Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Two days, go Boing Boing ran a story on the deteriorating relations in the fight to free the supposedly copyrighted laws of the great State of Oregon. Well, the situation is definitely at an impasse and June 2 has been set as the date by which this situation is either resolved or we post the full text of all 2005 and 2007 statutes.

Karl Olson of the firm Levy, Ram & Olson LLP, Attorneys, delivered the news on behalf of Justia and Public.Resource.Org when he said:

"My clients respectfully cannot agree to the Public License. First, and most fundamentally, it would require them to acknowledge that portions of the Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) are protected by copyright, and they respectfully but vigorously disagree that portions of the ORS are protected by copyright."

So there!

Link (Thanks, Carl!) See also: Oregon continues to insist that its laws are copyrighted and can't be published

Adam Savage is at Maker Faire this year and he brought some of his incredible creations, including a Maltese Falcon, an Indiana Jones whip, and this beautiful recreation of a Dodo bird skeleton.

(Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

Today on BoingBoing Gadgets, we reviewed a 3G USB modem that works great on Macs and high-end canine gear; listened to The Harmonium; drank a strictly-conforming European pint; watched Belkin try to bring novelty to the world of mouse pads; built an ornithopter and a difference engine; guzzled yoghurt with a specially-shaped spoon; and listened to a beautiful boombox in a double-bass fiddle.

Most of the afternoon, however, was spent setting up a server so y'all can play Team Fortress 2 over the weekend.

You are cordially invited to an orgy of cartoon mayhem: Valve's superb Team Fortress 2 is free to play this weekend to celebrate a new update, and we've got a 26-player server set up and ready to roll. And we're playing now!

All you need is the Steam client, a half-decent PC and and a good internet connection: download what you need at the TF2: Gold Rush Update site. Don't worry if you can't make it just this second: the server should be up all night.

Here's how to find us. Open up Team Fortress 2, click Find Servers and then check the "Custom" tab. Our server name is Boing Boing Team Fortress 2. Our direct ip, if you need it, is 208.167.248.53:27015. The password is "jackhammerjill" without the quotes. That should bring you in!

The server's up and running now! We're looking forward to being stabbed in the back, immolated, uber-charged and exploded by all of you!

Weekend Schedule: (The server's up 24/7, but it's good to set gathering times)

Friday 4 p.m.-late

Saturday, 4-7 p.m. EST

Sunday, 4-7 p.m. EST

From the police blotter in Federal Way, Washington: •

At 4:02 p.m. April 10, two women went into the Federal Way police station claiming that over the past two years, a paranormal person has been placing sensors on their bodies and visiting them in their house at 28600 block of 25th Place South. They said that the ghost has been having sexual intercourse with them. One woman said that these incidents started in Kent and continued when she moved here. The other woman said that this just started now.

Link to Federal Way Mirror, Link to more at Damn Data

In the 1990s, a Colorado man named Larry Proctor purchased some beans at a market in Mexico.
He selectively bred them for a few years and claimed to have invented "a new field bean variety that produces distinctly colored yellow seed which remains relatively unchanged by season." He called it the "Enola bean," and was granted a "20-year patent that covered any beans and hybrids derived from crosses with even one of his seeds."
His claim of 60 cents per pound of beans sold in the US "caused a steep decline in exports of such beans from Mexico to the USA, according to Mexican government sources."

Today, the United States Patent and Trademark Office revoked Proctor's patent claims

The bean was erroneously granted patent protection in 1999, as US Patent Number 5,894,079, in a move that raised profound concerns about biopiracy and the potential abuse of intellectual property (IP) claims on plant materials that originate in the developing world and remain as important dietary staples, particularly among the poor.

CIAT was able to dispute the inventor's claims to a unique color by providing published evidence of 260 yellow beans among the almost 28,000 samples of Phaseolus in its crop "genebank." At least six of the CIAT varieties were, to most observers, identical to the bean described in Proctor's patent documents on the basis of color and genetic markers. CIAT also put forward publications to show that the claims in the patent application took credit for research already widely available in scientific literature and thus claims made regarding the breeding of the bean in his patent also failed to meet the patent office's statutory requirements for "non-obviousness and novelty."

Link

Droog Design's Do Hit Chair is a cube made from .04" steel. It's shipped with a sledgehammer for you to customize it's shape yourself. Created by Marjin van der Poll, it's available from Unica Home for $6718 for one that he pre-hammered. A smash-your-own model is $5924.
Link (via Paper Magazine)

UPDATE: Here is a video of the chair being customized. Link

Parker sez, "All day I sit around and dream of ways to combine bb posts... Anyway, I took the liberty of adding the four committees that the EFF suggests calling about border control's unchecked laptop searching authority to Fred Benenson's new Cause Caller. Now if you have a few minutes, Cause Caller can do the heavy lifting and you can do your country proud and defend your rights to a few senators and congressmen. And because it's a wiki, you can add or edit the list of people to call or the script. As Cause Caller's website says, have fun getting in touch with democracy!" Link (Thanks, Parker!)

See also:
CauseCaller -- one-click to create a virtual phone-bank
EFF and security experts to Congress: We need hearings on Customs laptop seizures and snooping

Today on Boing Boing tv, Xeni visits TechShop, an open-access public workshop that's kind of like a health club with heavy machinery and sparks instead of treadmills. Tinkerers, inventors, and hackers pay a membership fee, and in turn receive access to professionally-maintained gear, workshops, mentors, and a community of like-minded makers.

Link to Boing Boing tv episode, with discussion and downloadable video.

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Currently there is only one TechShop site in Silicon Valley, and it opened in 2006. But founder Jim Newton (a lifetime maker, veteran BattleBots builder and former MythBuster) plans to open a number of locations around the US -- and eventually, the rest of the world.

John Todd, who you'll meet in this episode, wrote this article about the membership-based machine and fabrication shop in a recent edition of Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools zine. Snip:

I've been a member since before TechShop really even started, back when it was just some guys passing out flyers trying to gauge interest. For $100 a month, members can use any tool in the shop on which they've received training. MUCH cheaper than buying your own gear. The list of equipment is pretty extensive, too, and new items are arriving frequently (like a new hot-wire foam cutter).

John shares an additional note with BBtv about the company's business model:

TechShop is unusual in the way it's funded - community members are the financial backers. To date, TechShop has been funded by taking loans from members and repaying them at a nominal rate. Typically backers contribute $25k and up, and are then paid back over several years. There is an "A" round being raised now to fund the nationwide expansion, and the first funding source again is going to be the community instead of focusing on traditional VC sources. It's an unusual way to keep members excited about what they do at TechShop, and to keep them focused on making the whole experience better. Jim Newton (CEO) and Mark Hatch (COO) are looking for additional interested people who want to become members and funders - contact TechShop for details.

In part two of today's episode, we take a joyride in a three-wheeled electric car.