Miche_Chan on Crafster has posted a set of embroidered "porno hankies": hankerchiefs with low-rez, hand-stitched pornographic scenes on them. Link (via Wonderland)

For your elaborate carving pleasure, these pumpkin skull templates to print and slice. Link (via Make)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: "Deadly Cute" -- cute animals photoshopped into sheer viciousness. Lots to like here, but none so creepy as the Spider Squirrel -- Hedgley Cute gives it a run for its money, though. Link

Programmers have created a functional programming language based on the peculiar speech of LOLCats. Linguists may analyze the grammar of LOLCats, but hackers make it DO STUFF. From Nick's Blog: "LOLCode is an emerging esoteric (and hilarious) language based on the dialect used in LOLCats images. It's been siezed upon by a group of people (myself included, now), and is being expanded into a real, workable, turing complete esoteric language (though nobody has proven its turing completeness yet!). The LOLCode.NET compiler is now working, and as a nearly-free bonus for using the .NET platform, you can even debug it in Visual Studio." Link (Thanks, Adam!)

See also:
Massive cache of kittah pix (aka LOLcats, cat macros)
Where LOLCats come from
LOLcats: the musical
Pedantic overanalyzer sucks all the fun out of LOLcats
Pedantic overanalysis of LOLcats not pedantic enough, says blowhard
True historic origins of the Laugh Out Loud cats
Laugh Out Loud Cats: more 1900s comics unearthed
LOLCTHULHU: Elder Gods meet LOLCats
Schroedinger's LOLCat
EFF privacy attorney gets pranked by interns and LOLCats
LOLtrek
LOLBible
Cat macros hijacked by heartless homosexuals

Blackandy says:

Long story short: Man is staying in hotel in NYC during the 9/11/2001 attacks. Hotel empties after attacks and device is found in man's hotel room closet that allows communication with airline pilots. Man is Egyptian national, and FBI questions him. Man denies owning device.

FBI agent threatens that man's family will be tortured in Egypt.

Man confesses, ultimately spending a month in jail before airline pilot shows up at hotel asking for radio left in man's room back. Whoops! Lawsuits ensue.

From Steve Bergstein's Psychosounds blog, where I found this:

"Higazy then realized he had a choice: he could continue denying the radio was his and his family suffers ungodly torture in Egypt or he confesses and his family is spared. Of course, by confessing, Higazy's life is worth garbage at that point, but ... well, that's why coerced confessions are outlawed in the United States."

Good thing the FBI doesn't do this any more. Right?

We never would have known any of this as the US Court of Appeals in Manhattan redacted the description of the torture threats in its decision, but someone posted an unredacted decision on the web for a brief time. And a PDF of that is what's making the rounds now.

Here's the link to a story on the situation from the ABA Journal.

In it, the court claims it redacted the information about the torture threats to protect Higazy and his family. The story doesn't say what they're being protected from.

Link

For sale on eBay: an old cap gun that says "The Chinese Must Go" on the handle. Bidding opens at $195.

The Chinese Must Go Mechanical cast iron cap pistol. It is in excellent condition with most of its original black paint. It is marked Pat. 2, 79 on the barrel and The Chinese Must Go on the grip. You can see where the pigtail was attached but it is missing on the Chinese man. Works Well. 5 inches long x 5 inches high.

Detroit Dave says: "One of the weirdest things I've seen... trying to suss out the historical context, maybe after the transcontinental railroad was completed? Or perhaps a more regional thing, maybe in the PNW where there were a lot of Chinese immigrants? Anyone able to shed some light on this?" Link

This $80 notebook starts out in the portrait aspect ratio, but as you go through it, page by page, it finally becomes a landscape oriented notebook.

Each of the 210 pages is cut to a different size, starting with the standing portrait format (18,4 x 13,3 cm), which gradually mutates to the lying landscape format (13,3 x 18,4 cm).

Link (Thanks, Craig!)

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we looked at this gorgeous Mitsubishi Fuso dump truck concept, the first review of the Asus Eee mini-laptop, smart ways to recycle your gadgets, a ginormous $1,000 Swiss Army knife, inside-out barware, an iPod alarm clock that looks surprisingly nice, tiny R/C trench compactors, a simple prototype folding electric scooter, the top ten patent holders in the U.S., a light-activated flute, a laptop stand that grabs your cables (although perhaps not your laptop), Texas Instruments' latest graphing calculator, robots that can learn to hug it out, a globe covered with blackboard, a multi-tool for demolition folk, an unlikely cardboard toilet, and Tomy's entry into the indoor R/C helicopter market.

And as required by the code, random gadget links and deals.

We also rebooted our contest with Neuros—it's the set-top box for those who hate DRM!—and made it easier for everyone to have a chance to win a Neuros OSD and NAS. I've also tossed in a bonus prize: an unlocked Nokia N95. Contest details live here.

In today's episode of Boing Boing tv:

David Silverman, director of The Simpsons, answers questions from our audience and cringes in horror when we drag an animated skeleton out of his closet -- Turbo Teen! (0:08 - 3:00). Then, we seek "slack" and internet salvation in a classic Church of the Subgenius ad from 1991, featuring music by Mark Mothersbaugh of DEVO. (3:21 - end)

Video Link.

Pavol Hvizdos just finished translating two of my works into Slovakian, releasing the translations under Creative Commons licenses and putting them on the Internet Archive. Pavol chose my third novel, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, and my short story Truncat (a sequel, of sorts, to Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom). This is way too cool. Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town in Slovakian, Truncat in Slovakian

More evidence that the real world is becoming a comic book, photographed in Edinburgh, Scotland. Click through to Wooster Collective for the full image and another shot.
Link

Andrew Smith built this stately and elegant "toy oscilloscope" that actually works but, he says, is more "intended to be a decorative conversation piece." He made his plans available via Electronics Weekly's Gadget Freak. From the project page:

I discovered that I had a really cute little 7cm CRT in the loft, together with several other valves of different types, and it seemed a good idea to make something decorative with them. For me, a lot of the charm of this piece resides in the unconventional layout and design, using a polished wooden box instead of the more usual metal chassis.

I have made several other projects in this genre which can be found here. I use pieces of mahogany strip left over from a hardwood floor; scrap material of this kind is readily available from local flooring companies, and with simple hand tools very satisfying results can be gained. There is an intended reference to the form of construction used for electrical equipment in the early decades of the last century, but in my hands the genre has gained a life of its own, and has become completely anachronistic.

Link (via MAKE: Blog)

Stephen Worth says:

In 1946, a young producer at Capitol Records, Alan Livingston was assigned the task of developing a children's line for the fledgling record company. He came up with the idea of a read-along record and book set featuring a circus clown named Bozo. The album, Bozo At The Circus, sold over a million copies, and helped to push Capitol to the top of the charts.

Along with Disney voice man, Pinto Colvig and musical director, Billy May, Livingston also produced Bozo On The Farm, Bozo And The Birds, and this one... Bozo And His Rocket Ship. All of the sets were re-released in the LP era, but this one was heavily edited, for obvious reasons. In this album, Bozo makes a survey of just about every ethnic stereotype imaginable! But that isn't the reason we're featuring it. We're spotlighting the wonderful work of the illustrators, Norm McCabe and Cecil Beard.

Link

A while back, I linked to Glyph Jockey's "punk baseball cards." He created more in the series, and here they are. Link

My friend Jens-Martin Skibsted, co-founder of the amazing Biomega bicycle company, and economist Nicolai Peitersen have launched Actics.com, a site that TreeHugger has dubbed the "ethical facebook." Basically, it allows companies who act right to show off their ethical values and those who might need their services to find them more easily. You can browse members by their values, such as environmentalism, integrity, openness, tolerance, transparency, and confidentiality. Jens-Martin first talked to me about this project two years ago and I'm thrilled that he and Nicolai have brought it to fruition. Here's what TreeHugger had to say about Actics.com:

How does is work? Like with any other social network, you register and define who you are for your profile. Since this one is all about actions and ethics, you get to choose your corporate or personal values and state how you act them out. It is then up to your friends, clients or investors to rate you out of 100 for how true you are to your values. To help you out, they can also send you suggestions and endorse you. A great feature of this software is that a plugin, showing your ethical performance, can be integrated into your website or your company’s intranet if you want to share your results with a bigger network.

Link to Actics, Link to TreeHugger post

Wiley, the publisher of Michael Bank's forthcoming book, Blogging Heroes, gave me permission to post the chapter that has an interview with me.

Here's a link to the 600kb PDF file: Link

Artist and famous tattoo flash designer Mitch O'Connell has an art opening at Zombo Gallery in Pittsburgh, PA on November 3.

Pittsburgh's Lawrenceville neighborhood is home to a growing community of restaurants, clubs and galleries. The area's newest and most hip 'n happenin' art space is Zombo Gallery!

This month's exhibiting artist, Mitch O'Connell, can be summed up in 3 words: Hot, Handsome and Hunkalicious! He's a beloved hanger-on of the popular "Lowbrow" art movement. His work has been featured in magazines from Newsweek to Playboy, on CD's from The Supersuckers to Less Than Jake and exhibited from New York to Berlin. His popular tattoo designs are also a fixture on the walls of tattoo shops around the world. He's treasured for his sense of humor, especially when it comes to pricing his paintings. Likes include: "keeping it real", "letting it all hang out", "doing his own thing" and "getting down". Dislikes include: gallery owners who favor artists whose work is "good" and "sells". My God, doesn't "adequate grooming" count for anything anymore in this crazy, topsy-turvy world?!

Mitch will also be signing copies of his new book from Last Gasp Publishing, "Mitch O'Connell Tattoos", a 264 page collection of the cream of the crop from his tattoo flash. Also available for your purchasing pleasure, (besides the original fine art masterpieces) will be skateboard decks, giclee prints, black light posters and whatever else Mitch decides to lug all the way from Chicago. His work has been described as "The best in the biz" by Tattoos.com, "One of the defining artists of his generation" by Tabu Tattoo Magazine and "One of the great artists of the lowbrow art scene" by Barracuda Magazine. Hey, we had to throw a few real quotes in here somewhere!

The opening party begins at 5:30 PM on Saturday, November 3rd 2007, and will include lots of free liquor (for Mitch). Patrons can fight over what he's unable to consume (good luck!). DJ Zombo is guaranteed to keep the joint rockin' all evening long.

Never Forget To Get Drunk will run from November 3rd through December 1st, 2007. Gallery hours are Wednesday through Friday from 4:00 PM to 8:00 PM, Saturday from Noon to 6:00 PM, or by appointment.

Zombo Gallery
4900 Hatfield Street
Pittsburgh, PA 15201
412-904-3703

Link

Orli Cotel of the Sierra Club writes, "I thought it was absurdly ironic that Former FEMA Director Michael Brown (aka Brownie) is pitching himself as an expert consultant for disaster management for the San Diego fires. Has everyone forgotten about Katrina??!!" From a press release issued by Cotton Companies, Brownie's private sector disaster response company:

"The agency has learned some hard lessons regarding the handling of mass evacuations especially in regard to the bureaucratic red tape that is involved in such a process," said Mr. Brown. "This is a tragic time for many of the people of California, and Cotton Companies is working to ensure that normalcy is restored and that businesses and organizations are back up and running as soon as possible."

Cotton has already deployed a team to San Diego to prepare recovery efforts and has a Community Assessment Team in full force.

Link

Howtoons is a terrific new science project book that has how-tos in the form of comic strips. Co-author Saul Griffith. who has been writing Howtoons comics for MAKE for the last 3 years, was recently awarded a MacArthur "genius" award.

Part comic strip and part science experiment, Howtoons shows children how to find imaginative new uses for common household items like soda bottles, duct tape, mop buckets, and more–to teach kids the "Tools of Mass Construction"!

Howtoons are cartoons that teach 8– to 15–year–old readers "how to" build, create, and explore things. Combining a fun, full–color cartoon format and real life science and engineering principles, Howtoons are designed to encourage kids to become active participants in the world around them.

Readers meet Tucker and Celine, a lovable brother and sister pair. Sick of watching TV and playing video games, Tucker and Celine decide to conquer every kid's nightmare: the dreaded summer o' boredom. Armed with countless ideas for fun projects, they set out to reclaim the sheer joy of playing. Fifteen practical, build–it–yourself projects are weaved into the Tucker and Celine storyline. With the narrators' help and clear step–by–step instructions, young readers will learn how to set up a workshop, create a marshmallow shooting gun, make ice cream without a freezer, play songs on a turkey baster flute, explore a homemade terrarium, launch a pressure–powered rocket, and more!

Utilizing inexpensive, kid–friendly materials, Howtoons will prove that the world at large is infinitely more exciting than anything happening on the TV or computer screen. Plus, each project will provide readers with practical skills and problem solving know–how that they can use in their everyday lives. These funny, interactive Howtoons are sure to inspire independence and creative savvy in young people everywhere.

Link

The USA Today reports that the US anti-terror watchlist has grown to more than 755,000 people, growing at a rate of more than 200,000 people per year. As Slashdot notes, "Adding about 548 people daily every day of the year does not seem to lend itself to a manual process with careful deliberation given or double checking being done for each person added."

"They are quickly galloping towards the million mark — a mark of real distinction because the list is already cumbersome and is approaching absolutely useless," said Tim Sparapani of the American Civil Liberties Union.

Link