Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels over the years: a coiled cable-keeper in a shop in Melbourne (though the coil bore a label saying MADE IN USA). The cable came down from the ceiling to the cash-register, protecting the Ethernet cable that ran down from a drop-ceiling. I've been responsible for more than my share of truly ugly cable-runs with sudden drops in the middle of the room where the data needed to be -- a handsome little gizmo like this could have made my fugly hacks into decor. Link

The FBI is denying the existence of a file that details a program whereby US officials stole nuclear weapons secrets for eventual sale to Pakistan and Saudi Arabia -- but there's plenty of evidence for the file's existence:

Edmonds, a 37-year-old former Turkish language translator, listened into hundreds of sensitive intercepted conversations while based at the agency’s Washington field office.

She says the FBI was investigating a Turkish and Israeli-run network that paid high-ranking American officials to steal nuclear weapons secrets. These were then sold on the international black market to countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

One of the documents relating to the case was marked 203A-WF-210023. Last week, however, the FBI responded to a freedom of information request for a file of exactly the same number by claiming that it did not exist. But The Sunday Times has obtained a document signed by an FBI official showing the existence of the file.

Edmonds believes the crucial file is being deliberately covered up by the FBI because its contents are explosive. She accuses the agency of an “outright lie”.

Link (Thanks, Bill)

(Image: NAM---Mk-5-Nuclear-Bomb, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Marshall Astor - Food Pornographer's Flickr stream)

This hand-felted Pong pendant is on sale by its maker, Madebymoxie, through Etsy. Just the thing for the pretty retro-gamer in your life. Link (via Wonderland)

Collage artist Stephen Rothwell makes astounding steampunk-scented Victorian apocalyptic fancies that tickle me to my toes. I could look at this stuff all day. Link (Thanks, Tom!)

The Seminole County Florida School District -- which recently signed up (and then had to cancel) McDonald's-sponsored report-cards has also approved a pilot program for school-bus audio advertising:

The company serves a sonorous mix of inoffensive music, public service announcements (buckle up, kids!) and a few harmless advertisements (maybe McDonald's?) to over 1 million children in 23 states. Bus Radio is based in Needham, Massachusetts, but lost its contract with the Needham school district after uppity parents objected to the crass commercialization of something as innocent as a bus ride.

Link

This low-cost attic staircase was built out of stacked pine boxes, filling a space too narrow for regular steps. Plenty steep but damned cool. Link (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Greg sez, "I just came back from the Heathrow Terminal 5 trials. Aside from all the regular kind of snafus to be expected when running such a trial and all the regular kinds of annoyances of dealing with airports, one particular problem stood out.

"In a brand new terminal built in the 21st century, BAA has managed to build departure waiting areas with not a single passenger-accessible power outlet. Rows and rows of hard plastic benches with armrests which prevent you from lying down--kind of makes you feel like you're in a Greyhound bus terminal and not a single power outlet.

"The nearest outlet was in the far wall near some fire equipment. The only way a laptop user could use it would be if he or she sat in the hallway obstructing people walking by." Link (Thanks, Greg!)

See also:
Montreal airport denies electricity to laptop users
Power outlets in airports wiki
Pay-per-use electricity in Dallas/Fort-Worth airport

(Image: 2006-12-12_19-10-47.jpg, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Avinash Meetoo's Flickr stream)

Flickr user Pilllpat (Agence Eureka) has uploaded 150 scanned high-resolution pages from beautiful old French papercraft activity books. This is worth printing on heavy paper and giving to a kid you love (omitting the pages with questionable racial content). Link (via IZ Reloaded)

Players have discovered that a programming decision in World of Warcraft puts a hard limit on how much in-game wealth a player can acquire: 2^31 gold pieces are all you can have. I wonder how long the gold farmers have know about this?

Today, while skimming over various WoW sites, I noticed two forum posts about the same topic: Players have discovered that there's a cap on how much money you can carry in the game. Apparently that amount is 214,748 gold, 36 silver, 48 copper. After you reach that lofty sum, you'll no longer be able to receive money from any source in the game. While some responses to the original posts claim that this exact limit had previously been theorized to exist, there have been no reports of anyone in the game actually achieving this amount via legal means.

Dorgabas on the official forums and meth on MMO-Champion's forums both reported the discovery today, each with a screenshot to provide veracity to their claims. You can check them out by clicking here. The shots are of two different players, one of whom is on a German-speaking server. In the shot you can read his conversation with a GM, which supposedly translates to him asking the GM about the limit and the GM scratching his head in response.

Link (via /.)

Larry sez, "Four giant waterfalls will be erected in New York for three months this summer as part of a public arts project. The waterfalls, including one that will fall from the famed Brooklyn Bridge, are the brainchild of Danish artist Olafur Eliasson."

Three of the waterfalls will cascade into the East River and New York Harbor from free-standing scaffolding towers that Eliasson said were part of his artistic vision, mirroring the scaffolding towers that sprout up throughout New York. The falls will be in place from mid-July to mid-October.

City officials are hoping to emulate the success of Christo and Jeanne-Claude's project, "The Gates," which drew around 1.5 million visitors to the city in February 2005 to view about 7,500 saffron panels draped through Central Park.

Link (Thanks, Larry!)

The July, 1940 edition of Popular Science heralded the miraculous appearance of a bold new means of packaging pickles: "Transparent rubber!"

Pickles, packaged in envelopes of a transparent rubber product, have been introduced by a leading American food packer. The water-tight container, which is protected by a cardboard box, holds neatly arranged sweet pickles which are packed in fluid just as when they are sold in glass bottles. Besides increasing the attractiveness of the commodity, the new method of packing is reported to eliminate bottle breakage and to reduce the weight of the containers.

Link

Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: The Shop of the Forbidden City (with ice-cream freezer), Beijing, China. Love the sign -- sounds like an installment in the Indiana Jones franchise. Link

In the Christmas episode of sf writer Spider Robinson's delightfully eclectic podcast (I'm running a little behind in my podcasts right now), Spider introduced the work of American bluesman Paul Pena, playing a couple of his tracks. I was blown away.

Pena, a blind musician, was captivated by the sounds of Tuvan throat-singing, which he encountered for the first time on a late-night shortwave transmission. He taught himself to throat-sing, and met with and befriended Kongar-ol Ondar, forming the band Genghis Blues, which merged throat-singing with Delta blues in a marvellous and haunting way.

Pena died tragically after a misdiagnosis of pancreatic cancer led to his being addicted to -- and then brutally denied -- heavy painkillers, and subsequently died from pancreatitis and complications from diabetes. (Set sez, "He was never brutally denied painkillers -- after he found out that the first Dr. made a mistake in diagnosis, he finally found a competent and good Dr. who helped him manage his pain, quite compassionately, up until the end. ")

His music is a rich legacy, though. The combination of Tuvan throat-singing and the blues is not to be believed -- or missed. MP3 link to Spider's podcast (Pena segment starts about 5:20), Genghis Blues DVD, Genghis Blues CD

Information on Genghis Blues, Paul Pena homepage, Paul Pena on Wikipedia,

Spider Robinson podcast

Flickr user Sweet Juniper has a heartbreaking, gorgeous and horrifying set of photos of a rotting Detroit school book depository, where mountains of yellowing, damp, torn schoolbooks moulder, right in the middle of town:

This is inside the building right next to the Michigan Central Station. Apparently at one time it was a post office, and then it was used by the Detroit Public schools to store textbooks and materials. The columns in here are particularly beautiful. I think I read somewhere that the building was designed by Albert Kahn, but I haven't been able to verify that.

All those metal bars once supported pallets where all those papers and books were stored. This is the state I found it in.

Link (via Making Light)

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

There is an interesting discussion brewing on the Open Government discussion list. It all started when Aaron Swartz posted information about a new Library of Congress initiative with Flickr called "The Commons." This initiative is important because (if it continues) will allow people to tag images on Flickr as public domain, something you can't do today.

As a result of this discussion, Public.Resource.Org has put an unsolicited proposal into the Smithsonian Institution proposing they join the party by donating 2,000 public domain images to the pool. Yahoo! has not yet said if they would allow the Smithsonian to participate, but we figured they might let them in the door. To make the offer of a joint venture a serious one, we've put $50,000 on the table.

Needless to say, if we're successful in this venture, we'll also make tarballs available for FTP for those who just want to download instead of navigate.

Link

Young adult fantasy writer Tamora Pierce and Julie Holderman are planning a science fiction convention for young adults -- and young adult sf, and are planning it all on a LiveJournal group. Love this idea -- when I started going to cons, there was an enormous group of bratpack kids like me in attendance. These days, it seems like most of the kids were dragged along by their parents. Eventually, the parents will die off -- and then where will we be?

But when it comes to the presence of kidlit authors at conventions? Our favorite conventions welcome writers of content for younger readers, but these writers are in the minority at the con. Often kidlit writers are treated by members of adult F&SF cons in a manner that is patronizing at best, snubbing or scornful at worst. In recent months this has been a growing burr under our saddles, until chance remarks after a recent con got us to talking about the place of YA and kids' F&SF in the literary world in general.

Ours is an outsider arena--not mainstream enough for the purely kidlit crowd, not adult enough for the F&SF purists. And yet, most F&SF readers were introduced to the genres as kids and still re-read their favorites, if they don't continue to read the new F&SF which is being published for younger readers! We run into as many adult readers of kidlit at cons as we do actual, real, well--you know--kids and teens!

Following a long and fruitless hunt for a kidlit con, we started talking about making our own. Think of it, folks. Your dream date: writers, editors, star booksellers, artists, critics, art, videos, anime, and a dealer's room filled with treats. Panel topics about the art you love, discussions on publishing books for children and teens, what works (what lasts) in movies for kids. A con for the well-read, regardless of age, featuring the writers who changed your life.

That's what we're doing here. A project of this size needs a lot of active participation in its planning and execution. In other words, we need help, in the form of volunteers, ideas, and funding. This is where we open the floor to you all for suggestions, recommendations, and all of the assistance we can get. Do you know anyone who might provide us with grant money? (Can you write grants?) Are you willing to work on a con committee, and in what capacity? Have you started a convention and are you willing to give advice on starting a convention? Who would you like to see, as guests and as the first Guests of Honor (writer and artist)? Your input is welcome!

Link to LJ group for the convention, Link to introductory post (Thanks, Alice!)

Jonathan's posted a short instructional video demonstrating a simple way to make a handsome plastic snail out of a cocktail stirrer by melting it over a candle-flame. I'm sure the fumes are no fun, but you gotta suffer for your art. Link (Thanks, Jonathan!)

BB reader Hagrid says, "I just blogged this stunning 1943 colour photo, released by the Library of Congress on Flickr. It turns that WWII icon, 'Rosie the Riveter,' on her head, by presenting her as she really was: African-American. Love the nails and ring, incidentally."

(Editor's note: there were surely many shades of "Rosie," but that diversity is often overlooked.)

Previously: Library of Congress uses Flickr to crowdsource tagging and organizing its photo archive

Here's episode three of the delightfully demented video tutorial, You Suck at Photoshop.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• You Suck at Photoshop #2
• Funny tutorial: "You Sucjk at Photoshop"

Here's a list of words that (mostly) describe sexual behavior.

Faunoiphilia (FAW-nay-FIL-ee-uh) - An abnormal desire to watch animals copulate.

Brassirothesauriast (bruh-zeer-oh-thuh-SAW-ree-ast) - A person who collects brassieres or pictures of women wearing them.

Eunoterpsia (YOO-noh-TURP-see-uh) - The doctrine that pursuing sexual pleasure is the goal of life.

Typhlobasia (TIF-luh-BAY-zee-uh) - Kissing with the eyes closed.

Amychesis (AM-i-KEE-sis) - The involuntary act of scratching or clawing your partner in the heat of passion.

Mammaquatia (MAM-uh-KWAY-shee-uh) - The bobbing or jiggling of a woman's breasts when she walks, dances, or exercises.

Ozoamblyrosis (OH-zoh-AM-bli-ROH-sis) - Loss of sexual apetite because your partner has wicked B.O.

Amomaxia (AM-uh-MAX-see-uh) - Love-making in a parked car.

Colpocoquette (KAHL-puh-koh-KET) - A woman who knows she has an attractive bosom, and who makes good use of its allure.

Melolagnia (MEL-uh-LAG-nee-uh) - Amorous feelings inspired by music.

Link (Via sexoteric NSFW)

Google invited me to create an example theme for its new iGoogle Themes API. The theme changes throughout the day to tell a little story.

I also worked on a gadget with RSS feeds for the different blogs, videos, and podcasts I contribute to. You can add the theme and gadget to your iGoogle page here.

The iGoogle Themes API allows you to personalize iGoogle by modifying the page's design. Your theme can modify the header and footer images, text colors, link colors, gadget frames, and more. Your theme can also update the page's design based on time of day. This makes it easy to create a story that unfolds throughout the day, landscapes that change as the sun rises and sets, and abstract images that become more complex. Creating a dynamic theme is as simple as specifying a time with a theme's visual attributes.

You can see other example themes by Yves Behar/fuseproject, John Maeda, and Troy Lee here.

Link

Noah Shachtman at Wired's DANGER ROOM blog says:

This is beyond ridiculous. The federal government is now going to track every farm animal across the country, from birth to death, because it wants to watch out for the extremely faint possibility of a bioterrorist attacking the food chain.

Snip from LA Times article:

A Bush administration initiative, the National Animal Identification System is meant to provide a modern tool for tracking disease outbreaks within 48 hours, whether natural or the work of a bioterrorist. Most farm animals, even exotic ones such as llamas, will eventually be registered. Information will be kept on every farm, ranch or stable. And databases will record every animal movement from birth to slaughterhouse, including trips to the vet and county fairs. But the system is spawning a grass-roots revolt.

Link to DANGER ROOM post.

Image: "Three Pigs," from Xirzon's photostream.

This looks like an illustration, but it's a photo by Masato Ohta from the Japan HDR Flickr Photo Pool. Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Flickr group produces astonishing color pix with new plugin
• Introduction to HDR (high dynamic range) photography
• Stunning HDR shot of Tokyo skyline

The proprietor of the "I am Not Lying" blog took these photos of a smashed up Sharper Image karaoke Elvis-bot his friend found in Brooklyn.

It looks much better this way than it does out of the box, don't you think? Link

Sean T. Collins of Attention Deficit Disorder has created a presidential milkshake list that tells you all you need to know about the candidates. Here are a few:

I drink your milkshake, even though I opposed drinking your milkshake four years ago. -- Mitt Romney

I drink your milkshake, but only if the Bible says it's allowed. -- Mike Huckabee

I may drink your milkshake for another 100 years, if that's what it takes. -- John McCain

I drank a milkshake on 9/11. -- Rudy Giuliani

I drink your milkshake, but I'm paying for it with gold. -- Ron Paul

I will fight the corporations so that you can drink your own milkshake. -- John Edwards

I have 35 years of milkshake-drinking experience. *sob* -- Hillary Clinton

I peacefully drink your milkshake. -- Dennis Kucinich

Link

Brian Hughes of "Again With the Comics" has an advice column called "Ask Golden Age Wonder Woman," in which questions from the lovelorn are answered using actual panels from old issues of Wonder Woman, surely one of the most crypto-fetishistic comics of the Golden Age.

I hope Brian makes this a regular feature of his excellent blog. Here's one of four Q&A's on his blog:

Dear Golden Age Wonder Woman -

I’ve known my best friend since second grade, but things have been strained between us ever since I got married. Carol has remained single, and I can hardly speak to her anymore without hearing mean remarks about marriage or my husband! She seems jealous and resentful of my marriage, and angry that she’s still single. Recently, she told me that she saw my husband at a bar kissing another woman, and has demanded that I confront him about it. I don’t believe her, but she says that if I don’t talk to him about it, she’ll break off our friendship! What should I do?

-Conflicted in Cleveland

Link

Why are these men smiling? Because they are about to launch a bunch of Bert dolls into the sky. Enjoy this short video. Link (Via Otomano)

bart van de vel
pixelgirl presents
imaginary world
chickenhead
adult swim
maxalot
chaoskitty
k10k on display exhibit
desktop

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Image: wallpapers at maxalot.com, this one is "MXL_Inka" by eBoy.

Rebecca sez, "One lawyer is threatening another over the use of the term "cyberlaw," which he says he's trademarked. As the post (by EFF's Corynne McSherry) says, that's like a soda company trying to trademark the word soda."

Eric Menhart may call himself a cyberlawyer, but we think he has a lot of learn about cyberlaw -- and common sense. Menhart is the author of a blog about cyberlaw issues called, logically if not innovatively, "Cyberlawg." (As he says in the top right corner, "Cyberlawg = Cyberlaw + blog.") And he is "principal attorney" in a firm called "CyberLaw P.C." OK, OK, we get it, he practices technology law. Based on this, he's applied for a trademark on the use of the term "cyberlaw" in connection with the practice of, um, cyberlaw. That's like a soda company claiming a trademark in the use of the word soda in connection with the sale of soda. Or an apple farmer claiming a trademark in the use of the term apple in connection with the sale of apples. Or ... well, you get the picture.

Link (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Life After People is a new TV documentary airing on the History Channel that attempts to forecast what our planet would be like if we were gone. It premieres this coming Monday, January 21. Looks like a lot of post-apocapalyptic fun! From the show's mini site:

Abandoned skyscrapers would, after hundreds of years, become "vertical ecosystems" complete with birds, rodents and even plant life. One small animal might be responsible for bringing down the Hoover Dam hydroelectric plant. Swelled rivers, crumbling bridges and buildings, grizzly bears in California and herds of buffalo returning to the Great Western Plains: In a world without humans, these would be the visual hallmarks. Our cars would shrivel to piles of dust, our house pets would be overtaken by flourishing wildlife and most of the records of our human story -- books, photos, records -- would fade quickly, leaving little evidence that we ever existed.

Using feature film quality visual effects and top experts in the fields of engineering, botany, ecology, biology, geology, climatology and archeology, Life After People provides an amazing visual journey through the ultimately hypothetical.

The 1986 nuclear power plant accident at Chernobyl and its aftermath provides a riveting and emotional case study of what can happen after humans have moved on. Life After People goes to remote islands off the coast of Maine to search for traces of abandoned towns, beneath the streets of New York to see how subway tunnels may become watery canals, to the Montana wilderness to divine the destiny of the bears and wolves.

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

Here's a 1994 video from Charile Rose of famed animator Chuck Jones drawing Wile E. Coyote.
Link to Coyote sketch video, Link to full interview (via Drawn!)

Researchers at Stemagen claim that they used skin cells from two men to create human embryos. The embryos did not develop past around 100 cells, the blastocyst stage, but that wasn't the point, said Stemagen CEO Samuel H. Wood. The aim, he said, is to derive stem cell lines from cloned embryos. From the new York Times:

It is not clear whether the embryos would have been viable if implanted into a womb. Stemagen did not test whether the embryos had the correct number of chromosomes. But Dr. Wood, who also is a fertility doctor, said, “We’ve seen reproductive blastocysts that look like this or worse and they implant.”

He said Stemagen, which he started with a wealthy friend in 2005, was not interested in creating cloned babies, something that is illegal in places and morally repugnant to many people. Rather it wants to make stem cell lines for research and medical treatments.

Link

Common Space designer Jon Santos created this handsome Houndstooth Dogtent for the first annual Freemans Sporting Club design/build camping trip. Jon says:

The design initiative called for a homemade primitive luxury commodity, "taking the rough out of roughing it." I reached out to my good friend Matt Penrose who works for Cereplast, a small company which distributes (yet to be properly termed) bio-degradeable plastic. We made a Dogtent for Louie, his boxer. One that can be rolled up and put into its own bag. Early design ideas were very ambitious but ultimately we were at the mercy of working with a material that was only available to us in sheet form, rolled up. Loomstate was nice enough to donate some organic cotton for the tent lining.

Link

Honey bees are dying in vast numbers and nobody knows exactly why. As honey bees are responsible for pollinating a third of the crop species in the US alone, this phenomena, called Colony Collapse Disorder, is potentially very bad news for everyone. "Vanishing of the Bees" is an independent documentary currently in production about this ecological nightmare and its potential impact. The trailer is beautiful, provocative, and deeply moving. I hope the filmmakers gather the funds to complete the full movie. Link (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)