Mike sends us this: "YouTube video of the oldest TV station sign-offs in existence: KTUL-TV in Tulsa, Oklahoma, February 18, 1979. Backing music is the jazz/lounge classic, 'Dreamsville,' from Henry Mancini's 'Music from Peter Gunn' soundtrack album." Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Jake sez, "Omnisio allows you to string together any number of YouTube videos, with arbitrary start and end points. This is great for making funny mashups, etc, but to me it's true potential lies in the fact that it obsoletes forever the aggravating hunt through the related links for the next part of a multipart youtube. Just upload them, string them together in Omnisio, and post a link in the first part's description." Link (Thanks, Jake!)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: Steampunk mixes! Link

Someone posted this magnificent concept painting of Epcot in the Boing Boing Gadgets Flickr pool. More details and links at BBG. Link

I was in a children's store today and my friend pointed out these doll sets from Plan Toys, a company that actually makes very good toys. The choices are "Asian Family," um, "Ethnic Family," and, er, "Doll Family." According to the Plan Toys site, there's also a "Modern Doll Family" available of oddly-dressed white folk. Link to Plan Toys, Link to larger photo (Thanks, Mike Messinger!)

The much-ballyhooed opening of Heathrow's £4 billion Terminal 5 has been a debacle. British Airways has canceled 208 flights since Thursday, and has "stranded" between 15,000 and 20,000 bags. Area hotels are crammed with stuck BA passengers and are gouging on pricing, prompting BA to lift its stingy (and possibly illegal) £100 limit on hotels for stuck passengers. This is the terminal with the that just cancelled its crackpot fingerprinting procedure -- passengers are fingerprinted at check-in and at boarding.

And lest you think you might try to get there with a change of underwear by going hand-baggage only, think again. BA's baggage-checkers are being serious rules-lawyers about hand-luggage limits, forcing passengers to check hand-bags that are less than an inch oversize, dooming the luggage to the nonfunctional baggage system at T5.

On one of the delayed planes, passengers on flight BA0662 to Larnaca were held on the tarmac for some four hours before leaving at 1205 GMT.

One, Elizabeth Drury, told the BBC the captain said they would be leaving without any luggage.

They had been told this was because some of the bags initially put on the plane had not been screened properly.

"The whole experience has been meltdown," she said.

A group of school pupils on flight BA285 to San Francisco also said they were told by the airline that their bags were not on board and they could choose whether or not to travel. They were bound for a skiing trip.

"It could ruin it because we are scheduled to start skiing tomorrow," said one schoolgirl, Natalie Bakhurst.

Link

See also:
Heathrow Terminal 5 to fingerprint domestic passengers
Heathrow Terminal 5: Electricity-free no-laptop zone?

Espen sez, "I thought you would appreciate this cartoon that explains the difference between covariation and causality. In English, the caption is 'During a convivial gathering there is talk of the unhygienic aspect of using galoshes. One of those present chips in: "Yes, I've also noticed this. Every time I've woken up with my galoshes on, I've had a headache."'" Link (Thanks, appliedabstractions)

New York Times writer John Schwartz took a joyride in a new NASA lunar vehicle that sounds like it ought to come with a Garth Brooks CD:

IT turns on a dime and parallel-parks like a dream. On the downside, it’s a little pricey (at $2 million or so) and its top speed is a pokey 15 miles an hour. Still, there’s a lot to like about the concept car taking shape here at the Johnson Space Center.

Did I say car? The new moon buggy conceived by space center engineers is anything but a car or a buggy. Its official name is Chariot, and this, my friends, is a truck. A heavy duty workhorse of a truck.

“America basically created the truck,” said Lucien Junkin, the chief engineer on the project. And so, he says, why not take a truck to the moon if NASA, as planned, takes humans back, as early as 2020?

It is a beguiling idea, especially as realized in a vehicle infused with the lessons learned from the Apollo-era moon missions and the subsequent success of the Spirit and Opportunity robotic rovers on Mars. This model took a year to build. It looks kind of like what you’d get if a monster truck had a ménage à trois with a flatbed trailer and a medieval siege engine....

Link to full story, with more great photos, and additional links. Image: Erin Trieb for The New York Times

In this video, an elephant is led to an easel, picks up a paintbrush, and paints a picture of an elephant holding a flower. Or at least, that's what appears to happen -- there are lots of cuts in the video and it's hard to say what's really going on. Fake or real, it's a great way to spend 8 minutes. Link

See also: Elephant artists

Carolina Botero of the Colombian Creative Commons project writes in to tell us about a new, rush-rush project to change the Colombian school curriculum to emphasise, a one-sided, protectionist view of copyright, without reference to the values to Columbian society arising from sharing, fair use, and the public domain. The clock is ticking, and Colombians need to get involved now before this becomes policy:

A comprehensive reading of the document suggests that the Colombian state is focusing its efforts and resources into developing our own version of "Captain Copyright" that will give educational recommendations for children, academics and public officials and will likely produce a surveillance state.

The document's main argument is that our country's intellectual property development relies solely on "protection and enforcement". Such a conclusion is based on the fact that the revenue for intellectual property related industries is higher in developed countries than in ours. The document has absolutely no references or background research, achievements and implications of recent approaches such as Free Software, Open Access, Open Educational Resources, Open Business, etc.

Link (Thanks, Carolina!)

In this week's CBC Search Engine podcast, there's a hilarious interview with "Joey Chaos," a teenaged new-wave goth rocker who's upset that some roboticists in Texas "stole" his name and look for their robot. The Search Engine folks point out that there are plenty of other Joey Chaoses, even bringing one on the line. Link, MP3 Link

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

Chase caught with hand in the cookie jar:

An internal memo, explaining how to beat the Mortgage Loan Computer System (Zippy) at JPM Chase was leaked to the Portland Oregonian.

The memo gives advice for fooling the system to get otherwise unqualified borrowers approved for mortgages:

3 "handy steps" for getting a questionable loan approved by JPM Chase's automatic system:

1. Lump all of an applicant's compensation as the applicant's base income, rather than breaking out commissions, bonuses and tips.

2. Do not disclose use of gifts for down payments.

3. If all else fails, simply inflate the applicant's income. "Inch it up $500 to see if you can get the findings you want. Do the same for assets.

Link, Link to leaked memo, Link to Barry's analysis (Thanks, Barry!)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: everyday objects underpinned with clockwork. Link

This dope-smuggling Bible from the November 1928 issue of Modern Mechanix illustrates the perpetual ingenuity of dope fiends:

Mechanical ingenuity of narcotic smugglers is constantly being tested in devising new methods of bringing their contraband goods safely into the country. The picture shows a Bible which has been hollowed out in the center to provide a hiding place for thousands of dollars worth of morphine and other opiates. The book was confiscated by Internal Revenue inspectors.

Link

I'm head-over-heels in lust with this "Mr Roboto" prototype watch from Azimuth, inspired by vintage tin robots.

The design of Mr Roboto was inspired by the Lantern Robot of the 1950s. Azimuth’s designers show that a timepiece’s practical functionality does not have to take a back seat to aesthetic visual designs. Witness the perfect marriage of ingenious design and user-friendly functions, this good-looker is set to be a head-turner at this year’s Basel show. A unique timepiece that transcends time, Mr Roboto aims to revive the passion of the tin robot generation of enthusiasts and enduring science fiction lovers.

Link

Over on the Sociological Images blog, a post entitled "The Male Gaze Does Not Allow for Boy Nipples" notes that the men in this giant wrestling billboard have all had their nipples removed.

They were photoshopped out because of a law in Florida that prohibits the display of nipples. Since men's nipples are not sexualized in the same way that women's are, the authors of the law were likely thinking of women's bodies as they penned this ban. Thus, it illustrates that it is women's bodies that we think of when we think of bodies on display because of the adoption (by men and women alike in this culture) of a (heteronormative) male gaze.

Link

We at Boing Boing are delighted to welcome the latest addition to the Happy Mutants family, Sarah Milstein! Sarah joins us as our first-ever Operations Manager and Chief Loop Closer! We've had concentric orbits with Sarah for years and she's the perfect person to help us focus on what needs to be done in the short term, get our heads around what's possible in the long term, and grow thoughtfully.

Sarah was a longtime managing editor at O'Reilly Media, co-wrote Google: The Missing Manual, and co-created the O'Reilly Tools of Change Conference for Publishing. Sarah is also part of the extended MAKE: and CRAFT cabal. After leaving O'Reilly, she worked with Metaweb on its community efforts. And now with Tony Stubblebine of CrowdVine, Sarah's co-organizing the Web2Open unconference accompanying the Web 2.0 Expo next month in San Francisco.

We feel incredibly fortunate that Sarah is bringing her expertise to Happy Mutants so we can get busy on a slew of fun and exciting new ideas. And as always, we appreciate the continued support of you, our community, with the ongoing expansion, evolution, and, of course, mutation of Boing Boing. Welcome, Sarah!

(Thanks, Dale Dougherty, executive recruiter-at-large!)

Among the designs on display at Tokyo Fashion Week earlier this month -- bunnies and furries. If I'm not mistaken, the image above was taken from the runway show for Né-net, the line designed by Kazuaki Takashima. (Spotted on Tokyomango, thanks Marianne Shaneen!)

In Plenty magazine, this feature about the Chinese government's high-tech "weather modification" efforts for this summer’s Beijing Olympics. The big idea: keep the sun shining, through all that smog. Snip:

One thing worth considering when you tamper with nature is what sort of nature you’re tampering with. Nature is not kind to the city of Beijing. China’s capital is arid, nearly a desert, and its natural weather patterns are fickle and harsh. Winter is marked by howling Siberian winds; summer, by sweltering monsoon heat. In lieu of showers, springtime is best known for seasonal dust storms that sweep down from Central Asia. Fall is parched and gusty too, but the dust settles down. This basic brutality is overlaid with levels of pollution like those of England’s Industrial Revolution. Many things blot out the sunshine, and most have nothing to do with rain: factory and power plant emissions, construction dust, smoke from stoves burning scrap wood or pressed coal. There are more than 3 million cars on the streets—and the count is said to be growing by 400,000 vehicles annually. It is not unusual to check the AccuWeather international forecast on the New York Times website and find that while other cities’ weather is “mostly sunny” or “overcast,” Beijing’s is “smoky.” In February 2007, authorities finally abandoned a longstanding policy in which haze was referred to as wu, Mandarin for fog, and just called it what it is—mai, or haze.

Link to article. (Thanks, Choire Sicha, you gorgeous creature, you.)

Image: "Sun through the smog in Beijing," by ~diP.

Previously on BB:
* Weather modification for the Beijing Olympics

Above, two of the images from photographer Jacob Holdt currently on display at CNA gallery in Luxembourg.

[Holdt] was 24 years old when he decided in 1971, like many of his Danish compatriots, to travel across the American continent. He landed in Canada with the aim of rapidly crossing through the United States to get to the true destination of his travels: South America. But from the moment he crossed the Canadian border, Jacob Holdt was struck by an America characterised by poverty and the exclusion of the socially disadvantaged. In his outrage, he described the misery he was witnessing in letters to his parents who, for their part, remained incredulous. His father nevertheless sent him a small camera so that he could back up his accounts with tangible proof. And this is how the long voyage of the young Dane through the United States started, not to be completed until five years and several thousand snapshots later, with a deeply moving work: 'American Pictures 1970-1975', published as a book in 1978.

Jacob Holdt, who was nominated for this year's DeutscheBorse Photography Prize, has remained a key figure in Danish activist circles, despite having in the meantime more or less given up photography. His images of the America of the destitute of the seventies had great repercussions and to a large extent inspired the movies Dogville and Manderlay by Lars van Trier."

Link (thanks, Clayton James Cubitt!)

29-year-old Gregory Kats says he's sorry his science project (a model of an elevator) short circuited in his backpack and started smoldering in a NYC subway car.

Kats said he tried to reassure his fellow passengers that it was a school project -- not a bomb -- but people scrambled for the exits nonetheless. The box he was holding had a small battery, wires and a motor.

"They were panicking, and I realized their fear," an apologetic Kats said.

He said he tried to disassemble the contraption on the platform even as he reassured riders, "Don't worry. This is my science project."

Link

The Washington Post's Security Fix blog has a story about an alleged Ukrainian cybercrime boss named Dmitry Ivanovich Golubov. The story itself is interesting, but the part that stuck out was this gadget, called a "raskat" device, which comes with a wireless keychain fob that can remotely trigger the destruction of data on a computer hard drive.

Golubov doesn't dispute that he owned a Raskat at the time, but he says he purchased it online to resell it at a local market for a tidy profit.

"In the past in Ukraine it was risky to keep all company contract and clients data on computers," Golubov said. "At first -- tax inspection can confiscate computers, at second -- competitors can stole them and take over businesses."

Golubov said it was members of the law enforcement task force who used the Raskat to fry the data on his hard drive.

"Regarding information from the hard drive -- it was not me who destroyed it. But it was employee of task force who conducted a search," Golubov wrote to Security Fix. "This officer has found Raskat system remote control. He decided that it is remote from my car alarm and started to push on it in order to find which one of parked nearby car it was. I have no car and it was remote from the system Raskat, and I have clearly said this to him, but he has not listened to me, and told me to be silent. And he pushed this button several time. It can be possible he has erased all information on purpose, in order to say that all evidences are all wiped off, or more likely due to stupidity."

Link (Via the day they tried to kill me)

ill lich says: "Quick and incisive documentary on the Rev. Sun Myung Moon and the breadth and depth of his influence in Washington. I'm sure most people don't know just how influential and rich he is. (I sure didn't)."

In 2004, journalist John Gorenfeld scooped the Washington press corps when he exposed a scandalous party on Capitol Hill, in which members of Congress watched as Moon held a ritual coronation for himself as the "King of Peace." Wearing a majestic cape and coronet, the publisher declared himself the Messiah. The New York Times editors compared the event, sponsored by a U.S. senator, to an act of the Roman emperor Caligula.

That, as you might imagine, was just the tip of the iceberg.

Bad Moon Rising takes you into the underbelly of the Religious Right. Which is surprisingly, scandalously entwined with Moon and his business empire--an untold chapter in American political history.

Link

Enjoy the new spring colors for the Homeland Security Advisory System. It's always cantaloupe in Cheneyville! Link

Nathan Black says: "I collect pictures of people's knuckle tattoos and the stories behind them. I've got about 170 or so sets up and I've been collecting them for about a year and a half." Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Subcutaneous brass knuckle implants
• Brass-knuckle purse said to land wearer in airport security hell
• LOVE / HATE knuckle tat gloves
• HOWTO knit gloves with "knuckle tattoos"
• Wooden brass knuckles

Jeff Trexler says: I've posted the judge's entire ruling.

Here's the historic concluding paragraph:

After seventy years, Jerome Siegel’s heirs regain what he granted so long ago -– the copyright in the Superman material that was published in Action Comics Vol. 1. What remains is an apportionment of profits, guided in some measure by the rulings contained in this Order, and a trial on whether to include the profits generated by DC Comics’ corporate sibling’s exploitation of the Superman copyright.

Link

TradeMark G. says:

In response to the bulletproof "anti-terrorist" bed...

Over at Dinosaur Gardens, I just posted MP3s of a radio ad campaign for Survive-All Fallout Shelters:

"The international struggles of our world may lead to… (ka-boom) NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!"

Nothing lends itself better to a fear-based advertising campaign than your family’s radioactive death. So when the Mort Kridel Advertising Agency was asked to create a radio ad campaign for Survive-All Fallout Shelters, they did their PR-darnedest to scare the Wonder Bread crap out of nuclear families everywhere. Tense horn stabs and canned explosions bracket sales pitches like:

Radioactive fallout, that deadly by-product of a nuclear attack, will kill literally millions of unprotected families in the event of an atomic attack. Is YOUR family protected? Do YOU have a fallout shelter?

Each Civil defense approved, basement-type, Do-It-Yourself fallout shelter includes: A complete fully-stocked first aid kit! Extra strength saran and rayon bunks! A radiation meter and individual dosimeters!

Civil defense approved, FHA approved, no money down, five years to pay!

Link

Dustin sez, "This is a great picture of an old radiator cap taken in 1938. Looks like the car may belong to one of Coop's long lost relatives." Link (Thanks, Dustin!)

Wil sez, "My friend's wife made this awesome Cthulhu cake that was so awesome, I had to share it with BB readers. Also, awesome. Cake fhtagn!"

Here is Cthulhu rising from the oceans, using a convenient little island with a tower on it to climb up. The base was cherry-chip cake, the island and tower a mix of cherry chip and yellow cake with chocolate frosting. Also used small chocolate 'pearls' as rocks. Cthulhu himself is all fondant, with two chocolate pearls that I seeped in red dye for eyes.

Link (Thanks, Wil Wheaton!)

Julio Diaz, a social worker, was robbed at knifepoint by a teenaged mugger in the Bronx. Instead of getting angry or scared, he offered the kid his coat, and struck up a friendship:

As the teen began to walk away, Diaz told him, "Hey, wait a minute. You forgot something. If you're going to be robbing people for the rest of the night, you might as well take my coat to keep you warm."

The would-be robber looked at his would-be victim, "like what's going on here?" Diaz says. "He asked me, 'Why are you doing this?'"

Diaz replied: "If you're willing to risk your freedom for a few dollars, then I guess you must really need the money. I mean, all I wanted to do was get dinner and if you really want to join me ... hey, you're more than welcome.

Link (via Kottke)

Update: Boing Boing is not in a position to fact-check this story, nor any of the versions of it reported in the comment thread.

Air & Space Smithsonian has a feature on the unusual and telling items that antique airplane restorers at places like the Paul E. Garber Preservation, Restoration and Storage Facility often find when disassembling their latest aircraft.

Last July, intern Eric Lawrence was cleaning out a Curtiss F9C-2 Sparrowhawk, a small, airship-based fighter that the Navy used in the 1930s for reconnaissance patrols along the U.S. coasts. When he was working in the fuselage tail cone, Lawrence came across a broken pencil, inscribed with the words "Hoover for President, 1928..."

A small medallion—discovered tightly crumpled around a screw in a World War II British Hawker Hurricane Mk.IIC fighter—also ended up teasing the restorers with possible storylines. Museum Specialist Will Lee, who found the medal while working on the Hawker restoration, took the time to straighten it out, make it recognizable, and do some investigating. "It's actually a watch fob," says Lee. In the course of researching the item, Lee learned the meaning of the medallion's icons: "The anchor symbol means it was made in Birmingham, England. The lion indicates that it's made of silver, and the letter corresponds to a date—in this case, 1915." But who had owned the medallion? A pilot? A maintainer? A person of wealth? And why was it wrapped around a screw?

Link

Ronald Long of Deepwater, Missouri was having a tough time installing his satellite TV system on Saturday. He couldn't seem to puncture through his exterior wall, so he decided to fire his gun at the wall. One of the shots killed his wife who was standing outside. Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

Boing Boing tv presents CUPCAKE CUTTHROATS, a cakesploitation epic exploring the dark side of electric art-cars shaped like baked goods. These homemade vehicles are crafted by Silicon Valley nerds (including one engineer from Tesla Motors) and Burning Man enthusiasts in a Berkeley, California, warehouse. In today's episode, Xeni joins the marauding muffineers for a 15-mph thrillride down mean, sugar-sprinkled streets.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and the names of the maker-muffineers.

Update: Scott Beale at Laughing Squid has some photos of the mobile muffins, too.

Crafster's Flossbox has been experimenting with "scientific embroidery," illustrating principles from science by means of cute embroidered designs, to very good effect. Link (via Craft)

Ryan sez, "We have a medical transcriptionist on staff who has been using the same keyboard for the last 8.5 years. My co-worker replaced it yesterday, and when he first showed it to me I thought someone had taken a blowtorch to it! The most frequently used keys have been completely worn through, exposing the mechanism beneath. Zoom in and check out the indentation on the Backspace key! The keyboard still works fine, so there's something to be said for durability. BTW, it's a NMB Technologies model RT2358TW."

Some people are hard on keyboards -- I tend the blow the contacts on the left side of the board really fast, knocking out the Ctrl, Alt and left side of the spacebar. Charlie Stross's keyboards lose their lettering in mere months, and my pal Seth Schoen types like a machinegun, but I've never noticed any particular wear on his keyboards. Link

A student was given a portfolio of high-quality Syd Mead promotional futuristic images intended as giveaways for United States Steel International customers, and he and his teacher scanned them and popped them on Flickr. This is wonderful stuff. Link (Thanks, Dennis!)

The Pulp of the Day blog uploads a new scanned-in cover from a classic pulp magazine or novel every day. The science fiction ones are superb (Warren Ellis subtitled these both "Fuck you spaceship!") Link (via Futurismic)

This appears not to be a joke: the Quantum Sleeper is a bed that hermetically seals itself as you sleep to protect you from "Bio-Chemical terrorist attack," "natural disaster," "kidnappers/stalkers" (only those who don't possess a forklift, surely) and affords "Bulletproof 'Saferoom' protection."

1.25" Polycarbonate Bulletproof Plating/Shielding
Bio-Chemical Filtered Ventilation
Rebreather
Control Panel Mode Selection (i.e., Basic System Ops., Intruder Setting, Energy Status, Lock Down, etc.)
Cover & Door Actuators w/ Emergency Release
One way see through head cover (reflective mirror on 2 sides and front)
Safety Features (Proximity Sensor, O2 Sensor, Smoke Det., Motion Det. Ect,)
Emergency Communication system (Cellular, Short-wave Radio, CB ect.)
Audio Amplifier (Amplify sound from out side unit)

Air/Water Tight Sealing
External Override Key Pad & Remote Control
Battery Backup Power
Toiletry system

Ect! Link (via Warren Ellis)

See also: Creepy bed doubles a safe room

Avid readers of the November 1928 ish of Modern Mechanix may have been tempted to follow the advice in this article and build giant, deadly monowheels for their kiddies, powered by motorcycle engines. I know I sure am.

POWERED by a motorcycle engine and operated through the conventional handlebar control, a rubber-tired motor wheel has been invented which is claimed to represent the ideal in cheap and rapid transportation. The device is so simple that a youngster can operate it. The large wheel is fitted with a continuous inner track along which run a series of flanged wheels on which the mechanism revolves. The rider is seated inside the wheel on a regulation motorcycle saddle.

Link

In this transcript from the notorious fictional trial of a British man who stole 40,000 coat hangers from hotels, the defendant, a sharp-witted loony, runs rings around the opposing counsel, making highly entertaining (and disturbing) fun of him:

Judge: I think Mr Chrysler is running rings round you already. I would try a new line of attack if I were you.

Counsel: Thank you, m’lud.

Chrysler: And thank you from ME, m’lud. It’s nice to be appreciated.

Judge: Shut up, witness.

Chrysler: Willingly, m’lud. It is a pleasure to be told to shut up by you. For you, I would…

Judge: Shut up, witness. Carry on, Mr Lovelace.

Counsel: Now, Mr Chrysler - for let us assume that that is your name - you are accused of purloining in excess of 40,000 hotel coat hangers.

...

Counsel: Are you seriously suggesting that there are people who prefer hotel life to home life?

Chrysler: Certainly. A lot of businessmen would never go home if they had the chance. So when they get home they like to recreate the hotel experience in their own house. Many of my clients have their own mini-bars in their bedrooms. They have TV sets at the end of the bed on a raised shelf, often with an adult sex channel on it. All their bathroom products come in wrappers and are thrown away each day. I have even known people in their own home put out “Do Not Disturb” notices on the door of their own bedroom.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Blake sez, "In a previous BB post, Mark wrote about a Japanese man who has been documenting online the life of a vending machine since 2005. He just created a little papercraft version of that self-same vending machine so you can feel like you're right there with him." Link (Thanks, Blake!)

See also: Japanese man documents the life of a vending machine

The SFinSF free science fiction reading series continues apace: this month, it's Patricia McKillip and David Lunde, reading and speaking gratis on the 20th of April:

PATRICIA MCKILLIP - "one of the foremost American authors of fantasy and science fiction novels, distinguished by lyrical, delicate prose and careful attention to detail and characterization." She won the World Fantasy Award in 1975 for THE FORGOTTEN BEASTS OF ELD, the Locus Award in 1980 for HARPIST IN THE WIND and the World Fantasy Award in 2005 for OMBRIA IN SHADOW. Her novels have the further distinction of beautiful cover paintings by artist Kinuko Y. Craft. She is also the author of The Riddlemaster trilogy, comprising THE RIDDLEMASTER OF HED, HEIR OF SEA AND FIRE, and HARPIST IN THE WIND; her most recent novels include ALPHABET OF THORN, OD MAGIC, HARROWING THE DRAGON,and SOLSTICE WOOD, winner of the 2007 Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature. She is married to David Lunde, a poet.

DAVID LUNDE - "Lunde has been Co-Editor and Publisher of The Basilisk Press, Managing Editor of Drama & Theater, and Poetry Editor of The Riverside Quarterly. He is the author of seven books of poetry, the most recent of which are BLUES FOR PORT CITY (Mayapple Press), HEART TRANSPLANTS & OTHER MISAPPROPRIATIONS (Mellen Poetry Press), and NIGHTFISHING IN GREAT SKY RIVER (Anamnesis Press). He has won the Academy of American Poets Prize and two Rhysling Awards for Best SF Poem of the year. Lunde's poems and translations have appeared in Poetry, TriQuarterly, Feminist Studies, Renditions, Field, Northwest Review, Asimov's SF and more than 230 other magazines and anthologies." He is married to Patricia McKillip, an author.

April 20, 5:30PM
The Variety Preview Room
The Hobart Building, 1st Floor
582 Market St. @ Montgomery, by Montgomery St. MUNI/BART
Entrance to the Hobart Bldg. is between Citibank and Quiznos

Link

David sez, "I made these 1UP Cakes for the one year anniversary of a Nintendo DS night near me, and have now put the recipe up on Instructables." Link (Thanks, David!)

Greg sez, "In its claims for trademark infringement against an online parodist, Wal-Mart claimed that it had trademark rights in the ubiquitous yellow smiley face. Not only did Wal-Mart lose its case, the judge held it had no rights in the smiley face mark. The smiley face has been liberated!"

"This ruling shows that even the biggest company in America is subject to parody, and that trademark rights must yield to the right of free speech. This is a resounding victory for First Amendment rights and sends a clear message to big corporations that would try to use their deep pockets to intimidate and silence their critics."

Link

(Image: K_Day-09.09.2005_163136, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Lordcolus's Flickr stream)

Village Roadshow Gold Class Cinemas is building 50 new super-premium theaters across the nation, with leather armchairs, valet parking, and chairside waiters who serve freshly prepared sushi and other seat-treats. Tickets will cost $35.

Each complex will sport theaters featuring 40 reclining armchair seats with footrests, digital projection and the capability to screen 2-D and 3-D movies, as well as a lounge and bar serving cocktails and appetizers, a concierge service and valet parking.

But the circuit will especially push its culinary offerings — made-to-order meals like sushi and other theater-friendly foods from on-site chefs (a service button at each seat calls a waiter). Moviegoers will have to pay extra for any food they order, however.

Link (via The Consumerist)

Editors Jonathan Strahan and Gardner Dozois have just posted the full text of two of the best stories from their original anthology The New Space Opera, from superstars Ken Macleod and Greg Egan. Both of these stories have been nominated for this year's Hugo award, and deservedly so. Space opera is a venerable sub-genre in science fiction with a lot of juice still left in it, as is evidenced by these masterful pieces. I was so impressed with this volume that I've agreed to write a story for the next one, my first crack at space opera proper. Link (Thanks, Jonathan!)

Here's a gem from William Gurstelle's Notes from the Technology Underground blog. After newspapers reported that the U.S. military accidentally sent four nuclear-missile detonators to Taiwan in 2006 without until just now realizing it, Gurstelle looked into the history of the Mark 12 missile and found out it was retired in 1962.

The triggers were for Mark -12 nuclear weapons. The Mark 12, nicknamed "Brock" by those who have pet names for atomic bombs, hasn't been part of the nuclear arsenal since 1962. These things have been outdated for 46 years. I think (this is no joke) that a Mark-12 trigger uses vacuum tubes.

So, my question is, why are we keeping so much junk in our nuclear attics? Even my mom finally cleared out her basement (throwing away my collection of vintage Archie comics, but that's another issue.)

No doubt there are still a thousand crates of horse liniment for the cavalry or a million sticks of slowmatch for flintlock rifles piled next to the Mark-12 triggers as well.

Link

Mott tells a story in the comment thread on Adoption and corruption: human trafficking busts in Guatemala.

For those of you (and I count a couple among the posters here) who appear willing to condone or turn a blind eye to human trafficking in the name of some “higher good,” allow me to share a story which, in a sense, may put the proverbial shoe on the other foot. For this could have happened to you.

It is a story that my wife and I have told practically no one. At first, in the wake of the incident, because it was too horrible and unsettling to talk about, and, much later, because the horror had thankfully receded into the distant past. But it definitely happened, and it definitely colors my views today on Guatemalan adoptions.

I am an American. Back in the 1980s I worked for several years in Guatemala as a development worker with a well-known NGO with projects all over the country, though I was based in the capital city. In 1984 my Guatemalan wife and I were blessed with a beautiful baby girl (biological offspring).

Like many people in my line of work we had a paid housekeeper. One day when our little girl was maybe seven months old our housekeeper had to walk down the street about five short blocks to get some small sundry, like milk or something, at a little store there. She asked my wife for permission to take the baby with her, and my wife said of course. (You must understand that we trusted our wonderful indigenous housekeeper implicitly, and besides, Zone 10 of the city was far more tranquil back then, notwithstanding the war in the countryside.) As for me, I was at work 15 blocks away in the office.

Scarcely a block from the little store, the housekeeper carrying our daughter swaddled in a colorful peraje was accosted by a microbus which sped up to her from behind and cut her off. Inside (I am told) was a male driver and 4-5 “well-dressed women.” (Bear in mind, this is our housekeeper’s account.) Through an open window of the microbus a woman deftly squirted the contents of what looked like a large syringe into our baby daughter’s face. Not injected, but squirted through the air. And indeed, it appeared this would have been an abduction, had not something miraculous and ironic happened in that instant. An army jeep with 3-4 soldiers came around another nearby corner and stopped in front of the tienda! They did nothing, really, except that one or two of them went into the tienda to buy something -- but the mere sight of them on this very tranquil street must have spooked the people in the microbus, for they suddenly sped off as quickly as they had approached.

Our housekeeper came back home in a panic with our baby. Police were called, and about three of them showed up very quickly in a patrol car, including one female officer who took down our report. I had just arrived home from work, and was quickly apprised of the situation. Our baby, swaddled and deeply asleep in the same peraje, smelled vaguely of rotten eggs, and both the housekeeper and the police officer said that was from the liquid they had squirted in her face – evidently some sort of chemical with a tranquilizing effect. The police had evidently seen or heard of this before; in fact, they seemed unsurprised by any of the details recounted to them.

Well, the moment passed, and we eventually all returned to normalcy. We’ve been back in the States for many years now (except for the housekeeper, of course). Our little girl is fully grown, graduated from college, and on her own now working at a wonderful job in DC. But we might well have lost her forever, and there is not a shadow of doubt that our daughter might have become one more statistic in the horrible saga of human trafficking and illegal adoptions.

Folks, there is NO PRINCIPLED MORAL DISTINCTION that can be made between kidnapping for adoption or selling a child for adoption. It is human trafficking, and it is wrong. If a child is sold, it doesn't matter if you are the seller or the buyer, and if the latter, it matters not a whit whether you paid the cash yourself or paid someone else to pay the cash.

Moreover, I agree wholeheartedly with the poster here who noted that those who adopt because they want to “save” a child should really consider how many more children they could save by devoting the same resources to vitally needed community development efforts in the country where the children live.

Link.

In 1990 Gary Weaver of Ohio was alleged to have bought $21.64 cents worth of merchandise from a store, using a roll of dimes to pay for part of the bill. After he left, a store employee discovered that the roll was filled with pennies, and that roll was capped with a dime on each end.

The long arm of the law caught up with Mr. Weaver on Wednesday and Municipal Court Judge Richard Bernat set a $1 million bond on the case.

That means Weaver is in the jail – that officials say is overcrowded and in need of replacement – on a bond that is $999,978.36 higher than the amount he is accused of stealing 18 years ago.

Link (Thanks, Beryllium on #boingboing IRC!)