Mike sez, "Prince is giving away a free CD in a national British newspaper, The Mail. The music retail industry executives are viewing this as an attack and are threatening to 'retaliate'. 'The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores. And I say that to all the other artists who may be tempted to dally with the Mail on Sunday,' said Entertainment Retailers Association spokesman Paul Quirk. Mr Quirk also said it would be 'an insult' to record stores. Obviously the music industry views anything that doesn't result in a sale to be subversive or unfair. I say it's Prince's music and he can bloody well give it away if he wants to." Link (Thanks Mike!)

The Christian Science Monitor has a long article on Chinese humanitarian efforts in Africa, including joining the UN Blue Helmets, creating debt relief and financial aid, and other efforts. The Monitor devotes some space to pondering the Chinese motives in Africa: colonialist? Charitable? Strategic?

China is such an enigma, capable engendering such massive change. Watching it work around the world is mind-expanding.

"The Chinese interest in Africa ... their coming into our markets is the best thing that could have happened to us," says small-business contractor Amare Kifle, during a recent meeting with a Chinese investor in Ethiopia's capital, Addis Ababa. "We are tired of the condescending American style. True, the American government and American companies have done and do a lot here, but I always feel like they think they are doing us a favor ... telling us how to do things and punishing us when we do it our own way.

"These Chinese are different," he says. "They are about the bottom line and allow us to sort out our side of the business as we see fit. I want to have a business partner and do business. I don't want to have a philosophical debate about Africa's future."...

"China is the most self-conscious rising power in history and is desperate to be seen as a benign force as well as to learn from the mistakes of the existing major powers and previous rising powers," says Andrew Small, a Brussels-based China expert at the German Marshall Fund, a public policy think tank. "It sees its modern national story as anticolonial – about surpassing the "century of humiliation" at the hands of the colonial powers – and still thinks of itself, in many ways, as a part of the developing world."

Link (via Thoof)

Google's "Health Advertising Team" is trying to sell the health industry on buying ads to be shown opposite searches for "Sicko." The idea is to counter Michael Moore's amazing, enraging, must-see indictment of the health industry's grip on American society by running ads over search results for Sicko.

Another approach would be to reform the practices that Moore criticises in the film -- for example, refusing to pay for an insured individual's surgery because she didn't mention a 15-year-old yeast infection on her application; denying MRIs to patients with brain tumors; and paying medical directors bonuses for denying claims.

But why make your customers healthier -- at shareholder expense -- when you can just give money to Google to FUD and astroturf the issue?

The healthcare industry is no stranger to negative press. A drug may be a blockbuster one day and tolled as a public health concern the next. News reporters may focus on Pharma’s annual sales and its executives’ salaries while failing to share R&D costs. Or, as is often common, the media may use an isolated, heartbreaking, or sensationalist story to paint a picture of healthcare as a whole. With all the coverage, it’s a shame no one focuses on the industry’s numerous prescription programs, charity services, and philanthropy efforts.

Many of our clients face these issues; companies come to us hoping we can help them better manage their reputations through “Get the Facts” or issue management campaigns. Your brand or corporate site may already have these informational assets, but can users easily find them?

We can place text ads, video ads, and rich media ads in paid search results or in relevant websites within our ever-expanding content network. Whatever the problem, Google can act as a platform for educating the public and promoting your message. We help you connect your company’s assets while helping users find the information they seek.

I watched Sicko for the second time last night (I downloaded it a couple weeks ago via The Pirate Bay, with Moore's blessing, then went to see it in a cinema with a crowd), and it was incredibly moving. This is the kind of movie that can change the world -- no matter how much money the HMOs throw at FUD. Link (via Google Blogoscoped)

See also: Moore's "Sicko" leaks onto P2P

Kyle Baker's reworking of the stretched-out DC hero Plastic Man combines the best of MAD Magazine, Tex Avery cartoons, political satire, and balls-out Animaniacs-style mayhem.

Kyle Baker is one of the most versatile comics creators working in the business today. My gateway to his work was his side-splitting Why I Hate Saturn, a decidedly adult graphic novel. Since then, I've sampled his histories of slave revolts, family comedy collections, and many other works with wildly varying artistic and narrative styles.

In the Plastic Man books, Baker invokes the maddest, wildest spit-takes of comic and cartoon history, with silly plotlines that had me spraying water out my nose -- Plastic Man and his FBI girlfriend borrow Superman's time-machine to take Abraham Lincoln (who turns out to be John Wilkes Booth in clever disguise) back in time, end up bringing a dinosaur to civil-war America, where the maddened saurian squishes a Klan rally -- and that's just the set-up.

The artwork owes a debt to MAD's Sergio Argones and Will Eisner, by way of the Incredibles' stylish palette, dipping into Tex Avery for the spit-takes. Every layout has hidden gags for the attentive reader. This is what underwear pervert funnybooks should be like: self-reflective, over-the-top, and political. Vol 1: Plastic Man: On the Lam, Vol 2: Plastic Man: Rubber Bandits

See also:
Graphic novel history of Nat Turner's slave revolt
Kyle "Why I Hate Saturn" Baker's new collection

From the looks of this teardown, the bulk of iPhone's slender innards is the battery. Shown here: "The screen we're pulling away is a somewhat translucent surface, behind it is the touch screen surface itself." Link to "Apple's iPhone Dissected: We did it, so you don't have to," at Anandtech.com.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Jesusphone: He is Risen

Sorry I'm all out of clever iPhone headlines: short links roundup

The Passion of the Jesusphone: iPhone short links roundup

Eric Mueller video blogs from the NYC iPhone line

Working Assets calls for iPhone boycott

Earlier this month, I wrote about Larry Lessig's announcement that he was switching his focus to fighting corruption. Larry has just left on his annual month-long Internet fast/family retreat (of all his inspirational examples, this might be the most inspirational), but he's left a wiki up for his friends and fellow travellers to start wikifying the problem of overturning institutional corruption.

When I talked to Larry about this move, he blue-skyed a neat little idea that's stuck with me: what if lawmakers were required to abstain from votes over issues in which they had a financial interest? For example, if you take money from the health industry, you can't vote on health-related issues. I serve on a bunch of boards, some for-profit and some non-profit, and it's standard that board members abstain from voting on governance issues in which they have a conflict of interest. It's just common sense -- so why not apply it to Congress? Link

I'm in a cafe in Los Angeles right now with Sean Bonner, kicking the tires on the iPhone we just brought back from the Apple store at the Grove. In two words: totally sweet.

It lives up to the hype. All the rules just changed.

(All photos in this post: Sean Bonner. Link to Flickr set.)

Both of us were skeptical about the lack of a conventional keyboard, but so far, it's awesome. Sean's tapping out a bunch of Twitters and emails, single-fingeredly, and sailing through. iPhone does a remarkable job of sniffing out what you meant to type if you goof a little -- more so than any other mobile interface I've used. It'll take some getting used to, and it's not the same as a conventional keyboard. But it does not suck at all. I can imagine typing two-thumbed pretty soon.

(above: Greg Joswiak from Apple, with Jonathan, the first guy in line at the Apple store at LA's Grove mall.)

This cafe where we are right now has an open WiFi network, so data speed as we're testing this for the first time is fantastically fast. Automatically connects if the network is open.

When you connect to internet using AT&T's 300 kbps EDGE network, it does feel pretty poky. More like sub-dial-up, particularly in places where the signal is weak. Still -- faster than what you may be used to on any number of lamer US smartphones. Faster than I was used to on several models of Treos, and some Windows Mobile smartphones. Wherever there's WiFi you can connect to (and this is instant, and works wonderfully), there's a lot more speed. Presumably, the provided speed from AT&T will be faster as services evolve. (Why'd they go with EDGE? See this NYT article by John Markoff: Link).

Some of the first things that make us go "ajskdfgjhdfhakjomg":

(1) The web browser (Sean: "even the little javascript crawl at the top of Metroblogging.com works great.")
(2) The pinch (Xeni: it's super intuitive. I wish I could do this on every electronic device I own. I wish Apple would release a tablet with this on it.")
(3) Thumb typing (Sean: "Dude I can't believe it actually works." Xeni: "And functions fine even with wet or greasy fingertips.")
(4) It syncs beautifully with the Mac (Xeni: "All my personal data synced from the Macbook to the iPhone in a minute or two -- more than 6,000 contacts, several gigs of songs, podcasts, audiobooks, and video, and a dense calendar.")
(5) Activation went fine, even in the epic crunch time, proving naysayer reports wrong. (Xeni: "worked without a hitch, wait for server response at end of process was only a couple minutes, all very easy." / Update: all the iPhone-buying friends I spoke with had similarly breezy experiences this weekend, but apparently some folks who were existing AT&T customers had a bad time.)
(6) Orientation awareness (Sean: "It's so fucking sexy. It works THREE ways.")
(7) It just works, with no "stupid" getting in your way. It's simple and elegant. When have you ever used the word elegant to describe a phone UI, for chrissakes? (our pal Michael Baffico just arrived here at the cafe to check out the iPhone: "I've had it 7 minutes and I've already figured out how to play music, check stocks, browse the web, make calls, and a bunch of other stuff, with nobody showing me anything -- all in the time it would normally take me to load one shitty page on my Treo." Then he left to go buy one before all the stores closed).
(8) Holy crap, the Google Maps with real-time traffic data? OK, no GPS in this first-gen iPhone, but this feature is incredible. Not just local US data, either: I'm zooming off to satellite views of Africa, Europe, or Asia with the flick of an index finger.
(9) Navigating media is like slicing buttah. The iPod interface, with the flippy album cover Jedi hand gesture response -- oh man.
(10) Multiple web browser windows are a nice touch.
(11) The little camera in this thing is terrific, takes great, crisp, vivid shots.
(12) Oh, right, and the, uh, phone! Visual voicemail features were really nice, and voice quality was fine when we tested it in a few locations around LA, in a few different kinds of noise environments.

We're IMming with my pal Wayne in NYC, a former Apple employee from ages of yore. He says,

Apple now has a DUTY to export this interface to their entire product line. Today's iPhone naysayers probably don't appreciate the significance of the UI shift that happened today. The computer industry may once again -- at the hands of apple -- never be the same again. The interface reminds me of the scene in the film Minority Report where the pre-crimes unit staff were manipulating and viewing multimedia data using direct gestures. I feel like we're getting a taste of that kind of direct interface control today with the iPhone.

Also, I've never been in and out of an Apple Store so quickly before, the queue time aside (only 1 hour wait -- totally reasonable considering) the time spent in the store was organized despite the excitement and the transaction itself may have been faster than any other visit.

Agreed. The crush at the Grove was incredible, lines for four blocks or more, but the process was very smooth when the countdown to 6pm ended. Apple employees lined up on either side like it was a military procession or catwalk, and applauded as each line-waiter entered.

The fact that this device requires a two-year lockdown with one specific carrier, AT&T, is the biggest concern I have. As Cory has blogged here previously, they're under fire for "their stand on net neutrality, their warrantless wiretapping, and their handing over of customer records to the NSA" (EFF lawsuit details here, interview with whistleblower here). AT&T also recently announced plans to police traffic on their data network to see if customers are infringing copyrights, and the details of that plan have digital rights advocates worried.

Some lesser gotchas I will resent in varying degrees when the newlywed buzz wears off: The battery's not removable, no way to carry around a spare to pop in when you can't get to power. No IM, GPS, or video capture. No expandable storage (8 gigs sure fills up quick). No third-party apps, no Java or Flash inside the Safari browser. No copy/paste. Most non-iPhone-issued headphones won't fit without adapters or hacks. The terrific iChat-like SMS interface is coupled with wack pricing from AT&T for which there's no alternative (web-based apps to the rescue?). No "period" on the main qwerty keyboard (sounds like a small thing, but all those extra taps add up when you're txting), and that keyboard is the one thing which isn't directionally adjustable (except in Safari) -- would be nice to have it go sideways so it can be a little larger, particularly for users with bigger fingers than mine (which fit fine on the keyboard as is). Also, you can read but not edit Word or Excel files -- still, cmon, look me in the monitor and tell me you've ever actually edited a Word or Excel file on your phone?

This is a first-generation product with room to grow. But man, what a 1.0.

Many of the quibbles I listed above can (and no doubt will) be fixed by simple software updates, and Christ, all the pluses are overwhelming.

The interface makes all the other mobile devices I have around the office look dumpy and half-functional; the sleek form factor makes my other smartphones look morbidly obese. I want to pick them up and gaze upon them pityingly, then throw them all in a blender and hit "puree."

I may be high on launch fumes right now, but this feels like just about the coolest device I've ever owned. I just don't want to go back to any other phone now.

It isn't hype if the product lives up to it.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Hey, iPhone porn! Link to work-safe press release, and here's the NSFW url to subscribe to h.264 adult video trailers for iPhone from Digital Playground. Another one here from Playboy. Just two of gazillions to follow, surely.

Video of mayor of Philadelphia being harassed in the iPhone line: Link.

Lots of iphone pix showing up on Flickr, including this close-up of Apple's "hardware lock-in". Link.

Turns out Spike Lee was at the front of the NYC line on behalf of Keep A Child Alive, a group that provides anti-retroviral treatment to children infected with AIDS in Africa. As you may recall, Johnny Vulkan from Anomaly in NYC was camped out earlier this week -- previous BB post. Spike stepped in at the end to assist. Here's a video. Whoopi Goldberg was also spotted there. More celebspotting: we saw Kevin Smith among the first purchasers in LA.

Here are more photos from the NYC iPhone line. Link.

Fred Benenson says, "My brother has an explainer article up on Slate explaining the legal ramifications (or lack thereof) of line jumping just in time for iPhone's release. Read on for full details on what happens if you piss off a lot of nerds." Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Sorry I'm all out of clever iPhone headlines: short links roundup

The Passion of the Jesusphone: iPhone short links roundup

Eric Mueller video blogs from the NYC iPhone line

Working Assets calls for iPhone boycott

- - - - - - - - - -

Reader comments: # Ville T from "hellsinki, finland, europe, earth" says:

hello from hellsinki finland, xeni! thanks for the illustrative post about the iphone. here's a question i've seen no-one covering in this massive iphone extravaganza:

one-handed use.

can the iphone be used with only one hand? and if not, can anything be done using one hand? for example, answering/making a call or taking a photo?

in all the photos in the coverage, everybody is always supporting the thing with another hand. an easy, but obvious thing for mobile stuff, but i've seen no-one cover yet. maybe bb could do it? ;)

# [Xeni] Right, good question. In the few short hours I've played around with this, it's been two-handed. But now that you mention it -- sure, simple functions are fine one-handed.

Sitting here now, cradling iPhone in my right hand, I can navigate and bang out a simple text with that same thumb. I can skim through music and video libraries pretty easily, the same way. I can dial a call easily with one hand. Other more complex tasks are definitely two hands. Maybe that will change as I grow used to the device.

On the drive back from the Grove, Sean and I were talking about this -- texting while driving (not that this is safe or responsible in the first place) is pretty much out of the question with this. You probably couldn't sneak-text, blind, with one hand under the table, during a boring meeting, like you might with a Blackberry or Sidekick or Helio or Treo.

The fact that the interface doesn't hate me like all other phones do makes up for that. I can imagine much of this feeling more natural with less effort (and one less hand) in a few weeks.

[Update: 48 hours later, my type speed has increased a lot, and I'm one-handing a lot of basic tasks. There's no usability pain here.]

# zyzz says,

The iPhone can also be used as a video iPod without connecting to AT&T's network. You do have to activate it, but if you remove the sim card after activation, you have all the functionality that does not require voice or data. It's a bitchin video ipod.

# Paul Jones says:

Testing out the YouTube app on the new iPhone and I was super-impressed by the quality and speed of the download on the WIFI network.

But this morning I tried to search for some of the videos that amused me most. Less Okay-Go and more 60s concerts. Searching for "Byrds" did't give me any Byrds concerts when searching on the iPhone's YouTube utility. It gave me Paris Hilton getting out of jail and someone named Byrd shouting at her. Names of Bryds members gave me no videos found!

But back on the web at YouTube.com, I got lots and lots of Byrds. No problem.

YIKES! Is the iPhoneTube only licensed material? Is the great old stuff and the new crazy homebrew stuff cut out?

Others experiences?

try comparing "chumbawamba" on both platforms. plenty of our fav anarchist band in the web. one funky domino vid on iphone with 'tubtumping' in the background.

# BB reader Church has an answer for that:

That's because the iPhone (and AppleTV) use h.264 instead of Flash for video, and youtube hasn't converted its entire libarary over. The linked story from AP estimates 10M vids by the iPhone's launch date.

# Wayne points out an interesting battery-related note in this Apple advisory, and an awesome tip for creating inbox subfolders for iPhone Mail here.

# BB pal J points us to this hardware durability test at PC World: Link to "How Tough Is the iPhone?"

# Gitai R. Ben-Ammi says,

I understand that Apple loves to have a unified package for their design with minimal places where you could pull stuff apart, and that’s okay for the iPod. I can go a few days without my music while the battery gets replaced. I’m a small businessman though, and my cell phone is half of my business, with my laptop being the other half. I can’t go for one day without my phone, much less three to five. If they could do in store replacement in a couple hours, that would be fine, but otherwise, Apple needs to bite the bullet and have a battery which can be removed and replaced by the consumer. Until that happens, I ain’t buying.

[Update / Sunday July 1: Some of the battery-related criticisms floating around, including this one, are high on my list of gotchas, too. I'm still enthusiastically pleased with the device overall, but this is not an insignificant issue. On the plus side, I'm hearing rumors you'll be able to hang on to your SIM card and plug it into any other another compatible phone while your iPhone is in the shop -- I'll check into that.]

# Zach Brock writes,

I picked up an iPhone at the 3rd St Promenade store yesterday, and it was just like you described the Grove. A ton of people waiting, but more of a jubilant feeling in the air than anything. The apple employees wandering down the line assuring everyone that they had plenty in stock helped also. Anyway, I wrote up my first impressions of the phone. It might look like a lot of negatives, but really these are the only things I could find wrong with it. If I tried to type up everything RIGHT I wouldn't have had a chance to sleep last night. Here's the link.

# Micah Arbisser says,

Why are all the reviews making such a big deal out of the Google Maps feature? I've had the Google Maps applet (with real time traffic data) on my Blackberry for a year now. And my Blackberry works on Verizon's EVDO network, so it should be a lot faster than the iPhone's EDGE network.

Dude, seriously -- it's the touchscreen, the scrollable, expandable, pinchable, lovable touchscreen.

# Wired News managing editor Evan Hansen points to an interesting juxtaposition they ran today:

Surreal world we live in, with iPhone shoppers lining up in U.S. as Londoners shake off bomb terror threats. We ran a photo gallery today juxtaposing images from both scenes. Makes for an interesting media critique, given search results from Google News for the past day show stories about the iPhone outnumbering stories about London's bomb scare by a margin of three to one. Link to slideshow.

# Sushi Suzuki says,

My friend and I just calculated how much time was wasted (and hence money) waiting for the iPhone today (and yesterday and ...). (150 Apple Stores x 100 People/Apple Store + 10,000 AT&T Stores x 20 People/AT&T Store) x 8 hr/person x $20/hr = $34,400,000. Link.

# Tim Shey blogs:

Last night, as I looked at all the photos tagged “iphone” rolling in on Flickr, I wanted to capture all the iconic first photos people would inevitably take with their new iPhone once they got it. At the same time, I wondered, can an iPhone buy happiness*? So I started two competing groups at the same time: Photos of me with an iPhone, and Photos of me without an iPhone. Here are some of my favorite photos posted in the last 12 hours so far...

Link.

# Snip from the Time review -- here, Lev Grossman starts with his a laundry list of quibbles:

For example: AT&T's data network is slow (though it seems to be improving). It's a bummer that the camera doesn't shoot video. The glass touchscreen keyboard is kinda freaky (though if there was ever a moment for an ad campaign to license Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Put 'Em on the Glass," this is it). GPS would be nice. So would instant messaging. YouTube videos — in the little YouTube client Apple has ginned up — sound great but look lousy. And yeah, there's that content management quirk mentioned above.

Cold fusion would be great too, but you know what? Nobody cares. Steve Jobs has said, repeatedly, that this is the best iPod that Apple has ever made, and it is. It's also the best phone that anybody has ever made.

(...) For the iPhone, Apple has brought to market a revolutionarily smart, sensitive touchscreen and created an entirely new user interface to match it, all in one go, so seamlessly that my 3-year-old daughter — and I apologize for going to this place, but the fact is striking nonetheless — had no trouble unlocking the iPhone and dialing with it (even though she believed that she was playing a musical instrument).

# And finally, below: at 30 seconds before 6pm on Friday, June 29, 2007, the faithful masses raise offerings to the Apple gods.

Disney park superfan Ricky Brigante (he of the Inside the Magic podcast) won a slot in the Disney Dream Job Experience contest, and got the incredible opportunity to work at the Disneyland Haunted Mansion for a day. Seriously, I would kill for this.

He produced a great write-up of the experience, with links to video, pics, and a long narrative describing his experience.

He also has this link to a site specializing in photos of top-s33kr1t piccies of the backstage mechanisms at Disneyland. Control-room porn at its finest!

Disneyland's Haunted Mansion Cast Members occasionally have a chance to perform what are called magical moments. These are moments in which the guest experience is enhanced by Cast Members performing in ways that are not regularly seen. The ghost dog walking is one such magical moment. Inside the Mansion, there are two others, both taking place in the changing portrait hallway.

The first was a pair of feather dusters that Mansion Cast Members use up and down the portrait hallway, dusting the walls, portraits, and most importantly, the chains and bat stanchions along the sides of the room.

This proved to be one of the most fun moments of the entire weekend. Guests regularly rest their hands on the stanchions or run their hands along the metal chains. Allison told me that her favorite bit is to walk up to the guests and give them a sinister look, making it clear that you want them to stop touching the chains and stanchions. I took her recommendation and once they got the message, I would quickly dust whatever areas they had touched. I got a lot of laughs with this routine.

Link (Thanks, Ricky!)

See also: Video tryouts for a job at Disney's Haunted Mansion

Japan leads the world on bad-ass novelty business-cards, so it's no surprise that they've got access to CO2 lasers that print your contact details on peanut shells.

Taberu Me cards are created using Arigatou’s high-grade CO2 laser engraver nicknamed “Shiawase-kun,” which can etch up to 700 characters per second on hard organic materials like beans, nuts, rice and pasta and which has been optimized to print clean-looking logos, names and telephone numbers on the irregular surfaces of peanut shells.

Link

See also:
Business-card punch-out cutlery
Business card that sprouts
Business-card converts to set of lockpicks
Cutlery made out of potato starch
Cutlery with wrenches on the end
Anti-terror cutlery for airline security theater
Moo Cards: Stunning kid-sized custom biz-cards with Flickr pix

These giant olde timey letters painted on shop shutters in the East End of London are reportedly the work of a graffiti artist named Eine. (The layout seen here is mine.) Flickr user Dave Gorman collected them all. Link (via Juxtapoz)


UPDATE: BB reader Carl Pappenheim made a neat little program that takes whatever you type and converts it into the Eine "font." Link

My pal Jess Hemerly attended the US Air Guitar San Francisco Regional Championship. The winner, seen here, was Rick Stinkfingers. Check the SF Jukebox for Jess's videos of the rawk extravaganza. From Jess's post:

Beer was thrown, rock fists raised high in the air, and bad contestants ridiculed. Congratulations to Rick Stinkfingers who will represent the Bay Area at the US Air Guitar Championships in New York City. He will compete against the other regional champs as well as last year's SF winner, Hot "Lixx" Hoolihan.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Air guitar t-shirt Link

In 2001, the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine reported that a man was imprisoned for stealing cars and assaulting people with weapons, then sent to a psychiatric facility for "acting in a bizarre manner." It turns out he thought he was playing Grand Theft Auto (the article doesn't say it was GTA, but what other game could it be?)

A young man was admitted from prison to a psychiatric facility after reports that he had been acting in a bizarre manner. He had been arrested for stealing motor vehicles and assaults with weapons. At interview he was found to be experiencing the delusion that he was a player inside a computer game (adult-certificate game, widely available) in which points are scored for stealing cars, killing assailants and avoiding police vehicles. Psychotic symptoms had emerged slowly over two years. His family had noticed him becoming increasingly withdrawn and isolated from social activities. He developed delusions that strangers were planning to kill him and also experienced auditory hallucinations, constantly hearing an abusive and derogatory voice. Previously a computer enthusiast, he began to play computer games incessantly. He felt that the games were communicating with him via the headphones. In a complex delusional system he came to believe he was inside one of these games and had to steal a car to start scoring points. He broke into a car and drove off at speed, believing he had `invulnerable' fuel and so could not run out of petrol. To gain points he chose to steal increasingly powerful vehicles, threatening and assaulting the owners with weapons. Later he said he would have had no regrets if he had killed someone, since this would have increased his score.

This reminds me of the guy in Robert Lindner’s book about psychiatric curiosities, The Fifty Minute Hour, who thought he was John Carter of Mars (or maybe Cordwainer Smith, as this guy believes). Link(Via Mindhacks)

Mark says:

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

I laughed and laughed at the Dick Car note post on Boing Boing. Sometimes writing the right kind of note to get your point across works perfectly.

We live in Amarillo, Texas, home of Hummers, pickups, and Bush love. During the last presidential campaign, we had had three Kerry signs stolen from our yard (one within minutes of us getting home from a soccer game -- it was there when we drove up and seconds later, when I passed the window, it was gone.

So I thought about sticking broken glass on the sign's edges, but then I came up with an even better idea. Attached is a pict of what I did.

No one stole our sign after that.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Passive aggressive notes taped in offices and shared houses
• Bizarre self-referential warning sign
• Japanese warning signs
• Scary Russian warning sign
• Stick figure danger sign Flickr pool
• Atrocious apostrophe's and "quotation" "mark" "abuse" photo galleries

SFSignal maintains a useful and expansive list of science fiction and fantasy writers' blogs. Link (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Jeremy sez, "Livejournal user gnimmell has fused many of the recent image memes into a single, hilarious comic strip." Link (Thanks, Jeremy!)

The inevitable iPhone cake: Link. (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Michael Robertson (MP3.com, Linspire, sipphone founder) has posted an essay with more thoughts on the carrier lockdown issues Cory blogged earlier on BoingBoing: Link to "Battle of the Buttons."

The Pope is stoked about Jesusphone, says Gelf Magazine: Link.

Love will tear it apart: Link.

Live webcast of the NYC launch: Link (thanks, Michael).

Meredith Viera blows an iPhone stunt on live TV: Link.

Snapshots of boxes of iPhones delivered to an Apple store by UPS guys, who are -- shockingly -- not wearing full body armor, or packing handguns and stun lasers: Link (thanks Matt).

iPhone versus Paris Hilton: Link (thanks I'm a PC).

In yesterday's short iPhone links roundup, I got some details wrong on that internal Apple employee giveaway announcement by Steve Jobs. I've since spoken to an Apple source who confirmed correct specifics, so the post is now updated: Link.

E!'s "The Soup" will air this parody ad on tonight's episode: Link.

Friends of BoingBoing in Los Angeles: I'll be soaking up the insanity over at the iPhone launch at the Grove this afternoon/evening. If you're around, come say hi.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Working Assets calls for iPhone boycott

The Passion of the Jesusphone: iPhone short links roundup

Reader comment: Nathan says,

This is a photo of me and Steve Wozniak. He arrived at the Valley Fair mall apple store on a Segway at around 5am, he has been sitting in front of the store ever since. I am in line blogging about my experiences.

UPDATE 3PM PT: A secret NYC operative tells BoingBoing at 3:05PM PT, "Spike Lee is suddenly the first person in line at the midtown Apple store. I don't know if he bought the place in line or what, but he wasn't there before, and he is now. He's being mobbed by papparazzi, bigtime. The line is like 2 blocks long. It's like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, everyone is waiting to open their box and find a golden ticket..."

Threadbared is exactly the kind of blog I love -- tightly focused on a single subject, with obsessive annotation. In this case, there's nothing but unusual photos from vintage sewing and knitting pattern books and envelopes. You can view the photos by decade (from the 40s to the 90s). Link (Via PCL Linkdump)

Natalie says:

Robert Mahar of Mahar Dry Goods and Junior Society has started a new Play Food group on Flickr where you can upload all your delicious delights related to food. Pictured here is the "Crying Cracked Eggman" by sewingstars.

Link

Who needs to procreate when you can just grow a giant zucchini instead? Link (Thanks, Alice!)

Mark Mauer says:

Disney get-out-of-jail-free card to several artists to put their own spin on Walt's baby. The exhibit opened last night at Meltdown and is really cool. Slick, Mear One, Greg Simkins and others got the chance to do some cool stuff with the mouse.

Link

I know I'm a little late to the party on this one, but -- I'm really enjoying the new "Flight of the Conchords" show on HBO, starring a digi-folk-parody comic duo from New Zealand (Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement).

Disclaimer: HBO bought ads to promote the show launch here on BoingBoing, but that's not why I'm blogging this, honest. A friend turned me on to this one robot-themed clip, which soon led to downloading the whole first episode on iTunes and watching it over and over and over within the course of a few days, which soon led to going totally nuts waiting for the second and third episodes to pop. Funny stuff.

YouTube Video Link to "The Humans Are Dead," from episode one of "Flight of the Conchords," which includes the hottest "binary solo" you'll ever parse on cable television. So awesome.

There are better quality versions for streaming or embedding here on the HBO website, but the stupid UI won't let me link directly to the clip I want to share with you here, and the player sucks 20 different flavors of azz. Please, HBO guys, do everything possible to prevent people on different platforms from easily watching and sharing this stuff. Because sharing is stealing.

Also from that first episode -- "Most Beautiful Girl (in the room)" is pretty excellent, too, but no robots here: YouTube Video Link.

Subscribe to the free video podcast via iTunes here: Link

Reader comment: Jesse Thorn from The Sound of Young America says,

FYI: Flight of the Conchords' original half-hour HBO performance special (which is great and hilarious) is airing tonight on Comedy Central at 11:30pm, for those without pay cable.

Clayton says,

Any story about Flight of The Conchords isn’t complete without mentioning that Bret McKenzie played a minor elf role in the Lord of The Rings trilogy. The character had no name, but devoted fans later dubbed his character “Figwit,” which stands for “Frodo is great… Who is that?” The nerd underpinnings are strong with this one.

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

Greg says:

I saw something funny today in my SF neighborhood and wanted to send it your way.

I was walking by this car this morning and noticed a) the car was blocking the driveway/garage of an apartment building and b) there was a note in the window.

I can't help but read notes and was much bemused by what I saw.

It had a twist I hadn't seen before, a pro-active: I-know-I'm-being-a-dick-but-don't-dick-with-me-cause-I'll-dick-you-right-back-in-spades-note

ONCE AGAIN,

YOU MAY NOT KNOW THAT THE DEPT. OF PARKING AND TRAFFIC DOESN'T CARE WHO CALLS IN A COMPLAINT.

IF YOU HAVE MY CAR TICKETED FOR PARKING HERE, I'LL DO THE SAME FOR ANY OTHER CAR PARKED HERE.

Reader comment:Here's the obligatory LOLcar photo (from Greg)

Jake sez, "Love it or hate it, the most important Free Software license has undergone a major revision. The 3rd version of the GPL has been finalized as of today!"

"Since we founded the free software movement, over 23 years ago, the free software community has developed thousands of useful programs that respect the user's freedom. The programs are in the GNU/Linux operating system, as well as personal computers, telephones, Internet servers, and more. Most of these programs use the GNU GPL to guarantee every user the freedom to run, study, adapt, improve, and redistribute the program," said Richard Stallman, founder and president of the FSF.

Version 3 of the GNU GPL strengthens this guarantee, by ensuring that users can modify the free software on their personal and household devices, and granting patent licenses to every user. It also extends compatibility with other free software licenses and increases international uniformity.

Jeremy Allison, speaking on behalf of the Samba team, states that they see the new license as "a great improvement on the older GPL," and that it is "a necessary update to deal with the new threats to free software that have emerged since version 2 of the GPL."

Link (Thanks, Jake!)

The mayor of NYC is proposing a vague set of rules governing the use of video cameras on public property, including sidewalks. The rules would require many "filmmakers" (including kids videoing each other in line for a movie or anyone else using a camera for more than five minutes within a 100-foot square of city property) to get $1,000,000 in liability insurance and a city permit. The ACLU warns that these rules are designed to be selectively enforced, and selective enforcement is most often aimed at brown people, protestors, and other people who face discrimination in everyday life.

“Your everyday person out there with a camcorder is never going to know about the rules,” Mr. Dunn said. “It completely opens the door to discriminatory enforcement of the permit requirements, and that is of enormous concern to us because the people who are going to get pointed out are the people who have dark skin or who are shooting in certain locations.” The rules were promulgated as a result of just such a case, Mr. Dunn said. In May 2005, Rakesh Sharma, an Indian documentary filmmaker, was using a hand-held video camera in Midtown Manhattan when he was detained for several hours and questioned by police. During his detention, Mr. Sharma was told he was required to have a permit to film on city property. According to a lawsuit, Mr. Sharma sought information about how permits were granted and who was required to have one but found there were no written guidelines. Nonetheless, the film office told him he was required to have a permit, but when he applied, the office refused to grant him one and would not give him a written explanation of its refusal.

Link

Update: Michael sez, "In case your readers want to express their opinions right to the source; there is an e-mail form on the nyc.gov web site specifically for the Mayor's Office of Film, Theater and Broadcasting."

In 1964, an Icelandic IBM 1401 mainframe engineer figured out how to get the machine to emit beautiful, bassy notes, and composed a symphony music for it. Now his son has composed a symphony with interpretive dance based on his father's work and is touring with it.

Fast-forward four decades, and recently discovered tape recordings of Gunnarson's works form the basis of a touring song-and-dance performance, IBM 1401: A User's Manual. The show was composed by Gunnarson's son Jóhann Jóhannsson, with interpretive dance choreographed by Erna Omarsdotti, whose father is another IBM alum.

The work, named in part for a companion recording of a voice reciting the manual for an IBM 1403 printer, was performed in Wales, Tokyo, Copenhagen and Belgium this summer.

Link

(Image thumbnail ganked from a larger pic by Laurent Zigler)

Nostalgia for the future doesn't get any better than this 1953 pulp sf magazine cover depicting a couple buying a bubble-house floating in the void of space -- the house, the salesman, and the couple all manage to conjure up the Levittown sensibility of post-war boom housing. Link (via Paleo-Futurism)

Fans of Karl Schroeder's "Virga" novels are creating RPGs based on his world. Karl's tickled pink by this and is encouraging readers to share their creations publicly (he's also promising that he's not interested in suing or threatening people for misappropriating his copyrights on this score, figuring, correctly, that none of this stuff costs him anything, that it cements his relationship with his readers, and sells more books).

I reviewed the first Virga book, Sun of Suns, last December. It was one of the best books of 2006, and my favorite Karl Schroeder book to date, a rollicking, swashbuckling space-opera that managed to mash up the singularity, steampunk, and high-seas adventure in one glorious ride. Better still, the paperback is out soon, in time for lazy August reading, and book two will follow shortly afterward.

I know you're out there. People have been telling me for a while that they were planning or executing RPG scenarios or campaigns set in my world of Virga. Well, I'm consumed with curiosity and want to know what your versions of Virga look like. So if you've been running a Virga campaign tell me all about it! If you've got maps, post 'em! Let's see how big we can grow this world.

Link (via Futurismic)

DvA Gallery in Chicago has a great show right now of mouthwatering Tiki art. Seen here, Nathan Ota's "Tiki Keiki" (acrylic on wood, 11" x 14").
Link (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

Painter and cartoonist Dave Cooper has posted a bunch of photos to Flickr documenting his painting process.

this can be a nerve-wracking stage, but it's usually pretty straightforward. i use an antique projector (that you can see in my "some of my favourite artnerd things" set) and a cheap brush pen. the image that's in the projector isn't the original pencil drawing but rather a smaller print-out.

the final painting will be about 7' wide! as you can see, i work on unstretched canvas stapled to the wall. it's only once the painting is finished and photographed that i stretch it onto a custom made stretcher.

Link (Thanks, Scott!) (Via, Drawn!)

Is this a mountain lion that was recently photographed in a Sidney, Maine backyard? And if so, what is it doing in a state where these animals haven't been proven to live for more than a century? More info at Cryptomundo, including the latest news reports.
Link

Scientists at Columbia University are proposing a delightfully retrofuturist concept -- giant vertical farms smack dab in the center of Manhattan.

The idea is simple enough. Imagine a 30-storey building with glass walls, topped off with a huge solar panel. On each floor there would be giant planting beds, indoor fields in effect. There would be a sophisticated irrigation system. And so crops of all kinds and small livestock could all be grown in a controlled environment in the most urban of settings. That means there would be no shipping costs, and no pollution caused by moving produce around the country.

Link (Via ComDig)

Over at Edge.org, John Brockman says:

In a news cycle dominated by Paris Hilton and the Apple iPhone, Craig Venter has announced the results of his lab's work on genome transplantation methods that allows for the transformation of one type of bacteria into another, dictated by the transplanted chromosome. In other words, one species becomes another. This is news, bound to affect everyone on the planet. Below is the press release from Venter's Institute, along with links to the scientific paper published in Science, and the international press.

The day after the announcement, Edge talked to Venter, who had the following to say about the research underway:

"Now we know we can boot up a chromosome system. It doesn't matter if the DNA is chemically made in a cell or made in a test tube. Until this development, if you made a synthetic chomosome you had the question of what do you do with it. Replacing the chomosome with existing cells, if it works, seems the most effective to way to replace one already in an existing cell systems. We didn't know if it would work or not. Now we do.

" This is a major advance in the field of synthetic genomics. We now know we can create a synthetic organism. It's not a question of 'if', or 'how', but 'when', and in this regard, think weeks and months, not years."

Link to full text, and here is a press release about the discovery from the J. Craig Venter Institute.

Here is one of many dozens of news articles -- snip:

Richard Ebright, a molecular biologist at Rutgers University, in New Jersey, said the transplantation technique, which leads to the transferred genome taking over the host cell, was "a landmark accomplishment."

"It represents the complete reprogramming of an organism using only a chemical entity," Ebright said.

Image: Colonies of the transformed Mycoplasma mycoides bacterium, courtesy J. Craig Venter Institute.

The New Scientist blog asks for help in creating a list of the "Top 10 Science Pop Songs." From the post:

Among the best and strangest science songs are surely the Beastie Boys' Sounds Of Science, Kool Keith's version of Ego Trippin', MC Hawking's What We Need More Of Is Science, Sweet's Alexander Graham Bell, Einstein A Go-Go by Landscape and E=MC2 from Big Audio Dynamite. Oh and of course, Monkey vs Robot.

But there's also Kraftwerk's Computer Love, Big Science by Laurie Anderson, pharmaceutical trial procedure described in Siouxsie and the Banshees' Placebo Effect, Blur's Chemical World, Electricity courtesy of Suede (also OMD), Atomic by bombshell Blondie, Genetic Engineering by OMD (and X-Ray Spex), and what list would be complete without Diana Ross's Chain Reaction (less ably repeated by Steps)?

Link

Fortean Times is featuring a fantastic gallery of postage stamps with UFO themes. Seen here is a gorgeous 1978 airmail stamp from Paraguay. Link

A Wikipedia vandal inadvertently set off a nationwide conspiracy craze when he edited the entry for Chris Benoit, a pro wrestler who murdered his family. The anonymous vandal coincidentally edited Benoit's entry to say that Benoit had murdered his family several hours before the news became public, sparking speculation that the murder had been some kind of setup.

Now the vandal has confessed, saying that he'd put the murder accusation in as an unfortunately timed joke.

Nonetheless, I feel incredibly bad for all the attention this got because of the fact that what I said turned out to be the truth. Like I said it was just a major coincidence, and I will never vandalize anything on wikipedia or post wrongful information. I've learned from this experience. I just can't believe what I wrote was actually the case, I've remained stunned and saddened over it.

I wish not to reveal my identity so I can keep me and my family out of this since they have nothing to do with anything. I am not connected to WWE or Benoit at all in anyway. I am from Stamford as the IP address shows, and I am just an everyday individual who posted a wrongful remark at the time that received so much attention because it turned out to actually happen. I will say again I didn't know anything about the Benoit tragedy, it was a terrible coincidence that I never saw coming.

Link (Thanks, Jimmy!)

Destiny sez, "Working Assets is calling for a boycott of the iPhone. The locking of all iPhones to AT&T is unnecessary, and Working Assets has specific issues with AT&T -- including their stand on net neutrality, their warrantless wiretapping, and their handing over of customer records to the NSA. They say Apple is locking iPhone users into a service contract with 'a corporation whose practices seem to run counter to everything Apple stands for...'"

Working Assets is a really top-notch organization, and they've nailed one of the reasons I've been skeptical of the iPhone since the start. Handset locking sucks, and AT&T sucks more: These people are criminal traitors who helped wiretap the nation, neutricidal maniacs bent on wrecking the Internet, and convicted monopolists besides.

It's terrible that Apple is selling out its customers to this thug of a company -- it's like being traded to the cellblock bully for two packs of cigarettes. None of the mobile carriers are good companies, but AT&T is the worst of the bunch. And honestly, is there anyone who believes that having a captive audience of two-year-locked iPhone customers will incentivize AT&T to behave better? Link (Thanks, Destiny!)

See also: The Passion of the Jesusphone: iPhone short links roundup

Today's Wired News has a feature on Jake von Slatt, a steampunk maker whose many projects have been frequently featured here on Boing Boing. Wired has an article and a lovely gallery of von Slatt's creations.

"The Victorian era was really the last era in which a high school graduate was given the complete set of scientific concepts to fully understand the technology of the age," von Slatt says. "Because of this, part of what I wanted to do was to co-opt the term 'steampunk' and imbue it with this DIY component. DIY wasn't part of the definition of steampunk … but I wanted it to be."

Link to article, Link to gallery

Steampunk stuff on Boing Boing

LA Weekly has a great profile of prankster artist Jeffrey Vallance, who has a new exhibition called Relics and Reliquaries in Santa Ana, California.

I first learned about Vallance from Re/Search's Pranks book, where he recounted his now-famous 1978 art stunt of taking a thawed frozen supermarket chicken to a pet cemetery in Los Angeles and straight-facedly requesting it be given a proper burial. (The tombstone read, "Blinky, The Friendly Hen).

His current exhibit contains bits and pieces of his past, each of which carries some kind of personal significance. The items are house in beautiful displays.

The fragmentary Orange Crush bottle, for example, bears witness to a childhood trauma. “One night during the summer of 1966,” reads the accompanying text, “our family went to the Canoga Park Drive-in Theater to watch Fantastic Voyage. My stepfather brought along bottles of Orange Crush soda. He did not explain why, but instead of a bottle opener he had brought along a pair of pliers to open the bottles. At a certain point during the movie, he said that he would open everyone’s bottles with the pliers. But for some reason, I didn’t want my drink just yet.

“Later, when I got thirsty, my stepfather refused to open the Orange Crush for me. Instead he handed me the bottle and the pliers. I tried in vain to open the bottle — after about 15 minutes I managed only to shake it up, real good. At last, in one violent cataclysm, the bottleneck exploded, sending sharp shards of glass and sticky orange soda pop all over the seats, the ceiling, the windows and the rest of the family. Boy, was I in trouble now! And still thirsty.”

Link

Mr. Dan Kelly has painstakingly collected lots of ads about martial arts from comic books.

The below images are ads for martial arts courses that appeared in comic books of the late 50s through the early 80s. The ads were usually over the top in their promises to teach you how to smash bricks with your head, turn invisible, fight 12 attackers at one time, and kill a man with your pinky finger. Even including bodybuilding courses, hypno coins, and fake vomit in the equation, there was something especially strange about selling martial arts training through comic book ads. Unlike all those other products, it was unlikely anyone could get hurt or killed by mucking about with a sea monkey. Yet, in truth, all you really got for your 99 cents was a small pamphlet providing ass-backwards instruction in a few techniques, or, more often, a "taster" for the larger course. It's safe to say no one became a martial arts master through a comic book ad.

Link (Thanks, George!)

The Drug Policy Alliance produced this funny fake TV commercial for a prescription called Incarcerex, meant for politicians who are fearful of losing their election. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Steve Jobs hosted a companywide town hall meeting for Apple employees earlier today, all about iPhone. Word is: Full-time Apple employees who've been there a year or more will receive one of the devices, free. This adds up to a total retail value of more than $12 million. izmodo: Link. Engadget's posts: one, two..

UPDATE: OK, I just received some corrected details on the Apple internal iPhone giveaway:

All full time U.S. employees receive a free iPhone. All part time U.S. employees who've been at the company for more than a year get a free phone. Everyone gets the 8GB model, and presumably this includes Apple retail store employees, too. The number of $12M quoted by Engadget is wrong, because that references worldwide employee stats. This is for US employees only at this time.

Apple will limit day-of-release purchases to two iPhones per person, max: Link.

How many mobile phone consumers will switch from their current carriers to AT&T because of iPhone? Link, and here's a "HOWTO dump your carrier" guide.

What about international markets? Snip from the relevant Apple press release:

iPhone will be available in (...) Europe in late 2007, and Asia in 2008.

Here are the 13 AT&T Store iPhone Objection-Response scripts: Link.

Apple published the AT&T rate plans earlier this week, here: Link.

One of the more commonly voiced skeptical points, pre-launch -- how usable can this thing be as a txting device without a conventional, opposable-thumbs-friendly keyboard? Apple posted what amounts to a response yesterday: Link to "iPhone Keyboard" video.

Macintouch has a good features FAQ here: Link. SFGate published a pretty comprehensive FAQ here: Link.

Reviews from people who have spent time with the iPhone: Pogue (NYT), Mossberg (WSJ), Levy (Newsweek), Ed Baig (USA Today). I found this clever scorecard helpful: Link.

This PC World article lists 11 bummer factors: Link.

On the Apple website, official word that accessories and products certified as iPhone-compliant will carry a "Works with iPhone" logo: Link. More on the accessories market here, and a critical take here.

iPhone and security: A big deal. Not a big deal. Big deal or not a big deal?

Some people are taking Brian (Gizmodo) Lam's "Jesusphone" thing too seriously: Link versus Link.

Here's a Google Maps mashup that combines the Maps API with locations of AT&T and Apple stores, as well as listings on Craigslist and eBay. Link for more info on how to use it. (Thanks, Mike)

(Xeni): I'll be joining CNN International anchor Kristie LuStout at 5:40pm PT/840PM ET today (Thu., June 28) to talk about the you-know-what for a few minutes.

Previously on BoingBoing:

Apple uses big-handed model to "shrink" iPhone

Dude in line for iPhone to raise money for AIDS drugs in Africa

Further ponderance of the iPhone's size

Eric Mueller video blogs from the NYC iPhone line

Nintendo Sixty Fouuuuuur versus iPhooooone (video)

Reader comment: Tom Stevens says,

Link to a news article in the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus.

Apple's new iPhone is NOT available for sale in Vermont due to the fact that AT&T is the sole wireless provider for the phone and AT&T is not offered in the state.

Small Dog Electronics in Waitsfield is a Vermont Apple product dealer, and CEO Don Mayer said this week he is disappointed the iPhone will not be available here.

"I think it's very unfortunate that Apple has chosen to limit distribution of the iPhone," he said. "They've frozen out Vermont as the only state in the union without service. I understand why — that they will have their hands full with what they already have, but it leaves us and people in many other rural areas out in the cold."

Other areas affected in this area include parts of New Hampshire and Maine...

M. Pamela Bumsted in Alaska says,

Vermont isn't the only one in the cold. Alaska is also part of the USA and it is out of the running. I believe there is a huge penalty. Link to news article.

BoingBoing reader Stephen Lindholm says,

Good news for T-Mobile customers. In a class action brought against T-Mobile, this past week, the plaintiffs have successfully argued that T-Mobile cannot prevent its customers from filing a class action against it. The plaintiffs are suing over non-prorated early termination fees and the selling of SIM-locked handsets.

T-Mobile, as many other cell phone companies do these days, had written into its contract with customers that any disputes between T-Mobile and the customers had to be resolved by arbitration. Requiring customers to go to arbitration means that customers cannot sue, and more importantly it means that customers cannot file class actions. The result, if the contractual terms requiring arbitration were valid, would be that the most abusive cell phone company practices could not be limited by customers bringing lawsuits.

However, in the suit Gatton et al. v. T-Mobile USA, Inc., the plaintiffs convinced the trial court that the contractual provision requiring arbitration was unconscionable and therefore not enforceable. On June 22, 2007, the California appeals court affirmed the trial court's ruling. The class action is going forward.

Presumably, this means that customers of other cell phone companies will be able to sue their own cell phone companies as well. The particular grievances against T-Mobile in this class action are the imposition of non-prorated early termination fees and the selling of SIM-locked handsets. Both of these are common to other cellular carriers, although it's not clear from the appellate opinion whether T-Mobile is doing something extra-shady with the SIM-locking. (The appellate opinion states, "T-Mobile requires equipment vendors to alter the handsets they sell to T-Mobile by locking them with SIM locks and setting the SIM unlock code based on a secret algorithm provided by T-Mobile.") So if this suit is ultimately successful in California, it may not take long before non-prorated early termination fees and SIM-locked handsets die a long-awaited death.

PDF Link.

My book, Rule the Web: How To Do Anything and Everything on the Internet -- Better, Faster, Easier, just cracked Amazon's top 100 best seller list, and it's #2 in the "Computers and Internet" category. Thanks so much to everyone who bought a copy. I appreciate it! Link

Kellogg's Cereal Straws are straws lined with powdered sugar-cereal dust that kids can drink milk through. It makes the milk taste like the sludge left at the bottom of a cereal bowl. We feed kids gross things, but this reaches new levels of grotitude.

Upon perforating one of the two packages, the perfume of fake fruit and powdered milk permeated the air and tempted the taste buds (try to say that without sounding like Daffy Duck, I dare you). There’s something about unabashedly artificial flavoring that’s both charming and nostalgic…sexual, even. Alright, maybe not sexual, but something pleasant nonetheless. The straws were thinner than what the box indicated, looking more like real straws than giant-sized novelty pens. They are lined in the middle with that sickly sweet powdered milk that seems to be popping up in granola and cereal bars everywhere. Someone needs to tell these guys that it does NOT replace milk and that we can all tell it’s just sweetened coffee creamer. Fortunately, the flavor of that is masked by the Froot Loop shell.

Link (via The Consumerist)

Earlier this week, a bunch of posts popped up on sites including Slashdot and Wired Compiler about Privatunes, a free application that purports to anonymize DRM-free files you buy on iTunes.

Why would anyone need such an app? Well, because there's been much controversy in recent weeks over allegations that Apple may be tracking personal information in the headers of these DRM-free files, in order to limit sharing (previous BB post here).

Today there's word that Privatunes may not be what it's cracked up to be. Here's a snip from the EFF blog:

Unfortunately, the Privatunes coders didn't read our last post about iTunes tracking data. Aside from the name and email address, there are other fields that Apple, or a litigant that subpoenas Apple, could use to identify the purchasers of iTunes Plus files, even if they've been run through Privatunes 0.9.

In addition to the sign and chtb fields, there are several other places where iTunes Plus copies of the same song vary by three or four bytes (they can be readily observed with a program like vbindiff on *nix). It should be assumed that a file is identifying unless all of these fields have been overwritten.

Lastly, Privatunes 0.9 just overwrites the name and email address using spaces (0x20). This means that the length of these two fields can still be seen after the file has been modified. For full anonymization, these lengths should be made unreadable.

Link. (thanks, Cory!)

hglucky says:

Eric Mueller is a graphic designer who quickly got in line as soon as he heard there was one forming for the debut of the iPhone at the Apple store in Manhattan. He started out at #5, then #6. Now after coming and going a few times, he's got his wife Ramona Ponce at #19, and he's now (maybe) still #20.

Link

John says:

This is actually a tiny, random clip taken from The Boy in the Plastic Bubble (1976). Whether it's the botched editing job between "oooo-owwww", the palpable sense of self-satisfaction Reed exhibits after he's contained the chaos of bubbly eruption or the final announcement that the disaster has been averted - and "Champagne OK!"

Interesting that someone would go to the trouble of registering "champagneok.com" to post this silly but of fluff. Don't miss the "The Richard D James (inspired) Glitch-Core Remix" on the same page. Link

Jason says: Just did a phone interview with someone I'm sure you're familiar with, Douglas Rushkoff. We chatted about cult phenom The Secret, his next book Corporatized: The Myth of Self Interest and the influence of Muppet master Jim Henson’s trippy short film "The Cube." Link

First, we heard from the Bay-haters.

Now, we hear from BoingBoing readers and pals like Joel Johnson, who declares himself "totally gay for Transformers":

"You come out and your parents get all freaked out and tell you that it’s just a confusing time for you but you know, deep down, or not even that deep down it could be right at the surface, that you have to have some man inside of you. Doesn’t matter if you’re ashamed or feeling guilty; you just can’t deny that ache."

Susie told me later I was so excited that she thought perhaps I was coming out right there in the restaurant, something I am pretty sure she lives in legitimate fear of every time we go out to eat. Our neighbors set down their spoons.

"That’s how I feel about robots fighting. I know it’s juvenile. I know it’s going to be an awful movie. I just can’t help it.

I’m gay for robots fighting. And I want those robots to fight inside of me."

Link.

And Bonnie says,

I saw a preview screening of "Transformers" at work last night, with the ILM folks who actually worked on the effects, and I have to say it actually was kinda rad. The visual effects and sound design were mindblowing.

Even the usual Michael Bay-isms of supermodel women as mechanics and enginerds, people outrunning EVERYTHING, slo-mo action of helicopters in the sunsets and and doofus secret government officials seemed to work just fine with the movie's subject matter. It added to the movie's popcorn fun mentality.

Shia's acting was endearing and believable, and almost John Cusack like. And as expected Jon Voight and John Turturro brought their own acting chops to the table. All in all, I loved the over-the-top action, the humor, the inside jokes, the special effects, the chilling sound elements and even the camp.

Hardcore fans need to loosen up. After all, Bay did get voice actor Peter Cullen to return to his role as Optimus Prime. In this film, there really is more than meets the eye.

Link.

Previously on BB:

Breaking: Transformers movie "kind of sucks"

Lea sez, "I've put my first graphic novel, Texas Steampunk I: Cathedral Child (originally published by Image Comics in 1998), online under a Creative Commons license. My other goal was also to reach readers in countries other than the US. These readers been unable to read CC because of publishers' reluctance to publish any manga but 'real' (from Japan) manga, and prohibitve postage costs."

This is a fun, breezy, Tex-Japan mashup that's quite charming! Link (Thanks, Lea!)

Other Steampunk stuff on Boing Boing