Sillof (he of the badass Justice League of America steampunk action figure mods) has just unveiled his latest: a deeply awesome range of steampunk Star Wars action figures. Link (Thanks, Sillof!)

The folks at Sanrio have achieved total Hello Kitty liftoff with this Hello Kitty Sander (unless it's a joke or a bootleg, in which case, it's time for Sanrio to copy the pirates and get into production). I don't have anything that needs sanding and I still want one.

Before the words were even completely out of my mouth, I knew I had guaranteed new depths of Hello Kitty Hell upon myself. Not only will my wife be looking for a Hello Kitty power sander, I’m sure I will also end up with a Hello Kitty tool set and Hello Kitty tool belt. My only hope is that I also receive a Hello Kitty nail gun (most likely with Hello Kitty nails included) that I can use to shoot nails into my head and put me out of my misery. It’s only a matter of time before they end up on our doorstep and Hello Kitty Hell takes on deeper and darker dimensions…

Link (via Make)

Update:: it's a racing power-tool! It comes from Global Cat-astrophe's Flickr stream. Well spotted, Meerkat!

io9's Annalee Newitz points to a post on that science fiction blog today which reveals that Iron Man fights on the side of proprietary software in a new comic book due out this summer.

"He's explicitly anti-Linux," she says. "Totally freakin weird!"

Link.

Or as Wired's Threat Level put it, porntrepreneur John "Buttman" Stagliano was busted for "selling adult content to adults." If convicted, he faces a possible prison sentence and up to $7 million in fines.

The eight count obscenity indictment was issued this week, and the Department of Justice released details in a press release before handing down charges to the defendants.

Three pornographic films are mentioned in the DoJ papers:

* Milk Nymphos
* Storm Squirters 2
* and Fetish Fanatic 5, which features the porn performer Belladonna.

So, women squirting dairy products out their butts, and Belladonna hosting some sort of enema party? Oh, BFD, DoJ, as a nation do we not have more noble battles to wage?

BB pal Reverse Cowgirl wondered aloud over email,

I just wonder about the meetings, at the DoJ, OPTF, and AOS. Was it like, say, a Tuesday, and one agent's like, we need to go... FOR THE SQUIRTERS. And then, was one other guy like, YEAH, AND MILK.

Also worth noting, the Belladonna movie box cover displays this sage advice:

"If nothing else, you ALWAYS do your enemas before going out to party!"

Adult news site XBIZ had this quote from Stagliano's attorney, Al Gelbard:

"The charges are what they are; I disagree with them politically and morally,” Gelbard said. "It's a waste of the government's resources. We're very confident that we'll prevail at trial." ...

And Richard Abowitz at the LA Times managed to pry a comment from Stagliano himself, against his attorney's advice:

The charges are real and something bad could happen. But I look at the world with wonder and amusement, especially when it comes to the government. I am hoping this will result in a bump in sales for the films. It is all films I distribute and not a single one I directed. I wish my 'Fashionistas' had been chosen. The films are hard, but I have real artistic ambition. I wonder how closely they watched? I am surprised the government, with the war and the economy, has time for this.

Over at AVN, Mark Kernes posted a piece titled "Stagliano Indictment Raises Unique Questions Regarding Minors' Internet Access," in which one attorney argued that the case is "a set-up for a titanic battle over two major constitutional issues" -- and old laws involving "indecent telephone messages."

One charge, however, that hasn't been seen before in a case involving adult material accessible from a Website is under Chapter 47 of the United States Code, Sec. 223(d), "sending or displaying offensive material to persons under 18."

That section reads, in pertinent part, "Whoever, in interstate or foreign communications, knowingly ... uses any interactive computer service to display in a manner available to a person under 18 years of age, any comment, request, suggestion, proposal, image, or other communication that is obscene or child pornography, regardless of whether the user of such service placed the call or initiated the communication; or knowingly permits any telecommunications facility under such person's control to be used for an activity prohibited by paragraph (1) with the intent that it be used for such activity, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

Fleshbot has a related post (NSFW), with links to the DVDs in question -- which adult stores are said to be yanking off the shelves as I type.

(thanks, Reverse Cowgirl! Image: Luke Ford, via Wikipedia.)

A new video for the Maryland, US-based band Food for Animals, directed by Martin Sulzer. You can view the video in various flavors of quicktime on the director's own website: Video Link (also spotted at antville and this film fest website.) Contains animated human nudity, some disturbing foodity, and exposed virtual schlong. (thanks, Susannah Breslin, and *happy birthday!*)

Our pal Johannes at monochrom says, "Here is a great video from a German guy out there who babelfish-translated Tommy Cruise's Scientology promo video into German, and performs it. I think it doesn't even matter if you know what he is talking about, it's still creepy."

Watch Tom Cruise Scientology Deutsche original Übersetzung.

Unusual device for people afraid to touch anything. Check out the videos -- it's a hook on a switchblade mechanism. I can't help myself -- I want one -- not because I fear germs, but because it looks like fun to use.

For germ conscious Americans The Handler is the next best thing to wearing surgical gloves in public bathrooms, airports and when you are traveling. It's a keychain sized mechanical device that allows you to open doors, pull levers, operate the paper towel dispenser and push ATM keypads without having to actually touch those things with your bare hands --- avoiding direct contact with germ infested public surfaces. This totally new product is infused with bacteria and virus killing nano-silvers that kill germs on contact, so it is always disinfecting itself. Perfect for the millions of germaphobes who burn through reams of paper towels in order to avoid contact with door handles, the retractable armature never touches you, your clothes or purse and proceeds to kill almost any and all germs after you use it. International travelers will definitely appreciate this totally new approach to reducing their risk to the host country's bacteria and cold and flu viruses.

Link

The delightfully demented artist Mitch O'Connell has a show coming up on April 25 and 26 at the Tattoo Factory in Chicago.

Mitch O'Connell, "The master of skin deep kitsch" according to Entertainment Weekly for his his newest book, Mitch O'Connell Tattoos will be there trying to unload giclee prints, paintings, skateboard decks and whatever else there's space for.

Be there for the double feature opening nights Friday April 25th and Saturday the 26th! Introducing "Cash 'n Carry" a bold new experiment in gallery shows! You put the cash in Mitch's palm... you take the art off the wall and go home!

What about the folks who "Are just looking"? Our motto is, "Get the hell outta here!" Cash is king at "Affordable Art Accessories" where nothing is over $500!

The Tattoo Factory Gallery is located one door north of The Tattoo Factory tattoo shop at 4443 N. Broadway in Chicago! 7pm to Midnight both nights! Prizes! Fun! Mischief! Mayhem!

Link

I just got a copy of a new 208-page graphic novel from Image called Aqua Leung, by Mark Andrew Smith and Paul Maybury. I have not had a chance to read it yet, but the art is stunning. (Preview here.)

Joe Keating of Image described it this way: "In a nutshell - the royal family of Atlantis is slaughtered, with their murderer taking up the throne. What he doesn't know is their young prince survived and is battling across the ocean to get his revenge." Link

Matt Fisher made a fun 4-minute documentary about an urban bee keeper named Jon Rolston. Link

John Young, a contributor to MAKE, is going to host a gorilla suit making workshop in Philadelphia. He says:

I thought you or someone you know might enjoy an opportunity to come to Philly this fall and pool your talents with others to construct a gorilla suit to your/their own exacting specifications (motorcycle helmet? jetpack mounts? swordcane?)

To educate my friends about old-school Gorilla Suit madcappery and tell them what I have planned, I've put this together.

No single article of clothing is as versatile as the gorilla suit. You can wear a gorilla suit to an embassy party, to a jewel heist, to a high-speed car chase, and then practice your slamdunks in it, all in a single evening. Without a well-constructed, well-tailored, and suitably altered gorilla suit (do you need boot-cut legs to go over your ski bindings?) your closet is sadly lacking. But the fancy-dress gorilla suits of the past aren't made anymore. Even the patterns to sew your own are out of print. That's a tragedy.

People with fiberglass skills especially welcome. Those masks are hard!

Link

If Rube Goldberg played pool, he'd set up trick shots like the gent in this video.
Link (Thanks, Gabe "TuneUp" Adiv!)

This month's National Geographic has a beautifully-written feature on the state-of-the-art in biomimetics, the science and art of looking to nature for design inspiration. The article is accompanied by mind-blowing photographs, and fortunately the whole package is available online, with video too. Seen here is an invention inspired by the way burrs stuck to a dog's fur... Velcro! From National Geographic:

A research fellow at the Natural History Museum in London and at the University of Sydney, Parker is a leading proponent of biomimetics—applying designs from nature to solve problems in engineering, materials science, medicine, and other fields. He has investigated iridescence in butterflies and beetles and antireflective coatings in moth eyes—studies that have led to brighter screens for cellular phones and an anticounterfeiting technique so secret he can't say which company is behind it. He is working with Procter & Gamble and Yves Saint Laurent to make cosmetics that mimic the natural sheen of diatoms, and with the British Ministry of Defense to emulate their water-repellent properties. He even draws inspiration from nature's past: On the eye of a 45-million-year-old fly trapped in amber he saw in a museum in Warsaw, Poland, he noticed microscopic corrugations that reduced light reflection. They are now being built into solar panels.

Parker's work is only a small part of an increasingly vigorous, global biomimetics movement. Engineers in Bath, England, and West Chester, Pennsylvania, are pondering the bumps on the leading edges of humpback whale flukes to learn how to make airplane wings for more agile flight. In Berlin, Germany, the fingerlike primary feathers of raptors are inspiring engineers to develop wings that change shape aloft to reduce drag and increase fuel efficiency. Architects in Zimbabwe are studying how termites regulate temperature, humidity, and airflow in their mounds in order to build more comfortable buildings, while Japanese medical researchers are reducing the pain of an injection by using hypodermic needles edged with tiny serrations, like those on a mosquito's proboscis, minimizing nerve stimulation.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Danny O'Brien sez,

The anti-three strikes amendment, condemning policies that would throw citizens off the Net, has cleared the European Parliament!

The French government lobbied and fought at the last minute to stop the language, writing to all French MEPs, and splitting it into two (one against bad things that might hurt the Net and society, and the other specifically highlighting Internet termination as an example of the above). Both parts got a majority in the Euro Parliament.

Awesome work by everyone against a concerted IFPI lobbying campaign. EFF's summary; more details from new French advocacy group Squaring the Net.

Link (Thanks, Danny!)

The Hubble Internet audit is a project to discover "black holes in the Internet" where traffic won't route:

Katz-Bassett has been working on a project called Hubble, a system that apparently is able to track what he refers to as information black holes. These are situations where a path between two computers does exist, but messages - a request to visit a Web site or an outgoing e-mail - get lost along the way. Katz-Bassett has published a Hubble map that enables users to monitor such black holes worldwide or simply type in a network address to check its status.

To determine a network status, Hubble sends test messages “around the world” to look for computers that can be reached from some but not the entire Internet, a situation that is described as “partial reachability”. Katz-Bassett said that short communication blips are ignored. However, if a problem surfaces in two consecutive 15-minute trials, it is listed as a “problem”. The research team found that more than 7% of computers worldwide experienced this type of error at least once during a three-week period in fall of 2007.

Link (via Futurismic)

This silly gag cartoon by Tom Horacek made me laugh out loud at an inappropriate time. It's from Horacek's new collection, "All We Ever Do Is Talk About Wood," published by Drawn & Quarterly. You can see more pages from the book at the D&Q site.
Link (Thanks, Mike Love!)

Deviantart's ~ryo007 has published a set of plans to make your own papercraft Super Nintendo Entertainment System, with a tiny cartridge! Link (via Engadget)

According to Symantec, cash-strapped, recession-struck identity thieves are blowing out personal information at deep discounts -- it seems the price of access to your bank account has cratered, sinking to a mere $10:

Cyber crims are even having to resort to legitimate business strategies, like offering volume discounts, in order to keep revenues at an acceptable level, according to a Symantec Internet security report. The latest twice-yearly report, released this week, says that access to bank accounts was now going for as little as $10 in the second half of 2007, and that thieves were increasingly selling stolen credit card numbers in batches of 500 for a total of $200, or 40 cents each [More than mine's worth - Ed]. This is less than half of what they were going for in the first half of 2007.

Buying a person’s whole identity, which includes a credit card number, Social Security number or ID and a person's name, address and date of birth, would only now set you back $100 for 50, so $2 per stolen identity.

Apparently though, some identities are worth more than others. Europeans will be happy (?) to know that their identities are much more coveted and, therefore more expensive (by about 50 per cent) than those of Americans, for instance. Some Euro identities even sell for as much as $30 a piece.

Link

Artist Larry Roibal posted some of his amazing doodles of newsmakers that he's drawn right in the newspaper. Link, Link, Link, Link, and Link (via DRAWN!)

Lad magazine Loaded ran a photo of a faux can of Heinz Alphabetti Spaghetti containing noodle swastikas instead of letters. The photo apparently accompanied a "Pointless But True" column about how the food company made the special spaghetti during World War II. Heinz didn't think the gag was particularly funny. The magazine have since issued an apology. From Wigan Today:

A Heinz spokesman said: "Perhaps the article came from one of those weird Internet rumours that are not based on facts...

"We carefully track any references to Heinz and, as soon as the article appeared, we were on to Loaded to make a complaint. We are pleased that the magazine has set the record straight."

Link

While in Amsterdam, Design Within Reach founder Rob Forbes noted the variety of interesting bike accessories he saw on people's two-wheelers. He took a slew of great photos of bike lamps and bike seats, thinking of them as a source of cultural information. From his blog post, titled "Spotting Bikes and Birds":

Bike seats... are a window into the design and cultural sensibilities of the place... The majority are classic leather seats (saddles) made by the venerable Brooks Saddle Company - tasteful and preppy, but not particularly functional in the wet Danish climate. The Danes get around this problem by using plastic bags, often elegantly tucked in under their bike seats, as if styled for a J Crew catalog photo shoot. Their choice of bike seats reveals a contrast in the mentalities of the Dutch and Danish. Dutch bike seats are eclectic, practical, casual, unpretentious, and even a little messy... They rarely use expensive brand name seats (fancy leather saddles would get ripped off in Amsterdam).

Link (Thanks, Lawrence Wilkinson!)

Here's a fantastic graphic of seminal punk band Black Flag's hairstyles from 1976 to 1986. It seems that I saw them play during their more hirsute days. Follow the link to see the whole picture. Link (Thanks, COOP!)

Just a reminder, guys: we'll be hosting our first IRC event in #boingboing in 30 minutes, at 1pm EST. The game is a variant of the popular Mafia/Werewolf social game called Pre-Cogs versus Replicants.

If you want to come and observe, jump on an IRC Freenode server and join #boingboing, or just click this link to use a Java IRC client. If you want to play, check out the description and rules in our official announcement thread, then join the channel, register your nick (/msg NickServ register [choose password]) and then message John Brownlee that you want to play (/msg Brownlee I want to play!)

Hope to see you there!

Today on Boing Boing tv, a glimpse inside the "Miss Hooker 2008 Beauty Pageant," the creation of artist Natalia Fabia. Nine glamorous punk pinups compete for the title, showing off such diverse talents as egg frying, fantasy whistling, and yo-yoing. Who will win? No actual prostitutes were harmed in the filming of this episode, just metaphorical ones (as in "we all sell ourselves here in Hollywood.").

Link to BBtv post with discussion and downloadable video. (Special thanks: Angelique Groh, and David Pescovitz)

Yesterday, I blogged about New Zealand's new DMCA-style copyright legislation, saying that it mirrored the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Copyfighting law prof Michael Geist sets me straight -- the Kiwis put one over on old Uncle Sam, crafting an anti-circumvention rule that's "probably the best anti-circumvention implementation anywhere in the world with a complete exclusion of access controls (ie. region coding), a positive right to circumvent for permitted acts, and even a system to allow 'qualified persons' to circumvent on behalf of those less technologically adept. "

On the anti-circumvention front, there are several things to note:

* the technological protection measures (TPMs) expressly exclude access controls such as region coding. In other words, the anti-circumvention provisions do not apply to devices that "only controls access to a work for non-infringing purposes."

* the legislation targets anti-circumvention devices, but excludes those devices that have something more than "limited commercially significant applications" other than circumventing a TPM.

* the law prohibits making, selling, distributing, advertising, or offering a circumvention device if the person "knows or has reason to believe that it will, or is likely to, be used to infringe copyright." The inclusion of a knowledge requirement creates an additional safeguard against overbroad application of the provision.

* most importantly, the law clearly permits circumvention for "permitted acts", which effectively preserves fair dealing rights (the statute also specifies the right to circumvent for encryption research). More impressive, the law includes a system to facilitate circumvention for permitted acts in the event that users are unable to circumvent a TPM themselves. In such cases, the law allows a "qualified person", which includes librarians, archivists, and educational institutions, to circumvent a TPM on behalf of a user (the user can also ask the copyright owner to unlock the work for them).

Link

See also: New Zealand bends over and offers up a DMCA to America with a shy, desperate smile

Etsy seller Recycled Ideas makes greeting cards with embedded seeds; once you've read and appreciated the message, you can plant the card and watch it sprout.

Love the earth? Me too! My passion for primates led me to study them and in doing so, I learned of their precarious position on earth. So many are endangered because their habitat is being destroyed everyday. That's why I make green gifts - like plantable paper.

Link (via Craft)

See also: Business card that sprouts

Flagler Productions, a video production company in Kansas that spent years as Wal-Mart's corporate archivist, is now selling access to thousands of hours of candid footage of Wal-Mart execs talking about the business's dirty secrets. Wal-Mart fired Flagler, and gave them a lowball offer of $500,000 (7,33€) for the archive. Instead, Flagler is now selling access to the archive to researchers (mostly union organizers and plaintiff-side lawyers suing Wal-Mart) for $250/hour.

“Once in a while you come upon documents that are helpful in a case,” the Berkeley, Calif.-based lawyer added. “What’s amazing about this is that this company has a video record going back many years showing senior management in at times fairly candid situations.”

Seligman said one clip from Lenexa, Kan.-based Flagler shows Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton in the late 1980s telling the board of directors that not enough women were in management.

Wal-Mart denies it discriminates against women and in recent years has published its annual women and minority hiring statistics.

Wal-Mart said it is unhappy with the public airing of its video record.

“Needless to say, we did not pay Flagler Productions to tape internal meetings with this aftermarket in mind,” Wal-Mart spokeswoman Daphne Moore said.

Link (Thanks, Nithya!)

The good folks at Evil Mad Scientist Labs have cooked up a great HOWTO for baking butter cookies with Sierpinski fractal patterns, using a simple pixel-art cookie technique:

A few months ago we showed you how to make beautiful fractals in polymer clay. Take that idea, run with it, and where do you end up? In the kitchen, making Sierpinski cookies! These cookies, made from contrasting colors of butter cookie dough, are a tasty realization of the Sierpinski carpet, producing lovely, edible fractals. As with our earlier project involving clay, you can make these by using a simple iterative algorithmic process of stretching out the dough and folding it over onto itself in a specific pattern.

Link (via Craft)

See also: HOWTO Make pixel-art cookies with a Play-Doh extruder

The State of Florida has given a Nestle bottling plant the right to pump as much water as it can get out Madison Blue Springs State Park, which is presently in drought conditions. The right lasts until 2018, and cost Nestle $230 in permit fees. Florida is presently in bitter dispute with its neighboring states over a region-wide water-shortage.

The company got a permit to take water belonging to Floridians — hundreds of millions of gallons a year from a spring in a state park — at no cost to Nestle.

No taxes. No fees. Just a $230 permit to pump water until 2018...

The state did much more than fight to get Nestle the right to pump as much water as possible from the spring.

As an added incentive for Nestle, the state approved a tax refund of up to $1.68-million for the Madison bottling operation. To date, Nestle has received two refunds totaling $196,000 and requested a third tax refund.

Link (Thanks, Steven!)

See also: For Love of Water: infuriating and incredible documentary about world's water-crisis

(Image: The world of water, a Creative Commons Attribution licensed photo from Snap®'s Flickr stream)

The White House website hosts a photo of Dick Cheney "fly-fishing on the Snake River in Idaho," wearing a pair of reflective glasses. Eagle-eyed William Gibson noticed that there's something awfully weird reflected in them: mutant hybrid sex-slave? Tentacle creature? Elder god? Link (Thanks, Bill!)

Update: in this higher rez version, the Schwa has cleverly disguised itself as Dick's arm -- thanks, Evan!

The Electronic Frontier Foundation has taken up the case of 3D modellers, fighting for their right to produce and sell models of vehicles.

Last month, Mark blogged about the ongoing wars between Lockheed Martin and 3D modeller John Macneill over the right to produce digital 3D models of the WWII B-24 bomber. Lockheed Martin claims that this is a trademark infringement.

It's not.

Who owns the B-24, the bomber that helped win World War II? U.S. taxpayers paid for it, Consolidated Aircraft built it, U.S. military pilots flew it, but Lockheed Martin says it owns the bomber—or at least it owns the name...

It is perplexing that this mark was granted in the first place, given that the term “B-24” is nothing more than a U.S. military model number used to describe the plane itself (descriptiveness is a traditional basis for rejection; that’s why you can’t register a trademark on the use of the term “cyberlaw” in connection with the practice of technology law). MacNeill’s situation is a perfect example of why we need that rule. If Lockheed had its way, no one could create 3-D images (or anything else that could be construed as a “model”) of famous military aircraft—from the B-24 to the F-117 Nighthawk, also known as the Stealth fighter.

But Lockheed should not have its way, because MacNeill’s images are protected by the nominative fair use doctrine. Nominative fair use means, in a nutshell, that it is OK to use a mark to accurately identify a product if using the trademark is necessary to identify the products, services, or company you're talking about, and you don't use the mark to suggest the company endorses you.

Link (Thanks, John!)

See also: WWII Bomber: "Trademark Infringement"

Mary sez, "Stephanie Metz has created a whole series of cute, elegant and gruesome felted art. The site shows teddy bear skulls, embryos, and newborn puppies, all rendered with exquisite care." Link (Thanks, Mary!)

This replica of a 17th century gold armillary ring swings open to form a sphere; the original came from Diana Scarisbrick's Historic Rings. This one (which improves on the original) was made by LiveJournaller Acanthusleaf. Link (Thanks, Monique!)

Wired's got a fantastic photoset of the unboxing of a freshly built Difference Engine, constructed to Charles Babbage's 1822 blueprints for a mechanical calculator of then-unheard-of sophistication:

But Babbage never completed it. It took engineers and curators at London's Science Museum almost six years of work to bring Babbage's 20 pages of blueprints to life in 1991.

Now, thanks to Microsoft multimillionaire Nathan Myhrvold, a second Difference Engine has been built and delivered to the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, where trained docents will turn its brass handle to crank out the calculations Babbage dreamed of automating.

Link (via JWZ)