The Toronto Public Library system is just kicking off a gigantic, ambitious speculative reading series that starts next Monday with Michael Skeet hosting a panel discussion with Karl Schroeder, James Alan Gardner and Peter Watts on the pursuit of foresight in Canadian science fiction.

On April 31 May 1, Toronto Public Library will be launching my next novel, Little Brother, at an event at the Merril Collection, the astounding public science fiction reference library. Books will be on sale through BakkaPhoenix books, and they're taking pre-orders for signed/inscribed copies of the book to be mailed out to you (CDN$19.95 for the book, plus $9 and GST for shipping in Canada, $15 to the US, $20 to Europe, and $25 to the rest of the world). BakkaPhoenix: 416 963 9993, inquiries@bakkaphoenixbooks.com

(Patient US readers who don't mind waiting until the end of May for their signed, inscribed copies can request them from San Francisco's Borderlands Books, who are not charging for domestic shipping. Borderlands: 888.893.4008, webmail@borderlands-books.com.) Link

Livejournal's Ceruleanst's produced a couple of passages' worth of Pulp Fiction, as written by William Shakespeare:

J: And know'st thou what the French name cottage pie?
V: Say they not cottage pie, in their own tongue?
J: But nay, their tongues, for speech and taste alike
Are strange to ours, with their own history:
Gaul knoweth not a cottage from a house.
V: What say they then, pray?
J: Hachis Parmentier.
V: Hachis Parmentier! What name they cream?
J: Cream is but cream, only they say le crème.
V: What do they name black pudding?
J: I know not;
I visited no inn it could be bought.

Link

The Lincoln-Douglas debates, as conducted by ABC:

LINCOLN: In my opinion, slavery will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand." I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Excuse me, did an Elijah H. Johnson attend your church?

LINCOLN: When I was a boy in Illinois forty years ago, yes. I think he was a deacon.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you aware that he regularly called Kentucky “a land of swine and whores”?

LINCOLN: Sounds right -- his ex-wife was from Kentucky.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Why did you remain in the church after hearing those statements?

LINCOLN: I was eight.

DOUGLAS: This is an important question George -- it's an issue that certainly will be raised in the fall.

STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you denounce him?

LINCOLN: I’d like to get back to the divided house if I may.

Link (via Making Light)

I bought a double-boiler, high-end espresso machine back in February and I'm brewing a pretty badass cuppa these days, but I can't quite perfect the art of making patterns in the latte froth (I'm pretty good at doing a flying spaghetti monster, but that's it).

Enter the latte-froth printer, which produces surprisingly hi-rez art in the top of the machine. Time to clear some more counter-space. Link (via Neatorama)

Decades before Manifold Destiny (the engine-block roadkill cookbook) Modern Mechanix published this guide to cooking with waste-heat from your car-exhaust while camping. Given that this was back in the era of leaded gasoline, I'm sure the car-exhaust imparted a magic flavor to the chow.

MEALS can literally be cooked on the run through the use of the automatic cooker shown in the photo above. The cooker is mounted on the rear bumper of the motor tourist’s car and an extension from the exhaust pipe connected up with it, as shown in the insert. The cooker contains a steam pressure kettle which is heated by the hot exhaust gases. An hour’s drive is quite sufficient to thoroughly cook meats and vegetables. Total weight of the unit is so slight that running qualities of the car remain quite unaffected. Motor tours are much more pleasant when one is assured of a well-prepared meal at the end of the trip.

Link

Here's an ad for a multi-level-marketing scheme for a "high-tech" car headlight, circa 1931. With artwork like this, I'm ready to sign up. I think I just found my next tattoo.

AT LAST! An amazingly queer yet simple invention lifts the curse of night driving from the motoring world. This altogether new discovery called “Perfect-O-Lite,” replaces old glass “bulbs” in your automobile headlights with truly amazing results. Road illumination is instantly doubled yet glare is absolutely banished. Ordinary objects in the road, ruts, animals, obstructions, etc., are made clearly visible at least three times as far. Instead of ordinary “direct” light, this beam is composed entirely of double-reflected or “infused” light. This new kind of light cuts right through the other fellow’s headlights. Even shoots through fog, mist, rain and snow. There is no wiring or installation. No extra upkeep. Banishes the need for glare shields. No wonder concerns like Wallace & Tiernan, N. J., Houston Post-Dispatch, Tex., Columbus, Ohio, Fire Trucks, etc. have already installed Perfect-O-Lite as standard equipment. To prove what this invention will do, the manufacturer now offers a set to every motorist on FREE TEST. Simply mail the coupon promptly for details.

Link

Instructables user Randofo created this awesome HOWTO for turning your beloved old tees into a handsome rug. I have so many damned tees (and I give away a bushel's worth every year to charity) -- my only problem with this is that I'd eventually run out of floorspace. Maybe a layered look? Link (via Craft)

& Design's "Frame hanger" is a huge, leaning cut-out of a silhouette of an artistic scene, intended to be used as a coat-hanger. Link (via Cribcandy)

On April 29 and 30, CopyCamp, an unconference devoted to copyright issues, will come to Toronto. Admission's $50 for out-of-work artists (and goes up from there), but subsidies are available):

CopyCamp is a place to meet people making art and making waves, an opportunity to discover how the Internet can work for artists and fans, and a chance to debate the value(s) of copyright with some of the key players. It is an event in which participants drive the programming, and debates are genuine round-tables. There are no observers: everyone has something to offer and is expected to contribute.

There will be an electronic salon showcasing successful projects. There will be internationally-acclaimed experts. There will be a carefully selected mix of artists, geeks, and bureaucrats, with conversation always focused squarely on the arts, and the interests of creators. The CopyCamp organizing team is passionate about convening an event like no other you have ever attended. Space at the event is limited. There will be a number of subsidized spots for those who need them.

Link (Thanks, Misha!)

A single village in China is responsible for cranking out 60% of the world's paintings. The overwhelming majority of the paintings are slavish reproductions of famous paintings. The artists doing the work are very talented, however, and an organization called Regional asked some of the artists to paint themselves. The results are incredible.

Dafen is a village surrounded by the thriving metropolis of Shenzhen, and the origin of most of the world’s reproduction oil paintings. In the popular imagination Dafen’s artists produce anonymous works for unknown customers, operating no differently than a faceless factory churning out counterfeits, replicas and nothing close to what would be considered art.

Regional productively collaborated with the otherwise commoditized community in Dafen by asking selected individuals, some for the first time, to imagine themselves in their professional medium. The final works show the technical, creative, and professional facets of the artists identities subsumed by the styles and relationships they maintain with specific famous artists. The hybrid result of original subject with derivative style comments on originality, global cultural production and Regional's cooperation with emerging enterprise forms that are internationalizing the village.

Link (Thanks, Howard Rheingold!)

The Droste Effect is the name for packaging art that features the package itself in the artwork, in a recursive, diminishing marketfractal:

At my grocery store I could only find three examples: Land O’Lakes Butter, Morton Salt and Cracker Jacks. These packages each include a picture of the package itself and are often cited by writers discussing such pop-math-arcana as recursion, strange loops, self-similarity, and fractals.

This particular phenomenon, known as the “Droste effect,” is named after a 1904 package of Droste brand cocoa. The mathematical interest in these packaging illustrations is their implied infinity. If the resolution of the printing process—(and the determination and eyesight of the illustrator)—were not limiting factors, it would go on forever. A package within a package within a package... Like Russian dolls. Drosteroyal

Link (via Kottke)

Oskar says:

You've posted some feminist stuff before, so I thought you'd like this delightful story from Feminsting.com

Feministing recently received some really badly written hate mail, something which is not in itself unusual. This time, however, it was sent from a school address, and it turns out that it had come from the public relations officer of the Southern Illinois University College Republicans. That's right: a public relations officer. He's obviously not very good at his job.

In the comments section the secretary of the organization (who seems like a very decent person) came in and apologized profusely, and even made the culprit do the same. He has resigned from his post.

Some people might argue that there's a right to privacy here, but when you send extremely hateful mail over the internet from your school address, and especially when you're a public relations officer, you pretty much give up that right.

The internet is full of real bastards who posts hateful things all the time, and seemingly takes pleasure in hurting people. It's nice to see this one get his comeuppance.

Here's the email sent by the now-ex-public relations officer for for Southern Illinois University College Republicans:

Men are better than women look at the comparison in IQ men are scientifically proven to have a higher IQ by roughly 5 points, or 5% you cannot dispute science sorry and if you want a much better website than your shitty one you might want to go to [redacted]. I think you would gain a lot more knowledge from that website and you might learn about the truth that way you would not be so stupid and ignorant you stupid cunts.

Link

They're locked into hotspots, forced to "blog 'til they drop," and paid only in bread and red bull. Meet the victims of Web 2.0 greed, the exploited, invisible underclass who put RSS on your table. Video Link (created by Barely Political, spotted via Valleywag)

Over at Cinematical, Christopher Campbell has a very funny review up about the new zombie stripper movie titled -- wait for it! -- Zombie Strippers...

Sure, it claims to be based loosely on Eugène Ionesco's classic absurdist play Rhinoceros and, sure, it features allusions to a number of philosophers, including Camus and Sartre, but really it's dumb and silly and a heck of a good time. Particularly if you're anything but sober. And if you're just looking for a grindhouse sort of guilty pleasure to pass the time.

Zombie Strippers opens with a montage that sets the scene: it's sometime in the near future, and Bush has just been reelected to his fourth term. Already, we know this movie will be a complete farce, but the ludicrous exposition continues, explaining that government scientists have developed a virus that allows soldiers in Iraq to continue fighting after they're killed. Yes, these super soldiers are zombies, a minor twist on Joe Dante's anti-Bush short Homecoming, which was one of the more critically celebrated episodes of the cable series Masters of Horror, and which featured Iraq War casualties rising from the dead in order to cast their vote against Bush's reelection.

Well, that plan obviously didn't work, so here the zombies are doing what they're made to do: eat flesh and pole dance.

Link to review, here's the trailer on Apple.com. Jenna Jameson is featured in a non-pornographic role. (thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Wrapping up our week-long retrospective of the most crowd-pleezin' episodes in Boing Boing tv's first 6 months of existence, we revisit an episode in which...

Vienna-based art-pranksters monochrom teach us how to "hack the urban context" with campfires, sausages, beer, and an elderly Austrian gentleman who speaks LOL. In the second segment of today's episode, someone constructs a campfire, complete with beer bottles and half-cooked links, right in the middle of the Vienna airport. American kids, don't try this at home unless you want a one-way to Camp X-Ray.

Schnitzel and subversive smores FTW! Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video.

James Powderly from Graffiti Research Lab tells Boing Boing...

One of our FAT Lab fellows, Todd Polenberg, just posted 12 years worth of his own DIY passover mash-ups on fffff.at! It's open source... for passover! So if you know anyone who wants to remix their old skool pesach, this post could be their promise land.

Link, and here's apassoverseder.com. Best wishes to all of you in the extended, mutant Boing Boing family who are celebrating this holiday with your own family at this time.

amy casey
miles thompson
ryan heshka
naoto hattori
theo badiu
red nose studio
mark beam
tim mara
f. scott hess
robt. williams

previously on web zen:
lowbrow gogo pop zen

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

Image: Miles Thompson.

Today's New York Times has a scary article about food shortages around the world, including heart-breaking slide shows and videos of people digging in dumps for morsels of anything with digestible calories.

In Haiti, vendors are selling flavored mud to starving people.

In Haiti, where three-quarters of the population earns less than $2 a day and one in five children is chronically malnourished, the one business booming amid all the gloom is the selling of patties made of mud, oil and sugar, typically consumed only by the most destitute.

“It’s salty and it has butter and you don’t know you’re eating dirt,” said Olwich Louis Jeune, 24, who has taken to eating them more often in recent months. “It makes your stomach quiet down.”

Link

Christa Rowley has cross-stitched a lovely series of detailed human female anatomy wall hangings. Link (via CRAFT)

In 60 minutes, we'll be hosting the second weekly game on Boing Boing's official IRC channel, #boingboing on FreeNode IRC. This week's game? Rule 34 Challenge, moderated by Boing Boing Gadgets' John Brownlee. The game starts at 1pm PST / 4pm EST / 8pm GMT / 9pm BST.

Rules: As Brownlee explains, "Rule 34, as all men know, is the cosmic rule that demands that porn can be found on the Internet to fit any concept. The rules are simple: numerous times over the course of one hour, I will shout out the Rule 34 Challenge. Contestants will then scramble to Google to find an image or link that puts that person, character or concept in pornographic light. The first three people to present an appropriate link in channel will get points. At the end of the hour, we will add up the points and have our Rule 34 Champions! And we'll knock up the chat log so everyone can bask in our depravity firsthand."

Needless to say, this game will be NSFW.

So, How To Play?: Use an IRC client (or follow this handy-dandy link to a Java client that will run in your browser) to join #boingboing on Freenode. (chat.freenode.net)

Since you will need to be able to private message people in game, register your nick by typing "/msg NickServ register [choose a password]"

Once you've done that, message Brownlee that you want to play ("/msg Brownlee I want to play!"). He'll send you a message back, confirming that you're in.

This game won't have any player limits, but you'll still have to message Brownlee to play.

See you there!

Mister Jalopy is the featured tool collector in the current issue of Factory Gear Magazine from Japan.

Not surprisingly, there is a Japanese mook (magazine/book) dedicated to obsessive tool collecting. Factory Gear Magazine dives into the toolboxes of World Rally Championship teams, Honda mechanics, F1 racing teams, German tool factories, stateside tool retailers and, much to my delight, Hooptyrides, Inc.

For 6 hours, the guys from Factory Gear cleaned, photographed, documented and considered hand tools that I forgot I even own. As the Factory Gear editor is also the owner of Deen Tools, it was not surprising that he and his crew were deeply knowledgeable about the engineering and manufacture of hand tools. They pointed out tiny details in construction that made one better than another -- details I had never noticed on tools that I use daily.

To say that I wonder what the article says would be to greatly understate my intense curiosity.

Link

We think we've fixed the problem that interferes with posting comments, and gives would-be commenters an error message that says:

Your comment submission failed for the following reasons:
Text entered was wrong. Try again.

Here's the word from tech guy Jonathan Schreiber:

I believe that we have fixed the root cause for this. BUT users could still see this problem if they have an old cookie that was set pre-fix (the fix went in [on April 15th] around noon). So my suggestion for all BB commenters is to logout (via the logout link, upper right), then log back in again.

After doing a logout/login, the cookies and session will match and they won't have an issue with the system "thinking" they're logged out any more (i.e. no more "text was entered wrong" error messages).

Go. Do. And if you still have problems posting comments, or technical problems of any kind, please let us know. If you can remember to take screenshots and give us your system info, that's good too.

See also:
Adam Rice and Phillip Lamb, on their technical problems

On the final day of Boing Boing tv's week-long "best of" retrospective, celebrating our first six months of mutant internetelevision...

No one ever envisioned this kind of hands free roaming... Today on BBtv, we explore the age old question of which cell phone brand is the most compatible with your stomach. This phone fricassee takes place at Machine Project, host of the Fry-B-Que social. So, turn your gullet on vibrate, and sharpen your bluetooth. It's time to taste test some telecommunications.

The cookie-dough encrusted treo was delish, but none were so nice as the clamshell Motorola wrapped in bacon.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion and downloadable video. See also this related episode:
* Meat Cloning at Machine Project.

James Kynge's book China Shakes the World came recommended by about eight different people, so I went into it with high expectations -- and I was not disappointed. Kynge, a Financial Times correspondent who went to university in China, is an extremely entertaining writer who has a knack for spotting the exactly perfect little anecdote from his gigantic repertoire to illustrate the many fascinating points he makes about the rise of China and the perils it faces now.

There's a lot of nuance here, a picture painted in shades of grey. Kynge isn't entirely enthusiastic about the impact that China's rapid growth and industrialization has had on the country and the world, but he's also not a sinophobe. There's plenty to marvel at in China, and Kynge's happy to show us the amazing spectacle of failed German steel factories being packed up and shipped in hundreds of containers to China; to introduce us to brave and diligent and likable people who've endured incredible hardship and gone on to become titans (the founder of Lenovo started out as a night-soil collector, worked his way up to IBM salesman in a borrowed suit, and ultimately bought IBM's computer business from them).

But he's also possessed of innumerable stories of corruption, breathtaking disregard for the environment, and hardscrabble cruelty, and these are painted just as vividly -- like the story of a young woman who was informed that she'd been mistaken about being accepted into college, and whose life for decades was plagued by curious circumstances, like mysterious congratulatory baby-baskets when she'd had no child. Eventually, she discovered that her surpassing exam results and her identity had been appropriated by the slow-witted daughter of an important Party member who had been living as her for decades in a grand city, while she lived a life of rural poverty.

Kynge does an admirable job of capturing the sweep and scale of the changes racing across China, and when I was done, I found myself holding a book with dozens of dogeared pages and underlined passages I wanted to return to later as I work on my next novel, which is partly set in China. I've read dozens of books about China this year, and this one is easily the best so far. Link

I love this "robot celebrity" tee from ChopShop -- science fictiontastic! Link (via Gizmodo)

The RIAA's file-sharing lawsuit against a homeless man has run into some snags:

In Warner v. Berry, where the RIAA was suing a man who lives in a homeless shelter, the Magistrate Judge -- Hon. Kevin Nathaniel Fox -- recommended that the plaintiffs' application for a default judgment be denied, and that the plaintiffs be ordered to show cause why they should not be sanctioned under Rule 11. The Judge agreed that the default judgment should be denied, but chose not to sanction plaintiffs' attorneys...

The Magistrate Judge found that "[b]y affixing the summons on April 9, 2007, the plaintiffs demonstrated they never intended to conduct 'a thorough address investigation ...' because they employed the 'affix and mail' method of service without exercising due diligence to effect personal service pursuant to CPLR s 308(1) and (2)." Magistrate Judge Fox concluded that Plaintiffs' representation to this Court to the effect that they intended to conduct an investigation to locate Defendant's current address implicated Fed.R.Civ.P. 11(b) because it was made for the improper purpose of unnecessary delay.

We can only hope that this won't prejudice the court in the matter of Warner, Electra et al Versus Charitable Hospice for Dying, Helpless, Starving Children Who Rescue Puppies From Burning Buildings and Volunteer at the Old Folks Home. Link (via Slashdot)

Here's a great in-depth build report from a steampunk mouse project in Custom PC:

I'd decided to use mahogany for the mouse body to give it a satisfyingly rich colour that would go well with the brass I'd be adding later. I bought a 1/4-in sheet of wood (picture 3), measuring 3in wide by 36in from a Hobbies shop. Using what was left of the mouse base and PCB as a template, I cut a hole in the wood with a fretsaw, and then sanded it for a snug fit.

Sorting out the scroll wheel came next. It was constructed from clear plastic and illuminated by a blue LED (picture 4), which wasn't exactly appropriate for a Steampunk-themed design. I desoldered the LED and used 22mm copper heating pipe to fashion a new wheel. I cut a very short length of the pipe (around 7mm) and carefully smoothed the edges using emery cloth on a flat surface. The 'wheel' had to be gradually reduced in diameter until it was a snug fit, before using Araldite to glue the two parts together. I used a Dremel for most of this work, before sandpapering it to finish it off.

Link (Thanks, Alex!)

Andy Baio's been slipped a hard drive containing the whole network share from Infocom, creators of the legendary text-adventure game Zork and The Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy; he's mining the drive's many treasures and today he's published a long account of the abortivr Milliways game, a sequel to H2G2 set in the Restaurant at the End of the Universe:

1. It seems natural to include a scene in the restaurant, Milliways. Could be a bit of fun: strange parties, unctuous compere, self-introducing food. Perhaps there's an object there that you need to get. (It could be a SPORK, a spoon with sort of forky tines on the end. Or would that be a FOON?) It could be a vehicle from the car park -- Marvin has the keys. If you manage to re-enter Milliways at another time (oops! on another occasion), you will not meet yourself, "because of the embarrassment that usually causes." What about a visit to the Big Bang Burger Bar?

2. Given point 1, you must have a means (or several meanses) of time travel. In fact time travel instead of space travel could be the primary method of changing scene. In the original, the party got to Milliways by accident: in the radio version, a "hyperspatial field generator" overheated; in the book version, Zaphod's great-granddaddy screwed up the works of Eddie, the Heart of Gold computer. Maybe your trip to Milliways would require info from an anti-piracy device in the game package. Once at the restaurant, you can steal a timeship and go anywhen you want.

3. Given point 2, it seems natural for the "best ending" of the game to be your arrival on Earth before it's destroyed, which is the ending of both the first radio series and the second (namesake) book. The original route to this ending was an accidental landing on Golgafrincham Ark B, with its cargo of telephone sanitizers, marketing consultants, etc. (the ancestors of Earth's humans!). I rather like this bit, and hope we can work it into the game.

4. Okay, so what about the beginning of the game? The easy answer: take up the story where the "Hitchhiker's" game left off, namely the arrival on Magrathea. But in the original this arrival is followed by a travelogue of Magrathea and a flashback to the Deep Thought v. philosophers' union story (including the introduction of the "42" joke) and the joke about the true nature of mice. All funny bits, but I have a hard time envisioning how they can be made into interesting interactive versions. Perhaps you could time-travel to Deep Thought and interact with it yourself. The Magrathean catalog of planets on Sens-O-Tape could be useful.

Link

In October, 1939, Popular Science covered a Michigan gas-station owner's friendly "waiting rooms for hitchhikers."

Performing the role of the good Samaritan to the nation-wide fraternity of automobile hitch-hikers, the owner of a service station in Albion, Mich., recently established a hitchhikers’ depot hard by his row of gasoline pumps. Nailed to a tree, a large sign visible to approaching motorists at a good distance, identifies the spot, while a painted hand, with the thumb outstretched in the traditional manner, does the spade work for tired hikers.

Link

David Byrne and Brian Eno have completed a new album (of "electric gospel") for released before 2009 and have booked a North American tour on which they're planning to play at least 40 percent old Talking Heads material. Holy moly, this is as good as life gets! Update: Turns out the tour's just Byrne, not Byrne and Eno!

Byrne told us he’s collaborating with their mutual friend Brian Eno “for the first time in 20 years. Brian had written a lot of music, but needed some words, which I know how to do. What’s it sound like? Electronic gospel. That’s all I’m saying.”

Link, Link to NY Daily News piece

See also:
Byrne/Eno "Bush of Ghosts" tracks re-released under CC
Missing Byrne/Eno track "Qu'ran" appears on blogs
Byrne/Eno's "My Life in the Bush of Ghosts" -- remix it yourself!
David Byrne's guide to being a musician in the 21st century

Meteorologist Edward Lorenz, credited for having founded the field of chaos theory, died Wednesday of cancer in Massachusetts. He was 90 years old.

He was a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology when he came up with the scientific concept that small effects lead to big changes, something that was explained in a simple example known as the "butterfly effect." He explained how something as minuscule as a butterfly flapping its wings in Brazil changes the constantly moving atmosphere in ways that could later trigger tornadoes in Texas.

His discovery of "deterministic chaos" brought about "one of the most dramatic changes in mankind's view of nature since Sir Isaac Newton," said the committee that awarded Lorenz the 1991 Kyoto Prize for basic sciences. It was one of many scientific awards that Lorenz won. There is no Nobel Prize for his specific field of expertise, meteorology.

Jerry Mahlman, a longtime friend, noted that the man who pioneered chaos theory was "the most organized person I ever knew."

Link to AP obituary, here is the New York Times piece, and here is more about Lorenz at the MIT website. (thanks, gATO)

A new exhaustive study called "Access Denied" tells the whole story of Internet censorship around the world:

Many countries around the world block or filter Internet content, denying access to information--often about politics, but also relating to sexuality, culture, or religion--that they deem too sensitive for ordinary citizens. Access Denied documents and analyzes Internet filtering practices in over three dozen countries, offering the first rigorously conducted study of this accelerating trend.

Link (Thanks, Seth!)