Photographer Phillip Toledano's shoots of bankrupt offices were meant to be archaeological exercises, but the signs of life interrupted make them as ghostly as the frozen statues of Pompeii. Link (via Neatorama)

Joss Whedon fans have already organized a campaign to stop his new show, Dollhouse, from being cancelled, even though the first episode won't air for another eight months. Whedonistas have witnessed so many kick-ass TV shows cancelled by callous goons from teeveeland, they're girding their loins for the inevitable fight and not waiting around for the disappointment before working up a good head of bitter outrage. Good on 'em! Preemptive strikes are just defense as practiced by precogs.

DollhouseForums' trailblazing leader Nathan posted the following as a call to arms: "After seeing some of my favorite television shows get canceled in the past -- as well as the 'save this show' campaigns that followed -- I had the idea that a fan campaign BEFORE the show begins may be the best thing to do."

A Facebook fan page dedicated to the online campaign already has nearly 1,500 members.

Link

John sez, "I painted the bedroom of my old apartment to look like a scale replica of Bubble Man's stage from MegaMan 2. The project took me three months to complete and was 'unveiled' to my roommates for a Christmas party in 2006. I measured, stenciled, painted, and touched up every detail entirely by hand." Link (Thanks, John!)

Thank you Jesus for this, our daily awesome. Link (thanks, too, Souris Hong Porretta).

Excerpt from a blog written by an "exotic dancer" named Grace, in Texas.

Rose was putting lotion on her face when she told me about the abortion. She was brief and matter-of-fact. Maybe I was supposed to ask more questions. The dressing room is not a tearful-hugs-sisterhood rah-rah-girlfriends kind of place. It's a zone of suspended emotion, mostly. It's where you go to get out of the whole chatty, google-eyed gushing sex kitten thing that you do out on the floor all the time. Even the girls on their cellphones breaking up with their boyfriends every day during shift change sound clinical and practiced. The only real raw emotion there is from girls who aren't making money, crouched by their lockers hissing curses into little piles of singles.

Rose and I sat in front of the mirror and put our powder on. It seemed quiet, although it never actually is, with the stage music piped back here and the DJ on the mic hawking five-dollar you-call-em shots. Some people would be saying things right now, because some people show how much they care by saying things. Some people would want to know if she was still with her boyfriend and what does he think and are you OK and where are you getting it done? And maybe those people would be better than me in situations like this. I tend to try to show how much I care by saying as little as possible.

I wish I could let her know just by the quality of the silence that if she needs anything from me it's hers. We're not best friends or anything. Sometimes we sell dances together. Men like to see us entertwined, her slim frame and and spectacular breasts, my pale skin and substantial hips. I love the warmth of her skin and the light gold freckles she's powdering over now so meticulously.

On the floor, she is silly and bewitching, daffy smile and clownish gestures set off against the essential elegance of her -- her classical face, that serious lode of smoky black hair. She seduces me again and again, like she seduces everyone. I love Rose. But of course, there is no Rose. I don't really know this girl next to me, the girl who's legal name is in my phone. If I knew her, I would say more.

Link to post, on Grace Undressed. Image borrowed from the Flickr stream of Cap'n Monky. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

To-Do Tattoos are skin-safe to-do-list temporary tatts that come with a skin-safe felt-tip marker. I just draw on myself with a sharpie. Link

Neatorama's got a nice roundup post of cars customized with a Super Mario theme -- this stuff makes me wish I had a car. Link

Craig Ferguson snuck into Taiwan's abandoned hyper-futuristic San-Zhr Pod Village, a rotting, curvilinear housing complex that has been cursed since its inception, killing and injuring some of its construction crew. Link (Thanks, Nicholas!)

The Huffington Post just appointed former RIAA CEO Hilary Rosen as its new political director. Rosen presided over the RIAA's total and utter failure to come to grips with the Internet, the period in which the record industry rejected every single overture of money in exchange for licenses to its catalog from venture-backed P2P companies, choosing litigation over cash, and leading to a world in which the majority of music consumption online is illegal and doesn't give a dime to the record industry.

Nevertheless, Rosen is also an old-time political hack, epitomising the wing of the Democratic party that has progressive politics on every issue except the Internet: they're all for freedom, except for when it comes to that magic wire that delivers freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in one package. As far as that wire goes, one Police Academy or Brittney Spears download is grounds for termination of access to the net (and confiscation of every cent you can lay claim to).

But Rosen, 50, has had a long career in politics that spans beyond her 17 years at the RIAA, and it's her network of contacts and know-how that Huffington wants to tap into as The Huffington Post grows.

"Hilary really knows Washington and its political players intimately, and everyone on [The Huffington Post's] team in Washington loves her," said Arianna Huffington in an interview.

Link

The Mounties' anti-terror unit and Canadian Security Intelligence Service, Canada's top spook agency, have a file dedicated to a harmless punk band called "The Suicide Pilots." Apparently, a grasp of irony is not a prerequisite for intelligence work in Canada -- on the other hand, that's pretty serious punk cred: the Mounties think we're terrorists. Woo!

Following the arrest of the band’s drummer, bones (aka Jeffrey Monaghan), the RCMP’s anti-terror unit opened a file on the band, alleging their logo “depicts an airplane flying into the Peace Tower on Parliament Hill.” A copy of the frightened-looking airplane caricature was included in the 184 page file.

“If you want an example of bloated police powers, this is it,” says Ottawa-based lawyer Yavar Hameed. Hameed notes that the investigation seems to be completely unrelated to the arrest of Mr. Monaghan. Monaghan was alleged to have leaked the Tory Green Plan last spring. The anti-terror investigation appears to have surfaced after media coverage of Mr. Monaghan denouncing the Harper regime’s actions of climate change. Monaghan has never been charged. The investigation is organized through the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET), and the documents reveal an explicit coordination with Canada’s spy agency, CSIS.

Hameed notes that this case illustrates the unaccountability of police agencies in their efforts to catalog and criminalize activists. The Suicide Pilots have commented that the intelligence effort is another example of state-lawlessness in the so-called “War on Terror.” “The explosion of security culture over the past few years has cost countless innocent people very dearly, in ways we can’t even begin to fully appreciate - but this just straddles the line between disturbing and silly. What’s next? A tag-and-release program for social activists? We already have a make-work program for creepy, paranoid voyeurs,” says the band’s vocalist NaCl.

Link (Thanks, Fat Cramer!)

Here's a nice review of the new book Punk House, which documents the squats and other punk dwellings the authors found on a cross-country trip. I crashed on a lot of sofas in houses that looked like these, and even held the lease on one at one point...

Author and musician Timothy Findlen, along with photographer Abby Banks, spent three months driving cross-country to visit and photograph sixty-five punk houses—communal, low-rent houses typically crammed full of punks, squatters, and artists. The end result is PUNK HOUSE, a collection of 300 full color photos and three short essays.

PUNK HOUSE documents a journey that most of us will have never taken; it shows us homes that most of us have never seen; it gives a small taste of a way of living most of us have never lived, and it does so in an easy yet successful way. Banks’ digital snapshots are assembled by location, and are mainly colorful details of the punk houses, the communal punks that live in them, and the masses of oddball junk that decorate them. The photos range from disgusting (the bathroom at Casa de Otto comes to mind —is that blood or hair dye?) to the artistic (is this a junk pile of sticks or is it considered sculpture?).

Link, Link to Punk House on Amazon (Thanks, Dan!)

This clip of Danny Kaye and company doing "(You'll Never) Outfox the Fox" from The Court Jester (1956) is wonderful and strange. It makes me want to watch the whole film again. Link (Thanks, Jason Weisberger!)

My son and I love watching Yo Gabba Gabba! on teevee. Our favorite episode is Sleep because it features two particularly delightful songs. The first is a lovely tune called Bedtime Lullaby by Mark Kozelek of Red House Painters and Sun Kil Moon. The animation is by Lippy. In the same episode is a fun performance of "Pajama Party" by teenage indie pop duo Smoosh. Viacom seems to have insisted YouTube yank the Pajama Party video, but Bedtime Lullaby is still available. Link to Bedtime Lullaby, Link to hear Pajama Party on IMEEM

sausages
bbq rib painting
biltong bell
charred mammal flesh
souvlaki tetris
fast food fiasco
ipod case
meat face
kittens fight over meat

previously on web zen:
meaty zen 2007

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

An instructional video by a fellow named Ian that shows you all you'll need to know for doing the "Fishstick", as mentioned in the "You Look Nice Today" podcast episode "Sacks-Minnelli Disease," which has in turn spawned a movement. Whoah, look, some other dude made a fishstick video, and he too is Canuckistani. (thanks, Jamie Scanlon!)

Alexander Uslontsev says:

IQLeague guys have some kind of online IQ test on their site and they group IQ scores of all visitors by different geographical locations (city, country, etc.)

Here is an interesting part - they also group IQ Scores by referrer website and by client browser and operating system.

(No, I don't take this seriously.) Link

Diana sez, "For a limited time only, fans have the chance to ask Neal Stephenson questions about his upcoming novel ANATHEM (though, of course, he may or may not answer...). Questions and answers will be on an online video that will be released before ANATHEM goes on-sale September 9, 2008." Link (Thanks, Diana!)

Paulo sez,

I'm the guy who made the cloudy timelapse video popularly used later "Anonymous Message to Scientology."

Three days ago, Google's copyright bot flagged my own video as infringing because 236.com (Arianna Huffington's comedy news outfit) had posted a parody video using my footage with a content identification sig on it. When I asked who had flagged my video as infringing in preparation for a dispute, I was told that 236.com had graciously allowed me to keep "their copyrighted video."

Basically I put out a free public domain video for the internet to use as they wished, 236.com made a thirdhand derivative parody, and through Google Video they made an aggressively claim of copyright over my own material. At the time of this writing my video has not been restored.

Link (Thanks, Paulo!)

The Unusual Suspect sez, "These days it seems that using a camera in public is all but illegal. But Alton Towers amusement park in the UK has instituted a new rule, and has instituted 'special wardens' to enforce it. If you are seen using a Palm, iPaq or other personal digital assistant or smartphone, the special wardens will take it away from you."

Any parent seen tapping on a PDA will have it confiscated by special wardens at Alton Towers.

The resort, which boasts 2.5 million visitors each year, has imposed the rule for next week’s May half-term.

If successful, it could be introduced permanently.

Russell Barnes, a director of the Staffordshire attraction, said: “It’s important for parents and kids to focus on nothing more than having the best possible time.”

Link (Thanks, Unusual Suspect!)

børge says:

The “Blog” of “Unnecessary” Quotation Marks has this great photo of a sign reading "Images are being recorded for the purpose of 'crime prevention' and 'public safety' and may be shared with third parties."

Is this a way to admit that the stated goals of the increasing surveillance in society is mostly bull, or is it just a Freudian slip?

Link

Here's a gallery of Rick Ross' stunning photos about the "Architecture of Authority." Shown above: "Homeland Security, San Francisco."

For the past several years--and with seemingly limitless access--photographer Richard Ross has been making unsettling and thought-provoking pictures of architectural spaces that exert power over the individuals within them. From a Montessori preschool to churches, mosques and diverse civic spaces including a Swedish courtroom, the Iraqi National Assembly hall and the United Nations, the images in Architecture of Authority build to ever harsher manifestations of power: an interrogation room at Guantanamo, segregation cells at Abu Ghraib, and finally, a capital punishment death chamber.Though visually cool, this work deals with hot-button issues--from the surveillance that increasingly intrudes on post-9/11 life to the abuse of power and the erosion of individual liberty. The connections among the various architectures are striking, as Ross points out: "The Santa Barbara Mission confessional and the LAPD robbery homicide interrogation rooms are the same intimate proportions. Both are made to solicit a confession in exchange for some form of redemption." Essay by Harper's Magazine publisher, John R. MacArthur, also a columnist for the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Link to photos | Buy book on Amazon (via Growabrain)

I have been enjoying the video work of artist Peter Horvath. Here's a short film he made, called Boulevard (adult themes and language).

Located in Los Angeles, we follow a striking woman, the passenger of a convertible car, driven by an unidentified driver through the city, passing its generic streets, billboards and motels, with an unknown destination. There is a voice-over, that exposes her feelings of obsession. Running parallel to the piece is a dialogue between a man and woman in intimate, but casual conversation about love. The video sequences are frequently suspended, disjunctive and blurred, distorting our visual and emotional sense of place.

At once lyrical and intoxicatingly beautiful, we pass through discrete emotive atmospheres experiencing ambiguity, desire and longing. - Celina Jeffery

Link

Robbo says; "Weezer has posted a great video on YouTube - "Pork and Beans" - featuring a huge collection of "internet stars" - they even have the band playing within a deluge of Coke + Mentos." Link

A West Virgina woman's heart stopped three times and she was brain dead for 17 hours at a hospital. Rigor mortis had set in and the family was discussing donating her organs when she suddenly woke up. She now appears to be in good heath.

[Val] Thomas suffered two heart attacks and had no brain waves for more than 17 hours. At about 1:30 a.m. Saturday, her heart stopped and she had no pulse. A respiratory machine kept her breathing and rigor mortis had set in, doctors said.

"Her skin had already started to harden and her fingers curled. Death had set in," said son Jim Thomas.

They rushed her to a West Virginia hospital. Doctors put Thomas on a special machine which induces hypothermia. The treatment involves lowering the body temperature for up to 24 hours before warming a patient up.

After that procedure, her heart stopped again.

"She had no neurological function," said Dr. Kevin Eggleston.

Her family said goodbye and doctors removed all the tubes.

However, Thomas was kept on a ventilator a little while longer as an organ donor issue was discussed.

Ten minutes later the woman woke up and started talking.

Link (via Arbroath)

Edward Smith, 57, of Washington, is a mechaphiliac. He likes "having sex" with cars. In fact, his last relationship with a human was 12 years ago and he never had sex with her. His current love is Vanilla, a white VW Beetle. The Telegraph profiles Smith and he's featured in an upcoming documentary titled "My Car Is My Lover." From The Telegraph:

"I appreciate beauty and I go a little bit beyond appreciating the beauty of a car only to the point of what I feel is an expression of love," (Smith) said.

"Maybe I'm a little bit off the wall but when I see movies like Herbie and Knight Rider, where cars become loveable, huggable characters it's just wonderful.

"I'm a romantic. I write poetry about cars, I sing to them and talk to them just like a girlfriend. I know what's in my heart and I have no desire to change."

He added: "I'm not sick and I don't want to hurt anyone, cars are just my preference."

Link to Telegraph article, Link to YouTube video of Smith

Previously on BB:
• Man pretends sex with car, busted Link

As a devout believer in resistentialism, I can empathize with this man trying to do his job in the middle of a silent and hostile army of objects intent on hurting him at every opportunity. (via Arbroath)

Gary Peare says: "Award-winning small space design: Abod, envisioned as a low-cost, prefabricated solution to South Africa’s housing shortage. Packs flat; is assembled by 4 people with a screwdriver and an awl!" Link

Dirk Deppey says: As promised, Gary Groth's comprehensive 2003 interview with late Mad Magazine pioneer Will Elder is now online at the Comics Journal website, complete and chock full of illustrations (many of them rarely seen before the interview was published). Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Will Elder, RIP
• Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman's "Goodman Goes Playboy" comic

Artist Shane Glines has been putting his old spin on a few classic comic book pin up pages, including Fantastic Four and Josie and the Pussycats. I like this one of Crystal, an homage to a Jack Kirby page.

Joe Kick Ass found the original art, shown here. Thanks!

Shanes' Cartoon Retro site costs $5 a month via PayPal. It's the only website I've ever subscribed to, and it's well worth the money if you are a fan of great cartoon art. Link

Wendy sez, "Wikileaks has a document apparently leaked from drafting negotiations around the proposed "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement." The discussion paper has the stated objective to 'Establish, among nations committed to strong IPR protection, a common standard for IPR enforcement to combat global infringements of IPR particularly in the context of counterfeiting and piracy that addresses today's challenges, in terms of increasing international cooperation, strengthening the framework of practices that contribute to effective enforcement of IPRs, and strengthening relevant IPR enforcement measures themselves.' Of course the proposed 'cooperation' would once again extend the worst of US IP law and beyond -- DMCA anticircumvention and ISP takedown, criminal penalties for non-commercial copying, enforcement with minimal process -- onto partners such as developing countries for whom these enclosure regimes are even less appropriate. " Link, See also (Thanks, Wendy!)

EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn sez,

For about the last 9 years I've been handling a case against Chevron for their involvement in a shooting of unarmed environmental protesters in Nigeria. The case is called Bowoto v. Chevron and it's finally set for trial in San Francisco federal court in September.

Wednesday, May 28 is the 10th anniversary of the shooting and to commemorate it we're bringing our named plaintiff, Larry Bowoto, to California where he'll be addressing Chevron's annual shareholder meeting in San Ramon, held that same day.

Mr. Bowoto will be joined by people from Ecuador and Burma, who are also facing environmental and human rights abuse at the hands of Chevron, as well as activists from Richmond, California who are trying to resist a Chevron proposal to refine dirtier oil at that facility. Outside, a coalition of groups including Amazon Watch are sponsoring a protest.

The website describes the planned activities. We'll also be holding a press conference on Tuesday on the steps of San Francisco City Hall.

The goal of teaming up activists from around the world is to send a message to Chevron that it can't hide the truth anymore of its poor environmental and human rights record around the world.

More information about the Bowoto v. Chevron case is available here

Link (Thanks, Cindy!)

Bugger. One of the people involved in my Comic Book Legal Defense Fund benefit event in NYC this Sunday has taken ill and we've had to postpone the event until August. Sorry everyone -- hope I'll get to see you Monday at 5PM at Books of Wonder near Union Square. All advance ticket holders will have their ticket donation refunded. Link

BB co-founder and Make editor in chief Mark Frauenfelder talks to robot builder Daniel O'Connell about his experiment in the uncanny valley, a tricycle-riding mini-me he calls "My Dummy." Shot at Maker Faire Bay Area 2008.

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

RIP, Robert Asprin, science fiction writer and anthologist. His Thieves World series rocked my world when I was about 13 -- I was just thinking about digging up those first couple volumes and re-reading them.

On May 22, 2008, Bob passed away quietly in his home in New Orleans, LA. He had been in good spirits and working on several new projects, and was set to be the Guest of Honor at a major science fiction convention that very weekend. He is survived by his mother, his sister, his daughter and his son, and his cat, Princess, not to mention countless friends and fans and numerous legendary fictional characters.

He will be greatly missed.

Link (via MeFi)

Dean from Harvard Free Culture sez, "Details are sparse, but it has been confirmed that Digital Rights Management was recently killed in a head on collision with an oncoming future. Yesterday, in preparation for the funeral, members of Harvard Free Culture entombed the recently-deceased DRM (in the form of a Zune and an iPod) in a block of solid concrete. The public memorial service will take place this Saturday at 6:30pm in JFK park in Cambridge, MA." Link

XRay says:

Sometimes it seems like the members of ACM SIGGRAPH (Get ready for a long acronym: Association for Computing Machinery Special Interest Group on Computer Graphics) don't know about the local Maker culture in Los Angeles and I'm not sure how much the local Makers around Los Angeles know about SIGGRAPH. As the Chair of the local Los Angeles chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH I'd like to bridge the gap and extend and invitation to interested folks to come on down to Santa Monica and participate in a sort of science fair social hour and maker night that I'm hosting at Bergamot Station on Tuesday, June 10th. If you've got a home brew electronics/robotics/whirring/buzzing/blinking/tactile art project/plaything you'd like to share then get in touch with me via makers@agentxray.com to reserve a space. Participants get free admission and we'll feed you.

We've got an exciting evening planned. Boing Boing's own Mark Frauenfelder is giving a talk on "The Rise and Fall and Ride of Modern Making" and we're featuring a circuit bending performance by Jeff Boyton who's going to create an immersive audio environment honed from his hand crafted electronic instruments built from leftover consumer electronic detritus.

Space-Time Coordinates to follow:

LA SIGGRAPH presents "Maker Night"

When:
Tuesday, June 10th, 2008
5:30 pm - Makers Load In and Set up
6:30-7:30pm - Social Hour Science Fair
7:30-10:30pm - Presentation

Where:
The Writers Boot Camp at Bergamot Station
2525 Michigan Ave., Bldg I (the letter I, not the numeral 1)
Santa Monica, CA, 90404

Contact: makers@agentxray.com

Related Links:

LA SIGGRAPH (Yea, I know. We're working on it...)

ACM SIGGRAPH

Jeff Boynton Circuit Bending

Steve Cisler, the quintessential "digital librarian," died last week of cancer. Steve was a pioneer in the kinds of information retrieval, virtual communities, and global knowledge sharing that have become the platforms of today's Web. My colleague Michael Liebhold at Institute for the Future worked with Steve for years at Apple, where Steve ran the Library of Tomorrow program. Mike writes of his friend:

Many people's lives were touched by Steve; Steve is widely known and beloved across many communities around the world for his years of work worldwide, initially as leader of Apple's Library of Tomorrow, and later leading programs worldwide for a broad network of international groups helping people in developing communities understand and do practical and interesting things with computers, networks and the web.

We worked together during the 1980s and 1990s, and then over the last decade he and I traveled widely over different paths, but e-mailed or talked almost daily, and celebrated often in person with our families or friends whenever we could. For me he was simply a kind, generous friend, a fascinating character, a wonderful conversationalist, a great cook and a great gardener. We shared many wonderful times together talking about books, music, culture, over meals including wine, tortillas, and fresh foods he made himself. Even up until the very difficult end, Steve was always cheerful and intently interested in talking about the world. His passing leaves a great void in my life, that leaves me almost speechless.

Others on the web, have written more eloquent retrospectives than I could, including these:

• Steve Cisler - first Internet librarian
• Steve Cisler is gone
• Steve Cisler RIP
• Steve Cisler Passes

And this e-mail posted to the Nettime list by Ted Byfield, one of Steve's many dear friends around the globe. Link

UPDATE: A site has been established for Steve's friends, colleagues, acquaintances, and family to post their remembrances. There is also information on the site about an upcoming memorial service and where to send donations in memory of Steve. Link

Charles Platt says: "My friend Michael Blumlein, who has written some of the most disturbingly surreal and quietly subversive stories in the English language, has established a web site at www.michaelblumlein.com. The site is modest, like Michael himself, but includes a couple of his stories as PDFs. They're worth reading." Link

Ken "I was reading an article this morning on the new American Airlines luggage charge (THAT's gonna go over well), and noticed an aside starting on page 3. Las Vegas is using RFIDs in outgoing luggage now to help move bags more efficiently. After realizing that...um...I had bags that just got back from Vegas about 20 ft. from me, I realized I had to check it out. Oh yeah, there's a RFID. Freaky. And does the tag mention that? Nope. And it's not like airports don't have scanners..." Link (Thanks, Ken!)

danah sez, "The Social Science Research Council has made 'Structures of Participation in Digital Culture' available for free download. This is a collection of fabulous scholarly articles on topics like gaming, DRM and filters, digital commodities, social network sites, contagious media, media remix, etc. It's a fabulous book."

Structures of Participation in Digital Culture, edited by SSRC Program Director Joe Karaganis, explores digital technologies that are engines of cultural innovation, from the virtualization of group networks and social identities to the digital convergence of textural and audio-visual media. User-centered content production, from Wikipedia to YouTube to Open Source, has become the emblem of this transformation, but the changes run deeper and wider than these novel organizational forms. Digital culture is also about the transformation of what it means to be a creator within a vast and growing reservoir of media, data, computational power, and communicative possibilities. We have few tools and models for understanding the power of databases, network representations, filtering techniques, digital rights management, and the other new architectures of agency and control. We have fewer accounts of how these new capacities transform our shared cultures, our understanding of them, and our capacities to act within them. Advancing that account is the goal of this volume.

Link (Thanks, danah!)

Steampunk maker Art Donovan has just finished a whole whack of fantastic steampunk lamp designs. These are illuminating in the extreme. Link (Thanks, Art!)

Andy says:

GlobalCompassion.com is featuring a gallery of photographs by award winning photographer Masaru Goto. The photos are portraits of Japanese people with a surprising twist. The subjects are Burakumin, a nearly invisible (yet identifiable) group of Japanese people. They are the remnant of a caste system that passed away long ago but remains in the cultural memory. Their ancestors were the untouchables -- people who worked with dead animals (tanners and butchers). Despite being racially and ethnically Japanese through and through, the "people of the buraku" still face discrimination today.

Link

Empty Gesture says: "CNN Story of guy that walks around with a rat on top of a cat on top of a dog. The guy is pretty funny and goofy, takes in donations, but in general does it to show that people should be able to get along if a dog, cat, and rat are able to." Link

William says: "According to Zurich University researchers, a snort of oxytocin will make you continue to trust people who have betrayed you. Their intended use is to help social phobics trust good people. But marketroids everywhere are surely already looking into how they can get some. Expect it to be on offer in aerosol form by 2012, combined with a warm cookie scent."

Previous studies have shown that participants in "trust games" took greater risks with their money after inhaling the hormone via a nasal spray.

In this latest experiment, published in the journal Neuron, the researchers asked volunteer subjects to take part in a similar game.

They were each asked to contribute money to a human trustee, with the understanding that the trustee would invest the money and decide whether to return the profits, or betray the subject's trust by keeping the profit.

The subjects also received doses of oxytocin or a placebo via a nasal spray.

After investing, the participants were given feedback on the trustees. When their trust was abused, the placebo group became less willing to invest. But the players who had been given oxytocin continued to trust their money with a broker.

"We can see that oxytocin has a very powerful effect," said Dr Baumgartner.

"The subjects who received oxytocin demonstrated no change in their trust behaviour, even though they were informed that their trust was not honoured in roughly 50% of cases."

Link

(Photo from Gothamist, which has a story here.)

SuperCatBarf says: "There is a tunnel beneath the sea, recently completed, that allows citizens of London and New York to see right through the Earth and gaze upon each other, with the help of an optical device called a Telectroscope, one of which has been installed at either end."

It's not totally real, unfortunately, but the setup makes it seems real. Link | CNN report

Invisible Armies by Jon Evans can be read for free on the Harper Collins website. Chairman Bruce says: "That's a pretty good book, actually. It's kind of a tough-as-nails technothriller from a leftie Seattle 99er perspective. People who aren't morons and like thriller novels ought to read this." Invisible Armies at Amazon.com

A Best Buy security cam captured three girls dancing to a satellite radio demo. Special guest moves by a Geek Squad member. The real party starts at around the :40 mark. Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

UPDATE: If the above link doesn't work, try this one. Link

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Hugh D'Andrade -- a professional designer and illustrator -- and EFF Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry produced a great piece and podcast about why artists need to support Orphan Works legislation. There has been an enormous amount of FUD about this -- people saying things about the proposal that just aren't true. It's nice to have someone clear the air, finally.

The Orphan Works legislation would help resolve those fears and, in the process, encourage the display and re-use of these “lost” works. Under the proposed law, individuals who would like to use an orphan work must put diligent effort into searching for the owner of the copyright in the work, based in part on best practices to be outlined by the Registrar of Copyright. If that search comes up empty, they can use that work. And, if at some future time the copyright owner comes forward to demand payment, the legislation requires the second author to negotiate with that owner in good faith to determine reasonable compensation for the use, and promptly pay that compensation.

And if the second author doesn't follow the new rules under the law and simply uses the work without making a diligent search? The copyright owner can sue them under the current rules and potentially obtain statutory damages of up to $150,000 per work -- just as they can now.

Congress also plans to certify searchable databases for visual works like photographs, graphic arts, and textile designs that will collect information about works and contact information for the related copyright owners. There are not “formalities” associated with these databases. No artist will be required to “register” with the databases, and failure to register will not result in it being considered “orphaned.”

Link to blog post, Link to Podcast

Instructables has just posted the latest installment in its series of HOWTOs inspired by my novel Little Brother -- this time, it's "How to blend in with a crowd."

Stay as close to the most dense part of the crowd. It is easier to find people straggling about on the edges. It's harder to find people that are in the middle of everything since everyone is moving around you. If people are moving in small groups through the crowd, pick a random one and pretend that you are with them by following closely behind.

Link, Other Little Brother Instructables

Wired's Threat Level has a leaked Cisco document discussing the great "opportunities" inherent in supplying censorship and surveillance technology to China.

The 90-page document is an internal presentation that Cisco engineers and staffers in China mulled over in 2002 as the central government was upgrading its local, state and provincial public safety and security network infrastructure. Under the category "Cisco Opportunities," the document provides bullet point suggestions for how it might service China's censorship system called the "Golden Shield", and better known in the West as the Great Firewall of China.

The document is the first evidence that the networking giant has marketed its routers to China specifically as a tool of repression. It reinforces the double-edged role that Americans' technological ingenuity plays in the rest of the world. Companies including Cisco, Yahoo, Microsoft and Google have faced criticism for cooperating to various degrees with the repressive Chinese regime, and the document leak on Monday came one day before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee hearing into U.S. technology companies' participation in foreign government censorship programs.

Link (Thanks, W&W)