pressure. That's why someone invented this beautiful, egg-shaped, yellow-and-white microwave egg cooker. The device actually fits 3 mid-sized eggs, which are placed on an aluminum tray. Put 130cc of water in the yellow part, insert the tray, place the eggs on it, close the lid (the white part), and pop it in the microwave. 8 minutes in a 500W microwave gets you soft-boiled, 10 minutes gets you hard-boiled.

Matt Rosoff, lead analyst at research firm Directions On Microsoft, asserts that this process does not bode well for new content formats such as Blu-ray and HD-DVD, neither of which are likely to survive their association with DRM technology. "I could not be more skeptical about the viability of the DRM included with Vista, from either a technical or a business standpoint," Rosoff stated. "It's so consumer-unfriendly that I think it's bound to fail -- and when it fails, it will sink whatever new formats content owners are trying to impose."

1. The Flying Lizards: Money (1979?)

Featuring scary minimalist singer Deborah Lizard.

2. Joan Jett: Cherry Bomb (1982?)

Joan Jett was a member of The Runaways, which did this song first.

3. Danielle Dax: Tomorrow Never Knows (1990)

Usually I don't like Beatles covers, but this is an exception.

4. The Runaways Schooldays (1979?)

Joan Jett was in this band before going solo.

5. Bow Wow Wow: I Want Candy (1982)

A post Sex Pistol's Malcom McLaren manufactured group.

6. X Ray Spex: The Day the World turned Day Glo (1976)

Singer Poly Styrene is one of my favorites. What an interesting voice!

7. BONUS: Debbie Harry sings in 1980 movie, Unmade Beds.

8. The Avengers: The American in Me (1978)

I was looking for a video of the Avengers but I couldn't find one. Luckily, Boing Boing reader Cliff did. Thanks!

The IT Crowd's first six episodes ran last year on Channel 4, and was widely shared online, resulting in major commercial success, critical acclaim, and a renewed contract for another season of the show.

I was privileged to consult a little on the show, and I was able to connect Graham with uber-geek Yoz Grahame, who suggested that the disc carry subtitles in leet (or 1337), the letter/number substitution code used by gamers, hackers and other net-dwellers.

The disc is region-locked to Europe, but I hear that a US version is coming shortly. Link (Thanks, Damien!)

See also The IT Crowd -- the geek comedy I've been waiting for all my life

Update: Yoz sez, "The L33T subtitles aren't just a straight translation into leetspeak - they feature tons of geek references including Zork, Counter-Strike, B3TA, MC Frontalot and lots more. They were cooked up by five of us - Tim Browse, Sean Solle, Jim Lynn, Shimon Young and me. The superb retrographics on the DVD, however, were put together by the geniuses at Framestore CFC."

I am a stupendous Tom Waits fan. Whether he's being an experimental noise-rock loony, a bluesy raconteur, a folk-artist, a madcap orchestra director or a rock and roller, I love him. No musician makes me happier in more ways than Tom Waits, whose versatility, poetry, and self-reflexive humor make him the greatest American musician of his generation.

Orphans is a three disc set of rarities and never-released material, including some obscure personal favorites like his cover of Heigh-Ho from Snow White (originally released on the great Disney tribute album Stay Awake) and a grinding tribute to On the Road, recorded with Primus, and a track recorded with the Ramones.

Each disc is thematically separated -- Brawlers is rowdy and angry, Bawlers is full of ballads and sad longs, and Bastards is, well, Bastards -- unclassifiable, Tom Waitsian random goodness.

This is a songwriter's album -- the lyrics are so heartfelt and evocative, even the nakedly political tracks. I never thought I'd hear Tom Waits record a song about the Israel-Palestine conflict -- nor that I'd like it as much as I do. Tom Waits is like Bukowski set to music, but funnier and weirder.

This is a set that begs to be ripped and mixed into your own playlists. While the discs are thematic, I've found that I get better results by putting them together in my own order according to the mood of the songs, or the tempo, or how wordy they are. I've sliced and diced this set a hundred ways and it keeps on getting better.

If you've never heard Tom Waits, this is a great place to start -- he's one of those rare artists who actually translates great into eclectic "Best Of" albums. If you're a stone Waits fan, this set is a don't-miss-it, once-in-a-lifetime event. Link

Grad student Jake Stern leads an underground band of renegades that uses any means necessary to combat the frightening threats to freedom that permeate the world. They employ technology, alchemy, media hacking and mysticism to fight a modern threat that has its roots in ancient stories destined to recur in the modern age.
Link to Testament #1 download page, Link to buy Testament: Akedah, the collected first five issues

See also Portraits of video-game players

He also fears the internet is misunderstood by labels.

Traditional stores are in jeopardy because of discounting, Jenner says "They weren't really able to come to grips with the essential truth of the internet, which is that it's all about sharing of files."

A protection system known as digital rights management (DRM) restricts the distribution and accessibility of music files can be tightly controlled.

However, this is "a complete turn-off to the consumers and doesn't work", Jenner claims - and is another area he says needs to be changed.

"Labels were trying to stop the internet doing what it does - exchange files - and try to chain it, put lead weights on it, so files wouldn't move around.

"All it does is penalise the honest."

An open-source tool called CopyBot allows players to cruise around copying the objects sported by other players. Many SL players are upset by this, and demanding action. Second Life's proprietors, Linden Labs, are trying to figure out what to do. They've ruled out eliminating third-party programs from Second Life, and they are on record as refusing to become copyright enforcers for their community. They are offering to temporarily adjudicate questions of infringement to see if they violate the Second Life terms of service, but they're seeking better solutions, including reputation systems.

This is a hard problem. As a practical matter, it's just not feasible to control copying in an environment like Second Life, which means that SL entrepreneurs are going to need businesses that don't collapse when copying takes place. But there are much gnarlier problems here -- for example, in real life, questions of copyright infringement are adjudicated on the basis of law passed by elected lawmakers, while in Second Life, these questions are adjudicated by a company based on its non-negotiable terms of service. You can fire law-makers who make bad copyright, but you can't fire companies that make bad terms of service. You can take your business elsewhere, but if all your "assets" live in a proprietary virtual world, you have to go away empty handed, without any of your "copyrighted works."

Second Life's management is doing an exemplary job of coping with this, but benevolent dictatorships aren't the same thing as democracies. If a game is going to declare that its players are citizens who own property, can the company go on "owning" the game?

This isn't a criticism -- it's a question. Linden Labs walks a fine line between "government" and "owner" (or, if you prefer, "God"). They're pushing some hard boundaries.

These are important features because the implications of copying should not be about Linden Lab’s approach to copyright enforcement. We are not in the copyright enforcement business. The communities within Second Life should have the tools and the freedoms to decide how and when they deal with potentially infringing content. Many will decide on less restrictive regimes in order to maximize innovation and creativity. Others will choose more restrictive options and ban visitors who do not respect them. Consumers, creators, and all residents need to have the final say about which approaches work best for them.

Please recognize that using the Terms of Service is not a permanent solution. Nor is it shift in Linden Lab’s support of libsecondlife (who have removed CopyBot from their Subversion repository), machinima creators, or others who have explored Second Life beyond the features of the Second Life client. I continue to feel that libsecondlife is an incredibly important part of Second Life’s development and community.

Update: Second Life journalist Wagner James Au has a good piece on the controversy in New World Notes.

According to (Webby Awards executive director David-Michel) Davies, from now until December 15th, original films and videos can be entered in 11 categories, including Animation, Comedy, Drama, Events, Experimental, Music, News/Documentaries, Reality, Student, and Viral. The awards will be judged by a jury of entertainment industry leaders including Harvey Weinstein, Showtime's Matt Blank, The Firm's Rich Frank, Sundance Channel's Larry Aidem, and Jim Gianopulos, Chairman and CEO, Fox Entertainment.

Regarding the question of what it means for a digital file to be in a museum collection: If the good folks at the Museum of the Moving Image are doing it right--and they usually do--one important role will be of preservation. A lot of pioneering works of online design, art, etc, have been lost, since the medium is so ephemeral. But a museum is supposed to think of these artifact in terms of decades, not days and weeks, so if a website is put in a museum collection, then that drastically increases the chances that our grandkids will be able to see it. (This archival work is often complementary to that of the Wayback Machine, which, although wonderful, is massively unfocused and as such can often miss notable moments in a site's evolution.)

Those interested in these issues might consult the work of the Variable Media Network, which helps coordinate inquiry into these sorts of archival issues.

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

Bunnie's latest act is founding a company called Chumby, which produces a free and wide-open "bean-bag computer" that comes with WiFi and a little color display, and the plans to reproduce any or all of it, from the flat-patterns for the bean-bag fabric skin to the source-code for the operating system. The device can subscribe to cool hacks, auto-updating itself to add great new features invented by other users.

Bunnie's talk is part of my Fulbright Chair lecture series at USC. It's on from 7PM-9PM on Tuesday, Nov 21, at the Annenberg School on the USC campus, room 207. Hope to see you there! As always, we'll be podcasting the talk afterward.

Andrew "bunnie" Huang is a nocturnal hacker and the hardware lead; his responsibilities include the architecture, design and production of chumby's electronics, as well as writing drivers for and maintaining the Linux kernel on the chumby. With a PhD in EE garnered from MIT in 2002, he has completed several major projects, ranging from hacking the Xbox (and writing the eponymous book), to designing the world's first fully-integrated photonic-silicon chips running at 10 Gbps with Luxtera, Inc., to building some of the first prototype hardware for silicon nanowire device research with Caltech. bunnie has also participated in the design of 802.11b/Bluetooth transceivers (with Mobilian), graphics chips (with SGI), digital cinema CODECs (with Qualcomm), and autonomous robotic submarines (with MIT ORCA/AUVSI). He is also responsible for the un-design of many security systems, with an appetite for the challenge of digesting silicon-based hardware security. bunnie is also a contributing writer for MAKE magazine and a member of their technical advisory board.

(Molecular biologist David) Julius notes that because triggering the receptor produces such strong pain sensations, it's not surprising that organisms as distantly related as pepper plants and tarantulas use the same defensive mechanism.

"Different organisms have figured out how to tap this site as a way of telling predators, 'You won't be comfortable if you mess with me,'" he says.

This forum will focus on open 'civic' information. Civic information is material produced by government or other groups which is relevant to political activity by citizens. In particular it includes:

1. The law, be it in the form of statutes or judicial decisions

2. Statements of elected representatives at the local and national level (for example the records of parliament in the form of Hansard).

3. Information about the activities of elected representatives and other governmental officials

As with the first forum on civic information our focus will be on both:

* projects and software that work to produce or make available open information

* the legal and social issues involved in obtaining and providing such information

Motivating all of these efforts is the goal promoting greater public involvement in the democratic system and increasing the accountability of a government to its citizens.

# When: Tuesday 28th November, 1845 for 1900 start

# Where: UCL (London), Sir David Davies Lecture Theatre, Roberts Building G08

In August Matthew Shinnick sold a pair of bikes on Craig's list for $600. After shipping the bikes, he received a check for $2000, not $600. The buyer explained that the extra money was for shipping costs and for his "trouble."

Shinnick was suspicious, so when he went to a San Francisco branch of Bank of America to deposit cash the check (which was drawn on a Bank of America check), but expressed concern that the check might not be good. He asked the teller to find out before depositing cashing it.

"The teller contacted the business and was informed that no check had been written to Shinnick for $2,000 or any other amount. She immediately passed the check to the branch manager. "I saw him talking on the phone and staring at me," Shinnick said. "A few minutes later, four SFPD officers came into the bank. They didn't say a thing. They just kicked my legs apart and handcuffed me behind my back." The police report for Shinnick's arrest says he was taken into custody "for the safety of the bank employees as well as the bank customers." -- SFGate

Shinnick was hauled to jail, stripped of his clothing and put into an orange jumpsuit. His father posted $4,500 bond to spring him. Shinnick ended up spending $14,000 to get out of the mess Bank of America caused.

Bank of America refused to reimburse Shinnick, and so Shinnick took his story to a consumer advocate radio show host, Clark Howard. Lots of Bank of America customers were disgusted by BofA's callousness and have closed their accounts with the bank. Howard says they've pulled $50 million from B of A.

I almost wish I had an account with BofA so I could close it in protest, but I closed my account with them long ago because their service sucks. If you close your BofA account because of this, please email me and tell me how much you pulled from the account (I will not reveal your name, of course). I will keep a running tally.

This is Broken has the full story, with relevant links. Link

Update:

A Boing Boing reader emailed me to let me know he is closing two BofA accounts totaling $2,300.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

I just opened an account with them about three months ago after moving to a new state. Between savings and checking, I have about $40k with them at the moment.

Living on precisely the opposite side of the US, this is the first I've heard of this; thanks for posting it. Despite the hassle of opening up another account so soon after opening this one, I'm leaving them this afternoon and I'm going to make sure they know exactly why.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

Granted, I've been thinking of dumping Bank of America ever since they bought Fleet, but this seems like as good a "straw that broke the camels back" moment as any. Lets put another $6500 US onto that amount.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

Add another $5,000 to that. I'm going to start looking for a new bank here in Tallahassee as soon as possible.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

Closed $45K of accounts yesterday. Don’t know if you can count it in your tally, but they screwed up their online banking…again. This was sort of the straw that broke the proverbial back for me. I hate them!!!

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

I've pulled my $10,000 credit card account with BoA.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

I closed a savings account. $2200

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

As of an hour ago you can add another $8200 to that figure. Though my experience of them has not been too bad up to this point, I can't tolerate this kind of behaviour. However I'm sure my new primary bank has probably done something equally stupid I haven't heard about it yet.

A Boing Boing reader and BofA customer says:

I've got an $80K mortgage with BoA, and while I've been thinking about refinancing for a while, your story has made me decide get that ball rolling and NOT use BoA. I'll also be closing out the $3K in my checking account.

I've gotten many emails from people who told me they're closing their accounts. The total is over $900,000!

Don't miss this video of a BofA employee singing at a business meeting. Link (Thanks, Mark!)

BestBuy has been sued for abusing the DMCA this way in the past. If BlackFriday wants a mirror for its BestBuy prices, I'd be glad to host it here on Boing Boing. If we got a bogus takedown from BestBuy over this, we'd just post it here and make fun of it. Sue and be damned.

Best Buy and other retailers that churn out takedown notices are misusing the DMCA, but the larger problem is the law itself. The powers granted by the DMCA are broad enough that it is tempting for companies to wield the law as a bludgeon against whomever is displeasing them. Until the law is changed, companies will continue giving into the temptation to misapply it.

Update: Here's a mirror of the pricing, via Google cache -- thanks, Mathew!

Mike Sawyer, a member of a Dundee group comprising RSPB (Royal Society for the Protection of Birds) members, said: "We were absolutely horrified. That's life I suppose."

An RSPB spokesman added: "It's very unfortunate that it was devoured after such a short space of time, and before more people had seen it.

If you're not familiar with Uncle Mark, here's the deal: I review all the major consumer technology products and give my ONE favorite pick in each category... not the "17 top digital cameras", but the ONE camera that you should buy. The guide concludes with an Almanac section where I say whatever comes to mind, mostly "tips and tricks" that I can't fit anywhere else.

If you *have* read Uncle Mark in the past (this is the fourth year), I'd encourage you to download the 2007 guide. In a strange alignment of the technology cosmos, everyone seems to be launching new stuff this year...

- new digital cameras
- new personal computers
- new cell phones
- new digital music players
- new video game systems (three of them)
- new online games

...and so almost the entire 2007 guide is newly updated. I've tried my best to untangle the thicket of consumer technology choices and show the way to smart purchases.

Please do share the guide: print it, e-mail it, forward it, and pass it along. If you have a coworker, friend, or loved one who needs a clue about today's technology choices, just hand them Uncle Mark 2007.

Evanescent coupling...allows electromagnetic energy "trapped" in a charging device to be tapped by a "drain" mobile device if the two have the same resonant frequency.

"The energy is trapped at source, until I bring a device that has the same resonant frequency close to it. Only then can the energy 'tunnel through'," says (researchers Marin) Soljacic. Crucially, the "charger" only starts powering another device when a compatible gadget comes within range...

Placing one of these wireless chargers in each room of a home or office could provide coverage throughout the building.

Guests include Lance Bauscher, who made the great Wilson documentary, "Maybe Logic," and Eric Wagner, who wrote "An Insider's Guide to Robert Anton Wilson."

The show features performances from an upcoming audio release of Wilson's classic "The Illuminatus! Trilogy", which will soon be released by Bauscher's Deepleaf Productions company. Link

Reader comment:

Anthony says: "I just noticed the weird Zune screenshot posted to Boing Boing and wanted to share this screenshot I took of Fark last Friday - look at the Zune ad on the right-hand side of the screen! OK, what's SHE doing?" (Click on thumbnail for enlargement)

This toy was inspired by a wacky, stiff little toy snake I won at a carnival as a little kid. Sssssally is made from new and vintage fabric (daisy bedsheets I had as a kid in the '70s!), various ribbon trims, googly eyes, felt, embroidery floss, and a jingly ball on the end of her tail. :)

1. Generation X: "Your Generation" (1977)

Billy Idol now was (and still is -- check out his unfairly forgotten most recent album, Devil's Playground) a top-notch songwriter and performer.
2. Buzzcocks: "What Do I Get?" (1977)

Their single and album art was way ahead of its time.
3. Stiff Little Fingers: "Suspect Device" (1979)

Don't you feel sorry for people who listen to Green Day instead of Stiff Little Fingers?
4. Dead Boys: "Sonic Reducer" (1979?)

Stiv Bators was one of the best live performers ever. He was also incredibly nice. When I was living in Colorado, I was in a band we had the pleasure of opening for his band, Lords of the New Church. He gave us the case of beer in his dressing room. I saw him many years later in Los Angeles and went up to him and said hello. I'm sure he didn't remember me but he asked me to have a soft drink with him at a cafe. It's very sad that he was run over by a vehicle in Paris (June 1990), he still had much to offer the world.
5. Ramones: "Blitzkrieg Bop" (1977)

They're all dead now, except for the multiple drummers.
6. Blondie: "Hanging On The Telephone" (1978)

One of my favorite Blondie tunes. Originally performed by The Nerves (Amazon sample here)
7. Devo: "Uncontrollable Urge" 1978

Bonus: Devo playing at Kent State University in 1973
8. The Clash: "White Riot" (1977?)

One of the best singles of all time.
9. Rich Kids: "Rich Kids" (1978?)

Glen Matlock was The Sex Pistol's bass player, and he wrote the Sex Pistols' best songs. When he was kicked out of the band and replaced by Sid Vicious, Matlock formed Rich Kids. They only made one album (Ghosts of Princes in Towers) but it is terrific power pop.

Update: Mike sez, "This is the website of the artist, Jesse Drew who made 'Manifestoon'. From his bio: 'A consistent advocate for public access to media arts production, Drew is a founding member of the San Francisco Community Television Corporation, and in 1994, he was awarded a 'Goldie' by the San Francisco Bay Guardian for his work in community media. His writings have appeared in numerous publications and journals as well as several anthologies, such as Resisting the Virtual Life (City Lights Press) and Reclaiming San Francisco: History, Politics, Culture (City Lights Press). A recent chapter in a new book published by MIT Press, At A Distance: Art and Activism Before the Internet (Eds. A. Chandler, N. Neumark) investigates the evolving notion of networks and alternative communication practices that occurred before the popularization of the internet.

"The dolphin was reinforced for producing a specific rhythm to a specific object," says Harley.

"For example, when we presented him with a Batman doll, he received a fish for producing a specific rhythm, in this case, a short sound and then a long one."

"If you recall the original Batman TV series musical intro you'll probably remember the way they sang 'Bat-maaaaaaaan'," she adds.

The dolphin spontaneously vocalised to the rhythms, so the researchers started to reward the male with fish whenever it matched its 'singing' to the rhythms.

1983 UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE KIT TO CREATE AN 18-INC CLOTH DOLL OF SLUGGO'S FRIEND NANCY FROM THE COMIC STRIP BY BUSHMILLER. COMES W/CLOTH & INSTRUCTIONS. FINE COND.

Textile motion sensors embedded in the shirt sleeves detect motion when the arm bends – in most cases the left arm chooses a note and the right arm plays it...

“The technology – which is adaptable to almost any kind of apparel – takes clothing beyond its traditional role of protection and fashion into the realms of entertainment and a wide range of other applications including the development of clothes which will be able to monitor physiological changes,” (says textile and fiber technology researcher Richard Helmer).

Broward County Commissioner John Rodstrom told reporters he spotted the red and blue Inverted Jenny on a large envelope with two stamps from the 1930s and another dating from World War II.

"I thought: 'Oh my God, I know that stamp, I've seen that stamp before,'" said Mr Rodstrom, 54, who collected stamps as a boy.

"I'd forgotten the name. I just remembered there was a stamp with an upside-down biplane on it, and that it was a very rare, rare stamp," he told Reuters news agency.

The official said the envelope had no return address, and the ballot was disqualified because it gave no clue as to the identity of the voter.

Part of the daily struggle for soldiers and Marines in Iraq is communicating with civilians and suspected insurgents. Few military personnel have enough fluency with Iraqi Arabic to be easily understood, and field translators are in short supply.

But technology may help close that communications gap. A hand-held voice translator device developed by Integrated Wave Technologies, already in use in other parts of the world, converts simple English commands into Iraqi Arabic or 15 other languages.

When the soldier says a simple phrase -- for example, "keep kids back" -- the Voice Response Translator (VRT) matches that command to a more complex phrase in Arabic. In this case: "Keep your children back from us or we will take action against you."

Integrated Wave Technologies President Tim McCune says simple communications like these can save lives, both among Iraqi civilians and military personnel. "This removes pulling the trigger as the first option in dealing with foreign nationals," he says.

NPR "Xeni Tech" archives: Link, or subscribe to future episodes by RSS: Link.

Images: Integrated Wave Technologies © 2006. At top, An Army private shows how the Voice Response Translator (VRT) -- the small gray box with black speaker -- can be used with a megaphone to address large groups in the field. Below, a closer look at the VRT.

What is the most probable technological draft of maximum life extension, which technology or discipline has the biggest chance to reach it earliest? When?

SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence, my own anti-aging plan) is a huge plan incorporating many different therapies to be applied simultaneously to people, thereby rejuvenating all organs at the cellular and molecular level. SENS is divided into seven main categories. It will need very good stem cell therapy and gene therapy technology, as well as probably big advances in tissue engineering. It will also need some very radical new technologies like finding bacterial enzymes that can degrade unusual compounds. Therefore, I think it will definitely not be available for humans for 20 years at least, and probably 25-30 years — and if we’re unlucky and discover new problems, it could be 100 years. But I think a good chance of doing it in 25-30 years is worth trying for! Moreover, we will be able to improve the SENS therapies thereafter, so that they give the same people (beneficiaries of the 30 extra years) another 30, and another, indefinitely - that’s what I call “longevity escape velocity”. I don’t think any other approach that has been suggested so far has any chance at all of doing that. CR mimetics, for example, rely absolutely on the genetic machinery that we already have - they just make the body try its hardest against aging - so they can’t be made better and better, there is an inherent best possible. But I’m all in favour of developing them, because they’ll be here much sooner than SENS and will help some people live long enough for SENS even if they only delay aging by a year.

Reader comment:

Chris Spurgeon says:

You (and your readers) may be interested in his talk at a recent TED conference. The video is available online.

Fantagraphics Books is pleased to announce the grand opening of the Fantagraphics Bookstore and Gallery on Saturday, December 2. Located at 1201 S. Vale Street in the heart of the Bohemian blue-collar arts community of Georgetown, this new retail enterprise carries a complete line of Fantagraphics comic books, graphic novels, classic cartoon reprints and foreign translations, as well as related volumes on comics history and criticism. The space will feature monthly exhibitions of compelling cartoon art and host events showcasing the most accomplished artists in comics and related media. This project marks the return to Fantagraphics of visual and performing arts producer Larry Reid in the role of Curator and Events Coordinator.

The inaugural exhibition, “30 years of Misfit Lit,” celebrates three decades of Fantagraphics Books’ innovative approach to the art form. This exhibition presents the broad range of contemporary cartoonists associated with Fantagraphics, including Peter Bagge, Jim Blanchard, Charles Burns, Daniel Clowes, R. Crumb, Ellen Forney, Roberta Gregory, Gilbert Hernandez, Jaime Hernandez, Ted Jouflas, Megan Kelso, Tony Millionaire, Joe Sacco, Carol Tyler, Chris Ware and Jim Woodring. The show opens with a festive reception on Saturday, December 2 from 5:00 to 8:00 PM. Many participating artists will be present.

On January 24, Channel Frederator will present “The Freddies,” Channel Frederator’s first annual awards ceremony. Held at Cinespace in Hollywood, the awards will recognize a wide array of achievements seen on Channel Frederator’s weekly podcasts throughout the year. The awards, which range from “Cartoon of the Year” to “Cartoon Most Likely to be Censored by the FCC,” will be distributed in the form of an eight-inch replica of Joe Robot, the spokesrobot for Channel Frederator. Eleven awards will be voted on by the Channel Frederator viewers and five will be jury selected.

Channel Frederator was built on user-submitted video. With all the recent attention to user video on the internet, January’s event is the first to honor the films and filmmakers in this rapidly growing area. Quality, peer acknowledgement, and viewer recognition are the elements key to all the awards and parallel the criteria of the Television and Motion Picture Academies. The event expects to draw more than 500 animation and online professionals. All films featured between November 1, 2005 and October 31, 2006 are eligible for recognition in the ceremony. The occasion will be videotaped for a podcast presentation available through ChannelFrederator.com and iTunes.

He told the girl he needed somewhere to hide and was taken into her home unnoticed. The pair then cut a hole in the bottom section of her bed enabling him to hide in it whenever her mum came in.

Manchester Crown Court heard the girl then swore her ten-year-old sister to secrecy about Jennings.

His lair was found after the 12-year-old ran away with him leaving a note telling her mum not to worry.

Contains ten of Fischinger's classic Visual Music films - Allegretto, Motion Painting No. 1, Radio Dynamics, Spiritual Constructions, Study nr. 6, Study nr. 7, Kreise, Spirals, Wax Experiments, Walking from Munich to Berlin, plus many Special Features: home movies from Fischinger's Berlin Studio c. 1931, never-released early animation tests and fragments, a selection of paintings by Fischinger, a selection of biographical photos, film notes by Fischinger and others, and a biography.

Lily’s gift was realized at the young age of two when according to her mother, Dina, Lily chased down and captured the critters wherever they went. Unlike most girls her age, instead of playing with dolls, Lily dresses up and plays with lizards. With her uncanny ability to “relax” and “hypnotize” them, Lily began dressing the lizards in costumes and creating whimsical scenes. Lily’s photographer father, Lucien Capehart, immortalized the colorful creations.

I love the way Merlin doesn't use a real phone as a prop; anything dark and rectangular does the trick. Link

Between them, Gilmore and Barlow co-founded EFF, Greenpeace and Earth First; co-developed the compiler that runs almost all the code you've ever used; wrote the Declaration of Independence of Cyberspace; founded the first great dial-up ISP and invented the alt. hierarchy; wrote the Grateful Dead's best lyrics and much more -- Gilmore philanthropic work includes relief for victims of Guantanamo Bay, lawsuits against the Attorney General over the right to fly anonymously, and much more.

The two are dynamic, exciting speakers and I'm immensely proud to be presenting them tomorrow night. I hope to see you there.

Where: University of Southern California main campus, Annenberg School of Communications, Room 207 (Los Angeles)

When: Tuesday, November 14, 7PM-9PM.

Link

(John Gilmore photo by Carl Cheney; John Perry Barlow photo by Bart Nagel)

I love the amazing, impractical watches sold by Japanese boutique TokyoFlash. I have bought so many of these that I've lost count, and I just love the feeling I get that I'm rewiring my brain when I learn to tell time on one of them.

To win any watch on the TokyoFlash site, just answer the following question: "which watch was designed by Yasushi and Makoto and was inspired by architectural concepts around Tokyo?"

Send your answer, along with the make, model and color of watch you'd like to win to boingboing@tokyoflash.com. 3 winners will be selected from the correct entries on the 27th of November.

TokyoFlash is also offering a 1500 Yen ($13) discount if you can guess what time is being shown on the face of this watch. Link

According to Elections Canada data, Oda held a similar fundraiser in May 2004 - before she was even elected to the House of Commons - that attracted enormous corporate support from the broadcast industry including Alliance Atlantis, Astral, CanWest, and CHUM, as well as from more than a dozen senior executives from major broadcast and cable companies.

Once elected, the support continued. With Oda installed as the Conservative Canadian Heritage critic, her riding association last year reported contributions from a veritable who's who of broadcast and copyright lobby groups and companies. These include broadcasters (Corus, Vision TV), cable companies (Rogers, Shaw, and Cogeco), record companies (Sony, Universal, Warner, EMI), and copyright lobby groups (Canadian Recording Industry Association, Canadian Motion Pictures Distributors Association, Entertainment Software Association).

Yesterday, Microsoft agreed to share revenue from Zune sales with record labels and artists. Forcing the issue was Universal Music Group, which at deadline is the only label named in the program. UMG refused to license its music to the Zune unless it could receive a percentage of each device sold, in addition to standard music licensing fees for downloads and subscriptions.

"These devices are just repositories for stolen music, and they all know it," UMG chairman/CEO Doug Morris says. "So it's time to get paid for it."

Update: Josh sez, "I gathered a few resources for finding out what artists and labels fall under the UMG company so they can be easily avoided."

Reader comment: Eric Jasso says, "If the burrito pictured at BoingBoing is made from a WHEAT tortilla, there should be a law against it! Here is a proper burrito: Link."

Story in the NYT that about Daniel A. Moore, U of Alabama graduate, who is being sued for paintings he's made of football games. Moore graduated in '72 with an art degree and has been making his living on these paintings. Interestingly, no one from the school would talk to the NYT except a former J-school professor who described the suit as making sense only if it came from a room full of lawyers.

This is a totally unique black vinyl handbag with six real 3.5” high-density 1.44MB diskettes on each side (12 x 1.44 MB = 17.28 MB total).

Alibi Network is a cutting edge full service agency providing alibis and excused absences as well as assistance with a variety of sensitive issues. We view ourselves as professional advisors who understand our clients’ unique situations. We explore various approaches with our clients and implement the best solution based on the individual case. We understand your need for privacy and we are completely discreet and confidential.