EFF's got a sweet new t-shirt as a premium to donors. EFF's new designer, Hugh D'Andrade, has really been turning out some sweet-ass EFF schwag lately. Link (Thanks, Hugh!)

Every so often, an authentic Enigma machine, turns up on eBay. The Enigma machine, introduced in 1923 by the Chiffriermaschinen Aktien-Gesellschaft (Cipher Machines Stock Corporation), was used by the Germans to encrypt messages during World War II. With eight days left in the auction, the current bid on this specimen is $10,100 and the reserve has not been met. According the auction listing, this Enigma is in "museum condition" and includes extra lamps. Here's a description of the Enigma that I wrote for a 1999 article in Wired:

German soldiers issued an Enigma were to make no mistake about their orders if captured: Shoot it or throw it overboard.

Based on electronic typewriters invented in the 1920s, the infamous Enigma encryption machines of World War II were controlled by wheels set with the code du jour. Each letter typed would illuminate the appropriate character to send in the coded message.

In 1940, building on work by Polish code breakers, Alan Turing and his colleagues at the famed UK cryptography center Bletchley Park devised the Bombe, a mechanical computer that deciphered Enigma-encoded messages. Even as the Nazis beefed up the Enigma architecture by adding more wheels, the codes could be cracked at the Naval Security Station in Washington, DC - giving the Allies the upper hand in the Battle of the Atlantic. The fact that the Allies had cracked the Enigma code was not officially confirmed until the 1970s.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Enigma machine spotted on eBay Link (via Neatorama)

R.U. Sirius says: "10 Zen Monkeys received the following document from a friend who works as an aide to Republican Louisiana Senator David Vitter. It is the handwritten draft of the statement Senator Vitter planned to give before the press conference about his involvement in the "D.C. Madam" scandal."

The point is -— I'm a pretty good looking guy and I've got money and power. I don't have to pay for it. But the nice thing about hookers: you don't have to please 'em. You know what I mean? I mean, it's nice to make a lady cum, but as you get older, you really just want to be serviced by a pro. And Deborah Palfrey had her a full stable of fine mares, if you know what I mean.

I got into politics because a friend of mine who is a big time corporate attorney thought I'd be good at it. He said I should be a Republican. He explained to me all about crony capitalism and told me I'd make great connections and scads of money. And all I had to do was represent the interests of my friends and donors. They'd tell me what to do.

It was a totally sweet deal. But he didn't tell me about the moralism part —- about how you've got to be all about family values, and you've got to be for teen abstinence and against the queers and porn and abortion and Janet Jackson's nipples. And that's because the common Christian folks down in Louisiana don't care that much about whether my financial supporters make butt-loads of money or not. They care about pretending to hate sex -— like it tells you to do in The Bible.

Note: It's a parody.

Link

Urban Medium -- the folks who made the striking Che Trooper image -- have just shipped this swell, limited edition tee that shows Uncle Sam dispensing fear. Link

Salon has a profile of "wizard rock" bands, musicians inspired by Harry Potter. BB pal Vann Hall asks, "Are these the grandkids of Hawkwind?" From Salon:

"We're the Hungarian Horntails! Are you ready to burn this place down into a fiery wreck?" yells 8-year-old Darius Wilkins, onstage with bandmates Rayn Feeney, 9, and his younger brother, Holden, 5. They're in the middle of sound check on a muggy Saturday afternoon in June at Pete's Candy Store in Brooklyn. Seconds later, there's another high-pitched yelp from Darius: "We're the Hungarian Horntails, and we're going to blow this place up with fire and rock!"

The Hungarian Horntails are not just a rock band whose members are kids. They're a wizard-rock band, one of a growing worldwide cohort -- currently numbering 183 bands -- that emerged from the tight-knit, do-it-yourself community rooted in Harry Potter fandom. These bands use MySpace for publicity, produce and release their own music, and book concerts at libraries. The Horntails are named after characters from "The Goblet of Fire," and their songs have titles like "Kill the Basilisk" and "Which Witch Is Which?" Their first album is called "Burn Voldemort's Butt."

Link

Developed in the 1940s, Stratovision was a system to rebroadcast TV and FM radio signals via transmitters mounted on airplanes. Westinghouse radar engineer Charles E. Nobles invented the technology to bring media to "small town and farm homes" that he believed terrestrial transmitters atop city buildings couldn't reach. A 1948 demonstration fueled hype that Stratovision had the potential to transform media deliver. Two years later though, it was obsolete. From Air & Space Smithsonian:

(On June 23, 2948, a) B-29, orbiting 25,000 feet above Pittsburgh, rebroadcast the Republican convention directly from WMAR-TV in Baltimore, 9 to 10 p.m. EDT. The bomber was outfitted with an eight-foot mast on its vertical stabilizer to receive programs; the signal was sent from the antenna to the cabin, and on to the broadcast antenna. The antenna, stored horizontally in the bomb bay, projected 28 feet down when operating.

After the convention transmission, Martin and Westinghouse representatives trumpeted Stratovision’s future. They foresaw a nationwide Stratovision network, with programs beamed from one airplane to the next. Fourteen airplanes could bring TV and FM radio to 78 percent of the population; a comparable ground installation network would require more than 100 relay points, Westinghouse estimated. A fleet of 60 Martin 202 airliners would suffice...

In 1949, AT&T set up a coaxial cable network to connect the East Coast with the Midwest, largely through underground wiring. Westinghouse dropped Stratovision in 1950.

Link

Web 1.0 dot-bomber cum screed-writer Andrew Keen mentioned Boing Boing today in a debate (with David Weinberger, author of Everything is Miscellaneous) about the cultural impact of Web 2.0, published in the Wall Street Journal.

"Boing Boing is a surreal and supremely inane compendium of miscellaneous knowledge -- listing stories about kidney donor hoaxes, a pedagogical tract on "How to Kiss" and, a game-theory piece entitled "an economic analysis of leaving the toilet seat down." he wrote.

I guess we need to 'fess up. He's right -- Every single one of the 35,000 posts we've published since 2001 has been about organ scams, kissing, or toilet seats. We've been exposed! Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• America's supersized asses demand supersized toilet seats
• Comic Rockstars Toilet Seat Museum
• Gang drugs victims with a kiss
• HOWTO Kiss
• Lesbian kiss in Tiananmen Square under guards
• China harvests Falun Gong organs
• Black market organs in Baghdad

Monkey says: "Subversive Cross Stitch just announced their glow-in-the-dark fun cross-stitch kit by Ray Fenwick.

"Crafty Query" features an interview with fenwick as well!"

The kit, which contains everything you need to make this, costs $25. Link

The White Stripes completed a tour of every Canadian province and territory they'd never played before. The last gig was in St. John's, Newfoundland and it was a short one. Very short. One note, in fact.
Link to YouTube video, Link to CBC News story

The always-great tech-blog Global Nerdy has a great roundup of "named laws" of technology -- laws like "Linus's Law" ("with enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow"), "Occam's Law" (the simplest explanation is most likely to be true), named for some thinker or technologist, useful in any geek's daily round. Link

One of the most hazardous adversaries faced by astronauts, spacecraft, and satellites are so-called "killer electrons." The supercharged electrons may burst with 1,000 times more energy than a dental X-ray, exposing astronauts to massive amounts of radiation and sometimes frying circuitry or degrading solar power arrays. Previously, killer particles were thought to originate in the sun or even outside our solar system. But recently, scientists at Los Alamos National Labs looked closely at the outer radiation belt, about 13,000-16,5000 miles above the Earth, and now believe that the electrons are actually accelerated to "killer" speeds there. The Los Alamos research suggests that magnetic storms and other kinds of "space weather" affect the risk of killer electrons. From National Geographic:

The discovery may aid scientists in ongoing efforts to protect satellites and astronauts from the particles' damaging effects...

"We cannot control this kind of space weather any more than we can control the Earth's weather," (NASA researcher Mike Xapsos said.)

"However, having a better understanding of the process helps us make more accurate predictions of when spacecraft can expect trouble and how to deal with it."

Link

My guest on today's live call-in Rule the Web show (using the awesome BlogTalkRadio system) is Merlin Mann of 43Folders.com, a site about personal productivity, life hacks, and simple ways to make your life a little better. He's also the host of the wonderful Merlin Show.

To listen to the show, visit BlogTalkRadio at 5pm Pacific Time. If you want to ask Merlin or me a question during the show, call us at (646) 915-8698. Link

Prankster artist Mark Jenkins, creator of the infamous tape babies and lollipop parking meters, recently placed a dummy in a Brazil cafeteria, positioning her face-down in her food. Then Mark caught the patrons' reactions on video.
Link

Previously on BB:
• Mark Jenkins's Tape Babies Link
• Mark Jenkins's Traffic-Go-Round Link
• Mark Jenkins casts a human head in packing tape Link
• Mark Jenkins's Meter Pops street installation Link

Johann Hari of the Independent (UK) paid $1200 to take a cruise with 500 "straight-talking, gun-toting, God-fearing Republican" readers of the conservative National Review magazine. His mission: to "find out what American conservatives say when they think the rest of us aren't listening."

I lie on the beach with Hillary-Ann, a chatty, scatty 35-year-old Californian designer. As she explains the perils of Republican dating, my mind drifts, watching the gentle tide. When I hear her say, " Of course, we need to execute some of these people," I wake up. Who do we need to execute? She runs her fingers through the sand lazily. "A few of these prominent liberals who are trying to demoralise the country," she says. "Just take a couple of these anti-war people off to the gas chamber for treason to show, if you try to bring down America at a time of war, that's what you'll get." She squints at the sun and smiles. " Then things'll change."

Link

A reminder: I'll be reading and signing at San Diego's Mysterious Galaxy books tonight as part of a series of San Diego appearances by the writers who are teaching at the Clarion Science Fiction Writers Workshop at UCSD. The reading starts at 7PM -- hope to see you then.

Also: I'll be back in San Diego next week for ComicCon, where I'm one of the guests of honor. Here's my schedule there:

* Thursday, Noon-1PM: Spotlight on Cory Doctorow, room 5AB, followed by a signing
* Friday, 11:30-12:30: IDW publishing, room 4
* Saturday, 1-2PM: Where Do They Get Those Marvelous Toys?, room 8, followed by a signing

A special request for any Canadians planning on attending the Mysterious Galaxy event tonight: I have come down with a miserable cold, and I have run out of Buckley's Mixture (the surprisingly vile and effective Canadian cold-syrup). I would be forever in your debt if you could bring some down with you!

Link to Mysterious Galaxy details, Link to ComicCon schedule