Recently on Boing Boing Gadgets we've looked at an upcoming exhibit showcasing the plush electronics of Blythe Church; Penny Arcade's new indie games download platform; the all-too-timely death of Richochet wireless; Nike's new iPod-less SportBand training bracelet; the ClarityLife phone for the elderly; a way to send hot leaden death from the mouth of a plush kitty cat; Creative's campaign against a driver hacker, as well as his first public response; 9 common phrases that come from technology; Babbage's Difference Engine coming to California; baggage handlers stealing gadgets from luggage; a cute line of handmade clay robots; Microsoft's latest failure to convince the FCC that White Space devices can work; video of the "awesomest Finder bug of all time"; a snap-on glove radar for checking baseball pitch speeds; Comcast's latest HD over-compression disaster; a simple way for African villagers to shell peanuts without pain (top hat and cane optional); a British newspaper's attempt to wheedle stories of videogame sociopathy; a clever twist-cap for instant tea; the old Kodak disc cameras; a thumbs-up for a Kyocera mandoline; and Denmark's latest contribution to childish sniggering, DONG Energy.

Edie sez, "I'm in the market for a digital SLR, and found something rather disturbing. B&H Photo says that to purchase a Fujifilm IS-1 camera, you must fill out an end user license agreement. Even weirder is the EULA itself: It asks what 'legitimate business purpose' (their words, not mine) the camera will be put to. Additionally, if the camera is sold, lost or transfered, you have to notify Fujifilm. WTF BBQ?"

Apparently, this is one of those infrared see-through-clothes cameras, but I'm with Edie, WTF?

INFORMATION ABOUT END USER BUSINESS
(1) Is End User purchasing a Fujifilm Infrared or Ultraviolet Sensitive Digital Camera for a legitimate business purpose? _______
(2) How long has End User been engaged in his/her profession or business? _________
(3) Please state End User’s legitimate business purpose?________________________________________________
(4) Has End User presented reseller with recognized forms or identification for End User and End User’s business? ___________
(5) Has End User provided reseller with copies of forms of identification presented in connection with (3), above? ____________
(6) Was End User Questionnaire completed at a business location of a Pro Digital Camera Authorized Reseller? ______________
(7) Please provide the business address where End User will pick up the camera listed below_________________________

By signing this End User Questionnaire, End User certifies that (1) the subject camera is being purchased by End User for the above stated legitimate business purpose, (2) End User will make its best efforts to safeguard the camera from being used by others, and (3) in the event End User transfers the camera or the camera is lost, stolen or is otherwise no longer in End User’s possession, End User will immediately notify Fujifilm of such event.

Link (Thanks, Edie!)

The amazing Jessica Joslin has an exhibition of her curious creatures opening tomorrow night at the Lisa Sette Gallery in Scottsdale, Arizona. Running until April 26, the exhibition coincides with the release of Joslin's new monograph, titled Strange Nature, that Mark blogged about here. Above, "Cosimo" (antique hardware, brass, bone, antique glove leather, glass eyes) and "Silvio" (turtle shell, brass hardware, beads, bone, antique vestment trim, leather, glass eyes). Link (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

Previously on BB:
• Jessica Joslin: Strange Nature art book Link
• Marco the Monkey sculpture Link
• Turning a departed pet into a cool work of art Link

Danny sez, "Following on from the memo allowing torture overseas, Kurt Opsahl from EFF has spotted a footnoted reference to a memo from the Administration that says 'our Office recently concluded that the Fourth Amendment had no application to domestic military operations.' So, if you're abroad and deemed an enemy combatant you can be tortured. If you're in the US, and you're caught up in a "military operation", you lose the bill of rights. Where exactly is the constitution supposed to apply?" Link (Thanks, Danny!)

"This statement is false." That's a classic logical paradox to consider, but it's much weirder to imagine someone living it. Over at the always-illuminating Mind Hacks, Vaughan excerpts a story about a man who had that very experience, as retold by psychiatrist/philosopher Bill Fulford in the book Philosophical Psychopathology. From the book excerpt:

(The patient) had tried to kill himself because he was afraid he was going to be "locked up". However, this fear was secondary to a paranoid system at the heart of which was the hypochondriacal delusion that he was "mentally ill".

He was seen by the duty psychiatrist and by the consultant psychiatrist on call, neither of whom were in any doubt that he was deluded. Indeed, both were ready on the strength of their diagnosis to admit him as an involuntary patient.

Yet had their diagnosis depended on the falsity of the patient's belief, as in the standard definition, they would have been presented with a paradox: if the patient's belief that he was mentally ill was false, then (by the standard definition) he could have been deluded, but this would have made his belief true after all.

Equally, if his belief was true, then he was not deluded (by the standard definition), but this would have made his belief false after all. By the standard definition of delusion, then, his belief, is false, was true and, if true, was false.

Link

Today on Boing Boing tv, we meet the filmmakers behind "Second Skin," a new documentary that examines computer gamers whose lives have been transformed by the emerging genre of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs).

World of Warcraft, Second Life, and Everquest allow millions of users to simultaneously interact in virtual spaces. Second Skin introduces us to couples who have fallen in love without meeting, disabled players who have found new purpose, addicts, Chinese gold-farming sweatshop workers, wealthy online entrepreneurs and legendary guild leaders - all living in a world that doesn't quite exist.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video.

Futurismic just published Leonard Richardson's stupendous, colossal, monumentally geeky story "Mallory," which reads like the first three paragraphs of Snow Crash, but extended, remixed, and oh, so sweetly.

Futurismic editor Paul Raven sums it up, "Seriously - geek hackers and classic arcade games, electronic Darwinism and domestic espionage, venture capital and Valley-esque start-ups … and a healthy dose of intellectual property panic."

Leonard was one of my writing students at Viable Paradise a couple years back and he made a great impression then. And this is just the kind of story I love Futurismic for publishing. Run, don't walk -- and expect great things from Leonard Richardson.

Thanks to the General Arcade Machine Emulator, Vijay now inhabited a golden age. His laptop held every arcade game ever released, or at least the important ones, the ones written before games started getting ridiculous peripherals like drum kits and full-scale Army tanks. The only hard part had been finding the seedy web site that offered all the games as a graph. Because these games, even the forgotten ones, are still under copyright, and that eight kilobytes of data can’t go on your laptop unless you’ve got the two-hundred-pound cabinet to go with it.

Even three thousand games weren’t enough for Vijay, because none of them were perfect. So he’d built the Selfish GAME, which bred mutants with barbarians, spaceships, and wizards. It had been fun for two years and now it had stopped working. A week after the Pyromancy deadline, while all the cool people were converging on a field in Idaho with their machines and duct tape, Vijay was doing the most boring thing he could think of: making a spreadsheet. Most of the work he delegated to a script, but writing the script was so boring he didn’t mind when Rodney called.

Link (Thanks, Paul!)

When I was a teenager, I spent quite a few nights with friends exploring an abandoned mental institution in my hometown. Apparently, photographer Jeremy Harris digs that sort of thing too. His engaging and provocative photo series titled American Asylum is hanging in my favorite San Francisco cafe, Progressive Grounds. Seeing the photos in this context, above the cream and sugar for example, make them especially surreal. Link (Flash site)

The new issue of my fave art magazine Hi-Fructose has hit the stands. This edition -- with contributions by the mag's new editor-at-large Kirsten Anderson of Roq La Rue fame -- features art by Chris Mars, Xiaoqing Ding, Kukula, KRK Ryden, Amy Casey, and Naoto Hattori. The cover is by comix artist Paul Pope. For a big taste of the Hi-Fructose vibe, you can also check out the revamped Hi-Fructose site with art news, videos, and a calendar of upcoming openings.
Link

Helping me search for a new laptop bag, my wife came across designer Paul Smith's cool Boombox Briefcase. (Of course, this one is fabric, unlike the laptop case I posted about in 2005 that's actually made from an old boombox.) The Boombox Briefcase is $425 from Flight 001.
Link (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)

Previously on BB:
• HOWTO make a boombox laptop case Link

Here's a declassified copy of one of the 2003 "Yoo Memos" issued by William J. Haynes II, General Counsel of the Department of Defense and written by John C. Yoo, then a deputy, in which they argue that torture of foreign nationals is lawful provided that it takes place offshore and that they are "enemy combatants" (whatever that means). It was rescinded after nine months.

Sent to the Pentagon's general counsel on March 14, 2003, by John C. Yoo, then a deputy in the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, the memo provides an expansive argument for nearly unfettered presidential power in a time of war. It contends that numerous laws and treaties forbidding torture or cruel treatment should not apply to U.S. interrogations in foreign lands because of the president's inherent wartime powers.

"If a government defendant were to harm an enemy combatant during an interrogation in a manner that might arguably violate a criminal prohibition, he would be doing so in order to prevent further attacks on the United States by the al Qaeda terrorist network," Yoo wrote. "In that case, we believe that he could argue that the executive branch's constitutional authority to protect the nation from attack justified his actions."

PDF link to memo, Washington Post article (Thanks, Rick)

Nice little concept design for a door-chain that makes you solve a maze to unlock it -- designed by Oleg Morev, apparently for the April Fool's ThinkGeek catalog. Link (via Cribcandy)

Oregon cops caught the alleged crooks who posted a fake "moving, everything must go, just come and take it" ad on Craigslist, which ended up costing their victim almost everything he owned. The pair had allegedly stolen a saddle from the man and wanted to cover up the crime, but they used a traceable IP address to commit the fraud.

Brandon and Amber Herbert were nabbed last night for allegedly posting the March 22 Craigslist ad, which claimed that the Jacksonville ranch's owner had to leave town so suddenly that his belongings--which included a horse--were available for the taking. The Herberts, investigators charge, did this to cover up their prior theft of several saddles and other items from the garage of the rural southern Oregon house, which is owned by contractor Robert Salisbury. After learning of the Craigslist ad, Salisbury returned to his property to find about 30 people rummaging through his home and remaining belongings. After subpoenaing Craigslist records, Jackson County Sheriff's Office investigators traced the online posting to the Herberts, according to the below probable cause affidavit. As a result, Brandon, 29, and Amber, 28, were both hit with burglary and computer crime charges. They are pictured in the above mug shots.

Link

See also: Fake Craigslist "everything must go" ad costs man pretty much everything