The Onion's latest video segment -- a newscast from a future where humans are subservient to robots -- is not only uproariously funny, it's also a damned fine, top-notch piece of science fiction. More like this, please. Link (via Danger Room)

Jacob sez,

> The Tor project was accepted into the Google Summer of Code program for 2008!

The Tor project is looking for a few good happy mutants. Are you a hacker interested in contributing to a successful open source project? Do you qualify for the GSOC? Are you interested in helping solve some of the practical issues a large and successful anonymity network faces?

It appears that many of the BB happy mutants enjoy Tor - Perhaps this is a good chance for a few good students to be paid to hack on the project!

Tor, of course, is The Onion Router, an anonymizing system for beating censoring firewalls like those in China, Syria and the Denver International Airport. Link (Thanks, Jacob!)

Phil sez,

After hearing stories of trouble at airport security checkpoints related to Apple's newest laptop, TSA acquired one and x-rayed it. The TSA's "Blogger Bob" summarized that because the MacBook Air uses a solid state drive instead of a traditional hard drive, its internals look entirely different than any other laptop.

He also says that he cannot show the image of the x-ray of this laptop because that is sensitive information.

I'd love to see some rebellious x-ray technician pick up the slack and show us all what's so special.

In the followup comments, "Bob" says that he isn't sure if an X-ray of a MacBook Air would breach national security, but that someone would come along shortly to determine whether it is or isn't. Link (Thanks, Phil!)

Miro, the free/open Internet TV client, has just released a major update, going to 1.2. Miro combines BitTorrent (fast downloads), VLC (play any video format) and RSS (subscribe to video in "channels" and have new episodes downloaded directly to your desktop as they're published).

The idea is to create an open platform for enjoying video online, one that isn't owned by any company, one that anyone can produce video for -- to make video open like the web, not owned by any company. Basically, to make a Firefox for Internet video.

# On Windows and Linux, we updated to XULRunner 1.9, which brings memory and performance improvements.
# We’ve added a much-requested preference to set new channels to not auto-download.
# New preferences for tweaking number of simultaneous auto-downloads and torrent seeding.
# Important re-architecting of the frontend and backend code.
# Lots of bug fixes and tweaks.
# On OSX, we updated to Perian 1.1.
# On Windows, the Miro installer is now much simpler and prettier.
# Improved support for Flash in Channel Guide pages.
# Improved translations for dozens of languages.

Link, Link to feature list

(Disclosure: I am proud to volunteer as a board member for the non-profit Participatory Culture Foundation, a 501(c)3 charity that makes and publishes Miro)

Two State Department contract employees have been fired for spelunking in Barack Obama's US passport records:

The three people who had access to Obama's passport records were contract employees of the department's Bureau of Consular Affairs, NBC News has learned. The unauthorized activity concerning Obama's passport information occurred in January...

Explaining why the contractors had access to the files, the official said: "The State Department uses cleared contractors to design, build and maintain our systems and cleared contract employees provide support to government employees and several steps of passport processing including data entry, file searches, customer service and quality control.

Link (Thanks, Larry!)

Noel sez, "Jasper de Beijer creates amazing papercraft models then takes beautiful photographs of them. He is currently working on a Victorian themed series called 'The Riveted Kingdom', it's really stunning work. Link (Thanks, Noel!)

Threat Level reports that the head of California's DMV explained that just because his state filed for two-year extension to comply with the Department of Homeland Security's worse-than-useless yet mandatory Real ID program, that should not been seen as "a commitment to implement Real ID, rather it will allow us to fully evaluate the impact of the final regulations and precede with necessary policy deliberations prior to a final decision on compliance."

Even so, the filing of the application was enough to get Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to pull out his special green crayon from a locked and booby-trapped desk drawer and use it to color California on his cute little map of states that won't have to suffer the special indignities he's designed for citizens of states that still believe in the idea of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

States have until March 31 to request a two-year extension, and DHS had said before Thursday it won't grant Real ID extensions to states who don't commit to implementing the rules in the future.

Californians that would meant enduring the same fate facing citizens of South Carolina, Maine, Montana and New Hampshire.

They would have needed to dig out their passport, if they had one, every time they boarded a plane, or go through an extra level of TSA screening at airport metal detectors. Los Angeles and San Francisco airports could have had security lines stretching to the Sierras.

Californians without passports would also have been barred from buying certain medicine, entering federal court buildings or getting help at the Social Security Administration, unless they have a passport.

Link

Larry Lessig has offcially launched Change Congress, his followup to Creative Commons -- a movement to end the corrupting influence of, well, influence on Congress:

... once this wiki-army has tracked the positions of all Members of Congress, we will display a map of reform, circa 2008: Each Congressional district will be colored in either (1) dark red, or dark blue, reflecting Republicans or Democrats who have taken a pledge, (2) light red or light blue, tracking Republicans and Democrats who have not taken our pledge, but who have signaled support for planks in the Change-Congress platform, or (3) for those not taking the pledge and not signaling support for a platform of reform, varying shades of sludge, representing the percentage of the Member's campaign contributions that come from PACs or lobbyists.

...

What this map will reveal, we believe, is something that not many now actually realize: That the support for fundamental reform is broad and deep. That recognition in turn will encourage more to see both the need for reform and the opportunity that this election gives us to achieve it. Apathy is driven by the feeling that nothing can be done. This Change Congress map will demonstrate that in fact, something substantial can be done. Now.

Link to Wired article, Link to Change Congress

Lamperd, a "firearm training system" company, has patented a bracelet that delivers debilitating shocks when remotely triggered. Their killer app for this is aviation safety: they're proposing that the TSA could force everyone who flies to wear one of these and then flight-attendants could zap us into a stupor if we turn out to be Al Quaeda.

A method of providing air travel security for passengers traveling via an aircraft comprises situating a remotely activatable electric shock device on each of the passengers in position to deliver a disabling electrical shock when activated; and arming the electric shock devices for subsequent selective activation by a selectively operable remote control disposed within the aircraft. The remotely activatable electric shock devices each have activation circuitry responsive to the activating signal transmitted from the selectively operable remote control means. The activated electric shock device is operable to deliver the disabling electrical shock to that passenger.

Best part? They're Canadian! Oh, my countrymen, you have a wicked sense of humo(u)r.

Link to patent, Link to Lamperd FTS site (via Schneier)

The latest issue of the online magazine IdeaFixa has a multi-page feature of Boing Boing favorite Kris Kuksi's highly detailed 3D art. Link

In this Flickr pool, you are invited to look at movie stills and try to be the first one to figure out what movies they're from. Most of them stumped me, even though I'm intrigued by the images. Link (Via Eye of the Goof)

Here is rare video footage of Allen Finsberg reading Howl.
Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

My friend Anne Sanger was trained as a fashion designer, but these she days helps fashion companies integrate digital technology into the design process. (That occurs much less frequently than you might think.) Anne is also a talented illustrator, and as long as I've known her she's taken visual notes of things in the fashion world that she finds inspiring or interesting. I was thrilled when I found out she's started a blog, titled Le Parapluie, to share some of her sketches and fashion commentary with friends. I don't know much about fashion, but I do know that her illustrations are beautiful. (The drawing above on the right depicts my wife. Oddly enough, it looks just like her.) Link (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)

A woman in the Florida Keys died today when a stingray jumped from the water and stung knocked her down as she was sunbathing on a boat. Judy Kay Zagorski, 57, reportedly fell backward and died of head trauma. From CBS4.com:

"It's a common behavior for Eagles Rays to go 'aerial', or breach the surface," said Robert Rose, a curator with the Miami Seaquarium. "There are many reasons why they do it. They could be fleeing a predator or trying to dislodge a parasite..."

In South Florida waters, Rose said spotted Eagle Rays can grow up to 12 to 15 feet, from nose to tail, with a width or wingspan of 6 to 8 feet.

Link to CBS4.com, Link to Cryptomundo post for more context

UPDATE: CNN has more details on the story. Link

My old friend Barnaby Whitfield has a new solo show of pastel paintings opening tonight at New York City's 31GRAND gallery. The exhibition, titled "Little Deaths, All The Same," runs through April 19. Above left, "The Truth Won't Save You Now (The Sky Is Falling Down)." Above right, "End! Game! (Ode To The Artist's Conception)." The solo exhibition is accompanied by a group show that Barnaby curated. From the press release:

From lovingly using his art dealer to anthropomorphize the ‘Bird Flu’ to finding fictional passion with Hernan Bas on a men seeking men website, we continue to get amusing and rather untrustworthy glimpses into Whitfield’s experience in the art world. And besides an over all theme the artist states as “sexualizing the environmental crisis within the context of American politics” we also see the end to Barnaby’s quest for his real parents (Whitfield was one of those children that always suspected they were adopted even though they knew quite well they were not), and a startling turn of events in his ongoing Clonie series (a character created when the momentarily impoverished artist decided to sell nudes on eBay inadvertently gaining the attention of 31GRAND and being welcomed into the fold.)

Never one to ignore a good bandwagon, this show is rife with imagery of Mother Nature’s rapidly declining health. It all comes to a questionably hopeful end in the piece “Wild! Woman! On The Water! (My Imaginary Friend She’s Just Pretend)” featuring Barnaby (in toddler form) and his Mother, Clonie, (along with Sarah Jessica Parker as Lil Orphan Annie) riding out the flooding from "Al Gore’s global warming" in search of dry land and greener pastures.

Link to online gallery, Link to press release

Harper Collins has posted the full text of Double or Nothing: How Two Friends Risked It All to Buy One of Las Vegas' Legendary Casinos, by Tom Breitling with Cal Fussman. It's available until April 14th. It sounds like a good story.

Their unlikely friendship began in college over an $8 veal parmigiana sandwich that led to a partnership in a hotel reservation business. Starting with a desk, a chair, a pillow, and a telephone, Tim and Tom grew a company that they sold during the dot.com boom for $105 million. This allows Tim to pursue his childhood dream of owning a casino and bringing back the glory days of Vegas.

When Tim ups the odds and raises the limits to give gamblers the best game in town, a craps player nicknamed "Mr. Royalty," who's on one of the hottest winning streaks in history, heads for The Nugget. When he begins to take Tom and Tim for millions, the partnership is put to the test. But Tim refuses to back off on the odds or the high limits, telling his partner, "It's a ballsy proposition here. It's gonna be a roller coaster ride. But we don't have a public company to answer to. It's just you and me."

When Mr. Royalty rolls twenty-two consecutive passes and rakes in a mountain of chips, he takes Tim and Tom to the brink. They must figure out a way to hold up The House.

Just as they do, the roller coaster ride really gets rolling—and the ride becomes crazier than they'd ever imagined.

Link | Buy from Amazon

An 81-year-old man from Queensland, Australia reportedly built a robot to kill him. Details are very slim, but according to Fox News he found the plans online to make a machine that would automatically fire a gun. From Fox News:

The machine was attached to a .22 semi-automatic pistol loaded with four bullets...

It was able to fire multiple shots into the man's head after he activated it.

Link

The Washington Post's Ellen Nakashima wrote an article about the US government's incredibly sloppy job with maintaining a list of terror suspects. If they can't even keep innocent people off the list, how can we expect them to protect anybody from real terrorists?

One man went into a Glen Burnie, Md., Toyota dealership to buy a car, only to be told that a name check revealed he was on a U.S. Treasury Department watchlist of suspected terrorists and drug dealers. He had to be "checked for tattoos," he said, to make sure he wasn't the suspect.

An 18-year-old found he could not open an account to accept credit card payments for his fledgling technology consulting business because his name was similar to that of a Libyan official on the watchlist.

A former U.S. Navy officer who served in the Persian Gulf and whose father was killed in the Korean War when he was a child, found himself locked out of his PayPal account because his name was similar to one on the watchlist.

Link (Via Farber)

Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman posted a photo roundup of animal species announced as new discoveries in the last few weeks. Seen here at left, two new species of wobbegong sharks discovered off the south west coast of Western Australia. At right, a Sri Lankan mouse-deer that isn't newly discovered, but is very elusive. This is a rare photo of the animal in the wild. I love being reminded how much we don't know about our natural world. Link to "New Species Photo Roundup", Link to "New Mouse-Deer" post

Etsy seller JesseDanger's $15,000 "Anax Imperator Machina" is a hand-made, precision clockwork dragonfly whose wings flap -- made from gold and silver.

Modeled after the largest modern species of dragonfly, this is a functioning creation whose wings flutter up and down when the very tip of the tail (really the abdomen, but tail sounds cooler) is turned. The inspiration for this complex mechanical insect originated from many of the fantasized gadgets of Leonardo da Vinci and other mechanical creations once thought futuristic in times long before our own. Inspired by these designs I set out to recreate nature using classical engineering and an elegant form. My intentions are to develop and continue making more of these mechanical insects.

The internal mechanisms, gears and moving parts were painstakingly hand-milled and hand-calibrated with absolute precision from 14k gold. The body, mechanical frame and wings were handcrafted from Argentium Silver, far superior to Sterling or fine silver. The body opens up to reveal the intricate inner movements, and fine details that just could not be left forever covered up! The eyes are each large 10 carat Swiss Blue Topaz cabochons and the 14k gold bezel on the tail contains a 4mm Amethyst bullet shaped cabochon.

Link

Remember IM IN UR MANGER / KILLIN UR SAVIOR"? That was the genius work of internet animation funnymakers Matt Burnett and Ben Levin, aka For Tax Reasons. Today, they offer an all-new, all-awesome animated short as an exclusive for Boing Boing tv viewers, and by that, we mean YOU. Includes Steampunk, LARP armor, papercraft, Commodore 64s, MMORPGs, Final Fantasy, suicide cults, and meditations on bad UI -- some of the many things that make Boing Boing great.

In part two of today's episode -- what's the secret behind For Tax Reasons' terrific work? They make those fancy animations with hard labor coerced from underpaid, non-union robots. Robots with simmering resentments that might! just! blow! up!

Link to Boing Boing tv blog post, with discussion thread and downloadable video.

Aaron Wider, CEO of HTFC, a mortgage broker implicated in the subprime meltdown and embroiled in a lawsuit with GMAC Bank, was fined $29,000 after he said "fuck" 73 times during his deposition. The cowboyism of the subprime boom is only starting to come to light -- guys like Wider were part of a movement of savage rapine of the world's economies and exploitation of the poor and disenfranchised, something that went all the way up to the big trading houses and their regulators.

Q: This is your loan file. What do Mr. and Mrs. Fitzgerald do for a living?
A: I don't know. Open it up and find it.
Q: Look at your loan file and tell me.
A: Open it up and find it. I'm not your fucking bitch.
Q: Take a look at your loan application.
A: Do it yourself. Do it yourself. You want to do this in front of a judge. Would you prefer to [do] this in front of a judge? Then, shut the fuck up.
Q: Sir, take a look--
A: I'm taking a break. Fuck him. You open up the document. You want me to look at something, you get the document out. Earn your fucking money, asshole. Better get used to it. You'll retire when I'm done.

Link

The London Science Museum will host a reunion for the creators of the beloved BBC Micro at an event tonight. The BBC Micro was a landmark in the evolution of the PC, a public-service computer invented to achieve national computer literacy:

"Acorn and the BBC were very surprised at the impact it had and the interest in it as a piece of hardware," said Dr Blyth, curator of computing and information at the Science Museum.

More than 1.5 million BBC computers were eventually sold; the BBC and Acorn had predicted they would sell 12,000.

"It was a very ambitious project. At the heart of it was education and bettering Britain; and helping us to understand what the computer could do and what you could with a computer."

She added: "I believe the history of the BBC Micro is really a fundamental one to understanding where we are today and explaining the British computer industry and our culture of computing that we have today.

Link to BBC article, Link to event details (via /.)

(Image: BBC Micro, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Lord Biro's Flickr stream)

GuyRobot sells beautiful one-of-a-kind robot sculptures made out of junk, a good mix of contemporary parts and weathered old vintage components. Link (via Gizmodo)