A recent insider-meddling scandal inside the space-merchant game EVE Online prompted the creation of a democratically elected player council called the Council of Stellar Management (CSM). This newly constituted democratic institution is charged with helping the game developers balance out fun with fairness. I've often wondered whether democratic player-groups can vote for more fun, even when "fun" includes making the game harder and more frustrating at times.

1UP: When can we expect to see in-game results from the meeting?

AC: Well the immediate results were in the prioritizing of development effort applied to the game changes we advocated to CCP. Directly based on CSM advice, CCP will be rolling out game changes, balance alternations and improvements and additional programming effort on key areas. Of course, some of these things are going to take 3/6/9/12 months to see light on the live server, but a big part of the battle is to start the processing going and to know that we've helped to set the priorities for the next year of development for Eve. For me personally, the first big things I'm expecting changes on relate to Faction Warfare (the key content of the Empyrean Age expansion) being opened up to Alliance corporations and incorporating our advise and advocacy on a truly dynamic, open-ended plotline for the game itself. After that, I'm expecting CCP to roll-out improvements to the Black Ops range of Battleships and address issues with 0.0 Sovereignty and its current imbalance in favor of the defending power.

Building a Better Virtual World Through Democracy (via Terra Nova)

Over on Dinosaurs and Robots, Mister Jalopy says:

A few months ago, Ry Cooder and I went out to the dry lakes with the Old Crow Speed Shop, the Bobby Green Bellytanker and the New York Times. The article (by Lawrence Downes, and photos by Eric Grigorian) is out tomorrow and it is wonderful.

There is the Los Angeles that people imagine of red carpet premieres, Botox lunches, velvet rope nightclubs, Venice bodybuilders and tony boutiques. It is not a fable. That is real. Or, at least, it physically exists.

Then, there is the Los Angeles that I know. Aerospace surplus hardware stores, smoky and ashtray-less Koreatown English hunt club bars in crumbling hotel basements, perfect beer buzz lunches at the Farmer's Market in filtered sunlight, the wild dogs of Pacoima, sprawling thrift stores, trolling junkyards for old diaries and Polaroids, the drag races at Pomona, chrome plating shops, backyards stacked with 300 bicycles, gold miners eager to show their biggest nuggets, fishing for carp in the Los Angeles River, optimists taking over art museums, the nicad battery selection at Electronic City, the metal patination case at Industrial Metal Supply, Kit Kraft Hobby, the gem vault at the Natural History Museum, the szechuan peppercorns of Alhambra, the churlish bartenders at Hop Louie, the sneaker shops of Little Tokyo, the imported coldcuts at Monte Carlo Deli, the Japanese garden on the roof of the New Otani Hotel, the bicycle swap at the Encino Velodrome, the DDR kids at the Santa Monica Pier, the mustard at Philipes, the dimsum carts of Monterey Park, the carnitas at Carrillos, the buffalo at Hart Park, the Kris Special at the Waystation, the netsuke room at LACMA, the Remington Rolling Block at the Backwoods Inn, the coffee shop at the LA Police Academy, the abandoned restaurant with leather walls at Union Station, the yardage of the Garment District, the abandoned fire station in the Toy District with the quartersawn oak lockers viewable through the crack in the door, the first two rows of lowrider history at the Pomona Auto Swap, Abe Lincoln's hat at the Huntington Library, the camillia forest of Descanso Garden, the bolt room of Roscoe Hardware that is hidden in a kitchen remodeling home center, the genius at the Museum of Jurassic Technology, the chile pepper booth at the Grand Central Market, sneaking to the top balcony of the Bradbury Building, the threadbare and dented Variety Arts Center, the orange groves of the 126 and secret utility salvage yard in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Ry and I share this Los Angeles and it was fun to show it to Lawrence. He did us proud. Los Angeles tries to throw itself away everyday but we are still gold prospectors, hot rodders and guitarists. Our fundamental awesomeness will not be impinged.

I agree; what Mister Jalopy write above comes closer than anyone to nailing why I love Los Angeles.

Ry Cooder’s American West

We stopped yesterday in the small town of Field, in Yoho National Park in British Columbia. It's the western side of the Continental Divide from where we were in Banff National Park. Here we are looking north from Field over the Kicking Horse River Valley.

Field, which has a picturesque setting beneath Mount Stephen, below, was built for the construction of the railway and it looks like a model train village today. Railway workers began uncovering unusual fossils in the area. Charles Walcott came in 1908 to explore the trilobite bed near Mount Stephen. A year later, nearly 100 years ago, he discovered the Burgess Shale, which he named after nearby Mount Burgess. Walcott, head of the Smithsonian Institution, spent many years excavating the fossils and returning them to his museum.

The Burgess Shale lies within Yoho National Park but you can only visit there in summer under the direction of licensed guides. We had a look-see in the information center and then headed to Calgary to fly home.

Years ago, I had read Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life and the brief visit to Field made me want to find the book first thing upon returning home.

Gould writes that "the invertebrates of the Burgess Shale...are the world's most important animal fossils. Modern multicellular animals make their first uncontested appearance in the fossil record some 570 million years ago." These fossils represent a record of the Cambrian explosion and "they are precious because they preserve in exquisite detail...the soft anatomy of organisms."

Gould writes lyrically:

The animals of the Burgess Shale are holy objects -- in the unconventional sense that this word conveys in some cultures. We do not place them on pedestals and worship from afar. We climb mountains and dynamite hillsides to find them. We quarry them, split them, carve them, draw them, and dissect them, struggling to wrest their secrets. ... They are grubby little creatures of a sea floor 530 million years old, but we greet them with awe because they are the Old Ones, and they are trying to tell us something.

Since the book was first published in 1989, Gould's interpretation of the evolutionary significance of the Burgess Shale has come under some criticism. (You can read some of the criticism in Amazon's reviews of the book.) Also, other Cambrian fossil sites have been found in Greenland and China. However, you can't mistake Gould's true enthusiasm for the story of the Burgess Shale, and its breakthrough role in helping us understand the history of life on earth.

In an audacious new paper, "Homes With Tails," Tim Wu and Derek Slater argue that there's no good technical or economic reason why homeowners couldn't supply their own fiber-optic internet connections that run hundreds of times faster than today's connections:

We call this property model “Homes with Tails,” for the fiber would form part of the property right in the home. Key facets of our approach include:

1. A “condominium” model for fiber ownership, in which individual strands of fiber are sold to consumers, while maintenance and other collective needs are managed jointly.

2. Private firms and municipalities could consider selling fiber connections based on this model; and

3. Governments could consider using various mechanisms to support consumer purchases, including a tax credit to homeowners or renters who purchase a broadband connection.

Summary: Homes With Tails, PDF: Homes With Tails

Kurt sez, "Minuscule is a co-production of French national TV and the Disney channel. It's a combination of real world sets and CGI insects, sans dialog. Personally, I think the lack of dialog makes the creatures more humane, and adds incredible opportunities for visual humor. Few opportunities are missed, and few fail. There are episodes all over YouTube, and when those whet your appetite, please buy the DVD and support these comedic geniuses." (Thanks, Kurt!)

Jim sez, "A handful of Sailors on my ship, the USS Shiloh (CG 67) which is based out of Japan, recently made a 26-minute Star Wars fan film. 'Star Wars Episode 67: The Seeds of Betrayal' is a story of two Sailors who handle a misunderstanding the only reasonable way...by having a saber fight throughout and around the ship. It took them about 5 months to shoot and edit, and I'm pretty sure it's the first Star Wars fan film to be shot on a US Naval warship, while she's underway."

US Navy Sailors make Star Wars fan film on their ship (Thanks, Jim!)

Michael Moore was a recent guest on Larry King talking about the auto bailout. Moore's terrific documentary, "Roger & Me," targeted the auto companies in 1989 while they closed plants and laid off workers. Moore tells Larry King that in the movie when the GM representative said that 30,000 people could be laid off in Flint, he thought it was a joke. Years later, it came true. Moore says he's conflicted, as many of us are, about what to do. He doesn't have any confidence in the leaders of this industry.

Moore doesn't want to see the loss of more jobs in the US auto industry. He also doesn't trust the current management teams that got them into this mess. Hard to argue against either position.

I don't know if I can go so far as Moore to believe that the government could do a better job running these companies. However, it's clear that this manufacturing capacity could be a great asset if applied to an overhaul of the US transportation system.

I liked Michael Moore as the bumbling everyman in Roger & Me and I've liked his movies less and less as they've become strident setups. I was happy to see Moore in this interview get back to something like his old self. It's somehow personal again.

Since this interview, the CEOs of the Big Three had a humbling day on Capitol Hill, unable to defend their use of separate corporate jets to bring them to the hearing and more importantly, unable to articulate what they would do with the money they're asking for. They've supposedly gone back to Detroit to work on a proposal and muster the courage to go back to Washington in December.

President-elect Obama wants to get rid of daylight saving time in the United States to conserve energy.

Turns out, according to two academics on the NYT Op-Ed page, there is little scientific proof that this reduces energy consumption. It also turns out that this practice could be wasteful, a bit annoying, and a lot of people, including Obama, want to get rid of it.

A study in Indiana, a state that recently started DST, showed an overall increase of 1 percent in residential electricity use with occasional increases of 2 to 4 percent in late spring and early fall. So much for conserving energy.

I hate DST. It throws me and my kids out of whack for a couple of days. I hope Obama gets rid of it. too.

UPDATE: Travis Cole says:

Your post is missleading since it suggests Obama want's to get rid of DST. I wish he would, but I can't find anyi reference to him saying that.

Unfortunately your source didn't read the original NY Times article very carefully, but they have now updated it to better reflect reality.

The Op-Ed only said Obama *should* axe DST since that fits his goal of saving energy.

Obama Looks to Axe Daylight Time

Aquarium Drunkard posted MP3s of the terrific recordings that two of my favorite songwriters, Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash, made together during three 1969 sessions. Several tracks were are even quadraphonic mixes. The Dylan/Cash Sessions (Thanks, Mark!)

LoHud.com has an article about the pleasure of keeping chickens in your back yard. I agree with the people interviewed in the piece -- I bought my chickens (above, click for big) for eggs and fertilizer, but it turns out their primary benefit is amusing me and my family. I love spending time with them.

Chicken owners liken it to having their very own widescreen TV in the backyard, with an always-looping Chicken Channel. Chickens are curious and very involved in their surroundings, following humans and dogs and cats around the yard and seeking attention, even a backrub.

Fiona Mitchell says the four hens she got in July for her Bedford Hills yard fit right in with her two dogs and two cats. "Everybody seems to find their own space," she says. "We're one big happy family now."

Demetra and Sal Restuccia couldn't be happier with the five Rhode Island Reds they got last year. "Oh, I love my chickens," Demetra says. "They have such personalities. They're funny - they talk all the time. They'll tell you everything that's been going on for the day. They're hysterical."

Backyard chickens find new popularity in suburbia

Tomorrow is the Women In Games International's celebrity auction where you can big on such items as Shepard Fairey's Civilization Revolution posters signed by strategy game pioneer Sid Meier. Brandon has the details over at Boing Boing Offworld.
"WIGI shows off celebrity auction wares"

Guy Michael Davis made these turkey head salt and pepper shakers. The seasonings come out their nostrils. His former studiomate, Katie Parker, told me that "all (the molds for) his animals come from either 'freshly dead' specimens or from freeze-dried taxidermy." They're $65 dollars on Etsy. Turkey Salt and Pepper Shaker Set

Someone has converted an old iPod into a cigarette case. "This is a lot cooler if you smoke" (Offworld.com, where you can comment too!)

Australian artists/pranksters/makers The Glue Society create surreal installations and performance pieces in the great outdoors. For example, they've built a chair rainbow on the frozen tundra, transformed a beach into a sunning paradise for sex dolls, and transformed Google Earth imagery into biblical scenes. Hi-Fructose's site features a selection of The Glue Factory's work, including videos. "What's New With The Glue Society"

(JIVAS, by Jim Woodring, $1,200.00, 13" x 9.5"; watercolor and gouache on Fabriano Artistico paper; 2008.)

Artist Jim Woodring has a few pieces left for sale online at the Comic Art Collective. Jim Woodring art

The CIA Inspector General John Helgerson just issued a damning report that says the CIA lied about and covered up its involvement in a drug interception program with the Peruvian Airport. In 2001 the Peruvian Air Force used information the CIA gave them to shoot down a small plane loaded with US missionaries, causing the death of Veronica Bowers and her infant daughter Charity.

My prediction: no senior-level member of the CIA will be fired, punished, or imprisoned because of this. For one thing, they're untouchable. For another, the CIA needs all the people they have to run their own drug operations.

New Report: CIA lied about missionary plane shot down over Peru

Earlier this week Carla and I went to the wonderful Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles to see photographer Annie Leibovitz read from her new book, At Work.

The purpose of this book, she said, was to let young photographers find out about photography, and to explain the stories behind the many amazing photographs she's taken in her 40+ year career as a photographer for Rolling Stone and Vanity Fair.

I wasn't expecting to be interested in the text of the book (and it is mostly text, not photos) but I found it to be immensely readable. At Work is not only a gossip lover's delight (she tells fun stories about all the famous people she'd photographed, like Hunter S. Thompson, The Rolling Stones, Queen Elizabeth, and Al Sharpton), its also an inspiration for anyone who does creative work and wants to continuously challenge themselves to become better at their craft.

Excerpt

I bought my first real camera in Japan, a Minolta SR-T 101. The first thing I did with it was take it on a climb up Mt. Fuji.

Climbing Mt. Fuji is something every Japanese does at some point, but it’s harder than you might think. I was young, and I started up the mountain fast. I didn’t know about pacing. My brother Phil was even younger – he was thirteen – and he ran ahead of me. Phil disappeared. The camera felt like it weighed a ton. It was awkward. It got heavier the higher we went. After a while I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it, but just then a group of elderly Japanese women in dark robes came marching along in single file. They were chanting in an encouraging way and I fell in behind them. We passed Phil at the seventh way station. He was lying flat on his back.

When you climb Mt. Fuji you stay overnight at the eighth way station and get up in the morning so that you can reach the top at sunrise. It’s a glorious moment. Spiritually significant. When I got to the top I realized that the only film I had was the roll in the camera. I hadn’t thought much about the film situation. I photographed the sunrise with the two or three frames I had left.

At Work

Researchers are using Guitar Hero to help train amputees who will use electrical signals from their residual muscles to control next generation bionic arms. From IEEE Spectrum:

In mid-October, Johns Hopkins University researchers Robert Armiger and Jacob Vogelstein traveled to RP 2009 partner Duke University, in Durham, N.C., to test the system on its target demographic, in this case Iraq veteran Jon Kuniholm. Kuniholm’s right hand was lost to shrapnel three years ago. About to finish his Ph.D. at Duke’s Center for Biologically Inspired Materials and Material Systems, Kuniholm has been a volunteer for the DARPA program for the past two years and is the outspoken founder of the Open Prosthetics Project, an open-source Web site, independent of DARPA, that aims to make prosthetic-arm technology as open source and collaborative as Linux and Firefox.

With electrodes attached to his residual arm, Kuniholm was able to operate the frets using signals from the muscles there. “It’s fun,” says Kuniholm, who achieved the highest score reported by the experimental subjects: 70 percent. Kuniholm says that while Air Guitar Hero is the only game so far that requires individual finger movement to train an amputee to deal with those muscles again, the real success is in striving for a realistic goal. “You’re doing something simple,” he says. “It’s not rocket science. But you have to do it fast and you have to time it right.”

For Those Without Hands, There's Air Guitar Hero

Last night, there was a report of a meteor streaking across the Alberta sky and crashing somewhere in Western Canada in the early evening. Sadly I did not see it but some local TV coverage can be found on YouTube.

There's a Canadian scientific website for reporting meteor sightings and impacts but it's mum on last night's event.

BoingBoing readers may help me identify what made the trails in the photo below, taken from Icefields Parkway in Banff National Park. I took the photo from the road when I noticed what looked liked ski trails. Except I don't believe they are ski trails; they were in a remote area where it would not be safe to ski.

The above picture is a blow-up from this photo, which might provide more context. I should also add that I'm not a skier nor a snowboarder.

Maybe she's right, and she is blessed by God. Because this video is a magical miracle of LOL. Truth Squad here -- I despise her, and pray she never holds office in Washington, but I recognize my inferiority, too. I could never dream up anything this surreal and perfect. Pardon me while I heat up the tofurkey, basted with my very own tears. (Thanks, Tara McGinley)

"The biggest fuck-up with killing people, if nobody, if nobody got told then nobody would've slipped information," he added.

I was reading this story of a Calgary murder trial in Toronto's Globe and Mail and I was surprised by the above quote. I'm not used to seeing "fuck-up" in a newspaper but then again I'm reading mostly American newspapers. Not only would the obscenity cause problems for American editors, but the grammar would give them another reason to reject the quote. It's a choice between decency and realism, and I liked the Globe and Mail's choice, which gives me greater insight into how this awful man thinks and acts.

I can't resist summarizing the crime story, which is tragic, but it sets up another astonishing quote from this 25-year-old murderer. He and his then 12-year-old girlfriend killed her family because they didn't want him seeing her. These cold-blooded killers fled but were caught, presumably because they told friends how to find them. On the way to a psychiatric evaluation, the man gave details of the murders, bragging to a fellow traveller who was an undercover cop. He was already thinking about what life would be like with his girlfriend after prison.

He ruminated about their plans once they get out to have a "gothic wedding," move to Germany, buy a castle and raise a couple of kids. He talked almost proudly about the notoriety the murders had given them. "Me and my old lady have become legends," he said.

ALL HAIL FRIDAY! Here we post lulz for the benefit of the nation. Earlier this week, we announced new programming plans, including a weekly UNICORN CHASER video feature at the end of each week. Here is the first: we reprise the Boing Boing OFFWORLD debut episode with an one-minute dance remix of editor Brandon "Dirty Dancing Death Dwarf" Boyer's musical moment in Azeroth.

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Perhaps you were "busy" doing "productive things" like "earning a living" this week, and missed your dose of Boing Boing tv? I'll re-embed the episodes below.

* THU: Tibetan Sovereignty Supporters Hold Historic Meeting in India to Plan Future.

* WED: BBtv: Offworld Premiere. What's Offworld?

* TUE: SELK Bag, Boing Boing Gadgets review with Joel Johnson

* MON: Boing Boing tv Update: OFFWORLD, YES MEN, and THIS IS THE FIRST.

Previously on Boing Boing:
Boing Boing tv: We're a Year Old, and Yes We Can (Announce a New Programming Plan)

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SPECIAL THANKS to our sponsor Toshiba for making this week's programming possible. Go have a look at laptopexperts.net, where Toshiba and various assembled experts will answer all your questions on gaming, hardware, buying, troubleshooting, the inner life of laptops, and why unicorns make us happy.

video panoramas
lamp sphere
fire extinguisher speakers
bleach printing
sock puppet
vinegar shrub
photomake
finkbuilt

previously on web zen:
making stuff zen 2007

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

AutoblogGreen is covering some of the more eco-minded products automakers (the ones still standing?) are unveiling this week at the LA Auto Show. Above, the Dodge EV. "You can find all our stories on the show here," says editor Sebastian. " Lots of cool stuff being announced. We're also on Twitter."

Howard Zinn's remarkable book, A People's History of the United States tells the underside of American history, the stories of everyday people who were on the losing side of America's prosperity and expansion, from the indigenous people and slaves to the conquered people, conscriptees and refugees. People who demanded, but did not receive, justice.

A companion to this book is this CD, "Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States" -- a collection of famous speeches from people who held America to the standard it set, and found it wanting. These are inspiring and infuriating, and are expertly read by a cast of talented voice-actors including Danny Glover ("The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro -- Frederick Douglass"); Paul Robeson, Jr. ("Ballad of Roosevelt -- Langston Hughes"); Wallace Shawn ("Why We Fight -- Vito Russo"); Marisa Tomei ("It's Time the Antiwar Choir Started Singing -- Cindy Sheehan"); John Sayles ("Comments on the Moro Massacre -- Mark Twain") and many others.

These are the words of people who refused to accept injustice as inevitable, who demanded better. Someone once said, "All countries fail to live up to their ideals; the ideals that America fails to live up to are nobler than most." I agree with that sentiment. The liberty and justice guaranteed by America's foundational documents are a high standard to meet, and if the country is to live up to it, it must be held to account by those who suffer as a result of its failures.

Readings from Voices of a People's History of the United States

See also: Howard Zinn's "A People's History of American Empire" graphic novel

Etsy seller Yokoo not only makes some pretty rad gigantic chunky knitwear, but she also gives good funny in her little "featured seller" interview:

Please describe your creative process how, when, materials, etc.

Well, Im not going to lie to you. A healthy dose of plagiarism never hurt anybody. When that falls flat, I find that taking my consciousness off of the process altogether really allows the problem to figure itself out.

Opening refrigerator doors does wonders for the dormant mind. I would bet that there must be a sort of creative composite in coolant. I find that staring blankly into the back of the refrigerator wall usually releases a couple of pinned ideas to rub softly on the forefront of my head.

Yokoo (Thanks, Robert!)

Today, we travelled up the Icefields Parkway from Lake Louise. We didn't make it all the way to the Columbia Icefields but we saw lots of incredibly beautiful mountains and glaciers. I took this picture near Glacier Lake.

The next photo, I believe, has a view of the Crowfoot Glacier.

I've been reading How Old is that Mountain? by Chris Yorath. In answering the question in the book's title, Yorath uses a metaphor that will stay with me longer than most of the geological terms. He said it's like a new house built with hundred-year old timber. The rock was formed first long before the forces that "deformed" the rock and created the mountain. The sedimentary rock in the Banff National Park was formed about 610 million years ago but the mountains were created 90 to 60 million years. In addition, glaciation and erosion continue to change the mountains as well as carve the valleys between them.

I was disappointed not to get further north. (Ok, I'll admit that I didn't top off the gas tank before leaving Lake Louise and there were no services along the way, so I had to turn back fearing we might not have enough gas for the round trip.) I wanted to get to the Columbia Icefields and ideally all the way to Jasper. The sight I wanted to see was Mount Athabasca, which is described as the hydrographic apex of North America. That is, water from this mountain drains in three possible directions -- west to the Pacific, east to the Atlantic and north to Hudson. Yorath writes that it is the "one point on which a mountaineer can pollute all three oceans with a single act."

I will have to come back again. There's lots more to explore. I want to see the Canadian Rockies in other seasons but this glimpse of early winter is really wonderful.

Billing data for a cellphone account belonging to Barack Obama was "improperly breached" by Verizon employees, according to the president-elect's transition team. Obama's spokesperson says the phone was old and no longer in use. There is no indication that email records were accessed or voicemails or call contents monitored. Snip:

Spokesman Robert Gibbs said the team was notified Wednesday by Verizon Wireless that it appears an employee improperly went through billing records for the phone, which Gibbs said Obama no longer uses.

In an internal company e-mail obtained by CNN, Verizon Wireless President and CEO Lowell McAdam disclosed Wednesday that "the personal wireless account of President-elect Barack Obama had been accessed by employees not authorized to do so" in recent months.

McAdam wrote in the e-mail that the phone in question has been inactive for "several months" and was a simple voice flip-phone, meaning none of Obama's e-mail could have been accessed. The CEO also wrote the company has alerted "the appropriate federal law enforcement authorities."

Gibbs said that while the Secret Service has been notified, he is not aware of any criminal investigation. He said he believes it was billing records that were accessed.

Obama's cell phone records breached (CNN)

Earlier on Boing Boing, Cory blogged that President-elect Barack Obama has appointed Net Neutrality advocates and "virtual worlds nuts" Kevin Werbach and Susan Crawford to co-chair his FCC transition team. Okay, so we might know the guy as Kevin Werbach out here in meatspace, but to his Terror Nova Guild buddies, he's better known as Supernovan Jenkins (the first name presumably a reference to Werbach's Supernova tech conference series), and he's a Level 70 Tauren Shaman. Livejournaler Waltermonkey opines on the deeper meaning of Werbach's WoW identity:

What does this tell us about him, as a person, as a gamer, as a government official? I will attempt to translate all the dorkese.

1. - CULTURAL RELATIVISM

Every player in WoW belongs to one of two warring factions, Alliance or Horde. Werbach is Horde. Children often choose to be Alliance because they perceive them as "the good guys", but students of history (both ours and Azeroth's) recognize that Alliance culture is based on medieval European culture and Horde culture is based on the indigenous cultures that were supplanted by the West.

Werbach is a Tauren (a minotaur), which basically makes him a Native Kalimdorian. The Tauren revere nature, living in wigwams near giant totem poles. As a Shaman (see below), he could also have chosen a troll (blue-skinned Jamaican-like monster) or an orc (green-skinned Klingon-like monster), so there must be something about the cow-man that appeals to his liberal guilt.

Read the whole thing: victory or death! yes we can! (Waltermonkey; thanks Drew Coombs of Project Lore! Recompense of phat lewt, reagents, and pizza await thee.)

Great article from the Wall Street Journal's Paul Ingrassia that summarizes how and why the US auto industry fell to pieces. My favorite part was this telling excerpt:

In Detroit, amid worker alienation and the "blue-collar blues," Chevies, Fords and Plymouths rattled, rusted and rolled over -- and those were the good ones. The Ford Pinto's gas tank was prone to explode into flames when the car was hit from the rear, making the Pinto the poster product for corporate callousness. In 1978, after three Indiana girls burned to death when their Pinto got rear-ended, Ford became the first company to be indicted for reckless homicide. The company later was acquitted, but public opinion judged the Pinto guilty.

For all the Pinto's infamy, perhaps no car better captured America's decade-long haplessness than the pug-ugly AMC Gremlin, which debuted in 1970 and died -- mercifully -- in 1980. The Gremlin's shape, fittingly, was first sketched out by an American Motors designer on the back of a Northwest Airlines air-sickness bag. On Aug. 20, 1979, 18-year-old Brad Alty, fresh out of high school in Mechanicsburg, Ohio, was driving his Gremlin to work when the car broke down. He was two-and-a-half hours late to his first day on the job at a new motorcycle factory that Honda Motor was opening in central Ohio.

For the next few weeks, Mr. Alty and his 63 co-workers did little but sweep floors and paint them with yellow lines. Then they started building three to five motorcycles a day. And at the end of each day they would disassemble each bike, piece by piece, to evaluate the workmanship.

How Detroit drove into a ditch

Some joker used a clip of Der Untergang to portray Hitler as a real estate sucker.

In this special episode of Boing Boing tv (Direct MP4 link for download), Xeni interviews Tibetan sovereignty activists Lhadon Tethong and Tenzin "Tendor" Dorjee from Students for a Free Tibet, over a Skype video chat.

They're in Dharamsala, India, the home of the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan Government In Exile, and they're attending an historic week-long meeting taking place this week to determine the future of the Tibetan independence movement.

Snip from a New York Times story by Edward Wong about the "Special Meeting":

The conclave is the first of its kind since 1991. The Dalai Lama has called for hundreds of Tibetans to gather in the Himalayan town of Dharamsala, the seat of the Tibetan government in exile, to help decide on a new strategy for Tibet.

In a statement released Monday, the government in exile sought to play down speculation that a significant shift in its approach to the issue of Tibetan independence might be near.

“A change in policy need not come from this meeting,” the statement said, according to Reuters. “If a change in basic policy is considered necessary, there is a way that is democratic and which has the mandate of the Tibetan people.”

Lhadon and Tendor are updating the SFT blog here, and they suggest that people interested in following the story check Phayul.com, and the High Peaks Pure Earth blog, with commentary from Tibetans inside Tibet and China. Here is a statement on the "Special Meeting" from the Dalai Lama, who is not personally attending. The Tibetan Government in Exile is producing video reports from the Special Meeting here. Tibetan poet Woeser has published her thoughts on the meeting here. (Special thanks to Laird Brown, and Phuntsok Dorjee)

Oh, what won't intrepid NYT reporter John Schwartz do for space journalism! Snip:

There are many elements of [NASA's current Space Shuttle Endeavor] mission, which is devoted to further construction of the station and improvements that will allow the station to double its crew size from three to six next year. But the gizmo that is getting the most attention is the “water recovery system,” which will recycle the station’s water supply. That’s right: urine, sweat in the air, waste water and other forms of moisture will be fed into the system, distilled and sent back to the tap.

The system, created at a cost of about $250 million, will recycle about 93 percent of the water used aboard the station. The cost of lifting supplies up to orbit is so high, though, that NASA estimates the system could pay for itself in as little as two years. Similar systems would be essential to maintaining long-term bases on faraway outposts on the Moon and Mars.

The astronauts don’t have a problem with this system. As Sandra H. Magnus, one of the astronauts who will be among the first to drink water produced by the new system aboard the station, noted in a recent interview, our earthbound water has been endlessly filtered through bodies, evaporated and rained down again. “We drink recycled water every day,” she said, “on a little bit longer time scale.”

You'll have to read the whole piece to learn how the stuff tastes.

Rick Sanchez on CNN showed this video of world leaders at the G20 Summit refusing to shake hands with President Bush. Sanchez says "It's almost sad." (Via The Fire Wire)

Forgetomori came across this neat example of pareidolia.

Have you seen Jesus today? The photo above may be a good chance. Sent by Jessica Lundgren from Sweden to paranormal.about.com, you can see the clear profile of a giant bearded man with closed eyes. It does resemble common representations of a fellow named Jesus. Even though that enormous Jesus head doesn’t quite fit into the rest of the image. What’s going on there? Jessica writes that “the child died short after the photo was taken”.

The link also has another photo that is either pareidolia or a hoax. Good example of pareidolia

Everything is Terrible found this funny infomercial from a long gone company Zillionaire.com, pushing a site called dotplanet.com ("the world's only lifestyle destination portal").

If George Bush would have ran an Internet business in the late 1990s, he would have had the same spiel and delivery style of Zillionaire.com CEO Hubert Humphrey (Not the politician):

"I firmly believe that Dot Planet is the most powerful phenomenon to ever hit the Internet. Our goals are just mind-boggling. We will be the fastest portal to ever hit one million users, two million, three million and all. Our vision is limitless. And I'm totally convinced that Dot Planet will be just as well known in the very near future as America Online. Microsoft, Yahoo, and it's all because of one thing: out great Zillionaire Internet army."

Here's an interesting 1999 article from Investment News about Hubert Humphrey and Zillionaire.com. Humphrey now runs a company called WLG International. From perusing the WLH site, I can't make heads or tails of what the business does: "WLG International has the Quantum Compensation Plan, which is specifically designed to help associates build and grow their 'business within a business.' One of the most powerful compensation and promotion plans in marketing, it offers a unique blend of great Personal Contracts, Infinity Overrides, Generational Overrides, Bonus Pools and Equity Sharing Pools – featuring a 100 percent gross payout to the field." Huh?

The First Zillion is Always the Hardest

Reason's David Weigel thinks Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (rumored to be Obama's pick) wouldn't be a bad choice for Secretary of Homeland Security. My favorite part of Weigel's piece is his assessment of Rudy Giuliani:

I think history has already forgotten Battlin' Bernie Kerik, the laughably corrupt and mobbed-up cop whom Rudy Giuliani commended to George W. Bush as a great replacement for Ridge. Kerik's nomination caught fire like styrofoam in a microwave, and we as a nation got the first clue that Giuliani had been replaced at some point in 2001-2004 by a strange, bald cyborg that needed to recharge batteries by making inopportune phone calls to its "wife."

Dammit, Janet, I Love You

Here's the debut episode of our regular video updates from OFFWORLD, Boing Boing's new gaming blog. Editor Brandon Boyer says:

After an oxygen fire knocked our interstellar video link temporarily out of commission, we bring you our Boing Boing TV premiere via Azeroth, where my spiritual Death Knight equal gives you a little background on where we're is coming from and where I hope to steer the ship. As usual, here's the direct MP4 link, if you prefer a downloadable rather than the Flash.

Offworld bonus fact: in real life, my eyes and sword glow a much more vivid shade of blue. That is indeed, though, almost exactly how I shake a tail feather.

Here's a direct MP4 link, if you prefer to download the video. Like this episode? Tell Brandon and the Offworld gang what you think over at offworld.com: the comments thread is here.

(SPECIAL THANKS to the Project Lore guys, who showed us around the 'hood -- namely, Charles Ottaway.)

I heard the distant rumble and looked up from the trail. I quickly took this photo as fast as I could.

It's a relatively small avalanche but I'd never seen one before. They are the stuff of legend, especially in the minds of those who don't live in snow country. I can't place a particular TV drama from the sixties but I know that where I first heard the shout "Avalanche!".

We were out about two hours on a trail leading from Lake Louise towards the Victoria glacier. It was very cold but sunny. We had been told to expect avalanches with the sun warming up the ledges. The trail leads to the Plain of Six Glaciers. The avalanche we saw was snow falling off the top of the Lefroy Glacier.

Everywhere you see evidence of avalanches past such as this one.

It's usual practice for a magazine to run an excerpt of a book written by one of its editors. However, BusinessWeek went one step further and converted an excerpt from senior editor Steve Hamm's new book into a comic or manga. His book, The Race for Perfect: Inside the Quest to Design the Ultimate Portable Computer, is “a popular history of portable computing and also a narrative of a single, contemporary product (Lenovo’s X300) as it travels from conception to the marketplace.” Here's the first panel of this version, which tells the story of Alan Kay, one of the creative visionaries and inventors of the computer revolution.

Steve wrote in his Globespotting blog that one of his purposes in writing the book "was to get young people interested in being engineers, designers, inventors, and entrepreneurs." Make magazine shares that goal.

I use Alan Kay's famous quote in my talks: "The best way to predict the future is to invent it." I take the liberty of substituting "make" for "invent." I would love to have Alan Kay come to Maker Faire.

View the rest of Alan Kay series on the BusinessWeek website

Free To Be... You and Me was one of my favorite movie/record/books when I was growing up. Marlo Thomas's 1972 project brought together an all-star cast to perform songs, poems and sketches that challenged gender stereotypes and delivered a fundamentally humane, loving message about being who you are and not being constrained by society's expectations.

When I was a teenager, a couple of my friends, Shona and Ted, got ahold of a print of the film and showed it at my school. It was an instant smash hit. The memories came roaring back for all of us, the wonderful songs, the humor, the nostalgia. Those songs became anthemic in my social circle, and not just as some ironic throwback -- there's some kick-ass music on that soundtrack.

So in the early 1990s, I decided to put up a Free to Be... fan-site, and I went ahead and registered freetobeyouandme.com. Then life intervened. 15 years went by and I kept on paying for the domain. I'm not sure why -- I guess I thought I might get around to putting up that fan-site, and I didn't want the site getting into the hands of some pornographer or similar.

Last spring, I got an email from a law-firm in New York that represents the Free to Be Foundation..., a charitable trust that oversees the Free to Be project and produces educational material about gender equality. The note said that the Foundation was interested in getting the domain for use in connection with the book, and would I be interested in discussing the matter.

The note did not contain any threats, veiled or otherwise. It didn't call me a domain-squatter or mention WIPO's UDRP. It was polite, friendly -- just the sort of thing I'd expect from the people who gave us Free To Be...You and Me. So I called up the lawyer, Cris Criswell, and asked him to tell me more.

It turned out that the Foundation was about to publish a 35th anniversary edition of the book, with new art and a bound-in CD, and they wanted to use the domain to promote it. He explained that the Foundation was a charitable 501(c)3, with a board of directors that included Marlo Thomas, Gloria Steinem, and other people I admired and trusted.

"OK," I said, "it's yours."

"Just like that?"

"Sure. You didn't threaten me and you're doing good work. Of course you can have it."

"Of course I didn't threaten you. I figure fans have rights too."

See what I mean?

I asked for one thing: would they send me a copy of the 35th Anniversary edition, signed and inscribed to my newborn daughter, who was already listening to the soundtrack with me? Of course they would.

I'm holding it in my hands now. It's amazing. The new art is fabulous. And I've got the CD on now, and the music is just as great as I remembered. There's Rosie Greer singing, "It's All Right to Cry," Michael Jackson singing "I Don't Have to Change at All" (!), Alan Alda singing "William Wants a Doll," Harry Belafonte singing, "Parents are People,' the Smothers Brothers singing "Helping." There's Carol Channing reciting the cleaning poem, and Mel Brooks doing the convulsively funny "Boy Meets Girl" sketch. It is just brilliant.

And wonderful. If you were to distill the messages that every kid needs to hear to grow up to be a confident, loving individual who does what's right even when society sneers, if you were to turn them into great songs, funny poems, without a hint of preachiness or condescension, it would be this book and CD. Every kid needs this book -- and the organization that publishes it is every bit as great as the book itself.

Hi!

Hi!

I'm a baby!

Well what do you think I am, a loaf of bread?

You could be, what do I know, I'm just born, I'm a baby, I don't even know if I'm under a tree or in a hospital or what, I'm just so glad to be here.

Well, I'm a baby too.

Have it your own way, I don't want to fight about it.

What, are you scared?

Yes, I am, I'm a little scared. I'll tell you why. You see, I don't know if I'm a boy or a girl yet.

What's that got to do with it?

Well, if you're a boy and I'm a girl you can beat me up! You think I want to lose a tooth my first day alive?

What's a tooth?

Search me, I'm just born, I'm a baby, I don't know nothing yet!

You think you're a girl?

I don't know, I might be. I think I am. I 've never been anything before. Let me see, let me take a little look around. Hmm... cute feet, small, dainty, yup, yup, I'm a girl, that's it, girl time.

Well, what do you think I am?

You, that's easy, you're a boy.

You sure?

Of course I'm sure. I'm alive already four, five minutes, right? I haven't been wrong yet.

Gee, I don't feel like a boy.

That's because you can't see yourself.

Why, what do I look like?

Bald. You're bald, fellah. Bald, bald, bald, you're bald as a ping-pong ball, are you bald.

So?

So, boys are bald and girls have hair.

Are you sure?

Of course I'm sure. Who's bald, your mother or your father?

My father.

I rest my case.

Hmm. You're bald too.

You're kidding!

No, I'm not.

Don't look!

Why?

Ugghhh. A bald girl. Yuck. Disgusting.

Free to Be...You and Me (The 35th Anniversary Edition), Free to Be Foundation (includes free MP3s from the CD)

The Digital Youth Project, a MacArthur-funded three year, 22 case study, $3.3 million ethnographic study of what kids are doing online, has wound up and published its results. The project was undertaken by the eminent sociologist Mimi Ito and her talented colleagues (including the incomparable danah boyd) and is the largest and most comprehensive study of young peoples' internet use ever undertaken in the US.

The conclusions are sane, compassionate, and compelling: in a nutshell, the "serious" stuff we all hope kids will do online (researching papers and so on) are only possible within a framework of "hanging out, messing around and geeking out." That is to say, all the "time-wasting" social stuff kids do online are key to their explorations and education online.

Ito and her team establish a taxonomy of social activity, dividing it first into "peer-driven" and "interest-driven" -- the former being what kids do with their real-world friends, the latter being the niche interests that drive them to locate other people who are as fascinated as they are by whatever brand of esoterica they fancy.

Within these two categories, the researchers break things down further into "hanging out" (undirected, social activities), "messing around" (tinkering with media, networks and technologies) and "geeking out" (delving deep into subjects based on global communities of interest) and for each one, they describe the successful and unsuccessful techniques deployed by parents and educators to direct kids' activities.

All this is explained in a crisp, 55-page white paper, a snappy two-pager, and a full-length book called (appropriately), "Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out: Kids Living and Learning with New Media." All three are available as free downloads, naturally, and the book can also be purchased as a physical object in a year when it's published.

This project is the best set of research-driven recommendations and observations about young peoples' use of technology I've seen -- it's the perfect antidote to the scare stories of "internet addiction" and pedophiles stalking MySpace, and the endless refrain about "kids today." If you care about kids and want to understand how they use technology and why, this is a must-read.

Two-pager, White paper, Book: Hanging Out, Messing Around, and Geeking Out (download), Digital Youth homepage

I love the Buddha Machine, a little plastic ambient music generator that looks like a transitor radio -- put two or three in a room together and play them at the same time and you get something haunting, bent and hypnotic. Now there's a new version, with more loops, colors, and sound-tweaking options.

The Buddha Box 2 features nine new ambient sound loops. The new selection is noticeably more diverse than those of its predecessor--a welcome change. One of my biggest issues with the first incarnation of the box was its relatively limited aural palate. The selections on number 2 should fit a wider range of ambient-suitable scenarios. For further variation, the box also includes a wheel that bends the loops' pitch, to help you tailor the sound perfectly to its surroundings.

Hands On: Buddha Machine 2 (Thanks, Crosshatch!)

See also: Buddha Machine: spiritual, generative transistor radio

Writer/game designer/film-maker Jim Munroe sez,

IFComp 2008, The 14th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition and keeper of the old-school text-game torch, recently declared its winners. Bronze went to my game, Everybody Dies, silver went to Eric Eve's Nightfall, and the gold went to Jeremy Freese's Violet.

Everybody Dies puts you in the shoes of a chubby metalhead who has smoked his last smoke, with illustrations by Michael Cho; Nightfall drops you into a mysterious city where everyone's fled before the approaching Enemy; and in Violet your struggle to write your dissertation is aided by the most charming voice-in-your-head character in history.

All 35 of the comp entries, playable with interpreters, are available at ifcomp.org, but Violet and Everybody Dies can be played online

Congrats, Jim!

Everybody Dies Takes Bronze at IFComp, Everybody Dies review at Play This Thing! (Thanks, Jim!)

Bell Canada, the giant Canadian telco, is before the Canadian Radio and Telecommunications Commission over its throttling practices, whereby it secretly corrupted the download sessions of its customers. The company also interfered with the connections initiated by its wholesale customers -- ISPs that leased lines from the giant and re-sold them to end-users. Bell said that it had to cripple everyone's connections, or the people who bought network access from its wholesale customers would get a better service than its own retail customers, which would be "unfair" to retail customers. Steve sez,

According to the CBC, after twice delaying the ruling, the CRTC will make a landmark decision on the Bell Throttling case by 9 a.m. tomorrow. The decision will determine whether Bell Canada has violated the Telecommunications Act by slowing down the Internet access it sells to wholesale customers.

Steve Anderson from SaveOurNet.ca coalition will be available for comment.

Steve said today, “This decision has huge implications for Internet service competition online innovation, consumer choice and free speech. The biggest battle over the Internet is yet to come, but this ruling will signal whether the CRTC is willing to take action to put Canada on a path that supports online innovation, and online choice. Otherwise the CRTC is abdicating its responsibility to Canadian people and putting us on a path towards a more closed Internet defined by the interests of big telecom companies.”

Every time I'm asked whether I'd consider moving back to Canada sometime, the answer is the same: "Not until the country gets some real telcom regulation." I earn my living on the Internet. I can't afford to live somewhere where the telcos get to throw away your packets if they don't fit their business model.

CRTC to Make Landmark Decision on Internet Freedom (Thanks, Steve!)

Buying an Apple computer? Get ready to throw away your monitor, over and over again. New Apple hardware is shipping with "HDCP" anti-copying technology that prevents showing some video on "non-compliant" monitors. Best part: the list of "compliant" monitors will change over time: the monitor you buy today can be "revoked" tomorrow and stop working.

Slashdot says that Apple's added "copyright protection" to its video. But copyright law isn't violated when you watch a movie on an "unapproved" monitor. This isn't about enforcing copyright law, it's about giving a small handful of movie companies a veto over hardware designs.

Yesterday, our buddy David Chartier at Ars and Sam Oliver at AppleInsider both publicized an issue that's been burning up the support boards for a while now: iTunes video rentals and purchases in HD are flagged for HDCP control, and in cooperation with the new Mini DisplayPort connector on the MacBook and MacBook Pro unibody models, those movies and TV shows are refusing to play back on non-compliant external displays.

In this case, 'compliant' means HDMI or recent-vintage DVI, but even monitors or TVs that support HDCP may not properly negotiate with the DisplayPort connector to give iTunes and QuickTime the all-clear signal (if so, quitting and relaunching iTunes once the display is hooked up may clear the playback hold).

Equally annoying: HDCP is only supposed to apply to 'high-value' digital streams, meaning standard-def purchases and rentals on the iTunes store should be out of scope... but some reports indicate that both the HD and SD instances are flagged, blocking playback on anything but the laptop's internal display or a straight-thru HDMI connection. Argh!

MacBook Pro users getting bitten by HDCP (Thanks, Denver Jewelry Guy!)

There were a lot of sad posts today on the blog related to 30 years since Jonestown this week, so as is the tradition, and as our commenters have requested: unicorn chaser. (thanks, Takuan)

In its special website section devoted to 30 years since Jonestown, the San Francisco Chronicle has republished a copy of a 1977 report on Jim Jones and People's Temple by Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy. The investigative report marked a turning point for People's Temple, an arc towards the catastrophic end that would come one year later. Before this exposé was published in New West magazine (because back then, the Chronicle's editor refused to run it), Jim Jones enjoyed what amounted to broad support and protection from news organizations, powerful social figures, and politicians who saw the influential preacher as a "deliverer of votes."

Collectively, they turned a blind eye to mounting reports of coercion, corruption, and physical and sexual abuse within his church. And they bear some responsibility for the tragedy that followed.

I agree with what one sfgate.com commenter wrote about the two tenacious reporters who fought to produce this piece:

30 years on, this is a piece that should be required reading by all journalism students at any level. To quote the 1998 article on why this was published in New West rather than the Chronicle, "Kilduff said that when he later proposed a story on Jim Jones, (San Francisco Chronicle city editor) Gavin said 'we had done a profile and that was sufficient.' I went at him several times, and said I thought we should do more. He didn't see it that way.'" Jones had co-opted the powers that were in the City, including the Chronicle, and only the persistence of Kilduff began to reveal the horrible truth.

Three decades later, the whole article is a must-read. I'll paste the final two paragraphs here:

[S]omething must be said about the numerous public officials and political figures who openly courted and befriended Jim Jones. While it appears that none of the public officials from [California] Governor [Jerry] Brown on down knew about the inner world of Peoples Temple, they have left the impression that they used Jones to deliver votes at election time and never asked any questions. They never asked about the bodyguards. Never asked about the church's locked doors. Never asked why Jones's followers were so obsessively protective of him. And apparently, some never asked because they didn't want to know.

The story of Jim Jones and his Peoples Temple is not over. In fact, it has only begun to be told. If there is any solace to be gained from the tale of exploitation and human foible told by the former temple members in these pages, it is that even such a power as Jim Jones cannot always contain his followers. Those who left had nowhere to go and every reason to fear pursuit. Yet they persevered. If Jones is ever to be stripped of his power, it will not be because of vendetta or persecution, but rather because of the courage of these people who stepped forward and spoke out.

Inside Peoples Temple, Marshall Kilduff and Phil Tracy, Monday, August 1, 1977. (SFGATE.com). Here is a PDF of the original 1977 article (via Jonestown Institute). The SFGate web feature on 30 years after Jonestown includes a number of related features, both archived and new, all well worth reading.

What lesson should we learn from this today? Why does this matter now? Snip from an extensive piece in today's Washington Post by Charles A. Krause, one of the journalists who survived the November, 1978 trip to Jonestown with Congressman Ryan:

Many Jonestown survivors and their families believe that the lessons of Jonestown are to remember and guard against demagogues who use religion as a cover for fraud, deception and imposing their own sometimes dangerous social and political beliefs on their naive and unsuspecting followers.

(...) It was that theme that dominated Tuesday's memorial service at the mass grave in Oakland. In an emotional and highly charged address, the Rev. Amos Brown, bishop at San Francisco's Third Baptist Church and president of the San Francisco NAACP, warned the mourners to beware of religious leaders who claim to have all the answers and insinuate themselves into politics, as Jones did so effectively in San Francisco.

"Good religion elevates folk, it teaches people to think for themselves. Good religion isn't authoritarian. Good religion isn't bigoted," he said. "Open up your eyes, America. America isn't a theocracy, it's a democracy. . . . And that is the lesson we must learn from Jonestown."

Boing Boing posts on Jim Jones, Jonestown and People's Temple:

- Jonestown, 30 years later: original audio recordings from People's Temple and Guyana.
- Jonestown, 30 years later: Life and Death of People's Temple (PBS video).
- Jonestown, 30 years later: interview with a survivor (video)
- Jonestown, 30 years later: From Silver Lake To Suicide
- Jonestown, 30 years later: "Father Cares," NPR documentary from 1981
- Raven: The Untold Story of The Reverend Jim Jones and His People
- Andrew Brandou on his Jonestown paintings

The imprisoned Chinese blogger and human rights activist Hu Jia today received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, Europe’s most prestigious human rights prize. Snip from NYT article:

The award was a pointed rebuke of China’s ruling Communist Party that came as European leaders were arriving in Beijing for a weekend summit meeting. Mr. Hu, 35, was given the prize by the European Parliament despite warnings from Beijing that his selection would harm relations with the European Union.

Last year, Mr. Hu testified via video link before a hearing of the European Parliament about China’s human rights situation. Weeks later, he was jailed and later sentenced to three and a half years in prison for subversion based on his writings criticizing Communist Party rule.

Mr. Hu has been one of China’s leading figures on a range of human rights issues, while also speaking out on behalf of AIDS patients and for environmental protection. He had been considered a front-runner for the Nobel Peace Prize, but lost to the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari. “Hu Jia is one of the real defenders of human rights in the People’s Republic of China,” said the president of the European Parliament, Hans-Gert Pöttering. “The European Parliament is sending out a signal of clear support to all those who support human rights in China.

Chinese Activist Wins Rights Prize (NYT). Embedded video above: Prisoners in Freedom City, an autobiographical internet video documentary about his case, available in multiple parts on YouTube (links to single-file editions there). Hu Jia's case is documented and updated regularly on Twitter. His wife and supporters are very concerned about his health in prison; he has symptoms of liver disease, and information about his whereabouts, condition, and treatment in prison is unavailable. See also this related Los Angeles Times editorial: China should free dissident Hu Jia. Here is Amnesty International's statement.