I've been in love with multitools ever since I had the good fortune to land the multitool beat at Wired, and manufacturers started to send me every single model, without my asking. I'd return 'em if they'd supply a FedEx number and if there was anything left after I destruction-tested them, but that still left me with a quite a beltfull of tools.

I stopped carrying tools after the tenth or twelfth time I forgot about them and lost one to the TSA (I've just started carrying a tool again after about five years, only because the Leatherman Skeletool is so cute, functional, and cleverly designed. The other contender was Muji's sweet little no-frills feller).

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Rob has found Leatherman's 25th anniversary "Argentum" collection, a set of heavily decorated, engraved tools that run from $12,000-$40,000. Makes me wish I was still getting these things for free -- I don't know that I'd pay for one of these gaudy suckers even if I could afford it.

Firstly, they're much better, as gadget bling goes, than opportunistic trivia like the De Vere diamond-studded iPhone. This sort of thing hearkens to the age of tools both beautiful and effective.

Some of them, however, are still pretty trashy. They beg to be advertised in Parade magazine on a 36 month finance plan, next to Oliver North's autobiography and gold-rimmed collector plate Jesuses painted by Akiane.

Leatherman tools that cost lots of money, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets (via Laughing Squid)

Mattathias Schwartz of GOOD Magazine has a much-linked-to feature in tomorrow's New York Times magazine about trollius dickwadius internetius maximus, a subhuman web-based species better known as the common internet troll.

The piece is a really good read, but here's my one minor beef with it: "disemvowelling" is mentioned, without a hat tip to the person first known to have used it as a moderation technique: BB's own mod Teresa Nielsen Hayden (boo ya), whom I understand to be its inventor. She began using the technique in 2002 to moderate the worst-behaved commenters on her own blog. Snip from the NYT article's mention of this technique, which we now use on BB:

If we can’t prosecute the trolling out of online anonymity, might there be some way to mitigate it with technology? One solution that has proved effective is “disemvoweling” — having message-board administrators remove the vowels from trollish comments, which gives trolls the visibility they crave while muddying their message.

I'd insert a comment here about how the NYT editors' failure to namecheck TNH's genius is akin to something Hitler might do, then maybe I'd insert a url in that that sneakily hijacks the browser for a full-screen technicolor goatse kitten-porn gotcha extravaganza -- but then TNH herself would disemvowel me, and I'd join the ranks of the article's subjects, and all would be moot.

So anyway, here is my favorite part of the piece, spoken by arch-douche and "Craigslist griefer" Jason Fortuny:

All that having been said, there are only two ways to deal with a troll:

1. Don't reply. Don't privately address him. Don't acknowledge his comments. Don't even make a passing reference in another blog post. Just pretend the troll doesn't exist. This gets rid of 90% of the trolls out there instantly. Then, if you're smart, shut up and quit blogging for a few days and logically re-evaluate the post that set the troll off. Chances are, there is a glaring flaw in your post that makes you look like an idiot or a nutjob, and that's why you got trolled. Don't post again until you're ready to amend it or defend it with better logic.

2. With the other 10% of trolls, you have to play the game. For every insult you receive from a troll, play along and join in the joke. If someone tells you're fat (because you probably are), don't get offended and rant. Just reply with a photo of a whale and say, "You mad skippy I'm fat! I would say this photo is me, but that wouldn't be fair. The whale isn't that big." If you can successfully take yourself and the insults less seriously, you will win the good graces of the troll and he'll either go away, or he'll chill out, knock off the insults, and you'll have made a new online friend. And trust me, it's good to have a troll for a friend.

Of course, now that I've revealed this, no troll is going to let up because you've all been warned and can no longer claim ignorance as an excuse. So, your only recourse is to just not be stupid and/or batnuts crazy on the Internets. If you can do that, everything will be just fine. However, just so I can be absolutely clear about this: if you escalate a war of words with a troll, you WILL lose. We know all the tricks. We have access to all the resources. We know all the laws. We're all friends with each other. We have done this thousands of times.

The Trolls Among Us (NYT. Thanks, Andrea James)

Update: Here's a statement from Elon Musk after the event.

SpaceX, the space technology firm created by PayPal co-founder and Tesla Motors chairman Elon Musk, is webcasting the launch of its Falcon 1 as I type this blog post. The long run-up to the launch may be a bit boring to watch, but if you are having a lazy Saturday afternoon as I am, I do suggest this as more entertaining veg-out viewing than, say, Project Runway or The Girls Next Door. And, seriously: If they're successful, this will become the first privately developed liquid fuel vehicle to orbit our planet. So that's pretty neat.

Snip from press release:

Lift-off of the vehicle will occur from SpaceX’s Falcon 1 launch site at the Kwajalein Atoll, about 2500 miles southwest of Hawaii. Falcon 1 launch facilities are situated on Omelek Island, part of the Reagan Test Site (RTS) at United States Army Kwajalein Atoll (USAKA) in the Central Pacific.

Designed from the ground up by SpaceX at headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif., Falcon 1 is a two-stage, liquid oxygen and rocket-grade kerosene powered launch vehicle. The first stage is powered by a single SpaceX Merlin 1C Regenerative engine – flying for the first time on this Flight 3 mission. A “hold before liftoff” system enhances reliability by permitting all systems to be verified as functioning nominally before launch is initiated. The Falcon 1 second stage is powered by a single SpaceX Kestrel engine.

Falcon 1 is the first new orbital rocket in more than a decade. Merlin is the first new American hydrocarbon engine for an orbital booster to be flown in more than 40 years and only the second new American engine of any kind in more than a quarter century.

SpaceX Webcast.

Diamonds in the Rough is a fantastic documentary about the role that hip-hop is playing in organizing the anti-war/anti-poverty movement in Uganda. Narrated by Michael Franti, it tells an gripping story of the way that Ugandan rappers risk political reprisals by creating anthemic rhymes that tell the stories of the victims of the bloody civil war and the long, increasingly corrupt reign of Musoveni. The movie's on the festival circuit now. Diamonds in the Rough on YouTube, Diamonds in the Rough

Science fiction illustrator Dave McKean's new DVD, Keanoshow, is everything you'd want from a DVD of short films made by the best and weirdest illustrator working in the field today. McKean may just be my favorite genre artist (certainly the cover he did for my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town is my all-time favorite in a field full of strong contenders), and the short films here really bring McKean's distinctive aesthetic to life through a series of lucious non-verbal sequences acted out by masked characters and backed by Django Reinhardt jazz. Imagine Mirrormask with the drama removed, leaving nothing behind but pure, awesome weirdness. I can't find any video clips on the web, but if you find some, put 'em in the comments below, 'kay? Dave Mckean's Keanoshow, The Art of Dave McKean

The Lucky Girl sez, "My incredible boyfriend Absinthetic made me a Wonderland Expedition kit, from back in 1867 when a biology professor was sent to investigate the tragic fire and curious occurrences surrounding the Liddell house fire. It's full of samples and documentation from the final known trip down the rabbit hole, and is also completely awesome. "

Now, this is true love. Have I mentioned that Alice in Wonderland is my favorite book? And the first book I ever read to myself? And that I'm married to an Alice? Wonderland expedition kit (Thanks, That Lucky Girl!)

Papercraft maestro Peter Callesen's "Large Scale Installations" are especially mindblowing, though all of his work is really dynamite. I love the elaborated, hairily detailed bits and pieces that fill the insides of this piece. Click through to see all the details. Large Scale Papercut Installations (via Beyond the Beyond)

Etsy seller CarolinaPatchworks makes beautiful 8-bit video game quilts. I'm still partial to Punzie's works in this genre, but why choose when you can have both, I always say. Be sure to see the Carolina Patchworks Quilt blog for a really lovely selection of non-game-related quilts, too. Carolina Patchworks Quilts on Etsy, Carolina Patchworks blog (via Wonderland)

See also: Zelda, Invaders and Resident Evil quilts

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's new "Switzerland" tool can detect violations of Net Neutrality by your ISP:

"The sad truth is that the FCC is ill-equipped to detect ISPs interfering with your Internet connection," said Fred von Lohmann, EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney. "It's up to concerned Internet users to investigate possible network neutrality violations, and EFF's Switzerland software is designed to help with that effort. Comcast isn't the first, and certainly won't be the last, ISP to meddle surreptitiously with its subscribers' Internet communications for its own benefit."

"Until now, there hasn't been a reliable way to tell if somebody -- a hacker, an ISP, corporate firewall, or the Great Firewall of China -- is modifying your Internet traffic en route," said Peter Eckersley, EFF Staff Technologist and designer of Switzerland. "The few tests available have been for narrow and specific kinds of interference, or have required tremendous amounts of advanced forensic labor. Switzerland is designed to make general-purpose ISP testing faster and easier."

Part of EFF's "Test your ISP" project, Switzerland is an open source, command-line software tool designed to detect the modification or injection of packets of data by ISPs. Switzerland detects changes made by software tools believed to be in use by ISPs such as Sandvine and AudibleMagic, advertising systems like FairEagle, and various censorship systems. Although currently intended for use by technically sophisticated Internet users, development plans aim to make the tool increasingly easy to use.

EFF Releases "Switzerland" ISP Testing Tool

I'm not sure what I'd use this for, but I would just love to own one of these ResQtec V2 Rams:

Modern cars do a good job of absorbing the impact of a head-on collision: The metal in the front crumple zones deforms in specific ways, sparing the occupants the brunt of the kinetic energy. The downside — a bad crash can create a hardened-steel trap around the driver and passengers, making it tough to get them out in a hurry. That's where a good hydraulic ram comes in, like the 27-pound V2. Rescuers wedge the end of this $3,030 cylinder on the inside of the door sill and an aircraft-grade aluminum rod extends to push against the windshield pillar. Its 5,000-psi hydraulics deliver spreading force of up to 12.7 tons — more than enough to crack open your wrecked ride like a pistachio. The V2 can create a 31-inch gap in a mere 13 seconds — increasing the odds that once you're free, you'll be rushing to the car dealer, not the emergency room.

The ResQtec V2 Ram Wrenches Trapped Drivers Free in 13 Seconds

Dead Air sez,

At the Science Fiction Message Board we are gearing up for one of the busiest times of our year - our fourth annual Author August! Each Author August we celebrate a different sf writer every day, with reviews, reminiscences, cover scans, and general comments. This is a post-a-thon open to all who wish to contribute, anything you wish to post about the author of the day, we want to have! And boy, have we got a strong roster of authors past and present for you this year:

8/1 Arthur C. Clarke
8/2 Vernor Vinge
8/3 Vonda McIntyre
8/4 Robert A. Heinlein
8/5 Roger Zelazny
8/6 Chelsea Quinn Yarbro
8/7 Lloyd Biggle Jr.
8/8 Elizabeth Bear
8/9 Elizabeth Moon
8/10 Edgar Rice Burroughs
8/11 H. Beam Piper
8/12 Keith Laumer
8/13 Joan D. Vinge
8/14 J.T. McIntosh
8/15 Katherine MacLean
8/16 Bruce Sterling
8/17 William Gibson
8/18 Pat Cadigan
8/19 Ursula K. Le Guin
8/20 Storm Constantine
8/21 Rosel George Brown
8/22 Ray Bradbury
8/23 Caitlin Kiernan
8/24 Tanith Lee
8/25 Peter F. Hamilton
8/26 Stanislaw Lem
8/27 Neil Gaiman
8/28 Zenna Henderson
8/29 Michael Moorcock
8/30 Jules Verne
8/31 Iain M. Banks

Spend Author August with Science Fiction! (Thanks, DeadAir!)

The LA Weekly has a long, gruesome feature about a dispute between neighbors in the affluent area of Pacific Palisades. It all starts when a young family moved into an expensive little bungalow and discovered that the elderly twin ladies next door were animal hoarders who'd raised tens of thousands of rats. Then it gets interesting, as it transpires that pretty much everyone -- the realtor, the town, the former owner -- all knew about the rats and had not bothered to mention it to the new owners.

When he crept closer, the odor — “a urine stench” — was “unbearable.” By the end of their first long weekend in the Palisades, Liz was stressed out, peering at shadows. The more she peered, the more rats she saw. Standing in her own master bedroom, she found herself at eye level with a group of rats who clearly had a routine, slipping methodically in and out of drains and cracks on her neighbors’ outside wall.

She saw three rats squeeze out of a roof drain in a precision, shoulder-to-shoulder group, Ratatouille-style. Another rat pack traveled along the dusty, reeking hedge on the property line. The hedge was a rat highway, and it swayed under its commuters’ weight.

Liz knocked on her neighbors’ rotting front door, but no one answered. They soon learned from other neighbors that the owners were 78-year-old twins Margaret and Marjorie Barthel, who rarely left the house — and never at the same time. When one of them did go out (and many people could not tell them apart), she wore heavy clothes, a wide-brimmed hat and large glasses as she pushed a shopping basket from Ralphs. It was always filled with large bags — of dog food. They haven’t owned dogs for years.

Palisades Rathouse: Unchallenged by Health Officials, Elderly Twins Fed Local Vermin Population (Thanks, Doran!)

I pretty much could not love this video any more than I do. Hindu gods, Naturalismo, Natalie Portman, psych-folk-en-español, and the funkiest dance of destruction ever to come out of the Bhagavad Gita by way of a Caracas 'shroom stash. It's the first video from Venezuelan-Texan Devendra Banhart's latest album, Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon. Felicidad ciento porciento garantizada, homies. (Thanks, Jolon!)

In his post about rocket inspired pop culture, Martin Klasch posted this nutty video of a Swedish band called The Spotnicks playing a surfy instrumental number, "The Rocket Man" from 1962. Kraftwerk probably studied their fancy moves.
Here's one of their mind-bending album covers.
The Spotnicks - The Rocket Man (1962) (via Martin Klasch)

The LA Times reports on a DEA raid at Organica Collective, a Culver City medical marijuana dispensary.

Gina Ferazzi's photos of the raid are wonderful. My favorite is the one of a hipster-looking agent with a healthy soul-patch on his chin and a giant pistol on his belt.

The federal operation came on the same day an appellate court in San Diego ruled that federal law does not preempt the state's law allowing the use of medical marijuana -- a ruling touted by supporters of California's medical marijuana law as a significant win.

...

Clyde Carey, 50, of Marina del Rey was at the store Friday visiting a friend when agents burst in through the locked front door, he said.

"We heard some noise outside, and then the door literally burst in, and the DEA came in in full combat gear, told everybody to get on the floor and put their hands behind their heads," Carey said. "It was like, literally, an episode of "24," when they bust in on a terrorist cell."

Carey, who said he has multiple sclerosis and has been a dispensary customer since February, stood across the street near a Starbucks with about half a dozen people who had witnessed the raid, watching agents walk in and out.

He said DEA agents searched and cuffed the roughly 25 people inside the building, which also includes four upstairs rooms. Then agents started searching the premises, removing computers, medicine and money, and using a steel cylinder battering ram to get into the upstairs bedrooms, Carey said.

DEA agents raid Culver City medical marijuana dispensary (LA Times)

Glenn Greewald's article in Salon about Bruce E. Ivins' suicide is fascinating. Ivins was a senior biodefense researcher at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases (USAMRIID) in Fort Detrick, Maryland. He committed suicide in July shortly before the FBI was going to indict him for his alleged role in the 2001 anthrax attacks.

Here are a few excerpts, but the entire article is worth reading:

If the now-deceased Ivins really was the culprit behind the attacks, then that means that the anthrax came from a U.S. Government lab, sent by a top U.S. Army scientist at Ft. Detrick. Without resort to any speculation or inferences at all, it is hard to overstate the significance of that fact. From the beginning, there was a clear intent on the part of the anthrax attacker to create a link between the anthrax attacks and both Islamic radicals and the 9/11 attacks.

During the last week of October, 2001, ABC News, led by Brian Ross, continuously trumpeted the claim as their top news story that government tests conducted on the anthrax -- tests conducted at Ft. Detrick -- revealed that the anthrax sent to Daschele contained the chemical additive known as bentonite. ABC News, including Peter Jennings, repeatedly claimed that the presence of bentonite in the anthrax was compelling evidence that Iraq was responsible for the attacks, since -- as ABC variously claimed -- bentonite "is a trademark of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's biological weapons program" and "only one country, Iraq, has used bentonite to produce biological weapons."

But bentonite was never found in the anthrax, and Greenwald says ABC News didn't acknowledged this until 2007, and only after Greenwald's "badgering them about this issue." That means, says Greenwald, the four "well-placed and separate sources" ABC claimed to have fed them "false information that created a very significant link in the public mind between the anthrax attacks and Saddam Hussein."

After all, three days later, McCain and Joe Lieberman went on Meet the Press (on October 21, 2001) and both strongly suggested that we would have to attack Iraq. Lieberman said that the anthrax was so complex and potent that "there's either a significant amount of money behind this, or this is state-sponsored, or this is stuff that was stolen from the former Soviet program."

As I said, it is not possible to overstate the importance of anthrax in putting the country into the state of fear that led to the attack on Iraq and so many of the other abuses of the Bush era. There are few news stories more significant, if there are any, than unveiling who the culprits were behind this deliberate propaganda. The fact that the current GOP presidential nominee claimed back then on national television to have some "indication" linking Saddam to the anthrax attacks makes it a bigger story still.

Vital unresolved anthrax questions and ABC News (Salon)

Freaks, a 1932 movie starring real life human marvels, is available for download at Archive.org. It stars the handsome and talented, 18-inch tall Johnny Eck (shown here in black jacket and bow-tie). I first saw Freaks when I was about 15, and when Eck came running across the screen using his hands and arms, I was dumbfounded.

From Julie Ng's review at 11th Hour:

What always amazes me every time I watch it is its darkness, its audacity and well, the very fact that it even got released at all. Especially in the Production Code era of cinema. Despite the fact that some places did ban it and that MGM foolishly hacked out parts of it that are now lost forever, Freaks still got away with a lot, for its time. I'm not only talking about the casting of real so-called freaks, or of the implied violence, but of the racy dialogue and double entendres littered throughout the film. I once read a guy's review that compared his experience of watching Freaks with a watching a good porno movie. I won't go that far, because I think it's much smarter than any kind of smut, but its exploitative qualities are sort of similar. You are repulsed by what you are seeing, yet fascinatingly allured at the same time.

You may love this movie for its compassion towards the imperfections of nature, or you may believe it to be a sadistic and excessive piece of trash. And that, dear readers, is the real beauty and staying power of Freaks.

The Ramones' trademark phrase "Gabba gabba hey!" came from Freaks.

Link

A UK drug squad raided Archibald Buttle's Zally Huseyin's house after a police helicopter taking infra-red videos of the neighborhood revealed the house to be "glowing white hot."
The police wrongly suspected that Huseyin (a police community support officer and mother of five) was growing marijuana in her house. It turns out the house had poor insulation and was leaking heat.

But when embarrassed officers searched Mrs Huseyin's house they found the glowing effect was caused simply by large amounts of heat escaping through the roof.

Mrs Huseyin, who has been a PCSO since March 2007, said: "I was absolutely gobsmacked when I realised the police had come to search my house. When I saw the squad car I thought it was colleagues just popping in for a cup of tea.

"I saw the police car pull up and I knew the sergeant. She recognised me when I answered the door. She was shocked and said three times, 'This is your house?'

"They showed me the footage from the helicopter and I couldn't believe it. They said if I hadn't been in they would have broken the door down to get in."

The Cambridgeshire Police helicopter had been flying over on an unrelated job when its infra-red camera picked up Mrs Huseyin's glowing home.

Poor insulation led to drugs raid on police officer's home (via Arbroath)

Heart Robot is a puppet designed to "respond" positively to being stroked and hugged, and to flinch if it's shaken or hit.

Heart Robot has a beating heart, a breathing belly, and sensors that respond to movement, noise and touch. Cuddle him, and he seems to soak up the affection. His limbs become limp, his eyelids lower, his breathing relaxes, and his heart beat slows down.

But if he is given a violent shake, or shouted at, he gets upset. He flinches, his hands clench, his breathing and heart rate speed up, and his eyes widen.

Heart Robot, created by scientists at the University of the West of England in Bristol, was designed to explore how humans react to a machine that appears to show feelings.

Heart Robot (Telegraph UK) (via Arbroath)

Recently on Boing Boing tv, we aired an animated music video by Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie for the Pinker Tones' song "S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T." We loved the band's vibe, and couldn't get enough of the song, so we reached out to this Barcelona-based electronica duo for more. Today on BBtv, a remix of that song, with an alternate video featuring actual real live sexy robots (director: David Lopez). And in part two of today's show, another delightful and new video for their song "Working Bees" (director: The Magical Thinking studio). You can catch the Pinker Tones on tour throughout the USA, including spots on the WARPED tour.

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Link to BBtv blog post, with viewer discussion, downloadable video, and podcast subscribe instructions.

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(Special thanks to Paul Dryden of Nacional Records)

My friend Joe Hutsko contacted with the intriguing offer to serialize his novel, The Deal, on Boing Boing. I jumped at the chance. I read The Deal when it first came out in 1999 and loved the thrilling story about a Apple-like company's undertaking to create an iPhone-like device.

Here's a link to Chapter 09 as a PDF or a text file. (Here's chapter 1 and an introduction to the book, and here are the previous chapters)

To buy a paperback copy of the book, visit JOEyGADGET or purchase directly from Amazon.

Mieke Roth, a professional science illustrator, keeps chickens. For fun, she decided to make a single drawing every day of a single chicken as it grew up over a couple months. From her project page:

Since this is undoable if I work like I do for my other pen and ink drawings, I have given myself a maximum amount of time I can spend on it: one hour. I don’t use real pen and ink, but the pen and ink equivalent in Painter combined with my Cintiq.

A nice surprise is that I don’t know how this specific chicken will turn out: it is a third generation crossbreed of my Breda fowl and Silki Bantams.

Little chicken growing up! (miekeroth.com, via Drawn!)

Esref Armagan painted the artwork above. He's been blind since birth. He creates his oil paintings using his hands instead of brushes. From Armagan's Web site:

He needs absolute quite when working. First, using a Braille stylus, he etches an outline of his drawing. He needs to feel that he is "inside" his painting-- in fact, when he is drawing a picture of the sea, he often wonders if he should wear a life jacket so as not drown! When he is satisfied with his drawing, he starts to apply the oils with his fingers. Because he applies only one color at a time (the colors would smear otherwise), he must wait two or three days for the color to dry before applying the next color. This method of painting is entirely unique to Mr. Armagan. He receives no assistance or training from any individual. He also learned to draw perspective.

He has also developed his own methods of doing portraits. He asks a sighted person to draw around a photograph, then he turns the paper over and feeling it with his left hand, he transfer what he feels onto another sheet of paper, later adding color.

Esref Armagan (armagan.com)
Extraordinary People (YouTube)
Seeing is Believing (Xoom, via Fortean Times)

In New York's Queens borough, there's a group of Trinidiadian teens who trick out their BMX bikes with insane sound systems. Directors Nicolas Randall and Joe Stevens shot a short documentary about the scene. Creative Review has more still photos and a video clip from the film, titled Made In Queens. Amazing stuff. BMX soundsystems (Creative Review)

Earlier this week, I posted artist Drew Friedman's terrific portrait of George W. Bush as The Joker. "Now, the flip side," he wrote me today.
Drew Friedman's Obama portrait (Time)

Previously on BB:
• Drew Friedman: George Bush as The Joker
• Get Illuminated! podcast: Drew Friedman, comic artist

Here is a newly published photo of the Montauk Monster, the strange beast that recently washed ashore on the South Shore of Long Island, New York. Sadly, it appears that the monster's dinosaur-like "beak" visible in the previously-seen photo may just be a decomposed snout caught at a weird angle. Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman puts the creature in context without ruining the fun. New Montauk Monster Pic and Cryptid Marketing

Previously on BB:
• Montauk monster washed ashore

Ian sez, "The four-episode miniseries Masters of Science Fiction aired last August. The full six-issue series (including the two never-aired episodes) will be released soon on DVD. SFScope is giving away ten copies of the two-DVD set." Holy crap, I had no idea Stephen Hawking was the host of this -- awesome! Masters of Science Fiction DVD Giveaway, Masters of Science Fiction at Amazon, Masters of Science Fiction official site (Thanks, Ian!)

The DHS has disclosed its official policy on laptop border seizures: they can take your laptop, or anything else, for no reason at all, forever, and disclose anything they find to anyone they feel like:

Also, officials may share copies of the laptop's contents with other agencies and private entities for language translation, data decryption or other reasons, according to the policies, dated July 16 and issued by two DHS agencies, U.S. Customs and Border Protection and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

"The policies . . . are truly alarming," said Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who is probing the government's border search practices. He said he intends to introduce legislation soon that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches, as well as prohibit profiling on race, religion or national origin.

Travelers' Laptops May Be Detained At Border (via /.)

Joi Ito's got a new book coming out -- a collection of photos of people he knows through the free culture/copyfight movements. They're lovely portrait shots and they're all CC Attribution licensed for a broad range of uses, creating a pool of good stock photos of people from the movement. Each photo is accompanied by an essay from the subject (I'm one of them), making the book an interesting read, too.

They're doing three editions, two limited editions and a regular release, all to be published in the fall. FREESOULS: Captured and Released by Joi Ito

Ah, just look at this fantastic artifact from the innocent era before the War on Fun kicked off -- a beautiful big bangy chemistry set, advertised in the September, 1955 Popular Mechanics.

Are you looking for a WONDERFUL FUTURE that can start at home right now? The NATIONAL SCHOOL OF CHEMISTRY offers a fascinating: correspondence course in PRACTICAL CHEMISTRY which will give you a wonderful education that can be used almost immediately to increase your income and your position in life, with prospects of a GLORIOUS FUTURE!

The course is very THOROUGH, yet specially prepared to be easy to all regardless of lack of previous training. Very little theory . . . this is a PRACTICAL course with HUNDREDS of fascinating EXPERIMENTS and valuable FORMULAS! Students learn, almost from the start, how to make chemicals and chemical products of commercial value, how to convert wastes into money, etc. THERE IS A GOLD MINE IN CHEMISTRY! Why not share in it? We will open your eyes to GOLDEN OPPORTUNITIES you’ve never dreamt of; for this is a GOLDEN AGE for those who possess special KNOWLEDGE!

CHEMISTRY - BIG LABORATORY GIVEN FREE! (Sep, 1955)

Watch this episode in Flash above, or download here: MP4 link.

BBtv WORLD is our recently-launched series on Boing Boing tv featuring first-person views of life around the globe. This third episode in our series is the last of a three-part report I filed from a K'iche Maya community in Guatemala.

Few foreigners come to this village at 10,000 feet in the highlands. Most glimpses we have of remote indigenous communities like this are through the lenses of outsiders -- like myself. But how better to see their story than through the eyes of the people themselves?

Before I left the US for this pueblo a few weeks ago, we asked two companies that produce small, inexpensive, USB camcorders -- Pure Digital (makers of the Flip) and RCA (makers of the Small Wonder) -- to donate a few devices. I brought them to the village, so that some of the adults and young people here could explore what is possible with the tools of video storytelling in their own hands.

Today's BBtv WORLD is the result: stories shot by the K'iche people in this village. The world they see around them, through their own eyes and in their own language.

Some of what the children shot really surprised me. They caught on right away, faster even than the adults, and quickly taught each other how to record and play back video. Some of them seemed to transform into instant YouTube stars -- new alter-egos showed up out of nowhere. One boy we'd come to know as quiet and well-mannered over the course of many previous visits here shot himself throwing gang signs against the sunlight, like shadow puppets, while he walked a path that leads to a Mayan altar. Another girl who was very shy with us in person recorded video of herself making outrageous silly faces, and speaking in a boisterous, confident voice to her new handheld lens.

When I downloaded the footage from their devices, I felt as if I were seeing this place, and these people, for the first time.

Previous BBtv WORLD episodes:

• BBtv WORLD: Migration, and a Mayan Sweat Bath. (Guatemala)
• BBtv debuts "BBtv World" series. Episode 1: El Molinero (Guatemala)

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Sponsorship note: The BBtv crew wishes to thank Microsoft for underwriting this episode, and generously supporting the launch of the "BBtv World" series. In this ongoing video series, we will be looking at the intersection of social causes & technology around the world from a number of perspectives. Through their new "i’m Initiative," Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world’s most important social causes when users email or IM with tools such as Windows Live™ Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail®. For more information, visit imtalkathon.com or im.live.com.

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Tor and Expanded Books have released part two of the video interview/book trailer they shot with me and John Scalzi, talking about our new young adult novels -- my Little Brother and John's Zoe's Tale, which comes out in three weeks. The Expanded People really cut nice stuff -- I laughed even harder watching the video than I did when we were shooting it! Sci-Fi Juggernauts Meet Up - Part 2

See also: Scalzi and I talk about our latest books -- video

Mother Jones Magazine has outed a private spy named Mary Lou Sapone AKA Mary Lou McFate, who infiltrated various gun-control groups on behalf of the NRA, posing as a fiery activist, spying on her friends, and writing reports on them so that the NRA could undermine their work.

Hohlt recalled several recent episodes in which McFate maneuvered to place herself in the middle of issues important to the NRA and others in the gun lobby. One occurred this spring, when the London-based International Action Network on Small Arms was trying to persuade American gun control groups to attend a July meeting at the United Nations on small-arms control. (A 2001 UN conference ended up establishing a program weaker than gun control advocates had desired, thanks to the intervention of the Bush administration, which had been lobbied by the NRA.) States United to Prevent Gun Violence had never before been involved with international gun control issues. And to participate in the UN meeting, it had to apply for credentials. Hohlt says McFate pushed her to file for them. Hohlt did so, and McFate ended up being able to learn what the anti-gun forces were planning for the UN session—including the delegates they intended to lobby, and the arguments they would highlight.

McFate also took a keen interest in a gun matter currently under consideration by the Department of the Interior, Hohlt says. At the urging of the gun lobby, the agency has been mulling whether to change its regulations to allow people to carry loaded and concealed guns into national parks under certain circumstances. (At the moment, a gun carried into a national park must be unloaded and kept apart from ammunition.) The National Parks Conservation Association and current and former National Park Service officials have been fighting the proposed rule change. "When Mary heard about this," Hohlt recalls, "she immediately asked to be on the email list [of the opponents] and she also got on the phone calls. So she now knows the strategy of the people trying to fight this." Similarly, when Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group organized by New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, mounted a campaign against the NRA-backed Tiahrt amendment—legislation advanced by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.) and first passed by Congress in 2003 that prevents the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives from sharing gun-tracing data—McFate, according to Hohlt, made certain to participate in conference calls during which strategy for beating back the bill was discussed. "Whenever an issue comes up, she manages to get on the email list," Hohlt says.

There's Something About Mary: Unmasking a Gun Lobby Mole (via Beyond the Beyond)

The good folks at Public Knowledge have produced a fantastic video explaining the MPAA's "Selectable Output Control" proposal -- the idea that a TV show should be able to disable parts of your home theater (for example, if MTV is worried that your Dolby sound outputs might be used to record the audio portion of music videos, they could shut down those outputs and only allow you to hear sound via the speakers in your TV).

The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for permission to engage in “selective output control” (SOC). If the FCC agrees, the MPAA and the movie studios it represents (Paramount, Sony, Fox, Universal, Disney, and Warner Brothers) would be able to “turn off” any output plug they choose, like those on the back of consumer electronics devices of an entertainment system, during special video-on-demand movies on cable television. Public Knowledge opposes SOC and along with Consumer Federation of America, Digital Freedom Campaign, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Media Access Project, New America Foundation, and U.S. PIRG, has filed comments urging the FCC to deny the MPAA’s request.

Selectable Output Control (via Lawgeek)

Jake von Slatt sez, "I am fortunate to work with someone who has been involved with ReaderCon, the annual literary science fiction convention in Massachusetts, and when he mentioned that there would be a Steampunk panel I begged for audio! The podcast adds up to fifty minutes of intense, fun engagement with the movement."

Readercon is an annual, literary science fiction convention in Burlington, Massachusetts. This year, it included a panel on steampunk, recorded for podcast here.

The four panelists were:

Mary Robinette Kowal - a professional puppeteer who moonlights as a writer
Holly Black -- a bestselling author of contemporary fantasy novels for teens and children,
Liz Gorinsky - an editor at Tor Books
Sarah Micklem - a graphic designer and writer.

The description of their panel read:

Steampunk and Beyond: What Would a "Gibson Chair" Look Like? Steampunk, originally just an SF subgenre, is now also a burgeoning underground design movement. There's precedent for this: modernism was not only a literary movement, but had artistic, musical, architectural, and design wings as well.

Is the steampunk design movement an essentially fluky outgrowth of our fascination with all things retro? Or could other F&SF subgenres sprout their own design branches as well? Could the creation of actual, useful, physical objects lead to better-imagined literary art? How close is the relationship between the visually striking artifacts of steampunk and the literature that spawned them, anyway?)

However, in the usual way at Readercon, their fascinating discussion ranged far beyond the specific questions asked, touching on steampunk's predecessors and many aspects of its own past, present, and future. The audience asked many informed questions.

Podcast: Steampunk Panel at ReaderCon (Thanks, Jake!)

Bonnie sez, "When you’re at San Diego Comic-Con, it’s nearly impossible to walk more than a few feet and not run into a fan in costume. Every year the convention center is flooded with various versions of superheroes, video game characters, horror film icons, pirates, steampunk kids, vampires, werewolves, manga and anime favorites, food mascots and of course lots and lots of Star Wars characters. Even though it seemed the Joker costumes dominated the con, the 501st and Rebel Legion were out in full force, as were fans dressed as Yoda, Darth Vader, Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Jedi and even a couple of TIE Fighters. Here’s a recap of some of the best costumes we spotted." Comic-Con: Best Star Wars Costumes (Thanks, Bonnie!)

BrookynTwang sez, "Check out this video for the Large Hadron Rap, by far the greatest physics rap of all time. The flow is halfway decent, and it accurately covers a lot of knowledge related to particle physics and the LHC. Its by AlpineKat, alter-ego of a science writer currently working at the LHC."

Oh that's fantastic! I got to tour Cern and the LHC last week and got a ton of great pics, and came away with the impression that if this thing causes the universe to wink out of existence, it'll have been worth it. Large Hadron Rap, My photos from Cern

David Rees's Get Your War On -- absolutely my favorite political comic -- has been animated by 23/6, and it's an incredibly successful adaptation, keeping the low-fi look and feel while still doing more than presenting the individual panels as slides in an animated PowerPoint. This is the first episode, but they promise a series. Oh yes, thank you very much! Link (Thanks, Ben!)

Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we wondered at new MacBook features, loved on Dell's Studio Hybrid mini PC, and listened to a HP support horror story for the ages.

Joel got himself a jetpack, John wired up an Atom-powere WiBrain handheld PC, and Rob welcomed Sylvania to the cheapo subnote party.

Check out our interview with Esquire, in which hackers are invited to do their stuff on its forthcoming e-ink cover; thoughts on the latest T-Mobile sidekick; and an ATM for your living room.

Today we also saw an electronic shifting system for bikes; a diamond-studded iPhone; some modern chopsticks; speakers you can slap on any wall; the shape of Psystar's legal strategy against Apple; and cute robot hamsters.

Tomorrow, however, is a new day — a day that will see a milquetoast reckoning for bandwidth throttler-in-chief Comcast.

NASA confirms, beyond any earthly doubt, that water really really really does exist on Mars.

Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.

"We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."

NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended (nasa.gov).

I've also been enjoying the cheerful tweets of the Mars Rover, where I first heard this news. The future is pretty terrific, you know? And it's here.

A retrospective art exhibition featuring art from BLAB! is opening tomorrow, August 1, at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. I wrote an essay for the show's catalogue about BLAB!'s creator, Monte Beauchamp.

The exhibition, organized by the Beach Museum of Art, will be on view through November 2, 2008. It is the first American museum exhibition devoted to the work of BLAB!, Monte Beauchamp’s periodic anthology of sequential and comic art, illustration, painting, and printmaking. The exhibition, which focuses on BLAB! #8-18 (1995-2007), features the work of forty-six artists and includes 150 objects from thirty-nine collections. All of the work in the exhibition has appeared in BLAB!.

Artists in the exhibition: Michael Bartalos, Gary Baseman, Richard Beards, Tim Biskup, Stéphane Blanquet, Calef Brown, Greg Clarke, The Clayton Brothers, Sue Coe, Don Colley, Brian Cronin, Nicolas Debon, Douglas Fraser, Charles Paul Freund, Drew Friedman, Geoffrey Grahn, Steven Guarnaccia, Ryan Heshka, Peter Hoey, Tom Huck, Teresa James, Jeffrey Kamberos, Nora Krug, Peter Kuper, Mark Landman, Laura Levine, MATS!? [Mats Stromberg], Walter Minus, Christian Northeast, John Pound, Archer Prewitt, Chris Pyle, Helge Reumann, Xavier Robel, Jonathon Rosen, Marc Rosenthal, Sergio Ruzzier, David Sandlin, Spain, Bob Staake, Fred Stonehouse, Mark Todd, Chris Ware, and Esther Pearl Watson.

The accompanying 128-page, full-color catalogue was designed by Monte Beauchamp and contains contributions by David A. Beronä, Mark Frauenfelder, Matt Dukes Jordan, and Bill North.

BLAB! retrospective art exhibition

The Ridemaster Pro is a £40,000 rocking horse. Sold by Racewood Simulators, the Ridemaster Pro is equipped with sensors, mechanics, and a display for virtual outdoor rides. From The Telegraph:

(Racewood Simulators) designer and company managing director Bill Greenwood said: "Private individuals buy them who don't have space for a horse in central London.

"With one of our simulators you can ride at any time of day in a centrally heated or air-conditioned environment.

"You don't need the space or a dressage arena because it's not physically going anywhere - you can put it in a small room or in a garden shed.

Horseback riding simulator (The Telegraph, thanks Lyn Jeffery!)

I went to Machine Project's fruit jam last year and it was a blast.

Sunday August 3rd from 12-3pm brings the return of our favorite summer ritual, jam making with Fallen Fruit. Jams will be based on the fruit that the participants provide. The fruit can be fresh or frozen. Fallen Fruit will bring public fruit. We are looking for radical and experimental jams as well, like basil guava or lemon pepper jelly. We'll discuss the basics of jam and jelly making, pectin and bindings, the aesthetics of sweetness, as well as the communal power of shared food and the liberation of public fruit. When the jam is done, it is spooned into small, hopefully recycled jars, and the participants take some of their own, leave some for others, and perhaps take a jar of another team's jam. Bring fruit, small glass jars, a willingness to share the goods and an enthusiasm for delicious jam chaos. Free.

Public Fruit Jam 2008 (Machine Project)

Here's a 1969 video of Smith (with lead singer Gayle McCormick) performing a great version of The Shirelles' 1961 hit "Baby It's You." (The Beatles did it in 1963). (via Save vs. Death)

In 1990, Rosalind Williams, MIT professor of history of science and technology, published a book titled Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination. The book explores both real and imaginary undergrounds, from the building of sewers and subways to archaeological digs to the writings of Jules Verne and HG Wells. This year, MIT Press has published a revised edition of Notes On The Underground. In honor of that, Cabinet magazine ran a fascinating interview with Williams about the meaning of "underground" and how it relates to science and culture. From Cabinet:

What is your definition of the underground in the book?

In the beginning, I had a straightforward definition: it was a mine, or a pit dug into the earth, or a subway, or a tunnel. As I was writing, however, I realized that one of the most interesting aspects of the world that humans have constructed on the surface of the earth is the creation of mock or artificial underworlds in the sense of places that are meant to exclude organic life, where everything is meant to be a creation of human artifice rather than given from the larger universe. A shopping mall, for example, can serve as a model of a technological environment (a term Mumford didn’t use, but that I find useful) even if it isn’t literally underground.

But most of all I try to expand the concept of the underground from the earth to the sky. I end the book by comparing environmental consciousness with subterranean consciousness, pointing out that the real surface of the planet is the upper edge of the atmosphere. Our earthly home is everything below the frigid and uninhabitable realm of outer space, and so in a sense we have always lived below the surface of the planet, in a closed, finite environment.

Underworld: An Interview With Rosalind Williams (Cabinet), Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Amazon)

Loren says: "The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that their former MNDoT emergency response executive, who was fired for hanging out with her boyfriend in NYC instead of coming back to Minneapolis to deal with the 35W bridge collapse, has been hired by the TSA."

Sonia Pitt, the MnDOT emergency response executive fired for taking an unauthorized, state-paid trip to Washington during the Interstate 35W bridge disaster, is now working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Pitt, 44, of Red Wing, confirmed Wednesday that she is working for Homeland Security's Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Her job title is "Transportation Security Specialist." Pitt declined to discuss her job responsibilities, her length of employment with the federal agency or her salary.

"All inquiries go through my attorney, same as always," Pitt said.

Fired emergency repsonse exec now at Homeland Security (Star Tribune)

Annelle of Big Think says:

We recently interviewed Columbia professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology Dickson Despommier, the pioneering researcher responsible for bringing national attention to the idea of vertical farming. In light of your recent article on Professor Despommier's critical work on BoingBoing on July 15, ("Lettuce in the sky, with diamonds") I thought that you might be interested in his interview.

Hear him describe the logistics of vertical farming.

Hear his prophesy for the "Third Green Revolution"

Select other subjects from his full interview.

As well as appearing on BoingBoing, Professor Despommier was recently featured in the New York Times, CNN, and The Colbert Report to name a few.

Logistics of vertical farming (Big Think)

Klaus Pierre, a French/German actor-waiter-whatever, aspires against all odds to become America's next great action hero. In today's episode, he attempts to conquer the greatest challenge ever -- his first big Hollywood party. Drinks, hijinks, and embarassing dance moves ensue.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and instructions on how to subscribe to the BBtv video podcast.

Previous Klaus Pierre episodes on BBtv:

• Klaus Pierre: Super Pretty Action Hero Star
• Klaus Pierre: The Beach
• Klaus Pierre: Red Carpet Botox Dreams
• Klaus Pierre: Pirate Musical of Epic Fail
• Klaus Pierre: Savate
• Klaus Pierre: Coffee Shop.
• Klaus Pierre: Swordfighting
• Point Break and heartbreak

Jasmina Tešanović:
Dragan Dabic Defeats Radovan Karadzic
Belgrade: July 29, 2008
photo: Bruce Sterling

Despite wise warnings from the American embassy to avoid all large, possibly violent Serbian demonstrations, I was there today in Belgrade's Republic Square.

My American friend and I were sipping two beers to pay for our cafe table. I also noticed some lone men alertly drinking coffee there: they were undercover Belgrade police. Standing outside the cafe were strong, heavily armored lines of hyper-geared riot policemen. There were even riot policewomen on duty.

Last night I spoke to Dejan Anastasijevic, an expert on internal issues and a witness in Hague trial against Milosevic. We concluded that this grand public event was the swan song for the Radical Party, and for Radovan Karadzic, one of its founders: for the Radicals, tonight was now or never.

Well: the verdict is never. The ethnic holy-warrior Radovan Karadzic has lost out to the New Age guru Dabic: his other Jeckyll-and-Hyde personality for the last 13 years. Maybe 16,000 people trickled into Republic Square, a good-sized crowd for downtown Belgrade, but a fragment of the three million Radical voters, a full third of the Serbian population. Two months ago the Radicals were gleefully smashing foreign embassies over the Kosovo issue; today they are bewildered and crestfallen.

This image (three combined frames) shows the last total solar eclipse, March 29, 2006. The next one takes place tomorrow. The Exploratorium will Webcast the event live from China. From Science News:

This particular eclipse will sweep across the planet in a slim path that begins in Nunavut, a northern province of Canada, and ends in northern China. So people in parts of Canada, northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia and China will be able to witness the seconds-long blackout.

When the moon totally obscures the sun — the moment of totality — the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the solar corona, becomes visible. The solar corona reaches temperatures higher than a million degrees Celsius and extends farther than 620,000 miles from the star’s surface. Because the sun’s surface is brighter than its corona, a solar eclipse is the only opportunity to see the corona with the naked eye.

Total solar eclipse (Science News), Total Solar Eclipse 200 Live from China (Exploratorium)