The great jazz instrumentalist and widow of John Coltrane died on Friday. She was best known for her work on three instruments: harp, Wurlitzer organ, and piano. Link to Wikipedia bio, and here is her website. News coverage: One, two (Thanks, Dirk). Here's an interview in The Wire from 2002: Link.

I can't find any good video footage or sound samples online, but this experimental short on Google Video by an Icelandic filmmaker uses one of her most beautiful compositions, "Journey In Satchidananda": Link. "Blue Nile" is my all-time favorite, favorite track of hers, from this album, a very brief sound clip on this NPR feature page: Link. Amazon has some short clips from that same record here: Link.

Reader comments: Dubpulse blogged,

What many a New Age musician fails to do, she did. These are truly cosmic jazz orchestrations, perhaps overshadowed by her husband's work (...) Tonight I'll imagine they're both in some star-jewelled interstellar realm improvising with thousand-eyed, multi-limbed deities of light. John's saxophone riffing on the curvature of space, and Alice twinkling harp melodies with shards of time.

David Alexander Mcdonald writes,

Yet more sad news. One of my most treasured vinyls is the double LP REFLECTIONS ON CREATION AND SPACE, and I'm equally as attached to my CD copy of PTAH, THE EL-DAOUD. It's sublime music, deeply spiritual jazz with a cosmic current to it. It's rather sad that her music hasn't been accorded the sort of reissue and remastering treatment that her husband's work has received.

Dirk says,

Get yourself a copy of World Galaxy for heavenly string arrangements even better than "Blue Nile." :-)

A Pentagon official has called for a corporate boycott of law firms that represent Guantanamo detainees. He thinks that if you've been accused of conspiring to undermine democracy that you should be denied your democratic right to counsel, to prove how great democracy is. It's demo-crazy.

Charles "Cully" Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs, said in a radio interview last week that companies might want to consider taking their business to firms that do not represent suspected terrorists...

Stimson listed the names of more than a dozen major firms he suggested should be boycotted.

"And I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms," Stimson said...

Stimson also described Guantanamo as "certainly, probably the most transparent and open location in the world" because of visits from more than 2,000 journalists since it opened five years ago. However, journalists are not allowed to talk to detainees on those visits, their photos are censored and their access to the base has at times been shut off entirely.

He discounted international outrage over the detention center as "small little protests around the world" that were "drummed up by Amnesty International" and inflated in importance by liberal news media outlets.

Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

The excellent Security Now podcast just aired an interview with Peter Guttman, the security researcher who wrote the celebrated "A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" (this is the paper whose "executive executive summary" read simply, "The Vista Content Protection specification could very well constitute the longest suicide note in history").

Guttman has really dug into the crazy extremes that Vista -- the next version of Windows -- goes to in order to restrict how you use high-definition video. The operating system has been essentially rendered useless by a set of deliberately introduced malfunctions. For example, the if your computer detects erroneous data in its registers, or voltage fluctuations (both of which are typical of PCs whose parts have been manufactured by dozens of companies), it will restart major subsystems, hanging up while it flushes all your data -- just in case those errors were part of a hack-attack on the system.

Vista is a disaster. Microsoft is so desperate to get the entertainment industry locked into its platform that they'll destroy themselves to get there. This is an operating system that, when idle, will have to check itself every 30 microseconds to make sure nothing is still happening, and no hackers are attacking it. It acts like an unmedicated paranoid. If Vista catches on, hundreds of millions of computers will be burning heptillions of cycles and tons of coal just making sure that no one is putting a voltmeter on the traces on its motherboard.

And those are its good points.

And what it means is that so many aspects of our PCs, which have been fully documented, been public domain, been anyone could develop a display card, for example, that’s no longer the case. If you’re going to have any foot in this next-generation game, you have to sign up and apparently pay hefty license fees just to participate. And if you don’t get certificates, which are subject to spontaneous revocation, if you then subsequently misbehave, or in fact I read one of the AACS organization documents said that you could be revoked if you failed to pay your annual dues.

Link

See also:
Great information-security weekly podcast
Windows Vista: Suicide notes, nerdcore rap MP3

Back in 1969, some pranksters at NASA inserted scanned images of three Playboy centerfolds (on fireproof plastic paper!) into the little checklists the Apollo 12 astronauts took into space.

[Apollo 12 crew member Pete] Conrad got Miss September 1967 Angela Dorian ("Seen any interesting hills and valleys?") and Miss October 1967 Reagan Wilson ("Preferred tether partner"). [Al] Bean got Miss December 1969 Cynthia Myers ("Don't forget — Describe the protuberances") and Miss January 1969 Leslie Bianchini ("Survey — her activity").

Conrad told us in 1994: "I had no idea they were with us. It wasn't until we actually got out on the lunar surface and were well into our first moon walk that I found them." Bean recalled: "It was about two and a half hours into the extravehicular activity. I flipped the page over and there she was. I hopped over to where Pete was and showed him mine, and he showed me his."

Link to Playboy.com blog entry, and there's more background here at NASA.gov: Link. (via newsonthemarch)

Video Link (12 minutes). The metadata reads, "Microsoft sent this tape to retailers to explain the benefits of Windows 386. Boring until the 7 minute mark when the production is taken over by crack-smoking monkeys." (Thanks, FishNChimps)

A 40-year-old substitute teacher faces up to 40 years in prison after being convicted of exposing children to pornography on a computer at the Connecticut middle school where she taught.

I suppose it's remotely possible the charges are valid. But the story doesn't add up. It seems far more plausible from the accounts I'm reading that this woman, who had no prior criminal record and a clean teaching history, was using an insecure edition of Internet Explorer and was hit with an adware infestation she didn't know how to deal with.

Some reports indicate the teachers at this school were prohibited by policy from turning off school computers, which would answer the "why didn't she just shut down the PC?" questions. Amero testified that she told four other teachers and the school's assistant principal about the popup problem, and nobody responded with help. The school's internet filter license had expired, and the detective in the investigation was quoted in one local paper's account as saying "there was no search made for adware, which can generate pop-up advertisements". So if that's true, and the arguments of the defense are valid -- wow, 40 years in jail for using a lame browser? Insane. That's more time than some convicted murderers get.

And beyond the question of what constitutes justice for Ms. Amero, how might this ruling affect other teachers using computers with children? Will some teachers limit their use of technology in the classroom, fearing greater liability risks if porn they didn't ask for shows up on an unsecured, school-owned PC?

Snip:

Julie Amero, 40, of Windham, was convicted Friday on four counts of risk of injury to a minor in connection to pornography the students saw on her computer screen. Prosecutors said sexually graphic computer images she accessed were seen by several of her Kelly Middle School students in October 2004.

During the trial, Amero said any inappropriate images on her computer screen were from adware, which can generate pop-up ads and not from sites specifically keyed. Prosecutor David Smith contended Amero physically clicked onto the graphic Web sites, which included meetlovers.com and femalesexual.com.

Link to AP item. Amero is scheduled to be sentenced on March 2.

More coverage: Norwich Bulletin, Link; Slashdot, Link; broadbandreports.com, Link; sunbeltblog, Link. (thanks, Walter Hooper)

Ben Edelman's blog has a good entry on how adware infestations work -- in particular, the kind that generate sexually explicit content: Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Internet Explorer was unsafe for 284 days in 2006

Reader comment: Jonathan says,

I'm not sure if you noticed this: the Norwich Bulletin article had a VERY troubling quote on it -- the prosecution used an expert witness that said a highlighted link was proof that the accused had clicked on the URLs.

That is simply not true. The expert witness is either lying or a fucking idiot. Visited links are highlighted if a browser had ever loaded a URL-- I've yet to find a browser that highlights visited links on a "source | destination" basis -- every one i've ever encountered highlights links on "destination" alone.

I made a quick demo over here to illustrate my point: Link.

Technocrat says,

I'm the Technology Coordinator for a school district in Illinois, and would like to point out that if the school's internet filters are expired, they no longer are in compliance with the Child Internet Protection Act. This makes them ineligible for federal funding for telecommunications/computer monies (including 20-90% discounts on specific network/servers/internet connections under the E-Rate program, not to mention being held liable as an organization for anything exposed to minors.) Since we're currently in the e-Rate window for 2007-2008, an admission that they don't have proper internet filters very well could make them ineligible for e-Rate, which translates to a very sizable amount for any school. If they apply for e-Rate anyway (and part of the process is guaranteeing that you comply with CIPA), they can be kicked out of the program!

In any case, the school is required to have filters by law and in order to be eligible for e-Rate, so if they let the filters expire, they're going to have quite the mess on their hands.

Brett Osborne says,

I'm a certified information security professional. From the Norwich Bulletin article, I also see obvious problems with both "experts" for defense and the detective.

Of course I haven't seen the transcript. But there appears to be significant factual problems.

I've found the defense lawyer's information on FindLaw.com.

During the time frame of the alleged offence, one only needs to go to any antivirus company list, bugtrack, microsoft technet security, or any of about 25 other sites that I use to show the state of windows (patches, SP, etc.) and malware in the wild. This is simple (very) forensic reconstruction.

I doubt that Amero should have been charged let alone convicted. The fact that there was no up to date anti-virus/anti-spyware alone tells me that it was not a question of if it was an infection/intrusion.

And the apparent fact that the licences were allowed to expire would be significant enough to remove any culpability from Amero. If anyone were to be culpable, I would believe that the school administration should be at fault (this is a moral and ethical judgement, not a legal one). Isn't it the protection of the children their responsibility?

Lorne Ipsum blogs,

[Friday, January 12th 2007 was] the 100th anniversary of the birth of a giant of space exploration -- Sergey Korolyov (sometimes also transliterated as Sergei Korolev).

For much of the 20th century, Korolyov was the prime driving factor behind the Soviet space program. He led the efforts to launch Sputnik, put Yuri Gagarin into orbit, and hold up the USSR's end of the race to the moon. Yet during Korolyov's life, even his existence was a Soviet state secret -- he was only ever publicly referred to as the "Chief Designer." After his death, he finally received some recognition for his accomplishments, yet many parts of Korolyov's life and work were more rumor than fact until after the collapse of the USSR.

Link to geekcounterpoint blog post and podcast. See also this BBC News article: Link, and Agence-France Presse item here: Link. Image: Sergei Korolyov at the Kapustin Yar firing range in 1953.

See also a piece by BB pal Gareth Branwyn about Sergei Korolev for Discovery's (long dead) "Dead Inventors" column: Link

Image (via Wikipedia): "Some of the claimed 'famous trademarks' in Stoller's Rentamark.com site when it was online." Anonymous internet chronicler says,

Remember Leo Stoller? He's the "intellectual property entrepreneur" who threatened to sue anyone who allegedly infringed his "famous trademarks," especially the word "stealth."

He hasn't had the best time of it since the last BoingBoing article, so here's a recap of his illustrious career:

Charged and fined in illegal fund solicitations for 9/11 victims (charities he listed said they never got any money).

Lost a trademark case where he claimed software maker Centra 2000™ infringed his "Sentra" trademark. Stoller filed corporate bankruptcy in an attempt to avoid paying after losing.

Got a smackdown from Columbia Pictures after threatening to sue them over the title of their film Stealth.

Sued Hall-of-Famer George Brett for selling a Stealth™ brand baseball bat. The judge found for Brett's company and cancelled Stoller's trademark registration in that category.

In 2006, the US Patent and Trademark Office's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board sanctioned Stoller for filing 1,100 extension requests in 5 months for trademarks he was opposing. He can't file any more for two years. The real legal beatdown came at the hands of Pure Fishing, Inc., maker of Spiderwire® Stealth™ and other Stealth™ brand fishing gear. Stoller went after them and they fought back. Hard.

Link to video (it's a scene from "The Killers," 1964). I'm still looking for the other YouTube clip where Werner Herzog punches out George Bush. (Thanks, Jason Wishnow)

Dadara tells BoingBoing,

Just recently (between Christmas and New Year) I designed a big (8 x 8 x 3 metres) pink tank for my Love, Peace and Terror Project, and built it on a rooftop in the centre of Amsterdam and will blow it up with explosives beginning of February.

For fun today I googled "pink tank" and stumbled on your april 19, 2006 blog entry about pink tanks. This one is not a real tank and I guess the other ones won't get blown up, but still I feel part of a pink tank movement now :-)

Link to the Love/Peace/Terror project website, which states:

In the sixties naked hippies with flowers braided into their long hair might have been successful in protesting against war, but nowadays probably the language of war itself might be better for delivering a message of peace .

Previously on BoingBoing:

Cute pink tank cozy

Pink tank

Reader comments: Hugh Bradley says,

In 2005 the Irish artist Abigail O'Brien made a 19 feet long inflatable pink tank as part of her Fortitude project. The tank was painted with a motif of raspberries! A timer had the sculpture inflating and deflating every two minutes. There are movies of this installation which was at the J Mooney Foundation in Chicago. She has also made cross stitch sewing patterns of pink tanks with broken barrels. Link.

Rich says,

The Prague pink tank blogged earlier on BoingBoing is now in the vojenske technicke museum, a day's bike ride (well, a day if you are me and my daughter :-) from Prague. It is an awesome place. Here is a website featuring the pink tank. It is a dominant feature as you enter the facility: Link.

Here is a picture I took of it: Link. The pink tank is cool and symbolic, but the Dr. Seuss colors in this one are great: Link. This dazzle painting of a gun emplacement is cool: Link. But this is one of the funniest things there, a fake tank: Link. They set up a bunch of these as decoys, to fool people doing aeriel surveilence into thinking they had more tanks than they did.

Swords to plowshares is one thing, but artillery to nesting box is another: Link. And all my photos from the museum: Link.

This past Monday, January 8 2007, was Stephen William Hawking's 65th birthday. Gareth Branwyn writes:

In an interview with The Daily Telegraph, he told them that one of the things he plans on doing this year is taking a ride on the Vomit Comet (the zero-G airplane), and then, in 2009, to go into space via Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo. Sir Richard Branson is picking up the tab for his ride.

Link to the full text of Gareth's post on streetech.com (Photo: Rob Bodman). See also this space-related post there: Did Viking Missions Overlook Life on Mars, or Worse? Link.

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (BAS) announced this week that the minute hand of the symbolic "Doomsday Clock" will move closer to midnight on January 17, 2007. This shift is the first such change to the Clock since February 2002:

The major new step reflects growing concerns about a "Second Nuclear Age" marked by grave threats, including: nuclear ambitions in Iran and North Korea, unsecured nuclear materials in Russia and elsewhere, the continuing "launch-ready" status of 2,000 of the 25,000 nuclear weapons held by the U.S. and Russia, escalating terrorism, and new pressure from climate change for expanded civilian nuclear power that could increase proliferation risks.

The January 17 announcement will take place simultaneously in two locations: at 9:30 a.m. ET at the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Washington, D.C., and at 2:30 p.m. GMT in London at The Royal Society. Speakers will include Stephen Hawking, BAS director Kennette Benedict, Royan Society president Sir Martin Rees, Case Western physics and astronomy professor Lawrence M. Krauss, and International Crisis Group co-chair Ambassador Thomas Pickering.

Here's Wikipedia's article on the Doomsday Clock. Looks like the BAS plans to launch a new website on the 17th along with this event.

Line Noise, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's all-too-irregular podcast, is back this week with a great interview with staff activist Derek Slater, who's been staffing the EFF booth at the Consumer Electronics Show. Derek takes us through the state of the electronics universe with regard to the march of devices that enable -- and restrict -- fair use. It's generally good news for the audio world, but the video world basically stinks -- a few analog hole devices are allowing you to do more with your devices, but mostly, there's nothin'. The lesson, I think, is to not buy any high-def video discs or players until you can be sure that you'll be able to do what you want with them. Link

Complex says,

Hip Hop pioneers Grandmaster Flash and the legendary Furious Five are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame making them the first rap group to be honored. The early innovators of Hip Hop will be acknowledged on March 12 at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in NYC. Flash is credited for the creating the process of blending two break-beats together and thereby creating one of the fundamental formulas for Hip Hop music.

Link to Rodrigo's blog entry, and Link to a 1984 video (screengrab above) for "White Lines," directed by Spike Lee and starring a very young Lawrence Fishburne. Dang dang diggity dang de dang. Here's a video for the Grandmaster's other best-known song, "The Message." Link. (thanks, Rodrigo Peñalba)

vjdanny says,

Youtube could be banned in India due to a supposedly offensive video of Mahatma Gandhi doing a Pole dance and other ungandhi like antics. The video features a comedy skit by a Hawaii-based Non-Resident Indian, Gautham Prasad, who has now apologized to the people offended by the video. The Indian Government has been regularly banning sites which it feels are not in the best interests of the country. Popular sites like Yahoogroups and Blogger had been temporarily banned at one time in India for the same reason. Youtube too could share the same fate, albeit temporarily.

Link to blog entry, Link to video.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Brazil orders YouTube shut down over celebrity sex video

Brazil ISP blocks YouTube after court decision on sex vid

Indian gov blocks Blogspot, Typepad ...

Update on India censoring blogs

India blog ban NOT over, says author of still-banned blog

Update on India bans blogs: bloggers want answers

Indian gov finally lifts ban -- UPDATE: not so.

Reader comment: Tore Sinding Bekkedal says,

It might be worth noting that the Norwegian government TV channel, NRK, reported on this, but instead of the pole dancing video, showed the clip "Gandhi II" from the cult classic movie "UHF" by Weird Al Yankovic. Maybe they just did a search on YouTube for Gandhi?

Congress has reintroduced the PERFORM Act, a broadcast flag for radio -- if it passes, you can kiss the idea of recording digital radio or Internet radio goodbye. EFF has a web-page to help you write to your Congresscritter and tell her/him what you think of this:

Sen. Dianne Feinstein has re-introduced the PERFORM Act, a backdoor assault on your right to record off the radio. Satellite and digital radio stations as well as Internet webcasters would have to adopt digital rights management (DRM) restrictions or lose the statutory license for broadcasting music. Letters from constituents like you helped beat this dangerous proposal last year -- take action now to block it again.

This bill aims to hobble TiVo-like devices for satellite and digital radio. Such devices would be able to include "reasonable recording" features, but that excludes choosing and playing back selections based on song title, artist, or genre. Want to freely move recordings around your home network or copy them to the portable player of your choice? You'll be out of luck if PERFORM passes.

This bill would also mess with Internet radio. Today, Live365, Shoutcast, streaming radio stations included in iTunes, and myriad other smaller webcasters rely on MP3 streaming. PERFORM would in effect force them to use DRM-laden, proprietary formats, so you can say goodbye to software tools like Streamripper that let you record programming to listen to it later.

Link

Today on the Worth 1000 photoshopping contest: remixed statues -- I really like this rockin' Statue of Liberty. Link

On the Modern Mechanix blog, "Thirteen New Aids Designed for the Busy Housewife" From the December, 1930 issue of Popular Science:

SAVE THE PIE JUICE. When baking fruit pies there is always a chance that the juice will bubble over and burn in the oven. This is avoided by means of a grooved ring that goes under the edge of the pie tin and fastens snugly, thus making a deep dish that holds the juice.

Link

Raincoaster sez, "This blogger made a scale model of the Battle of Helm's Deep (from The Two Towers of the Lord of the Rings trilogy) in candy! The site has an awesome collection of photos and brief, but hilarious commentary."

Alas! The evil host is through the walls! And up the carefully crafted stairs of Starbust candies. Is there no end to their cruelty? The answer is most definitely NO, as you can see from the piles of dead men and elves. They are covered in the sweetest candy blood we could find (red Nerds and more licorice rope).

Link (Thanks, Raincoaster!)

knightPhlight sez, "With the advent of the Wii, another generation of Zelda fans are born. My daughter's 4th birthday is tomorrow and she asked for a Link cake. With two classes of pre-K munchkins coming over, there was only one solution: cupcake pixel art. The icing on the cake(s) would be a happy birthday wish from everyone in the bOINGbOING-isphere..." Link (Thanks, knightPhlight!)

Mike sez, "Thought you might be interested/amused by this post I put up recently about similarities between the way the RIAA is acting and a group of 17th century French button makers. History repeats itself."

"Shortly after the matter of cloth weaving has been disposed of, the button makers guild raises a cry of outrage; the tailors are beginning to make buttons out of cloth, an unheard-of thing. The government, indignant that an innovation should threaten a settled industry, imposes a fine on the cloth-button makers. But the wardens of the button guild are not yet satisfied. They demand the right to search people's homes and wardrobes and fine and even arrest them on the streets if they are seen wearing these subversive goods."

Requiring permission to innovate? Feeling entitled to search others' property? Getting the power to act like law enforcement in order to fine or arrest those who are taking part in activities that challenge your business model? Don't these all sound quite familiar? Centuries from now (hopefully much, much sooner), the actions of the RIAA, MPAA and others that match those of the weavers and button-makers of 17th century France will seem just as ridiculous.

Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Update: Stephen sez, "here's a neat page on how to make the kind of cloth buttons that created such a scare to the button industry."

The Picodore 64 is a homebrew Commodore 64 clone built into a tiny laptop case -- the brains are scavenged from an all-in-one C64-in-a-joystick system, and then hacked into the case along with a keyboard and battery-based power-supply. Link (via OhGizmo)

Ita says "Karl Szmolinsky, a 67 year old, East German pensioner that have breds rabbits the size of dogs for 47 years was asked by North Korea's ambassador whether he might be willing to sell some rabbits to set up a breeding farm in North Korea. Each of his German Grey Rabbits can feed 8 people and will possible reduce if not stop solve the food shortage crisis in North Korea." Link

The US Senate just passed a bill to strip Congresspeople who have been convicted of serious ethics offenses of their federal pensions:

"The only thing crazier than giving a member of Congress convicted of a crime a federal pension is the fact that we still need a bill to prevent a convict from receiving their pension," Salazar said at the time. "A member of Congress who abuses their position of authority for their personal profit deserves a prison sentence, not a government pension..."

. Ex-congressmen such as Randall "Duke" Cunningham -- collecting an estimated $64,000 a year although he pleaded guilty to charges of accepting bribes -- and James Traficant -- convicted of taking bribes, among other charges, and collecting an estimated $40,000 a year -- will get to keep their pensions.

Link

An army of racoons, bred by Hermann Göring, are ravaging the German countryside:

The story begins in 1934, when a breeder asked the Reich Forestry Office, then led by future top Hitler aide Hermann Göring, for permission to release the masked-faced mammals to "enrich the local fauna" outside Kassel, a small city north of Frankfurt...

Seventy years on, the furry critters are now as populous in some areas of Germany as in the major urban centers of North America -- a whopping one per hectare (2.5 acres), Hohmann said...

As Allied bombs rained over Berlin at the end of World War II, one struck a fur breeding farm, giving the raccoons there the opportunity to escape into the wild. They never looked back. And in the 1960s, NATO soldiers freed the raccoons they used as mascots after leaving their base in France, setting off a baby boom.

Link (via Making Light)

Paul sez, "Homeland Security has gotten to FedEx. I tried to ship some make-believe products from Greenwood Space Travel Supply (the "front" for Seattle's branch of 826 Valencia), including 'Rocket Fuel' and 'Certainty.' FedEx, however, wouldn't let me, saying that they were 'too suspicious' and looked like 'bomb-making materials.' Despite the fact that they were mostly just empty containers with funny words on them. Hilarious, but sad."

Me [going into post-9/11, TSA-style super-dumbfounded mode]: So what you're saying is you can't ship any sort of containers, even if they're empty? You know that we originally ordered these empty cans and jars from a company, and *they* shipped them to *us*. FedEx guy: They must have used a different vendor ["vendor"? I can't remember, some word like that, like a "service"].

Which I imagine he said because he couldn't bring himself to say, "It's the *words* that are *on* the containers that are dangerous"—even after I had opened them all and demonstrated the utter harmlessness/emptiness of the containers themselves.

Link (Thanks, Paul!)

Jeff Diehl says: "In 1999, RAW was a columnist at GettingIt.com, and wrote a total of 7 pieces. They are not well known, but are insightful and fun nonetheless.

I have no commitment to materialism as a philosophy that explains everything, since no correlation of words can ever do that, and a philosophy is never more than a correlation of words. But restricting myself to the “materialistic”/scientific method of asking questions that have definite experiential answers, I observe no difference in operation between “cults” and “religions.” Catholic nuns and priests vowing celibacy seem no more or less weird than Heaven’s Gate members who also make that choice. Mormon extraterrestrial cosmology seems as goofy as Scientology, etc. Religions and cults all use the same techniques of brain damage, or “mind control,” i.e. they all instill BS — Belief Systems. (From "In Doubt We Trust: Cults, religions, and BS in general")

Link

Earlier this week I posted a trailer for an upcoming documentary about beltelnut girls in Taiwan. The producer sent me a link to his Flickr gallery of his photos of betelnet girls. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• A westerner tries betel nut Link
• Taiwan betelnut girl movies Link
• Taiwanese betel nut vendor girls told to put clothes back on Link
• History of betel chewing Link
• Recent studies have linked betel chewing to oral cancer Link
• Interesting Indian delicacy: paan Link
• Annamarie Ho's Betelnut Girls art installation Link
• Betelnut Beauty "action" figures Link
• Photos of real and fake betelnut girls Link

Z.VEX makes a wide range of effects boxes for musicians. I love their bright and colorful enclosures. The boxes not only look neat, they do neat stuff. Check out the Theraminesque Wah Probe video. Link (Thanks, Robyn!)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Amazing gallery of birth-control-pill packaging Link
• Unfortunately suggestive food packaging Link
• Dime-store packaging gallery Link

The Daily Mail has an article about "farmyard freaks" -- livestock that has been genetically engineered to make them totally docile.

Factory farming techniques, most commonly used with pigs and chicken, often involve keeping animals confined in cramped conditions.

For pigs, who are highly intelligent, these conditions can lead to stress and aggression.

However, GM scientists are actively investigating ways to remove the stress and aggression gene from animals, effectively turning them into complacent zombies.

The professor said it might become technically possible to produce "animal vegetables" - beasts which are "highly prolific and oblivious to their physical and mental status".

Link (Thanks, Denis Drye!)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Pig carcass disaster cleanup photos Link
• Diving pig electrocuted Link
• David Beckham's alleged lover masturbates a pig on UK TV show Link
• Delicious beverage made of pig whipworm eggs is also good for you! Link

Reader comment:

Ludlow Spinks Esq says:

Couple of points about the "Zombie pigs genetically altered to not mind being food"

a) I don't know if you're familiar with the British press, but the Daily Mail is one of the most unpleasantly right-wing, sensationalist and panic-mongering of our papers, so I would not trust anything I read in it.

b) I'm surprised you didn't mention Douglas Adams's Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, which features an animal which not only doesn't mind being eaten but actively wants to be, and tells the diners in the Restaurant At The End Of The Universe as much, advising them on which of its cuts are likely to be tastiest.

Please don't take this as criticism however - words cannot describe how much I enjoy the Boingboing blog.

Justin says:

Saw the interesting story you posted about genetically altered pigs. Oddly enough, my friends and I did a comedic short film for a friends pig roast not too long ago, which includes an interesting infomercial for "GAP" pigs. Have a laugh if you a moment. Link

Check out this astounding, scared mummy excavated from an Amazon burial chamber:

Hands over her eyes and her face gripped with terror, the woman's fear of death is all too obvious.

The remarkable mummy was found in a hidden burial vault in the Amazon.

It is at least 600 years old and has survived thanks to the embalming skills of her tribe, the Chachapoyas or cloud warriors.

Link (Thanks Graffitirun)

Marc Laidlaw says:

Last week's stop motion thread reminded me of something I haven't seen on YouTube or anywhere else yet. Gulf-Western gas stations did a series of stop motion commercials in the early 70s, of people driving around without cars--they were just sitting on the ground, and animated to appear to be driving around towns. My best friend and I attempted to make our own versions of these with a handheld camera and no tripod.

I've been googling Gulf/ads/stop-motion/animation but not having much luck.

Can anyone help? Leave your message for Marc here: Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Excellent amateur stop motion video Link
• 1952 stop-motion short film for the National Film Board of Canada Link
• Early 70s Levi stop-motion commercial Link
• French university students have some fun with inexpensive stop motion. Link
• Stop-motion captures of body language on public transit Link
• Vintage Eastern European stop-motion animation clips Link

Modern Mechanix blog has just reprinted a 50-page National Geographic article called "The Magic Worlds of Walt Disney" from August, 1963. They've got high-rez scans and the full, transcribed text -- incredible.

“This is the latest thing we’ve done with Audio- Animatronics,” Walt said. “We are using the new types of valves and controls developed for rockets. That way we can get extremely subtle motions.”

“About that word,” I said, “Audio-Animatronics.”

“It’s just animation with sound, run by electronics,” he smiled. “Audio-Animatronics. It’s an extension of animated drawings.

“We take an inanimate object and make it move. Everything is programmed on tape: the birds’ movements, lighting effects, and sounds. We turn on the tape and the birds do their stuff. At the end, the tape automatically rewinds itself and starts all over again. With tape we could present a program of an hour and six minutes without repeating anything.”

“Is anyone else doing this kind of thing?”

“I don’t know anyone crazy enough,” Walt laughed.

Part 1 Link, Part 2 Link, Part 3 Link

Zompist makes fun of a kids' toy called Blocks Series Railway II. The package is loaded with funny Engrish and bizarre graphics.

My boss, Brad, bought his daughter a plastic railway set for Christmas. He brought the box in for us to look at; it provided amusement for the entire lunch.

Now, the Engrish is fun enough ("Run quickly when on the iong bridge with loosing planks!"), but surely cultural differences cannot explain why a toddlers' play railway needs a logo with dripping blood. To say nothing of the demon in the corner.

Nothing says "Promoting the concerted function the hand eyes brain of the baby" like grinning demon faces.

Link (Thanks, Numlok!)

Reader comment:

Calvin Rodo says: That demon is from the cover art for Might and Magic VII.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Phallic toy alert: Dora Aquapet Link
• UK store's pole-dance kit "destroys children's innocence" Link
• Scientists love $89 toy microscope Link
• Gallery of vintage toy rayguns Link
• "Choking chicken" toy coming under fire Link

Nice Cool Tools piece about Uganda's phone-charging entrepreneurs:

Uganda is a country coping with a severe energy crisis resulting in frequent power cuts. In addition, access to mains electricity in rural locations is limited. Given that mobile phones require power, and access to power can be unpredictable - how do people keep their mobile phones and other electrical devices charged? Last July a Nokia research team travelled to Uganda and explored this issue as part of a more in-depth study into shared phone use.

There are two forms of mobile phone battery charging services in Kampala - either offered as an additional service by phone kiosk operators or as a stand alone service. It costs 500 Ugandan Shillings (0.2 Euro) to have a battery recharged similar to the price of 2 or 3 phone calls. Whist both services appear to thrive there are a number of barriers to use: customers cannot use their phone whilst the battery is being charged; the customer risks, or perceives the risk that their battery being swapped for an inferior one; a perceived risk of phone theft - signs that suggest service providers are not responsible for loss or theft are evident.

Link

Leslie Cabarga and Jerry Beck have put together a 400 page Casper the Friendly Ghost comic book anthology, to be published by Dark Horse in April. Can't wait -- these are awesome comics.

I've made no secret of my love for the Paramount Harvey Comics of the 1950s and early 60s. These have been virtually ignored by the comics community, and unknown to animation fans. Now that we've completed our personal collections (through eBay and Comic-Con at bargain prices), Leslie and I are compiling a large volume of the 100 best stories, restored from printers proofs and original art, by permission of Classic Media and to be published by Dark Horse this summer. These comics were drawn mainly by the Famous Studios animators: Bill Hudson, Tom Johnson, Howard Post, Steve Muffatti and others. Warren Kremer's classic early stories will be presented as well. I'm also contributing an introductory essay to this 480-page volume and we've got big plans for further editions. I'll be plugging this again in the coming months, but you can place an advance order now, for Harvey Comics Classics Volume 1: Casper The Friendly Ghost at Dark Horse Comics.

Link

Alan G. Como, 56, was captured by police after eluding them for 20 years. He lived in the Adirondack woods of New York, burglarizing campsites to survive.

Big and muscular with little fat on his body, police said he is in remarkably good shape for someone his age who has apparently lived in the woods for at least several years.

“He’s a pro. He knows what he’s doing,” Cleveland said.

Only items needed for survival — clothes, sleeping bags, food and batteries — were taken during the burglaries, with the thief leaving behind valuables like jewelry and electronics, the sheriff said.

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Los Alamos hermit has squatted for several years in a cave at the US nuclear weapons facility Los Alamos National Laboratory Link

Last weekend I bought a copy of the Taschen reproduction of Jean Baptiste Marc Bourger's Atlas of Human Anatomy and Surgery, the seminal text finally published in 1854. This is a gigantic, heavy tome -- 15.5 lbs and 19.2" x 12.6" x 3.5" -- and it's the kind of thing that you want to lay open on a table in front of you and dive into.

The plates are gorgeous. The detail is exquisite. The subjects -- filleted and splayed -- are nevertheless treated with the greatest dignity. They have faces, 19th-century faces with mutton-chop sideburns alongside their laid-open skulls, and expressions of tranquility. They are unremarkable people, but their innards are gorgeous, more lovely than the handsomest landscape. There are long fold-outs showing the spine, the chest, other parts, and full-page color plates with every bit of the body in vibrant color, cross-sectioned and labelled.

It sounds macabre, but it isn't. These plates are an unabashed, romantic celebration of the sheer glory of our inner workings. We are magnificent machines. Perusing this book all week has made me feel humble, and a little strange inside my skin. When a joint pops, I see it laid out in the Atlas; when my sinuses are blocked, I picture them as they appear in the cross-sectioned skull; when my muscles strain or my back twists, I can see it there, drawn in a sure hand, clearer than a photo, expressive strokes of a hand itself long dead.

At $200, this isn't a cheap book, but I don't regret shelling out for it. It is something else. Link

Update: Canada's Chapters/Indigo has this book as a remainder for only $30 CDN, a stellar bargoon! Thanks to Amy, who works there!

National pizza chain Pizza Patron received death threats and xenophobic emails ("This is the United States of America, not the United States of Mexico," and "Quit catering to the ... illegal Mexicans") after it announced that it would accept pesos, as well as dollars, at its stores:

Pizza Patron proclaims on its Web site that "to serve the Hispanic community is our passion." Its restaurants are in mostly Hispanic neighborhoods, and each manager must be bilingual and live nearby, said Pizza Patron founder Antonio Swad, who is part-Italian, part-Lebanese.

Many Pizza Patron customers have pesos "sitting in their sock drawers or in their wallets," Gamm said. "We're talking small amounts, where it would be inconvenient to stop and exchange on the way back--maybe 10 or 20 dollars' worth of pesos."

As the article points out, many stores on the Canadian border accept Canadian dollars. Link

Mayhem and Chaos sez, "MusicIP, the partner of MusicBrainz drastically reduced its pricing on its acoustic fingerprinting service. The service is now FREE up to 5M requests per month, which is certainly a big deal. This is probably the first serious offensive launched against GraceNote, which has been trying (without much success) to establish themselves as a player in this field. By dropping the prices MusicIP essentially wipes out the lower end market for GraceNote and reduces their chances for gaining any sort of foothold in this market."

The service includes a database of 26 million fingerprinted audio tracks. The public domain track metadata from MusicBrainz returned by MusicDNS can be used freely for any applications by developers, organizations or enterprises.

"Music technology developers and organizations have been without an affordable, reliable digital music content identification solution for too long," said MusicIP CEO Dr. Matthew Dunn. "To enable profitable new music business models, the industry needs widely-adopted digital fundamentals like content identification services."

Link (Thanks Mayhem and Chaos!)

(Disclosure, I am a proud Director of the Metabrainz foundation, a charity that oversees MusicBrainz)

Debcha sez, "Tonight I went to a reading by Annalee Newitz and Charlie Anders, in support of their new anthology of essays, She's Such A Geek! Women Write About Science, Technology & Other Nerdy Stuff. The essays were fun and fascinating, and the audience was a great collection of geek grrrls (it was in Cambridge, MA). They are on tour over the next few weeks and it's well worth checking out - I'm really looking forward to reading the rest of the essays." My friend Quinn has an article about D&D in this and she forgot her copy here a few weeks ago. After giving it a quick peruse, I was sorely tempted not to give it back.

The tour's got upcoming stops in Boston, NYC and San Francisco. Link (Thanks, Debcha!)

(Image: shot by Nikola Tamindzic, from Fleshbot's superb coverage (NSFW) of AVN '07.)

I filed a story for the NPR News program "Day to Day" on the odd connections between the 40th annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the AVN Adult Entertainment Expo (AEE), both of which take place in Las Vegas this week each year: AUDIO LINK

----------------------
It's no secret that bepocketprotectored CES attendees often try to crash the porn awards, but -- surprise -- "porn stars like to go over to CES, too, and get their HDTV on," one adult film performer told me. Both conventions were at one time held under the same roof, but AEE split off in 2001. There are economic ties between the two: you gotta have something to watch on all those new mobile devices and home entertainment systems. And that old chestnut about "porn drives technology innovations"? If you walk around on both expo floors for a while, you'll see this is still true.

In the NPR piece, you'll hear audio from an advertisement for cloneawillykit.com. Here's the whole ad. It's pretty funny. MP3 LINK (might have to right-click and save, BB's server acts funny with audio files). They make a female version, shown at left.

You'll also hear some sound from a company called soundspublishing.com that sells smutty spoken word audio for your iPod. They're releasing a new line voices by Jenna Jameson, called -- ah -- JennaTales. And I spoke with Tomcat, the webmaster behind fuckingmachines.com (NSFW), a fetish site that features women having sex with robots.

Some odds and ends that didn't end up in the story: BB pal Christy Canyon, author of "Lights, Camera, Sex," is directing adult films now: Link. The most hilarious DVD I saw on the floor: Corruption (NSFW), starring Hillary Scott and directed by Eli Cross, which includes sly in-joke digs at specific politicians who've been unfriendly to the porn biz. The film's arch-villain is David Walker Helms, a Republican senator and sociopathic psychokiller whose "greed is matched only by his own dark perversions."

Previously on BoingBoing:

Christy Canyon and other XXX autobio writers in Vanity Fair

And see also:

Fleshbot's 2007 AVN Coverage (NSFW) which includes many photos.

Reader comment: Rodney Hoffman says,

I've only been once, in 1990, before AVN split from CES. As I wrote to friends at the time:

"... Best of all, one ballroom of one hotel was set aside for "Adult Video." Yes, that means porn. Of all varieties. All these porn purveyors were there trying to convince retailers and video stores to stock their lines. Most of them brought some of their "stars" (scantily clad, of course) to autograph photos, calendars, magazines, and posters. (If this subject offends you, stop reading now. Myself, I consider porn the highest and best use of video technology.)

"Well, it was a wonderful time to be an openly gay man. There were these l-o-n-g lines of men (no women to speak of) waiting for an autograph and a few words with the female stars, and there was no waiting at all for the male models who were there. Most of them were delighted to talk and sign stuff. I met and brought back autographed publicity photos and posters from Matt Powers, Joey Stefano, Dick Masters, Joe Williams, Adam Grant, Brad Phillips, Jeff Stryker (pushing non-gay stuff, however), Tim Lowe, and more. It was lots of fun. "Naturally, many thousands of the 80,000+ mostly male CES attendees must have been gay, but hardly any were open enough to talk to the gay male video stars about their work. Being gay even helped me with the non-gay booths: One company from Australia was giving out boomerangs autographed by some of their female stars. There were two long lines of guys waiting to get one. I walked right in between the two lines and asked if I could just have an un-autographed one; they handed me one, and I avoided the 20-minute lines."

The Pirate Bay is raising money to buy the tiny, bankrupt "island" of Sealand. Sealand is the abandoned drilling platform gun battery near the UK that was occupied, declared sovereign, and turned into a offshore data-center for sensitive information. Sealand's owners have put the "country" on the block, and the Pirate Bay, Sweden's gutsy, notorious BitTorrent tracker, is soliciting donations to buy it. They're even promising citizenship to donors. If they don't get enough to buy Sealand, they're promising to buy another island somewhere. Link

The TSA has a new, bizarre rule for international passengers arriving in Atlanta: once you get off the plane, you have to be screened for metal before you leave the airport:

Let's say you live in Atlanta and you've just come in from Frankfurt, Germany. You're not connecting, you're headed for the parking lot or the taxi stand or the MARTA station. Well, sorry, pal, first you have to stand in line, take off your coat and shoes, remove your computer, hand over your liquids and gels, and have your bags X-rayed. Mind you, this is the world's busiest airport in passengers (about 86 million annually). On a recent afternoon in the arrivals hall, the checkpoint line was half an hour long. Not only is the procedure inconvenient, it's bad for business, as people making tight connections are trapped in a queue behind those merely trying to leave the building.

Link

Locus Magazine has posted its giant roundup of science fiction art for 2006 -- pretty much every book and magazine cover of the year. They run the range from the awful to the wonderful, as you'd expect, but the effect of screen after screen after screen of sf art is pretty uplifting. I think my pick of the litter is the cover of Schroeder's Sun of Suns, which also happens to be a fantastic book. Link (via Warren Ellis)

On Electrolite, Teresa Nielsen Hayden has published a 9-year retrospective of BBC News's best reporting on hamsters, from "Firefighters rescue hamster with head stuck in cage," to "Hamster in plastic exercise ball found rolling along the M6 motorway at Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham" to "Study finds hamsters navigate by dead reckoning; have excellent sense of direction." Link

NEC's new laptop, the HIMITSU KITCHI TYPE NO-1, is intended to look like mission control at a mad scientist's lair. Tokyomango reports, "Made in collaboration with toy company Takara Tomy, it even comes with an emergency alarm button and a "glitter panel" that displays urgent messages in LED red. Oh, and a proprietary fort designing tool plus tacky stickers to put on the body so it looks like a SERIOUS highly confidential machine. Other than that, it's just an ordinary (albeit very kitschy) PC." Link

Michael Calanan says, "Call me a luddite but I much prefer this vintage landline version of an, ahem, "Apple" phone." Link, and here's what it looks like with the top half closed: Link.

See also this story by John Markoff in today's NYT: "Steve Jobs Walks the Tightrope Again." reg-free Link. Snip:

The leading handset makers — Microsoft, Motorola, Nokia, Palm, Research in Motion, Samsung and Sony Ericsson — are all pushing in the direction of making their devices increasingly look like PCs you can put in your pocket. Mr. Jobs is moving in that direction, too, but it appears that he wants to control his device much more closely than his competitors do.

“We define everything that is on the phone,” he said. “You don’t want your phone to be like a PC. The last thing you want is to have loaded three apps on your phone and then you go to make a call and it doesn’t work anymore. These are more like iPods than they are like computers.”

The iPhone model, he insisted, would not look like the rest of the wireless industry.

“These are devices that need to work, and you can’t do that if you load any software on them,” he said. “That doesn’t mean there’s not going to be software to buy that you can load on them coming from us. It doesn’t mean we have to write it all, but it means it has to be more of a controlled environment.”

Previously on BB:

Cisco vs. Apple: lawsuit over The Jesus Phone. Plus: Zunephone.

Macworld keynote: iPhone, Apple TV

Nice Wired piece about the Amazing Randi's Million Dollar Challenge -- the million bucks he'll give to any psychic, flake or UFO nut who can prove the existence of the paranormal.

A Nevada man legally named "The Prophet Yahweh" planned to seize the prize for charity by summoning two spaceships to a Las Vegas park last year, but negotiations broke down when he announced he was bringing several armed guards to the demonstration in case any "negative personalities" showed up. An inventor who claimed to have built a device that could sense the psychic distress of an egg about to be dropped into a pot of boiling water recently abandoned his application when the foundation suggested the egg be threatened by a hammer instead, in case the invention was really just detecting steam.

Link

Matt Blaze has a great piece on the architecture of airport security -- not enough seating to put your shoes back on, conveyors that aren't the same heights as the tables that feed them. I keep thinking about how the security system is designed for an octopus: what else could hold a boarding card, a pair of shoes, a jacket, a laptop, a freedom baggie, ID, and a carry-on bag?

The word is that TSA has tapped Disney to redesign its checkpoints, but it seems like the TSA has been redesigning Disney instead. On a trip to Walt Disney World, I discovered fingerprinting machines at all the entrances, as well as totally meaningless, time-consuming, invasive (but perfunctory) searches.

Somehow, for all the attention to minutiae in the guidelines, everything ends up just slightly wrong by the time it gets put together at an airport. Even if we accept some form of passenger screening as a necessary evil these days, today's checkpoints seem like case studies in basic usability failure designed to inflict maximum frustration on everyone involved. The tables aren't quite at the right height to smoothly enter the X-ray machines, bins slide off the edges of tables, there's never enough space or seating for putting shoes back on as you leave the screening area, basic instructions have to be yelled across crowded hallways. According to the TSA's manual, there are four models of standard approved X-ray machines, from two different manufacturers. All four have sightly different heights, and all are different from the heights of the standard approved tables. Do the people setting this stuff up ever actually fly? And if they can't even get something as simple as the furniture right, how confident should we be in the less visible but more critical parts of the system that we don't see every time we fly?

Link (via Schneier)

Update: Patrick sez, "I made a similar point in this column:

Squeezed into this undersized corridor amidst a mass of anxious travelers, half of whom are on the verge of missing their onward flights, I must now do the following as quickly as possible:

1. Remove my backpack; 2. Remove my jacket; 3. Remove my shoes; 4. Remove my iBook from the backpack, and from its case; 5. Remove my approved, one-quart sized Ziploc bag containing its legal allotment of three-ounce containers of liquids and gels from the backpack. Item 4 must be placed in separate tray, alone; Item 5 goes in a round plastic dish, also by itself; Items 1, 2, and 3 are piled together in a third tray. But not so fast, as a guard warns me not bury my shoes beneath the other items. He recommends I place them separately on the belt, or in yet another tray. So there I am, one person with four separate trays of belongings. And after those belongings are x-rayed, it’s time to:

1. put my coat back on; 2. put my shoes back on; 3. re-pack the computer; 4. re-pack the approved, one-quart sized Ziploc bag; 5. Strap on my backpack. All of this with no chair or table, elbow to elbow with a dozen other people all doing the same thing. I’m trying to grab my stuff as more and more bins come clattering down the rollers. I can’t find my shoes, and I have no idea where my passport is. The scene is so chaotic it’s making my head spin. Then it gets worse:

“Whose bag is this?” yelps an extremely oversized woman in a red TSA vest. Naturally it’s mine, and naturally she has to scan it again, because “there’s something in there.” That something turns out to be a 2.5-ounce bottle of hand sanitizer. In a rush, I’d packed it separately from my other lethal fluids and forgot about it.