Above: Laugh Out Loud Cats meet flowcharts. Below, the most-commented Boing Boing posts of the past 7 days.

Bob Dylan warns of Cylon invasion (Cory)

New iPods reengineered to block synching with Linux (Cory)

Review of $35 Blackwing 602 pencil (Mark)

Magazine back issues on DVD (Mark)

Dr Who services planned for Welsh church (Cory)

Hidden bear in Toblerone logo (Mark)

Discovery paves way for gamma-ray annihilation lasers (Mark)

Capitol police attack, break leg of anti-war minister (video) (Mark)

French art from 1910 depicting the year 2000 (Pesco)

Magicians innovate without IP law (Pesco)

Blog about living in a van down by the river (Mark)

Artist will send 300 meter banana 50km above the earth (Mark)

Many scientists unhappy about Lucy tour (Pesco)

StopTheSpying: Tell the Dems to keep AT&T on the hook for NSA wiretapping (Cory)

Water leak in overhead apartment creates beautiful bump in ceiling (Mark)

Fake sunroof for car (Mark)

1966 prediction of home computer in 1999 (Video link updated) (Mark)

Jadi, a 27-year old blogger in Tehran, tells BoingBoing that Google and related services, such as Gmail, are now blocked by a number of major ISPs inside Iran. Link.

Update: ...and now they're unblocked, at least for the time being. Link (thanks, Seth Finkelstein)

The Canadian government is backpedalling on its proposal to make it easier for cops to wiretap the Internet without a warrant (the original document called the need to get wiretap warrants "a problem"). Now the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's Search Engine program is crowdsourcing a set of questions for Stockwell Day, the minister responsible for the proposal (Day refused to grant them an interview). Day's office is looking to find time for an interview I blogged about this last week -- it's some creepy, PATRIOT Act-style stuff, and the fact that the government was planning to conduct its hearing in secret sure doesn't help. Link (Thanks, Jesse)

(Disclosure: I am a paid columnist for the CBC's SearchEngine)

The new episode of The IT Crowd -- the ass-kicking nerd comedy from Graham Linehan, creator of Father Ted -- aired this week. Season two, episode four ("The Dinner Party") is another in this season's even-funnier, even-weirder installments -- this time, Jen and her new boyfriend are having a dinner party with her three single female friends, and his male friends cancel out, meaning that the IT department have to fill in. I watched this last night in the hotel room and nearly woke up the neighbors laughing.

As usual, I watched this by downloading the torrent. Channel 4, the broadcaster, has its own streaming service, but it won't run under Linux.

In other awesome news, Mike noticed that The IT Crowd Season Two DVD is already listed for pre-order on Amazon UK. Last season's DVD featured many excellent gracenotes (including leet subtitles), and I've just ordered the new one.

Link to ISOhunt Torrent, Link to Mininova Torrent, Link to "The Dinner Party" on YouTube (Thanks, Dave, Tian and Mike!)

(Disclosure: I was an unpaid consultant on series one of The IT Crowd, and my fiancee is about to start work at Channel Four)

See also:
IT Crowd Season 2, Episode 3: Great anti-piracy PSA sendup
IT Crowd Season 2, Episode 2 -- keyboard-destroying nerd sitcom
The IT Crowd -- season two, episode one

RIP, Robert Jordan, author of the monster bestselling fantasy series The Wheel of Time. Jordan had been suffering from a chronic illness for some years now, making it hard for him to finish new installments in the series -- he died with the books unfinished. Some of his friends and colleagues are discussing his life and death on Making Light. He was 58. Link

(Photo credit: Jor dcon2005.jpg, by Wikipedia user Valorian, released under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image.)

Kim sez, "I was shopping in Toronto's Kensington Market on Saturday afternoon, when I ran across a CD stapled to a hydro pole, promoting a band's upcoming show. I ripped it off, listened to the tracks, and checked out the band's link on the CD. Anyways, I thought this is pretty cool - they're giving the album away for free (downloads on the website), selling a physical CD (with handmade covers), licensing it under a Creative Commons license, and using free CDs stapled to poles as a promotion gimmick. And the music is pretty good too." Link (Thanks, Kim!)

Remember Mark's post about TD Ameritrade customers receiving weird pump-n-dump stock scam spam from TD Ameritrade? Turns out the company was hacked, and those spams resulted from that data breach:

Online brokerage TD Ameritrade Holding Corp. said Friday one of its databases was hacked and contact information for its more than 6.3 million customers was stolen. A spokeswoman for the Omaha-based company said more sensitive information in the same database, including Social Security numbers and account numbers, does not appear to have been taken.

But Ameritrade has known about the problem at least since late May when two of its customers sued the brokerage in federal court because they were receiving unwanted e-mail ads on accounts used only for Ameritrade.

The data on Ameritrade's servers may have been vulnerable for an extended period of time dating back at least to last October, according to the lawsuit filed by lawyer Scott A. Kamber. The company said Friday the problem had recently been fixed.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit had wanted the court to order Ameritrade to tell its customers about the data problem, but Ameritrade issued its release before a hearing could be held. The plaintiffs are also seeking damages and are trying to qualify as a class-action lawsuit.

Link.

Boing Boing reader jere7my says,

My mom painted these Converse Chucks in the Attic red-figure technique as a gift for my fiancée, the classics prof. Each of the four sides displays a different scene from a different Greek vase — that's Odysseus bound to the mast in the foreground there. (If it were really in the red-figure style, of course, the red clay would be the only unpainted bits. But why be a noodge?)

Hey, everyone! Osama Bin Laden's corporate website expires on 9-11-01, and it's up for sale on eBay.

Boing Boing reader Dave Kha says, "While staying at a hostel in Prague I noticed this graffiti on one of the doors. I'm not sure if they're just taking the old "there's no place like home" joke and mistranslating it, or making a statement about the life of a wanderer."

Moment of tabloid video zen: OJ Simpson (who's since been arrested) leaves a Las Vegas wedding where he reportedly served as best man -- on the way out, he's singing "If I only Had a Brain," from the Wizard of Oz. Some bystanderdude yells, "Hey, I got a brain!" Video Link.

Steve Wozniak attended the Emmys tonight as the date of comedienne Kathy Griffin.

Every phrase that appeared on Judah Friedlander's trucker hats from season one of 30 Rock.

Sometimes, cybersquatting does not pay. A Las Vegas man faces about 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to wire fraud for impersonating an intellectual property lawyer and threatening lawsuits against the owners of Internet domain names.

Bill Dube, inventor of the electric 'KillaCycle' motorcycle, crashed while demoing a burnout at Wired NextFest. The accident takes place about 70% of the way through the video at this link.

Over at StreetTech, BB pal Gareth Branwyn has a neat post up today on a tribe of Steampunk bellydancers. Gareth says, "I especially like how the belt apparently says 'Not Yours.' Gotcha." Link.

In this very odd YouTube video, worshippers at a Syrian mosque witness what they believe to be a holy miracle (the details are in the video description). Everyone holds their cellphones up in the air, hoping to phonecam video the sacred apparition.

(thanks, chris curry, Andrew Breitbart, patrick, Sharelle, Sharelle, Darrell Cadwallader, Humphrey Cheung)

Over at CNET, Chris Soghoian (huh, he's blogging there now) blogs:

In a recent blog posting, a German operator of a Tor anonymous proxy server revealed that he was arrested by German police officers at the end of July. Although he was released shortly afterwards, information about the arrest had been kept quiet until his lawyers were able to get the charges dropped.

(...) The police were investigating a bomb threat posted to an online forum for German police officers. The police traced one of the objectionable posts on the forum to the ip address for Janssen's server. Up until his arrest, Alex Janssen's Tor server carried over 40GB of other random strangers' Internet traffic each day.

Showing up at his house at midnight on a Sunday night, police cuffed and arrested him in front of his wife and seized his equipment. In a display of both bitter irony and incompetence, the police did not take or shut-down the Tor server responsible for the traffic they were interested in, which was located in a different city, over 500km away.

Link

That hash/checksum mentioned previously on Boing Boing has apparently been broken: Link.

Visitors to the two Bay Area Maker Faires will remember the amazing supercomputing cluster made from recycled PCs running on a veggie oil-fueled generator, and Silicon Death Valley, a fun cemetery of computer industry cast-offs. Those were the work of the good people at the Alameda County Computer Recycling Resource Center, a fantastic Berkeley, California-based non-profit group that recycles anything that plugs into the wall. Its director, James Burgett, is a champion of DIY culture, opening his doors to makers looking for old gear for projects, but their primary focus is "the charitable placement of computers in the hands of those who do not have access." As the ACCRC slogan goes, "Obsolescence is just a lack of imagination." Now though, the ACCRC is in trouble. The Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency has issued the ACCRC a violation that could make it very hard for the group to stay in business. And, quite frankly, that's a damned shame.

MAKE: founder Dale Dougherty has more at the O'Reilly Radar blog. From his post:

Let's imagine that you set up a non-profit to recycle electronics and divert computers from going directly into landfills or otherwise being destroyed by a grinder. You look for ways to refurbish these components and possibly recombine them into functional computers that go out to areas and institutions that have difficulty obtaining computers. You might even collect some of the vintage electronics that comes through the door and hang on to this stuff because you think it's cool and somebody may want it someday. Yes, your place looks a bit like a junkyard but it's one that employs people to do something with the junk you collect. And while you have organized these efforts as a charity, you have figured out how to break even from providing these recycling services and you don't need donations or government support.

You do all this and then a government inspector drops in one day. This is an inspector from the Department of Toxic Substance Control of the California Environmental Protection Agency . You've had inspectors before and the visits have been cordial. Your operation is not unlike the Salvation Army or the Goodwill. You have worked with the DTSC in the past. You think you're a friend of the environment because you repurpose equipment that would otherwise be waste.

You expect to pass the inspection but no. Instead, you get written up. Perhaps it's because there's a new inspector in town with something to prove. No matter, you've now been handed a Section 1 violation, which means they can shut you down or make it very hard for you to stay in business. The inspector says that you don't have a proper inventory of all the parts. The inspector says that you have to get rid of equipment after a year, so you'll have to clear out your museum of collectibles. This is the letter of the law and you're expected to follow it. You're given 30 days to comply.

Now, if this really was you, you might get upset. You'd see all the work you've done about to be undone, unravelled. It seems nobody cares that you're in this mess and the government, which seems to promote and support environmental cleanup, is using narrow interpretations of its regulations to block the operations of a group engaged in precisely this kind of activity.

Link to O'Reilly Radar post, Link to James Burgett's blog, Link to ACCRC

Previously on BB:
• ReMake: Bay Area electronics recycling event starts tomorrow!Link
• Earth Day: MAKE: and Alameda County Computer Resource Center recycling event Link

Chooka makes cool women's and children's rain boots styled after motorcycle boots and emblazoned with fun tattoo graphics and pop designs. You can see the whole range at the Chooka site or pick up a pair from Amazon for around $21 to $65, depending on the style.
Link to buy, Link to Chooka

It's rare that a copyright lawyer gets to do good in this world, but here's a chance -- the Electronic Frontier Foundation is hiring just such a fixer to help save the world:

EFF is seeking an intellectual property staff attorney for its legal team. Responsibilities will include litigation, public speaking, media outreach, plus legislative and regulatory advocacy, all in connection with a variety of intellectual property and high technology matters.

Qualified candidates should have at least four years of legal experience, with knowledge in patent law and at least one other IP specialty (copyright, trademark, trade secret). Litigation experience is preferred, including significant experience managing cases, both overall case strategy and day-to-day projects and deadlines. Candidates should have good communication skills and interest in working with a team of highly motivated lawyers and activists in a hard-working nonprofit environment. Strong writing and analytical skills as well as the ability to be self-motivated and focused are essential. Tech savviness and familiarity with Internet civil liberties and high tech public interest issues preferred. This position is based in San Francisco.

Link (Thanks, Cindy!)

Hugo-award winning science fiction writer Spider Robinson has begun a podcast. He sez, "A series of 8 essays about space and space travel that I wrote during the past year while I was first Writer In Res at Vancouver's H.R. Macmillan Space Centre and posted on their site are now being made available as podcasts. The first is already up on my site and ultimately all 8 podcasts should be available both there and at the MacMillan's site."

Spider adds this tantalizing news: "As we speak I'm recording most if not all of my short work for podcast, right here in my office. I've been reading my own novels aloud for Blackstone Audiobooks for some time, and my maiden effort, CALLAHAN'S LEGACY [Ed note: I greatly enjoyed this one!], was a finalist for the industry's annual Audie Award this year. They have a half dozen in inventory and at least three more coming, as well as Robert A. Heinlein's ROCKET SHIP GALILEO [Ed note: Squee!] (the first book I ever read in my life, at age 6). But Blackstone is only interested in novels--and some of my best work is in shorter lengths, including all three of my Hugo winners so far. So I'm recording stories right here at home, running an Apex 460 microphone through a preamp into a G4 Powerbook. It's the same model mic that Rob Bailey's Treehouse Studio here on Bowen Island BC has been using to record all my audiobooks, and it makes me sound like The Voice Of God." Link

See also: Spider Robinson's Hugo-winning "Melancholy Elephants" online

The "Captain America" flag patch is just one piece of Easy Rider memorabilia that Peter Fonda is auctioning off next month through Heritage Auction Galleries. Also on the block are Fonda's Department of Defense badge that decorated the jacket, a prototype gold Rolex he wore in the film (but not the one he tosses away), a gold record of the soundtrack, and other personal items unrelated to the film. The estimate on the flag is $50k, the D.O.D. badge, $15, and the Rolex, $10k. Fonda's sharp Ray-Ban Olympian shades don't appear to be for sale at this time. Penned by Fonda, Dennis Hopper, and Terry Southern, produced by Fonda, and directed by Hopper, the 1969 road movie is a classic of the counterculture, and American culture in general.
Link to Heritage Auction Galleries, Link to watch Easy Rider's rousing opening credits