The "creepy gnome" is back.

A NEW sighting of South America’s ‘creepy gnome’ has caused panic among locals after a group of youngsters claimed a ‘midget monster’ ran towards them at night.

Video: 'Creepy gnome' back on prowl

From World of Wonder's WOW Report:

Artist Lou Cannizzaro went back to 96 St Marks Place in Manhattan 33 years after that location starred on the cover of Led Zeppelin's Physical Graffiti album.

Physical Graffiti -- return to the scene

Photo by Whole Wheat Toast. (Thanks Tara McGinley! Via Neatorama)

Mirthful story in the November 2008 issue of The Atlantic.

Airport security in America is a sham—“security theater” designed to make travelers feel better and catch stupid terrorists. Smart ones can get through security with fake boarding passes and all manner of prohibited items —- as our correspondent did with ease.

As we stood at an airport Starbucks, [Bruce] Schnei­er spread before me a batch of fabricated boarding passes for Northwest Airlines flight 1714, scheduled to depart at 2:20 p.m. and arrive at Reagan National at 5:47 p.m. He had taken the liberty of upgrading us to first class, and had even granted me “Platinum/Elite Plus” status, which was gracious of him. This status would allow us to skip the ranks of hoi-polloi flyers and join the expedited line, which is my preference, because those knotty, teeming security lines are the most dangerous places in airports: terrorists could paralyze U.S. aviation merely by detonating a bomb at any security checkpoint, all of which are, of course, entirely unsecured. (I once asked Michael Chertoff, the secretary of Homeland Security, about this. “We actually ultimately do have a vision of trying to move the security checkpoint away from the gate, deeper into the airport itself, but there’s always going to be some place that people congregate. So if you’re asking me, is there any way to protect against a person taking a bomb into a crowded location and blowing it up, the answer is no.”)

... Schnei­er and I joined the line with our ersatz boarding passes. “Technically we could get arrested for this,” he said, but we judged the risk to be acceptable. We handed our boarding passes and IDs to the security officer, who inspected our driver’s licenses through a loupe, one of those magnifying-glass devices jewelers use for minute examinations of fine detail. This was the moment of maximum peril, not because the boarding passes were flawed, but because the TSA now trains its officers in the science of behavior detection. The SPOT program—“Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques”—was based in part on the work of a psychologist who believes that involuntary facial-muscle movements, including the most fleeting “micro-expressions,” can betray lying or criminality. The training program for behavior-detection officers is one week long. Our facial muscles did not cooperate with the SPOT program, apparently, because the officer chicken-scratched onto our boarding passes what might have been his signature, or the number 4, or the letter y. We took our shoes off and placed our laptops in bins. Schnei­er took from his bag a 12-ounce container labeled “saline solution.”

“It’s allowed,” he said. Medical supplies, such as saline solution for contact-lens cleaning, don’t fall under the TSA’s three-ounce rule.

“What’s allowed?” I asked. “Saline solution, or bottles labeled saline solution?”

“Bottles labeled saline solution. They won’t check what’s in it, trust me.”

They did not check.

The Things He Carried -- The Atlantic (November 2008)

If you're in San Francisco on Oct 29, be sure to check out the free launch-party for Larry Lessig's new book, Remix:

Oct 29 2008 - 6:30pm

Join us as we celebrate the Release of Professor Larry Lessig's new Book!

Remix: Making Art and Commerce Thrive in the Hybrid Economy

Reception 6:30pm
Program 7:00pm

Free and open to the public!

W Hotel
181 Third Street
San Francisco, CA
United States

10/29: Lessig Book Release Party (Thanks, Lauren!)

I've especially enjoyed sharing some of my enthusiasms for obscure musical acts here on Boing Boing as the guest blogger. This post is about PJ Proby, crazed crooner and rock and roll hellion. I am a massive, massive fan of this guy's music. I've been fascinated by him for years and would LOVE to make a documentary about him. No one plays the sad, apologetic lonely guy better than PJ Proby. His voice can make a grown man cry, but you'd almost have to be half-mad to sell a song like he can. And half-mad PJ Proby probably is...

Once famously blacklisted in the UK for repeated splitting his blue velvet trousers onstage, it's tempting to call PJ Proby the "Zelig of rock and roll." Despite the fact that today almost no one remembers who the guy is/was, he was a peer and fellow performer of The Beatles, Tom Jones, Cilla Black, The Rolling Stones, Jackie DeShannon, Marc Almond, St. Etienne and many others. His sister dated Elvis Presley and Proby himself sang the "vocal guides" imitating Elvis that the King would then re-record during his Hollywood movie phase. His first British TV appearance was as a special guest on "Around the Beatles."

His 1968 album "Three Week Hero" featured none other than a young Led Zeppelin (or the "New Yardbirds" as they were then known) warming up as his backing band and he appeared as "The Godfather" touring with The Who during their 1997 "Quadrophenia" production. Van Morrison even wrote a song called "Whatever Happened to PJ Proby?" I could go on and on, he's led a very colorful, albeit very self-destructive life, but I'll leave the bio for the links and concentrate on all the great PJ Proby performances you can find on YouTube after the jump (and trust me, this isn't the best stuff that's out there).

"You Can't Come Home Again (If You Leave Me Now) | "Around The Beatles" (1964) | "Hold Me" (first UK hit single) | "That Means A Lot" (Lennon-McCartney composition) | "Somewhere" | ""What's Wrong With My World?" | PJ Proby/Marc Almond duet "Yesterday Has Gone" (1996) | Interesting Marc Almond interview on the difficulties of working with PJ Proby | "Niki Hoeky" (audio only) (Can someone out there please post a video of this?) | Official PJ Proby site | Get Hip to His Conflagration | The Fall and Rise of PJ Proby | How P.J. Proby's life is falling apart at the seams (Recent article about the 69-year-old singer's legal troubles) | St. Etienne's Bob Stanley on the Pop Mavericks

Talented photographer (and coder!) Dave Bullock took a series of magnificent images of "Industrial Landscapes." Archival 13" x 19" and 17" x 22" prints are also available. Industrial Landscapes

Vern sez, "I've been a fan of both the Polynesian tiki scene, and the bubblegum music scene, which often featured studio musicians providing the music for a cartoon band. Those two worlds intersect with a new set of mugs from Tiki Farm - Rigor Morty and the Dirt Nappers. I just received my set, in time for Halloween, and they are sweet. The tallest mug is 9 inches tall. As the Tiki Farm website says - pour yourself a zombie .... in a zombie!"

I love Tiki Farm mugs in general, but this is the very best set I've ever seen. Wow!

Rigor Marty and the Dirt Nappers! (Thanks, Vern!)

Butterflies, wah-wah pedals, and one-eyed yeti, ahoy! The Boing Boing tv crew is proud to return to the work of one of our favorite multi-media savants, Bill Barminski of Walter Robot Studios. The filmmaker, composer, illustrator and animator shares this new video work, a hypnotic flight of fancy for his music project, the Subatomic Nixons. Enjoy the "Hazy Day," and happy weekend, everyone. Special thanks to Barminski and Christopher Louie, and all of the Walter Robot team. Here are previous BBtv episodes featuring their work.

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Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with instructions on how to subscribe to the BBtv daily video podcast. Direct MP4 Link.

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Researchers claim that the Bee Gees 1977 tune "Stayin' Alive" is a great track to pace yourself when doing CPR. The song's tempo is 103 beats per minute, very close to the 100 chest compressions per minute recommended by the American Heart Association. For the last two years, the AHA has been suggesting trainees practice to the song. University of Illinois physician David Matlock conducted a study on the use of the song in CPR training and will present his results at the American College of Emergency Physicians conference in a couple weeks. Seems like the AHA should hire a DJ to make a lifesaver mix. From the AP:

Dr. Matthew Gilbert, a 28-year-old medical resident, was among participants in the University of Illinois study this past spring. Since then, he said, he has revived real patients by keeping the song in his head while doing CPR.

Gilbert said he was surprised the song worked as well as it did.

"I was a little worried because I've been told that I have a complete lack of rhythm," he said. Also, Gilbert said he's not really a disco fan.

He does happen to like a certain Queen song with a similar beat.

"I heard a rumor that 'Another One Bites the Dust' works also, but it didn't seem quite as appropriate," Gilbert said.

"Stayin' Alive" has near-perfect rhythm to help jump-start heart

Meat After Meat Joy is a meat-themed group art exhibition that just opened at Daneyal Mahmood Gallery in New York City. The show features photographs, sculpture, and multimedia pieces that use, or comment on, "raw meat, the concept of meat, its symbolism and viscera." Seen here, Zhang Huan's "My New York" (Performance Whitney Biennial, 2002). From the show description:

Meat After Meat Joy brings together the work of contemporary artists who use meat in their work... in order to investigate the paradoxical relationship meat has to the body. Meat combines flesh, skin, muscle, organs, blood - each with its own relationship to the body, yet meat's only reference to the body is as a once-upon-a-time living biological thing. By putting these artists together, the exhibition seeks to investigate the uncanny effect meat as a medium is for artist and viewer. This is not a show about meat as spectacle but about meat as signification, precisely because meat does not signify (a body) but its very annihilation...

Meat After Meat Joy

"She Without Arm, He Without Leg" is a ballet performed by Chinese dancers Ma Li and Zhai Xiaowei who are both amputees. Videos of their elegant performance and interviews with the pair are available on YouTube. Amputee ballet (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson and Uncle Kenny!)

Cholla is a horse whose painting seen here, "The Big Red Buck", will be exhibited at the 3rd International Art Prize Arte Laguna opening tomorrow in Mogliano Veneto, Italy. You can see more of the Reno, Nevada artist's work on his Web site, "Artist Is A Horse." All of the paintings reproduced on the site have a "copyright Cholla" watermark. Prints of The Big Red Buck are also available with a portion of the proceeds going to the Virginia Range Wildlife Protection Agency. From the Associated Press:

Renee Chambers, Cholla's owner and assistant, says his international acclaim proves his artistic talents.

"Yes, it's a novelty that a horse can paint," she said. "But it's not about novelty anymore. It's about his validation as an artist."

Cholla's painting career began by accident, Chambers said. He'd follow her around when she'd paint the corral each year, and one day her husband quipped, "You should get that horse to paint the fence."

Chambers instead tacked a piece of paper to a railing, bought some watercolors, mixed them up, and handed a brush to Cholla, who gripped it in his teeth and stroked the paper.

"He's been painting ever since," she said.

Horse takes up painting, has works exhibited

Previously on BB:
• Elephant artists
• Elephant paints an elephant

I took this photo of two pumpkins weighing around 700 lbs each outside the hardware store in Sebastopol, Calif.

Here's an awesome Parenthack: mash a banana in the peel, rip off one end and squirt it into your kid's gob like icing -- a no-spoon meal!

Throw a whole banana into your diaper bag before heading out the door. When it's time to eat, mash up the banana before peeling it - just squishing it a bit with your fingers does the trick. Then, peel open a small hole at the end (not the end with the longer stem). Squeeze the mashed banana into the baby's mouth like you're icing a cake. Voila - no spoon necessary, and almost no mess.

How to turn a whole banana into a no-mess baby meal (no spoon required)

Salim sez, "William Poole, an 18-year-old Kentucky high-school student wrote a story about a high-school over-ran by a plague of zombies. Not exactly the most original scenario, but just the sort of thing for a young writer to cut his teeth on. Unfortunately the kid's grandparents found the manuscript and assumed the very worst. The high-schooler was arrested on Tuesday morning and is currently being held at the Clark County Detention Center. The local police seem to be treating this work of fiction as if it were some kind of terrorist threat."

"My story is based on fiction," said Poole, who faces a second-degree felony terrorist threatening charge. "It's a fake story. I made it up. I've been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies."

Even so, police say the nature of the story makes it a felony. "Anytime you make any threat or possess matter involving a school or function it's a felony in the state of Kentucky," said Winchester Police detective Steven Caudill.

Student Arrested For Terroristic Threatening Says Incident A Misunderstanding (Thanks, Salim!)

Update: Turns out this is a couple years old!

The record industry lost a landmark battle last spring, when a court said that merely printing "not for resale" on an unsolicited promo CD does not prevent you from reselling it -- and certainly does not prevent me from buying it. The judgement establishes that "first sale" -- the legal doctrine that says that once you buy something, it's yours -- is still alive and well. This The Legality article unpacks it all for you:

Once again, the music industry overestimated the level of control they should be allowed to maintain over their copyrighted works. Just as when Sony invaded its consumers’ privacy by embedding software in CDs and when the five largest music distribution companies illegally corroborated to fix the price of CDs, the music industry has again violated the law. The United States District Court for the Central District of California concluded, via summary judgment, that the purported EULA included by UMG did not create a “license,” nor does it allow UMG to retain any control over the promotional CD. UMG gave away these CDs, and those who receive them are free to dispose of them as they see fit. Therefore, the court found, as the legal owner of the CDs in question, Mr. Augusto and Roast Beast Music broke no laws in selling these recordings, and may continue to do so.

At least we can still sell our old CDs… Right?

It depends. While Mr. Augusto enjoys the right to sell his legally owned CDs, questions arise in a number of states as to who can purchase them. The music industry, it seems, is foregoing lawsuits in favor of promoting preventative legislation. Recent legislation in Florida, Utah, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island has made it more difficult to sell used CDs in those states than it is to get a driver’s license. In Florida, for example, anyone attempting to sell used CDs to a retailer must present identification and be fingerprinted, and any retailer looking to sell those same CDs must apply for a permit and submit a $10,000 bond with the Department of Agriculture and Human Services. Thankfully, those restrictions do not apply to online or person-to-person sales.

“Damn The Man!” The Ability To Sell Second-Hand CDs (Thanks, Steve!)

Remember when the Electronic Frontier Foundation discovered that the NSA had been wiretapping the entire Internet, illegally, with collaboration from the nation's phone companies? Remember when they sued the phone companies in order to discover the full extent of this illegal, warrantless domestic spying?

Remember when Congress -- including both presidential candidates -- voted to give the phone companies immunity from prosecution, even though they had clearly broken the law, on the grounds that the president had asked them to? (If the president asked you to shoot someone, would Congress let you off the hook, too?)

Well now EFF is suing to have the immunity -- the unconstitutional immunity -- overturned. Go EFF!

"The immunity law puts the fox in charge of the hen house, letting the Attorney General decide whether or not telecoms like AT&T can be sued for participating in the government's illegal warrantless surveillance," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston. "In our constitutional system, it is the judiciary's role as a co-equal branch of government to determine the scope of the surveillance and rule on whether it is legal, not the executive's. The Attorney General should not be allowed to unconstitutionally play judge and jury in these cases, which affect the privacy of millions of Americans."

In the public version of his certification to the court, Attorney General Mukasey asserted that the government had no "content-dragnet" program that searched for keywords in the body of communications. However, the government did not deny the dragnet acquisition of the content of communications. In support of its opposition, EFF provided the court with a summary of thousands of pages of documents demonstrating the broad dragnet surveillance of millions of innocent Americans' communications. Eight volumes of exhibits accompanied the detailed summary, including eyewitness accounts and testimony under oath.

"We have overwhelming record evidence that the domestic spying program is operating far outside the bounds of the law," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Intelligence agencies, telecoms, and the Administration want to sweep this case under the rug, but the Constitution won't permit it."

EFF Challenges Constitutionality of Telecom Immunity in Federal Court, Donate to EFF

Bill Higgins sez,

Starting in 1942, Jack Williamson wrote a series of stories about tough space miners who go after antimatter asteroids. There's the hope of unlimited energy, but the danger that any touch unleashes nuclear hell.

In the latest issue of Symmetry, a magazine about particle physics, I've traced the chain of scientific developments in the 1930s and 1940s that inspired Williamson to write his "Seetee" tales-- if not the first, certainly the most influential stories to explore the physics of "contraterrene" (CT) matter.

Fermilab, where I work, manufactures antiprotons in quantity, so I enjoyed looking backwards at the ancestors of our business, tracking down the long-ago crossover where an abstruse possibility in nuclear physics led to speculation that flowed from astronomy to meteor science to SF.

Best of all, we obtained an image of Jack Williamson's carbon copy of "Collision Orbit." In their regular "Logbook" feature, the editors treated the manuscript with the reverence due a historic lab notebook, letter, or graph.

The Seetee stories originated in a weathered shack back of the family home on the Williamson ranch, which Jack built himself in 1934 so he could write in seclusion. This shack is still the object of occasional pilgrimages by 21st-century science fiction writers. See Scott Edelman's tour.

( Symmetry describes itself as "a magazine about particle physics and its connections to other aspects of life and science, from interdisciplinary collaborations to policy to culture.")

Antimatter’s science fiction debut (Thanks, Bill!)

A reader writes: "Check out the EULA for the Department of Homeland Security's web page for applying for travel visa waivers!" This is possibly the most obnoxious pop-up I've ever seen. Imagine the federal government making you agree to waive your legal rights in order to read about one of its programs! Welcome to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization Web Site

This incredibly patronizing 1950 Colonial Film Board short film explains the intricacies of bus-riding to ignorant foreigners newly arrived in London, unravelling the mysteries with helpful advice like, "Be sure to board a bus headed to your destination," and explaining that drivers aren't allowed to run over school-children. Journey by a London Bus (1950)

The Zombiefie Six is a set of six papercraft zombie dollies for you to print, fold and play with. Fun! the ZOMBIEFIE SIX (Thanks, Doctor What!)

Robbo sez,

In RiP: A remix manifesto, Web activist and filmmaker Brett Gaylor explores issues of copyright in the information age, mashing up the media landscape of the 20th century and shattering the wall between users and producers.

The film’s central protagonist is Girl Talk, a mash-up musician topping the charts with his sample-based songs. But is Girl Talk a paragon of people power or the Pied Piper of piracy? Creative Commons founder, Lawrence Lessig, Brazil's Minister of Culture Gilberto Gil and pop culture critic Cory Doctorow are also along for the ride.

RiP: A remix manifesto (Thanks, Robbo!)

Jeff sez,

San Marcos, Texas' Aquarena Center, formerly a hilarious tourist trap called Aquarena Springs, will be bulldozed, with the land being restored to turn-of-the-previous-century condition.

Aquarena was the home of the infamous Ralph the Swimming Pig, and his keeper Glurpo, a one-time "nightmarish aquatic clown" (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/01/20/nightmarish-aquatic-.html) turned "underwater witch doctor." There were also "aquamaids" who picnicked & performed ballet underwater, diving ducks, and a sadistic swan named Rufus.

Glass-bottomed boats will continue to ply the lake, described as "home to eight federally listed endangered species. ... one of the oldest continually inhabited sites in North America, and the second largest artesian spring in the western United States."

(Full disclosure - I worked in the underwater show for a couple of seasons in the early 70s. I WAS Glurpo, (in his witch doctor persona) as well as Bubblio, Scrubblio and "Announcer" and I knew Ralph personally!)

Demolishing Aquarena (Thanks, Jeff!)

Marilyn sez, "Astronauts returning from spacewalks have noticed a distinctive smell of fried steak on their space suits when they take them off. Who knew?!" Turns out, the cosmos is not vegan.

He said: “When astronauts were de-suiting and taking off helmets, they all reported quite particular odours.

“We have already produced the smell of fried steak, but hot metal is more difficult.

“We think it’s a high energy vibration in the molecule and that’s what we’re trying to add to it now.”

Space smells of steak, say Nasa (Thanks, Marilyn!)

One day I found myself looking for obscure "glam rock" compilations on Amazon UK and the "customers who bought this" recommendation led me to an album called "Breathlessly Brett" an LP originally recorded in the mid-1970s -- but not released until 2003 -- by a then teenage performer named Brett Smiley. It seldom left my CD player for the next month.

I'd never heard of Brett Smiley before, but when I did a search on him, an interesting story emerged. Smiley was just 16 years old when he was discovered by Rolling Stones manager Andew Loog Oldham. At 18, he was given a $200,000 recording deal and recorded an album, produced by Oldham and with Steve Marriott from the Small Faces on guitar. An amazingly raucous single "Va Va Va Voom" was released and heavily hyped with Smiley's face appearing in ads all over London and in an extremely over the top performance and interview on the popular Russell Harty Plus TV program.

The single bombed, the album was shelved and other than a few brief film cameos (like "American Gigolo") Smiley wasn't heard from again until 2003 when RPM records acquired the master tapes. The sad truth was the Smiley wallowed in serious, skid row drug addiction for years. His legend proved strongly intriguing for glam rock fans and Johnny Thunders biographer, Nina Antonina, wrote a book, The Prettiest Star: What Ever Happened to Brett Smiley about how Smiley's brief pop supernova moment influenced her teenaged years.

Now recovered from the drug excesses of his past, Smiley continues to record and perform, mostly around New York City.

The Russell Harty clip features Smiley performing his Ziggy-influenced "Space Ace" (the "Va Va Va Voom" B-side) and it's pretty incredible if you like this sort of thing. (Turn the sound up really loud as the audio sounds weaker than the CD version) "Space Ace" performance

(Richard Metzger is guest blogger.)

Our friend R.U. Sirius is editing a new magazine called h+ and the first issue is available as a free PDF.

Humanity Plus (formerly the World Transhumanist Association) – in collaboration with former Mondo 2000 editor RU Sirius -- is pleased to present h+. A web-based quarterly magazine, h+ covers the scientific, technological, and cultural developments that are challenging and overcoming human limitations. 


Recently, there has been a growing and evolving public discourse about new technological trends and possibilities. Scientists and edge thinkers are talking about– and working on -- slowing or ending aging; body and brain enhancement; biological control of the genome and the evolutionary process; and the possibility of a technological singularity brought on by AI… to name just a few of the interests and obsessions of this new edge tech culture. h+ magazine is all over it.

Beautifully designed by virtual worlds artistic legend D.C. Spensley (AKA DanCoyote in Second Life), h+ is accessible, stylish, contemporary, and sometimes playful. h+ aims to provides an entry point for intelligent people to develop an awareness of this new technological paradigm, while also providing an outlet and a voice for those who are already hooked in to the "transhumanist" vision.

Featuring interviews with science fiction author Charlie Stross and anti-aging legend Aubrey de Grey, issue #1 of h+ magazine is now at hplusmagazine.com Editor R.U. Sirius promises to continue editing the periodical for "approximately 300 years."

h+ magazine

Brian Dereu, a wonderful MAKE magazine contributor, has started a new business selling hollow spy coins.

During the Cold War, Spies from both the East and West used Hollow Coins to ferry secret messages, suicide poisons, and microfilms undetected. On May 1st, 1960 U2 Pilot Gary Francis Powers was shot down over the Soviet Union and taken captive. In his possession was a hollow silver dollar containing a poisoned needle that was to be used to take his own life in such a circumstance. For one reason or another, he did not use it and was held for 21 months by the Soviets. He was then exchanged for Soviet spy KGB Colonel Vilyam Fisher (aka Rudolf Abel) at the Glienicke Bridge, in Berlin, Germany. Colonel Fisher was also no stranger to hollow coins...his original capture by the United States FBI was directly related to a hollow nickel that was used to transport microfilm.

On the following pages are exact duplicates of Cold War Spy Coins. They are all precision machined from actual coins, and are absolutely indistinguishable from a solid coin to the naked eye. They can be safely handled without danger of separation, and can easily circulate without detection. These exact replicas are proudly made in The USA.

Hollow spy coins

The more things change... (Thanks, Liz!)

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, we looked at the T-Mobile Android G1's "not evil" killswitch and a tiny little Korean monitor for corralling your contact lists.

Joel Johnson — Obama supporter — said "so what?" to a report that Verizon and AT&T provided temporary cellular towards to McCain's ranch, and Brownlee looked at a gorgeous refreshof a 1960's Italian stereo

Joel loved a 64K intro by a Hungarian demoscene group, puttered a 3D printed car around his desk while making puttering noises with his mouth, put a paper plate made out of leaves through the dish washer and the old Lemonaid Loaders his grandfather used to make.

Brownlee liked a Space Invaders alarm clock, an R2D2 backpack and a suicidal light night.

The newest 3D webcams will stab porn into your eyes, Studio Ghibli is doing a DS game, Joel needs advice on building a gaming PC for $1k and Rob got some hands-on time with Sony's hot new all-in-one desktop.

Oh, and according to Apple France, the new MacBooks are perfect shit.

Link

Matt sez, "In the spirit of accurate labeling, such as 'antibacterial,' 'All-natural,' and 'Now SLOWER and with MORE BUGS!,' I've made these 'Property of the Bavarian Illuminati! Ewige Blumenkraft!' stickers. They should be placed wherever the Illuminati's influence is painfully obvious, yet conspicuously undeclared! They're a homage to one of my favorite authors and a man who knew the value of the absurd, the late Robert Anton Wilson. I'll have them with me at Maker Faire Austin, for anyone who wants a handful!" Accuracy in Labeling — Property of the Bavarian Illuminati (Thanks, Matt!)

A few days ago, NPR's Public Radio International's This American Life re-aired (and podcasted) an incredible story about Nellie Thomas, a black market ammunition dealer on the South side of Chicago. He had so much cash that he didn't know what to do with it, and he didn't trust banks. So he hid it in plastic bags, mattresses, and pillows. His wealth was also a source of agony because he was embarrassed by how he had earned it. So he came up with a curious, inspirational, and funny way to get rid of it. The story, titled "Everything Must Go," was told by Columbia University sociology professor Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, who had gotten to know Thomas while writing a book called Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor, about people who earn a living running auto repair shops out of alleys, grocery stores in their homes, and other non-traditional businesses. Venkatesh is featured in Freakonomics, and Cory reviewed Off The Books when it came out but I had forgotten all about it. Nellie Thomas's tale hooked me though. I can't wait to read the whole book to hear interesting financial tales that have nothing to do with Wall Street, or "Main Street" for that matter.
"Everything Must Go" (This American Life), Off the Books: The Underground Economy of the Urban Poor (Amazon)

Interesting video of jungle based cocaine factory. (via Neatorama)

I snapped the above photos this morning in a Palo Alto, CA train station parking lot. There was no stickers, fliers, or any other material hanging on any of the other poles in the area. I know that taping up a paper drawing isn't as "permanent" as traditional graffiti, but I like the idea of hanging art in unusual public places. I also dig the drawing. I hope nobody takes it though so that others can enjoy it. Click on the images to see them larger.

UPDATE: In the comments, JAMES and an anonymous commenter inform us that this is a sketch of a suspect wanted in connection with attacks in the area. Odd without any context or information on the poster. See here.

If you're headed to Maker Faire Austin this weekend, please come by the Maker Shed to visit the Make editorial staff. You can also take workshops there. On Saturday at 11:30, and Sunday at 2:30, my friend Jenny Hart will be teaching embroidery. Maker Faire Austin

On Monday, a Buckingham, Quebec man died in a cemetery when a tombstone fell on his back. Apparently, the 77-year-old was digging near his parents grave when the concrete stone crashed down on him. The CBC News article does not explain why he might have been digging. From CBC News:

"It appears he moved the stone and was digging a hole around the foundation when the concrete block fell on his back," said Const. Isabelle Poirier.

Man dies in Quebec cemetery after tombstone falls on him

Keeping in the spirit of Cory's synthetic snot how-to post, here's a site with Halloween cocktail photos. This particular concoction, called the Brain Hemorrhage is From TangoPango's Filckr site. Halloween Cocktails

I first read about Shopsin's Greenwich Village restaurant in Calvin Trillan's classic New Yorker tribute to it, and its owner, the eccentric, garrulous, cranky Kenny Shopsin. The last time I was in New York, I managed to eat there, getting breakfast with Teresa Nielsen Hayden at the new location in Essex Market. I was transported by some of the most satisfying food I've ever been privileged to eat.

Now, the notoriously publicity-shy Kenny Shopsin has written a book (with Carolynn Carreno) about the philosophy and history of the restaurant, called Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, and it, too, is an utterly satisfying, utterly peculiar experience.

Kenny Shopsin's restaurant began life as a grocery store, purchased for $25,000 by his father for his peripatetic son (Shopsin describes himself then as a neurotic who saw a therapist five days a week). In the grocery store, Shopsin found a kind of frenetic peace in cultivating and deepening his relationship with his customers (one of whom, Eve, he married). Gradually, he added prepared food to the grocery lineup, then more and more, as the satisfaction of cooking for others seized his interest, until the grocery store became a restaurant.

The two things I'd remembered about Shopsin's from the New Yorker piece was that there were 900 things on the menu and that parties of five could not be seated, ever, even if they split into a three and a two (there's a lovely bit of verse explaining this rule in the book, written by an affectionate Shopsin's regular).

When Teresa and I ate there last summer, I was trepidatious about asking for some substitutions, given Shopsin's reputation for being a real hardcase with finicky eaters, but he was glad to try some new stuff for me, and the food turned out superbly. I had a kind of African groundnut stew with pumpkin, and a soya pumpkin-pecan spice malted that was so good, I can actually still taste it when I close my eyes. Shopsin himself was hilarious and warm, dropping the f-bomb more quickly and frequently than any other restauranteur of my experience. He talked over the food with us, asking Teresa why she hadn't eaten the taco-shell bowl her meal came in, listening carefully, and vowing to revise the recipe based on her feedback.

Shopsin's memoir is like the man: loud, opinionated, warm, exuberant and absolutely delightful. He had me when he revealed that he'd named one of his dishes solely to piss off Andrea Dworkin ("she's probably never heard of this dish"), but I really caught fire when I came to section on pancakes.

First, there's the revelation that Shopsin's pancake batter is Aunt Jemima's Frozen, and the lengthy explanation of why this is so. Then there's the gallery of pancake variations, including chocolate peanut butter, coconut, oatmeal, chorizo corn, post-moderns, spinach walnut and pear pignoli, all mouthwateringly good. It reminded me of nothing so much as the sloppy cooks that feature in some of Daniel Pinkwater's best books, like Borgel and Fat Men from Space -- Shopsin's is pure Pinkwater, like something that popped off the page.

Then there's the crepes: they're not crepes. They're flour tortillas, dipped in milk and flash-fried on the super-hot griddle (Shopskin reveals that he drilled out bigger burner-jets on his custom stove). He swears that French tourists tell him they're the best crepes they've ever eaten.

Shopsin's my kind of obsessive. He's kind of sentimental (his kids feature heavily in the memoir and recipes, and the book includes photos of them having diaper changes in the kitchen and even a Polaroid of an unidentified lad's naked, lacerated butt, labelled "7/10/77 sink accident"). He's addicted to excess and clutter and would rather answer any either-or question with "both." He makes an introspective, overwhelming obsession out of any physical task, and talks in awesome detail about the efficiency hacks he's discovered in order to allow him to serve 900 dishes from a kitchen the size of a walk-in closet.

Shopsin's memoir is eclectic and sometimes frustrating -- as when he recounts the stories of the friends whom he has written out of his life for some ancient sleight, right after telling you about the close personal relationship he once enjoyed with them and the recipes they inspired for him.

But this book is just purely magic. It's a manifesto for cranky, lovable, excessive individualism. It's a call-to-arms to woo the muse of the odd and thumb your nose at convention. And it's got some damned tasty recipes.

Seven ounces is the perfect size for a hamburger. One thing that people don't understand is that when a portion size is too big, it is just bigger, not better. When I am served an 8-ounce burger, I recognize that it is a nice idea -- somebody is trying to give me a lot for my money. But the truth is that I don't really want an 8-ounce burger. It is too much. And when you are eating something that is too much, there comes a point where you're not enthusiastic about it anymore. You can't even taste it. After a lot of consideration, I have determined that 7 ounces is the perfect burger size.

Eat Me: The Food and Philosophy of Kenny Shopsin, Shopsin's

See also:
* A small and beautiful restauranteur
* Eccentric diner-menu infodesign

Oh, I know that there's this huge vogue today for making fake snot with molecular gastronomy techniques, a kind of gourmet fetishism for this basic, simple, honest farmland staple. I don't care. I like my fake snot like I like my text-editors: simple, powerful, and green. Lucky for me, About.com Chemistry's Anne Marie Helmenstine, Ph.D., has an old-fashioned, traditional folk-recipe for fake snot.

This is a gooey, gross variation of the traditional slime recipe, great for Halloween and other occasions requiring snot.

How To Make Fake Snot (via Make)

In a thought-provoking rant, the Effect Measure science blog challenges the idea that science students should (or can!) know what a "fact," a "theory" and a "model" are. These are not simple, settled concepts, but rather areas of hotly contested debate.

Most scientists also can't properly say what distinguishes science from pseudoscience, say what a fact is, give a satisfying rendition of what a theory is, etc. The problem is that Mr. Williams can't do it either, because there is no agreement on these knotty matters. He seems to think these are simple and settled questions. But finding adequate criteria that separate science from pseudoscience, the so-called Demarcation Problem, remains an unsettled question in the philosophy of science. It is so difficult, and possibly so fruitless, that many philosophers have ceased to be concerned with it. Similarly, what is a "fact"?...

A wag once commented (and I have quoted here often) that to expect a scientist to understand the philosophy of science is like expecting a fish to understand hydrodynamics. I guess the same thing goes for science educators, although it is less excusable. Mr. Williams seems to be under the impression that these extremely difficult foundational issues are settled and should be common knowledge for all scientists.

A rant about science educators

National Geographic Nikon's picked its best microscopic images for 2008 and there's some stunners this year -- like this high-mag view of the antibiotic powder mitomycin. Best Microscopic Images of 2008 Announced (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Mathematician/physicist Jan Rubak has done me the honour of recording readings of six of the essays from my nonfiction collection, Content and uploading them to the Internet Archive. He's a great reader, too!

- In Praise of Fanfic
- Metacrap: Putting the torch to seven straw-men of the meta-utopia
- Amish for QWERTY
- Free(konomic) Ebooks
- The Progressive Apocalypse and Other Futurismic Delights
- When the Singularity is More Than a Literary Device: An Interview with Futurist-Inventor Ray Kurzweil

All 28 essays are available as free downloads (and there have been a ton of conversions to everything from Braille to OpenDoc) and, of course, there's a beautiful physical object for sale, too.

Content readings (Thanks, Jan!)

The Idler's Glossary, by Joshua Glenn, "playfully explores the etymology and history of hundreds of idler-specific terms and phrases, while offering both a corrective to popular misconceptions about idling and a foundation for a new mode of thinking about working and not working" is now available on Amazon.

The publisher asked me for a blurb to put on the back cover. Here's what I sent them:

The Idler's Glossary is wonderful! I opened it, set it over my eyes, and took a delightful two-hour nap. Thank you so much.

Here are a few examples from this worthy tome, which is illustrated by the stupendously talented Seth:

bootless: Must every non-useless, non-unprofitable activity involve wearing boots? Quite the contrary, wouldn't you say? Let's start using "slipshod" to mean any activity which is not an end in itself. See: FLIP-FLOP, SLIPSHOD.

bored: Being bored [a term which appeared suddenly, out of nowhere, among the smart set in the 1760s] is the condition—which Guy Debord called the "worst enemy of revolutionary activity"—of being too restless to concentrate, but too apathetic to bust a move. Fortunately, unless one's boredom becomes magnified to a sort of frustrated world-rejection, it's just a mood... and soon passes. Also note that Lin Yutang says that "philosophy began with the sense of boredom," since both involve dreaming wistfully of an ideal world. See: ACEDIA, APATHETIC, ENNUI, SPLEEN.

bum: Like "queer" or "bitch," this term for a wandering mendicant has long since been re-appropriated, as in the song, "Hallelujah, I'm a Bum." As opposed to the guy who sits in the same spot every day asking for a hand-out, the bum [from the German for "saunter"] roams freely throughout the city, the country, the planet: He is king of the road. See: BEGGAR, LOAF, SAUNTER.

cadger: Cadging, the ancient art of imposing upon the generosity of others, is an essential skill for the would-be idler, since poverty is the easiest way to obtain a great deal of free time. According to Henry Miller, who calls it "mooching," when performed without squeamishness or reservations, cadging is both exhilarating and instructive. So long as a cadger [from the Scandinavian word for "huckster"] is generous in turn (though not necessarily in kind), he ought not to be considered a deadbeat, freeloader, or sponger. See: BEGGAR, SCROUNGER.

The Idler's Glossary

I hope Boing Boing readers enjoyed yesterday’s interview with Charles Hugh Smith.

Today I’m posting an interview with another of my favorite bloggers, Dr. Housing Bubble.

I discovered the good Doctor’s blog back in early 2006 and have been a faithful reader ever since. At the time my wife was a real estate agent and the two of us became puzzled, then obsessed by the bizarre socio-economic implications of the then still-inflating housing bubble. This obsession led to discovering great blogs like Patrick.net, Professor Piggington, Peter Viles excellent blog at the LA Times, and of course, the subject of today’s interview., Dr. Housing Bubble.

The Doctor blogs anonymously. Perhaps this is because of his “Home of Real Genius” posts where he highlights -- and loudly cackles about -- some of the most ridiculously overpriced real estate listings on the MLS. If staying incognito helps him do his work, I’m all for it because his blog is such an amazing resource. There is a tremendous amount of erudition, expertise and a profound understanding of both history and economics that go into his writing. Dr HB can take complex and daunting economic theories and lay them open with a surgeon’s skill making them easily understood by all. This guy is good, really good. When he’s on a roll (which is frequently) I’ve actually found myself getting jealous that I didn’t think of that first or even worse, wishing I was as smart as he is! I suppose that’s the best style of compliment I could give the good Doctor, isn’t it? (Jealousy being such a visceral emotion...). I encourage you to check out his blog and to check it out often. The Q&A starts after the jump.

(I admit the reason I'm posting is this is because the image is funny.)

John McCain has made no bones about his disgust for greed. But as Senior Editor Radley Balko reports, his wife Cindy's fortune comes from a government-created entity that’s anti-competitive and full of lobbyists and special interests.

Radley Balko on the Government Subsidies Behind Cindy McCain's Family Fortune from Reason Magazine - Hit & Run

Mister Jalopy interviewed the folks at Illuminati Motor Works, who are competing in the Automotive X Prize (1 Gallon of Gas, 100 Miles - $10 Million: The Race to Build the Supergreen Car"). Here's the MP3 file of the interview.

Mr Jalopy interviews Illuminati Motor Works

Treehugger has a collection of a dozen fantastic, recession-compliant homes and buildings made from old shipping containers, the packets of the sea. I really like this South Melbourne playground made from everyone's favorite big steel boxes, but there's plenty more to love on the site. Last year, I nearly rented an office in a building made from pieced-together containers -- it was a beautiful space, but I ended up going with something cheaper (a space in a rotting Victorian factory in Clerkenwell).

Shipping containers are cheap, plentiful and strong. I grew up surrounded by containers (and helped my dad design the Kalkinesque warehouse shown above for Northern Canada in the seventies) and always thought the interior dimensions too small, the floors too toxic and the problems of insulating and making them comfortable too challenging, but dozens of architects and shipping container designs have proven me wrong. Let's count the ways.

Crate Expectations: 12 Shipping Container Housing Ideas (via Consumerist)

Andy sez,

In a move that seems to be happening without comment from the Australian media, the Australian government is introducing a censorship regime ostensibly targeted at stopping teenagers accessing online porn.

But rather than being an opt-in system, it's "opt-out". I use the scare quotes because, and this is most insidious part, you can't actually opt out - you can merely be placed on a alternative blacklist which, instead of blocking "content innappropriate for children", block any material deemed to be illegal.

The fact that it will likely reduce everyone's internet performance is secondary; It will most likely incorrectly block 1% of sites, and now what you are allowed to view online is determined and controlled by the state (although most likely quite inaccurately).

The rationale is that since they're setting it up anyway, they're morally obliged to block traffic deemed illegal:

"Illegal is illegal and if there is infrastructure in place to block it, then it will be required to be blocked — end of story."

I don't think I need to go into too much detail about the potential threat to our civil liberties.

People of Australia, please write to your MPs to voice your opposition to this.

No opt-out of filtered Internet (Thanks, Andy!)

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets our anonymous "sauce" ponied up an ad for the 20 separate editions of Windows 7.

Then it was back to Infomercia for the denoument, as the now-free gadgetganda-spewers explored their freedom: a handheld Dreamcast, a pac-man bikini and a new Sandisk music player couldn't save them from Pippin Cray's zealotry and retribution. Not even a screwy speak and spell. Marvin, however, escapes to another reality.

Speaking of reality, we also saw RjDj, a live ambient sounscape generator, a vintage-style camera that uses 35mm film, and the RKS Gig Stand, a folding guitar caddy.

Joel explored the meaning of the word "Gadget," and polished us off with a Horological LOL.

You have just five days to send stuff to Ringo to get it autographed. Hurry, hurry. Don't get shut out. (Via Arbroath)