For the past 24 weeks, I've been reading Bruce Sterling's classic 1992 nonfiction book The Hacker Crackdown aloud on my podcast. The Hacker Crackdown was the first free online book I ever heard of, and it tells the engrossing story of the 1990 "Operation Sundevil" Secret Service sweep of hackers, which led to the formation of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer.

When I told Bruce I wanted to read The Hacker Crackdown aloud, he said, "You're going to read the E911 document aloud?" The E911 document ("Control Office Administration Of Enhanced 911 Services For Special Services and Account Centers") is an impenetrable bureaucratic document that was pilfered from a Bell South compute by a young hacker, and which led to an incredible domino-chain of legal and political ramifications. Bell South claimed that the slim document cost more than $79,000 to produce (the calculus by which this number was arrived at is hilariously dumb), and that the document itself was so hot that it could not even be shown to a jury, lest it enter the court record and be used to crash the nation's emergency telecoms infrastructure. (It turns out that the document was not secret after all -- that another division of Bell was selling it for $10)

So this week on my podcast, I got to the E911 document. It took about 25 minutes to read it aloud. It is the most amazing jumble of acronyms, passive voice prose and gibberish that I've ever seen. It's a hoot -- and a guaranteed soporific. Go ahead and download the podcast and see if you can make any sense of it. Link, Link to subscribe to my podcast feed

Nature Magazine's announced that it's going to share all its human genome papers under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike licenses.The genomes themselves are not copyrightable and go into a public database, but the papers -- which are a vital part of the science -- may now be freely copied by any non-commercial publisher.

In the continuing drive to make papers as accessible as possible, NPG is now introducing a 'creative commons' licence for the reuse of such genome papers. The licence (see http://www.nature.com/authors/editorial_policies/license.html) allows non-commercial publishers, however they might be defined, to reuse the pdf and html versions of the paper. In particular, users are free to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the contribution, provided this is for non-commercial purposes, subject to the same or similar licence conditions and due attribution.

In 1996, as human genome sequencing was getting under way, leading players stated: "It was agreed that all human genomic sequence information, generated by centres funded for large-scale human sequencing, should be freely available and in the public domain in order to encourage research and development and to maximise its benefit to society" (see http://www.ornl.gov/sci/techresources/Human_Genome/research/bermuda.shtml). These principles have continued to guide the field, and NPG has consistently made genome papers freely available in keeping with them. This new licence allows us to formalize the arrangement.

Link

Tim from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "At EFF, we've just sent out an urgent action alert. Monday morning, the Foreign Intelligence Service Bill bill finally goes to the Senate floor, and at noon the Senate will cast their most important votes yet on Telecom Immunity for participation in massive, nationwide illegal NSA wiretapping. We've set up an action alert page for Boing Boing readers to contact their Senators, and would be much obliged if you could share the link."

The Senate is poised to grant retroactive immunity for telecoms that broke the law! On Monday, there will be critical, make-or-break votes in the Senate -- contact your Senator immediately to stop telecom immunity!

Senate lawmakers must support Senator Chris Dodd and other heroes in allowing a full debate to proceed on Monday, and they must vote to strip telecom immunity from the bill.

The Senate should not let the telecoms off the hook. Granting immunity sets a dangerous precedent, sending the message that lawbreaking is acceptable and that the rights of Americans can be freely infringed by private companies in defiance of the law. And though the debate about the proper process of collecting foreign intelligence is complex, the issue of telecom immunity is not. The facts are simple enough: the telecoms broke the law, so the Senate should let Americans have their day in court.

Link

See also:
EFF suing AT&T for helping NSA illegally spy on Americans
William Gibson on NSA wiretapping
StopTheSpying: Tell the Dems to keep AT&T on the hook for NSA wiretapping
Time's Joe Klein gets everything wrong in column about NSA domestic spying
Congress: don't cripple the suit against the NSA's warrantless wiretapping program
NSA domestic spying: reaction from a crypto mail-list moderator
NSA's domestic data-mining ops gathered vast troves of info
NSA spies on US: calls, emails intercepted without warrants
Data mining prompted fight over NSA domestic spying program
ACLU map of NSA's domestic phone, 'net surveillance
Liveblogging court hearings: NSA's spying, AT&T's alleged complicity
AT&T built warrantless wiretap rooms for the NSA
CALL CONGRESS NOW: NSA wiretapping to be legalized THIS WEEK!
Schneier op-ed on unchecked presidential power, NSA spying
Government appeals its loss in NSA/ATT domestic spying case
Act NOW to keep NSA cases in public court

The Phone Recording Archive sports hundreds of samples of recorded voices from different phone systems around the USA, including a ton of old Bell System clips, such favorites as:

* Invalid Access code
* Not from this calling area
* All circuits are busy
* Can't process custom calling request
* Dial 1 first
* Disconnected number
* Don't dial 0
* Don't dial 1
* Please hang up and try again
* Due to heavy calling...
* Please check the instruction manual
* Call not completed as dialed
* Call did not go through
* Call not completed, please check number or call operator
* Due to telephone company facility trouble...
* Not from the phone you are using

Link (Thanks, Luke!)

The latest in my ongoing series of photos from my travel: discarded books on the streets of New York (near Union Square). Note Future Shock at the top of the pile. In my experience, this is one of North America's most discarded books -- it's a reliable yard-sale find, a couple copies can be had at any decent used book store, and they even turn up on the street sometimes. I've sometimes dreamed of rescuing all these poor, abandoned futures and making a ziggurat out of them. Link

Update: From the comments, Vincent sez, "Here's even more Future Shock color-based art." (Photo: "Lots of Future Shock" by Joshua Callaghan)

Van sez, "Nice bar-chart showing skyrocketing increase in federal contracts for shredding services. In 2000, the government spent a little over $450k to dispose of pesky documents; by 2006, the cost of keeping secrets had risen to $2.9. And 2007? At midpoint, $2,7 million and rising..." Link (Thanks, Van!)

Today's Salon features a long first-person account of Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah, who was kidnapped to a CIA "black site" torture camp. It's strong and scary stuff, and the people responsible deserve to be hauled into court, shown up for the criminals they are, and stuck in a cell for the rest of their lives. The traitors in government who sanctioned this program should join them. Torture is a cancer. Extrajudicial imprisonment is a cancer. These things rot democracy. They rot nations.

The CIA held Mohamed Farag Ahmad Bashmilah in several different cells when he was incarcerated its network of secret prisons known as "black sites." But the small cells were all pretty similar, maybe 7 feet wide and 10 feet long. He was sometimes naked, and sometimes handcuffed for weeks at a time. In one cell his ankle was chained to a bolt in the floor. There was a small toilet. In another cell there was just a bucket. Video cameras recorded his every move. The lights always stayed on -- there was no day or night. A speaker blasted him with continuous white noise, or rap music, 24 hours a day.

The guards wore black masks and black clothes. They would not utter a word as they extracted Bashmilah from his cell for interrogation -- one of his few interactions with other human beings during his entire 19 months of imprisonment. Nobody told him where he was, or if he would ever be freed.

It was enough to drive anyone crazy. Bashmilah finally tried to slash his wrists with a small piece of metal, smearing the words "I am innocent" in blood on the walls of his cell. But the CIA patched him up.

So Bashmilah stopped eating. But after his weight dropped to 90 pounds, he was dragged into an interrogation room, where they rammed a tube down his nose and into his stomach. Liquid was pumped in. The CIA would not let him die.

Link

Joshua Jaffa has a beautiful, lyrical story in the New York Times about the declining sport of homing pigeon racing. The sport has a long and honorable history, and you can really sense the incredible, magnificent obsessions of the players in the article.

New York’s pigeon clubs, loosely organized by geography and custom, are a cross between an urban sportsman’s lodge and a time capsule of immigrant, working-class New York. Even as recently as a generation back, fleets of racing pigeons swirled above New York like pulsing gray clouds, but the numbers of racers and birds have thinned, with not enough new fliers to replace the old.

Yet the dynamics of a pigeon race have remained mostly the same. The birds are trucked to a central “liberation point” anywhere from 100 to 500 miles from the city, where they are released so they can fly home. The birds’ owners sit waiting by the coops on their rooftops, or in their backyards. Most birds return within several hours, but some take days or even months. Others never come back...

Pigeon fliers, whose flocks usually number 40 to 80 birds, do indeed treat the birds like fine automobiles, feeding them a careful tonic of antibiotics and vitamins, and birdseed blends with names like Tipple Mix and Vinny’s Candy. Steroids are forbidden, and there is random drug testing at many larger races. A champion pigeon can fetch several thousand dollars at auction, with the hope that it will breed future generations of winners.

“It’s like having your own sports team,” said one Viola club flier. “And you’re the owner, the trainer, the doctor.”

Link (via Kottke)

(Photo: Downsized, cropped thumbnail from a NYT photo credited to Jeff Swensen)

Google today announced Knol, which would appear to be their response to online knowledge repositories like Wikipedia and Mahalo:

Earlier this week, we started inviting a selected group of people to try a new, free tool that we are calling “knol”, which stands for a unit of knowledge. Our goal is to encourage people who know a particular subject to write an authoritative article about it. The tool is still in development and this is just the first phase of testing. For now, using it is by invitation only. But we wanted to share with everyone the basic premises and goals behind this project.

The key idea behind the knol project is to highlight authors. Books have authors’ names right on the cover, news articles have bylines, scientific articles always have authors — but somehow the web evolved without a strong standard to keep authors names highlighted. We believe that knowing who wrote what will significantly help users make better use of web content. At the heart, a knol is just a web page; we use the word “knol” as the name of the project and as an instance of an article interchangeably. It is well-organized, nicely presented, and has a distinct look and feel, but it is still just a web page. Google will provide easy-to-use tools for writing, editing, and so on, and it will provide free hosting of the content. Writers only need to write; we’ll do the rest.

Link to Scott Beale's post, with pointers to some of the many online discussions around this today.

The Onion AV Club has posted an extensive and excellent list of redonkulous band names in 2007. I am fond of the "ANIMALS" section of this list:

Pistol Whipping Party Penguins

SuperHeavyGoatAss

Baboon Torture Division (Their site proudly boasts that it ranks "1 for Baboon Torture Porn on Google.")

Those Fucking Unicorns

Unicorn Dream Attack

Sex Rat

Penguins With Shotguns

Tigers Can Bite You

Link to full list, which includes links to real live band myspaces and websites on some of the internets. (thanks, Paul Hoffman)

"I am making a small book and needs fact in regard to End of the world. If you believe that now is the end of the world and you have solid fact I will buy the info from you for $5.00 each fact, For example you can say: According to ABCD- EFG this is the end of the world. I need a total of 200 solid believable facts it equals $1000." Link. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!

Lokulokus are little plastic toy pigs from Japan. Throw them onto a tabletop and they'll be squashed flat. Then they'll slowly return to their normal roly-poly shape. The video is a delight. Link

Jehane Noujaim (the documentary filmmaker of Control Room) and TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design) are asking professional and amateur filmmakers to submit their work for Pangea Day -- a "global film event showcasing short films from around the world."

How to produce and submit your short film:

Pangea Day films are meant to be visual stories, ones that can be understood despite language barriers, and therefore should not rely on dialogue. If dialogue is required, Pangea Day organizers are asking that videos have English subtitles so that all films can be translated. In order to show as many videos as possible, submissions must be 5 minutes or less.

Filmmakers with submissions should upload their films at http://www.youtube.com/group/pangeaday and register their film at www.pangeaday.org.

A panel of jurors, led by Noujaim and other renowned members of the film community, will review all submissions and select the winning films to be screened on Pangea Day.

Link

Arglebargle! lovingly compiled a bunch of cutaway drawings of the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building.

One of the great things about the Fantastic Four comics was all the super-nutty Kirby gizmos and gadgets. Crazy stuff --like James Bond gear on steroids and acid! And talk about high maintenance... the team needed enough space for a Fantasti-car, a Pogo Plane, a Fantasti-Copter, a Private Passenger ICBM, an Observatory, an entrance to the negative zone, a computer room, a chemical lab, a photo analysis lab, a projection room, a gymnasium, trophy room and living quarters (just to name a few).

Link

The Best That Ever Did It, by Leonard S. Zinberg (aka Ed Lacy), is a mystery novel from 1955.

Barney Harris, 248-pound auto mechanic and private investigator, is hired by a policeman's widow to root out police corruption and bring her husband’s murderer to justice.

Link

Matthew says: "Reuters and the Washington Post reports that amongst other unusual and possibly illegal behavior, Ginger Cruz, a deputy to the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction, has threatened to curse employees with magic."

Current and former SIGIR employees have told investigators that Bowen's deputy, Ginger Cruz, a self-described wiccan, threatened to put hexes on employees and made inappropriate sexual remarks.

Link

Tim says: "Bryan Mumford makes some interesting gadgets -- none more interesting than the Mystery Box. Designed to look inviting, it automatically slams its lid when approached, then teasingly creeps it back open when you leave."

The Mystery Box consists of a polished cherry wood box placed on top of a spruce pedestal. The box has a hinged lid, which is open, and the inside is lined with black velvet.

When you see this box on a pedestal, you think to yourself

"This is some special box, and something special is inside of it."

So you walk over to look inside. But as soon as you get within 6 feet of the box, the hinged lid slams shut and won't open.

If you walk away from the box, it begins to feel safe again, and the lid opens an inch or so. If you leave it alone, after 5 or 10 seconds, it opens another inch or two. If you still leave it alone, it will open a bit more. Finally, it decides it's safe once again and, like a cautious anemone, it opens all the way up. But as soon as you approach it, it slams shut.

Yes, there is something special inside and no, I won't tell you what it is.

Link

The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's radio programme Search Engine did a great segment this week on the Canadian DMCA kerfuffle, focused on the grassroots campaign that packed the house at Industry Minister Jim Prentice's Christmas Party last week and the Parliamentary fight that followed. This is inspiring stuff, hearing from all these friendly geeks who're trying out activism for the first time because this issue really moves them. You gotta hear the Parliamentary fight -- the New Democratic Party's copyright critic is on fire, and Prentice comes across as a bumbler. Link

(Disclosure: I am a paid columnist for Search Engine)

See also:
Canadian DMCA rally/celebration in Toronto next Tuesday
Canadian DMCA cancelled (again) (for now)
Canadian DMCA to be reintroduced -- your action needed NOW!
Canadian DMCA stalled, won't be introduced (today, at least)!
Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports
O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem
Canadian DMCA introduced
CANADIANS! Tomorrow is your best chance to fight the Canadian DMCA! Event in Calgary, national phone-in
Canada's DMCA won't get any consumer rights added to it for a decade
Facebook group for fighting Canada's DMCA growing fast
Ranting hand-puppet tackles Canada's DMCA
HOWTO Fight Canada's coming DMCA copyright law
Canada's coming DMCA will be the worst copyright yet
Canadian DMCA: how it might have happened
CBC radio show needs your input for question with Minister responsible for Canadian DMCA
Canadian Industry Minister refuses to defend Canadian DMCA in public

Elizabeth McGrath is a Los Angeles artist who creates exquisitely creepy and lovely dioramas and sculptures involving nightmarishly mutant animals, circus sideshow decadence, and delightfully gross horror movie gore. Liz is a master of faux taxidermy. She doesn't use animal parts at all, instead creating her terrifying beasts from resin, fake fur, and fake leather layered over taxidermy armatures and beautified with paint, roofing tar, and hand-sewn fabric. Seen here, "Deer House" (37" x 20" x 12") and "Ready for the Parade - Strip XXIII" (35" x 30" x 6.5"). Liz has a new solo show, titled The Incurable Disorder, opening this Saturday at the Billy Shire Fine Arts gallery in Culver City, California. Along with dozens of sculptures and watercolors, a new 3D video from Liz's goth-country band Miss Derringer will be screened. Earlier this week, I visited Liz's studio and found her to be wonderfully charming, funny, and light-hearted. I think her art embodies this juxtaposition of the cute and scary, the hysterically funny and brutally tragic. Look for my interview with Liz McGrath on an upcoming episode of BBtv.

Link to online gallery at Billy Shire Fine Arts
Link to Elizabeth McGrath's site
Link to Miss Derringer on MySpace
Link to buy Elizabeth McGrath's monograph, Everything That Creeps

A man nearly died at a Nuremberg airport security checkpoint after necking two litres of vodka rather than letting the security people confiscate it.

The incident occurred at the Nuremberg airport on Tuesday, where the 64-year-old man was switching planes on his way home to Dresden from a holiday in Egypt. New airport rules prohibit passengers from carrying larger quantities of liquid onto planes, and he was told at a security check he would have to either throw out the bottle of vodka or pay a fee to have his carry-on bag checked as cargo. Instead, he chugged the bottle down — and was quickly unable to stand or otherwise function, police said.

Link

Bruce Schneier just passed through Heathrow Airport and noticed that they're speeding up the shoe-scanning process by having you go through a metal detector first and then have your shoes scanned at a second system. Being a security guru, he gave it ten seconds' thought and figured out how to defeat it.

Here's how the attack works. Assume that you have two pairs of shoes: a clean pair that passes all levels of screening, and a dangerous pair that doesn't. (Ignore for a moment the ridiculousness of screening shoes in the first place, and assume that an X-ray machine can detect the dangerous pair.) Put the dangerous shoes on your feet and the clean shoes in your carry-on bag. Walk through the metal detector. Then, at the shoe X-ray machine, take the dangerous shoes off and put them in your bag, and take the clean shoes out of your bag and place them on the X-ray machine. You've now managed to get through security without having your shoes screened.

Of course, X-ray machines are useful for spotting metal, not plastic explosive, so none of this stuff matters anyway. Ho ho ho. Link

(Photo: Travel Hungry Shoes, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Stuporglue's Flickr stream)

Chicago's venerable gag factory Fun, Inc., was profiled in the Tribune last Wednesday. Fun, Inc. is the home of the finest hand-made fake vomit in the land, made tenderly by a company vomitmaster who keeps his secret recipe close to the chest.

It's the world capital of fake vomit, where it's still made the old-fashioned American way, ladle by ladle, formed and coagulated for the next generation of pranksters and troublemakers.

Helping put the ick in America since 1941, Fun Inc. is a repository of practical jokes, magic tricks and gag items -- from chattering teeth to hot pepper gum, oversize sunglasses to oversize toothbrushes to oversize anything. The building, near Grand and Major Avenues in the industrial Hansen Park neighborhood, is where springs were once manufactured and, later, Cracker Jack prizes...

The exact blend is a proprietary secret, but this much is revealed: Production of fake vomit begins with 55-gallon drums of natural latex, which resembles thick milk. Colored bits of foam the size of coarse bread crumbs are added: red, yellow, "natural," two shades of brown, but no green. "Too strong a color," Putnam said.

"It's kind of like Grandma's recipe," he observed. "A pinch of this, two shakes of that. You kind of know when it's right."

The slurry is then ladled onto one Teflon sheet.

The vomitmaster smooths the mixture with the back of the spoon, the way a short-order cook does with pancakes on the griddle. Depending on weather, season and humidity, the pools of fake vomit, 500 to a batch, take overnight to a day and a half to dry. Like snowflakes, no two fake vomits are ever alike, which in the world of manufactured practical jokes is a rare trait.

Link (Thanks, John L!)

See also: Cheap Laffs: the history of the gag

Love is forever. So is being undead. Excerpts from "Zombie Love," a film by Yfke Van Berckelaer which was recently released on DVD (special thanks to Ben Rodkin!).

Link to video and full post with comments thread on Boing Boing tv.

Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman takes a look back at the Top Ten Bigfoot Stories of 2007. Here's his #7, the "Nguoi Rung Kidnap Story":

Ro Cham H’pnhieng, 27, was discovered on the edge of the Cambodian jungle in January 2007, after she was caught trying to steal food left under a tree. She was seen with a hairy Wild Man, known by the local name, Nguoi Rung. Reportedly, she had been kidnapped in 1989 by the wild people and taken into the jungle. Attempts to find the Nguoi Rung were made, with no positive results.

In October 2007, after Ro Cham H’pnhieng’s family tried to have her live with them again, after several incidents of her running away into the forest, she escaped for the final time, apparently to return to the Forest People. She had made her choice, her family felt.

Link

Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) is hosting a conference at Stanford next month about "Technology in Wartime." Annalee Newitz says,

This excellent conference is about the ethical implications of using computer technology in warfare. There is still plenty of room for people to register for the conference, and it's open to the public.

Speaker roster includes:

Bruce Schneier (Counterpane Security), Barbara Simons (ACM), Herb Lin (National Academy of Sciences), Cindy Cohn (Electronic Frontier Foundation), Patrick Ball (Benetech), Terry Winograd (Stanford University), Neil Rowe (Naval Defense Academy), Nick Mathewson (the Tor project), Ronald Arkin (Georgia Tech's Mobile Robots Lab) and Noah Shachtman (Wired magazine's war correspondent). The proceedings will be broadcast live on the Web, and the presentations collected in book form online, released under an open license, and made available to the public and policy makers looking for expert opinions on wartime technology issues during the election year.

Link. The one-day event takes place on January 26, 2008, registration is $50-100.

Sorry folks, this isn't a real unicorn chaser. It's a deer with an extra antler right between its eyes that was caught on a motion-sensitive game camera. Hunter Dave Ebeling captured the image in Elma, New York. Biologists quoted in a Buffalo News story propose several theories about the odd extra antler's origin, from a genetic mutation to an injury. Ebeling offers a very enlightened suggestion of how the mystery might best be solved: “I just wish somebody would shoot it so we’d know what that was," he told the newspaper.
Link (via Fortean Times)

Just in time for your winter holidays to parallel universes, the Imaginary Foundation has released several mindbending new t-shirt designs. Seen here, "Look Darling, A Sustainable Future," printed on 100% organic cotton t-shirts.
Link

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: Snoopy and Lucy Banana Milk-flavored popcorn, for sale at the giant Peanuts store across the street from the Harajuku train station in Tokyo. Link

Some of the Toronto members of the Fair Copyright for Canada group are planning a demonstration against the legislation next Tuesday. With the legislation dead (for now at least), this might just turn into a celebration!

Date: Tuesday, December 18, 2007
Time: 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Location: Queen's Park
Street: 1 Queen's Park Crescent E
City/Town: Toronto, ON

Link to details on Facebook group

See also:
Canadian DMCA cancelled (again) (for now) Canadian DMCA to be reintroduced -- your action needed NOW!
Canadian DMCA stalled, won't be introduced (today, at least)!
Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports
O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem
Canadian DMCA introduced
CANADIANS! Tomorrow is your best chance to fight the Canadian DMCA! Event in Calgary, national phone-in
Canada's DMCA won't get any consumer rights added to it for a decade
Facebook group for fighting Canada's DMCA growing fast
Ranting hand-puppet tackles Canada's DMCA
HOWTO Fight Canada's coming DMCA copyright law
Canada's coming DMCA will be the worst copyright yet
Canadian DMCA: how it might have happened
CBC radio show needs your input for question with Minister responsible for Canadian DMCA
Canadian Industry Minister refuses to defend Canadian DMCA in public

A teacher working after hours in Roxbury, CT barricaded herself in a classroom and called in the police in force when she heard three teenagers (including the school custodian) performing a karaoke version of Guns N Roses's "Welcome to the Jungle" (Welcome to the jungle/You're gonna die") and mistook it for a death threat. The kids thought they were alone in the building.

State police say the teacher at Booth Free School barricaded herself inside a classroom Wednesday when she mistook someone singing a Guns N' Roses song over the public address system for a threat.

She was working after hours and thought no one else was in the building. Then she heard someone say over the loudspeaker that she was going to die.

Link (Thanks, Bill!)

Emily sez, "Taos Toolbox is a writer's workshop being run by Walter Jon Williams and Kelly Link in the summer of 2008. The workshop is an advanced workshop, aimed at grads of the Clarion/Odyssey science fiction/fantasy writing workshops to help them polish their skills and learn more about the business of writing. It'll take place in the beautiful Taos Ski Valley."

This is not a workshop for beginners. We won't teach you correct manuscript format or what an adverb is and why you shouldn't use one, because we'll assume that you already know. We want to concentrate on giving talented, burgeoning writers the information necessary to become professionals within the science fiction and fantasy field.

Though short fiction will be enthusiastically received, there will be an emphasis at Taos Toolbox on the craft of the novel, with attention given to such vital topics as plotting, pacing, and selling full-length works.

Link (Thanks, Emily!)

Dan sez, "A nice Populux movie from Monsanto about the X-shaped House of the Future attraction at Disneyland. In the future, we won't have fridges, but 'cold zones' that descend from kitchen cupboards at the touch of a button; our plastic dishes will be washed with ultrasound; and best of all, we will have a nice view through our plastic windows of Sleeping Beauty's castle."

The Monsanto House is one of my favorite lost Disneyland attractions, the epitome of goofy, futuristic industrial optimism. The fridge even had a compartment for "irradiated food!" The plastic materials were so hardy that they reportedly stayed fresh and clean looking for decades, despite the trammelling of millions of feet, and the legend has it that the wrecker's ball just bounced off of it, necessitating deconstruction by force majeure (e.g., a blow-torch and chainsaws). Link to Part 1, Link to Part 2 (Thanks, Dan!)

Baby's First Mythos is an ABC/123 picture book for kids that uses the mad, horrific imagery of HP Lovecraft to help you bring up your littlun right. Written by C.J. Henderson and illustrated by Erica Henderson. Link, Link to Geek Parenting review (Thanks, Amy!)

Here are several black and white videos from a 1978 B-52s show. Link

My friends Adam Parfrey and Jodi Wille are the proprietors of Feral House and Process Media, the world's most interesting book publishers. I had dinner at their house last night and they gave me a stack of fascinating books. I can't wait to read them!

Dark Mission: The Secret History of NASA, By Richard C. Hoagland and Mike Bara

For most Americans, the word “NASA” suggests a squeaky-clean image of technological infallibility. Yet the truth is that NASA was born in a lie, and has concealed the truths about its occult origins. Dark Mission documents this seemingly wild assertion.

(Sample chapter PDF)

Moondog The Viking of Sixth Avenue, The Authorized Biography by Robert Scotto, Preface by Philip Glass

Here is one of the most improbable lives of the 20th century: a blind and homeless man who became a famous eccentric in New York, and who rose to prominence as an internationally respected music presence. Moondog’s compositional style inspired the work of his former roommate, Philip Glass, who provides the preface. BONUS CD includes compilation of Moondog records spanning five decades, containing a dozen previously unreleased Moondog recordings, including performances with Philip Glass, Steve Reich, Jon Gibson, Stefan Lakatos and Paul Jordan.

(Sample PDF 1 | Sample PDF 2)

The Secret Source: The Law of Attraction is One of Seven Hermetic Laws: Here Are the Other Six, Edited by Maja D’Aoust and Adam Parfrey

The Secret Source reveals the occult doctrines and the modern equivalents that gave birth to “The Law of Attraction” and inspired the media phenomenon known as The Secret.

If you recognized the power behind “The Law of Attraction” but felt ambivalent about The Secret’s materially-driven, hard-sell approach, you will appreciate this deeper understanding and examination of the Law’s true nature and the wisdom required to use it effectively.

(The Seven Hermetic Laws PDF)

Tales of Times Square (Expanded Edition), By Josh Alan Friedman

This classic account of the ultra-sleazy, pre-Disneyfied era of Times Square is now the subject of a documentary film of the same name to be theatrically released this year. With this edition Tales returns to print with seven new chapters.

Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica , By Nicholas Johnson

Is it the pristine but harsh frontier where noble scientific missions are accomplished? Or an insane corporate bureaucracy where hundreds of workers are cooped together in hi-tech communes with all the soul of a suburban office park?

Welcome to Big Dead Place, a grunt's eye view of America's Antarctic Program that shatters the well-worn clichés of polar literature. Here the heroic camaraderie and romantic desolation give way to sterile buildings populated by characters like a crazed manager who fills his boots with antifreeze, the greasepaint obsessed worker Boozy the Clown, ghosts that haunt the food freezer, and horny employees who grab rare private moments coupling on the altar in the Chapel of the Snows.

The Foreword is by Eirik Sønneland, who claims the longest unsupported ski trek in the continent's history. Also included is a glossary of Antarctic slang and bureaucratese, and 16 pages of color photographs.

(Link to excerpts and media files)

Sin-A-Rama: Sleaze Sex Paperbacks of the Sixties

Sin-A-Rama celebrates the forgotten world of erotic paperbacks from the 1960s, when sex acts were described with code words, writers used pseudonyms, and publishers hid behind mail drop addresses.

Sleaze paperbacks sold by the million throughout the decade. Their unorthodox content and inroads into the marketplace provoked new laws, FBI investigations, high-pitched court battles, and prison sentences for the crime of obscenity. Earl Kemp, the notorious Greenleaf Books editor, provides an insider’s perspective, profiling famous and little-known co-workers. In “My Life as a Pornographer,” science fiction legend Robert Silverberg divulges how he and other famous authors learned their craft and earned their keep pounding out softcore sin.

The bizarre glories of cover artists Robert Bonfils, Gene Bilbrew, Eric Stanton, Paul Rader, Ed Smith, Bill Ward, and Doug Weaver are seen throughout in lurid color.

Sin-A-Rama is the first book-length exploration into a shadowy but revolutionary industry. A useful appendix reveals the actual names behind the pseudonyms, and catalogues both established and fly-by-night sleaze operators.

(Link to exceprts)

Struwwelpeter: Fearful Stories & Vile Pictures To Instruct Good Little Folks, By Heinrich Hoffmann, Introduction by Jack Zipes

Since 1845, millions of parents have purchased Struwwelpeter, a book that threatens their children with the consequences that befall the disordered and disorderly. Thumbs are sheared off, eyes fall out of sockets, faces are pecked to death and bodies waste to nothing.

Though castigated in recent years for its sadistic approach to child-rearing, Struwwelpeter remains a cultural phenomenon … translated into many languages, the subject of a popular German museum, and the unmistakable influence of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which also disposes of wretched kids in rhyme.

The Feral House edition includes Sarita Vendetta’s macabre illustrations to Heinrich Hoffmann’s verse, the entire original edition in color, Struwwelpeter-inspired wartime propaganda titled Struwwelhitler, and a revealing introduction by Jack Zipes, an authority on folklore and children’s literature, whose journal, The Lion and the Unicorn, devoted an entire issue to Heinrich Hoffman and Struwwelpeter.

I don't know which I like more: this software, which lets you easily design plush toy models and sewing patterns, or the video narrator's delightful accent. Link (Thanks, Saul!)

Ben Parzybok says,

Guantanamo prisoner Adel Hamad -- we've been working to have him released -- is home in Sudan with his family. This is great news. His case was covered previously on Boing Boing here: Guantanamo detainee's lawyers post video to YouTube, and Campaign to save man imprisoned at Gitmo.

Here's our post at Project Hamad regarding his release and that of a fellow Sudanese.

USA Today says that Adel Hamad spoke up for Sudanese Al-Jazeera cameraman (who has been on hunger strike) when he returned home, saying that his health was worsening.

Image: takomabibelot.

Amanda Visell is having an art exhibition of her paintings and toys at Munky King in Los Angeles tonight (12/13/07). Link

Shahram Sharif of ITIran.com writes, "Last week one of wide street TV in central of karaj shows porn pics for 10 min mistakenly , police banned TV and arrested people who link." More importantly, here's a YouTube video shot on the scene by someone who sounds young and profoundly amused: Link Alternate Link. (thanks, Cyrus)

Gee. If only I could figure out what seems so familiar about the cover art (larger size jpeg) on Rick Smolan's new book, Blue Planet Run: The Race to Provide Safe Drinking Water to the World. All hijinx aside, it looks like a very interesting read, and I'm ordering a copy.

Bob says:

I just saw the BBtv post about Mark's guitar amp, and thought I'd share my similar project. It's also based on the LM386 although the circuit is a little different (and sounds way better).

To save time and cost for anyone wanting to make this amp I offer either a bare PCB, or a simple parts kit (including PCB). This is available at my online store. There are also some video examples of the Minty Amp in action.

Link

Boing Boing reader Sibyl alerted us to this 75-page article on "copyfraud," by Jason Mazzone. Assistant Professor of Law, Brooklyn Law School.

From the abstract:

Copyfraud is everywhere. False copyright notices appear on modern reprints of Shakespeare's plays, Beethoven's piano scores, greeting card versions of Monet's Water Lilies, and even the U.S. Constitution. Archives claim blanket copyright in everything in their collections. Vendors of microfilmed versions of historical newspapers assert copyright ownership. These false copyright claims, which are often accompanied by threatened litigation for reproducing a work without the owner's permission, result in users seeking licenses and paying fees to reproduce works that are free for everyone to use.

Copyright law itself creates strong incentives for copyfraud. The Copyright Act provides for no civil penalty for falsely claiming ownership of public domain materials. There is also no remedy under the Act for individuals who wrongly refrain from legal copying or who make payment for permission to copy something they are in fact entitled to use for free. While falsely claiming copyright is technically a criminal offense under the Act, prosecutions are extremely rare. These circumstances have produced fraud on an untold scale, with millions of works in the public domain deemed copyrighted, and countless dollars paid out every year in licensing fees to make copies that could be made for free. Copyfraud stifles valid forms of reproduction and undermines free speech.

Link

Popular Science is running a Christmas special with a bunch of internet folks talking about the gadgets they lust for. I would like to drink eggnog with all of these people in one room, that would be fun: Jimmy Wales (Wikipedia), Amanda Congdon, Kevin Rose (Digg), Wil Wheaton (arch-nerd), Ray Kurzweil (futurist), Chris Burke (musician), Daniel Lyon (Fake Steve Jobs), Nolan Bushnell (Atari), Matt Harding (Internet Filmmaker), Timothy Ferris (4-Hour Work Week), Jonathan Coulton (Musician), Phil Torrone (MAKE), Dave Prochnow (How 2.0 Blogger/Builder), and me and Mark from Boing Boing and Boing Boing tv. Link.

Photo credits, above: Coop (me) and Bart Nagel (Mark).

Lincoln's Oak Ridge Cemetery tomb in Illinois is going to be heated and cooled with a brand new $282,000 geothermal energy system.

We think this is particularly appropriate for the Lincoln Tomb because Abraham Lincoln is the only president to hold a U.S. patent,” [Illinois Historic Preservation Agency spokesman David] Blanchette said. “He was fascinated by the latest inventions and the latest technology, so we certainly think it’s appropriate to use this latest green technology on his final resting place.” Lincoln’s patent was for a device to help free riverboats that got stuck on sandbars.

Link (Thanks, Julie!)

DeanJ says: "If Senator Bond invites you over for an afternoon pool party you really should make other plans."

Gwen Ifill (PBS Newshour host): "Do you think that waterboarding, as I described it, constitutes torture?"

Senator Kit Bond: "There are different ways of doing it. It's like swimming, freestyle, backstroke. The waterboarding could be used almost to define some of the techniques that our trainees are put through, but that's beside the point."

Link

As the Canadian DMCA turns: the government has cancelled its plans to revive the flagging Canadian version of the US's disastrous 1998 Digital Millennium Copyright Act:

The roller coaster that is the Canadian DMCA has taken another turn. Sometime between yesterday afternoon and this morning, the government decided to hold off. At 10:00 am this morning, the introduction of new government bills came and went without a new copyright bill. The Industry Minister's press secretary has advised journalists that the bill will not be introduced today or tomorrow. Since the House of Commons will break at the end of the week, the Canadian DMCA will not be introduced until at least late January.

Link See also:
Canadian DMCA to be reintroduced -- your action needed NOW!
Canadian DMCA stalled, won't be introduced (today, at least)!
Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports
O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem
Canadian DMCA introduced
CANADIANS! Tomorrow is your best chance to fight the Canadian DMCA! Event in Calgary, national phone-in
Canada's DMCA won't get any consumer rights added to it for a decade
Facebook group for fighting Canada's DMCA growing fast
Ranting hand-puppet tackles Canada's DMCA
HOWTO Fight Canada's coming DMCA copyright law
Canada's coming DMCA will be the worst copyright yet
Canadian DMCA: how it might have happened
CBC radio show needs your input for question with Minister responsible for Canadian DMCA
Canadian Industry Minister refuses to defend Canadian DMCA in public

Danny sez,

Michael Geist says that flip-flopping Jim Prentice may announce his Canadian DMCA bill tomorrow morning after all, following what looks like pressure from the US, and a government that doesn't want to appear "weak".

If they do, the thousands of Canadians who thought it was smart of him to actually pause and consult the voters on this bill will be furious.

Online Rights Canada, whose letter campaign has already sent 2500 letters to MPs, has launched a site to keep track of all the protests, photos, Facebook groups and political developments as they happen. One page, and an RSS feed is all you need at http://www.copyrightforcanadians.ca/

Like I said before, this thing won't die until we cut off its head, sew its mouth full of garlic, and bury its head at a crossroads. Link (Thanks, Danny!)

See also:
Canadian DMCA stalled, won't be introduced (today, at least)!
Canadian DMCA rally in Calgary -- photos, videos, reports
O Canada! The Canadian DMCA version of the national anthem
Canadian DMCA introduced
CANADIANS! Tomorrow is your best chance to fight the Canadian DMCA! Event in Calgary, national phone-in
Canada's DMCA won't get any consumer rights added to it for a decade
Facebook group for fighting Canada's DMCA growing fast
Ranting hand-puppet tackles Canada's DMCA
HOWTO Fight Canada's coming DMCA copyright law
Canada's coming DMCA will be the worst copyright yet
Canadian DMCA: how it might have happened
CBC radio show needs your input for question with Minister responsible for Canadian DMCA
Canadian Industry Minister refuses to defend Canadian DMCA in public

W00t, here is the 50th episode of Boing Boing tv! Mark makes a tiny amplifier for an electric guitar, then proceeds to shred. Next, a short film by Walter Robot (Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie) in which an urban cowboy funks out.

Link to video and full post with comments thread.

Movable Type, the popular blogging software, has gone free/open, relicensing its code under the GPL, the gold standard for free licenses. We've used MT ever since we migrated away from Blogger (and Ben Trott, MT's co-founder, personally did the migration for us!) and it's great to see the company adopting best practices with its code-base. Even better is the company's statement about why they've adopted a free license: because they want to promote freedom.

Like many of us on the team, some of you have been waiting for this moment for years. For a business, an open source license affects boring things like how a product is created, updated, and distributed. But the open source movement has always been about something more important: Freedom. With a name like "Movable Type", we've always been keenly aware of the importance of freedom, as that name echoes both the birth of the printing press and the creation of independent media that an individual can control.

Our goal has always been to create the best blogging platform in the world and to put that power in the hands of as many people as possible.

Link (via MeFi)