(Thanks, Gregr!)
The current periodical press, whether ephemeral or other, is a vehicle for advertisements. This is its raison d'etre as a business proposition and this decides the lines of its management without material qualification. Exceptions to the rule are official and minor propagandist periodicals, and in an uncertain measure, scientific journals. The profits of publication come from the sale of advertising space. The direct returns from sales and subscriptions are now a matter of wholly secondary consequence. Publishers of periodicals, of all grades of transiency, aim to make their product as salable as may be, in order to pass their advertising pages under the eyes of as many readers as may be. The larger the circulation the greater, other things equal, the market value of the advertising space. The highest product of this development is the class of American newspapers called "independent." These in particular -- and they are followed at no great interval by the rest -- edit all items of news comment or gossip with a view to what the news ought to be and what opinions ought to be expressed on passing events.
The first duty of an editor is to gauge the sentiments of his readers and then tell them what they like to believe. By this means he maintains or increases the circulation. His second duty is to see that nothing is said in the news items or editorials which may discountenance any claims or announcements made by his advertisers, discredit their standing or good faith, or expose any weakness or deception in any business venture that is or may become a valuable advertiser. By this means he increases the advertising value of his circulation. The net result is that both the news columns and the editorial columns are commonly meretricious in a high degree.
Systematic insincerity on the part of the ostensible purveyors of information and leaders of opinion may be deplored by persons who stickle for truth and pin their hopes of social salvation on the spread of accurate information. But the ulterior cultural effect of the insincerity which is in this way required by the business situation, may of course, as well be salutary as the reverse. Indeed the effect is quite as likely to be salutary, if "salutary" be taken to mean favorable to the maintenance of the established order, since the insincerity is guided by a wish to avoid any lesion of the received preconceptions and prejudices. The insincerity of the newspapers and magazines seems on the whole to be of a conservative trend.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
Some books and longer articles I've recently been reading or re-reading:
The Man in the High Castle, Philip K. Dick's masterpiece (IMO). Chilling alternate history, set in an America that lost World War II to Germany and Japan.
The Snowball, by Alice Schroeder, a warts-and-all biography of investor Warren Buffett. His Nebraska-kid schtick hasn't fooled anybody for a long time, but he's even more complicated than we suspected.
What Would Google Do, Jeff Jarvis' thought-provoking look at our changing world from a "life is beta" perspective. I don't agree with all of his arguments, some of which strike me as throwing out the proverbial babies with the bathwater, but this book is well worth a read.
Severance Package, a noir-squared novel by Duane Swierczynski, about a memorable last day at work. Violent, mordant and an absolutely compulsive read.
"The Gatekeeper," a New Yorker article by Ryan Lizza about Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emannuel. Hugely detailed, but has a more suck-up-to-power story ever been published in a magazine that prides itself on serious journalism? Yuck.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
In the get-out-the-torches-and-pitchforks category comes this news:
Despite receiving $170 billion in federal aid and recording a staggering loss for the last quarter, insurance giant American International Group is doling out tens of million of dollars in bonuses this week to senior employees.
While AIG agreed to pay the bonuses months before the government's rescue of the company began, the matter still is a source of anger for government officials. In a phone call on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner told AIG Chairman and chief executive Edward M. Liddy that the payments were unacceptable and needed to be renegotiated, according to an administration source.
The company has since agreed to change the terms of some of these payments. But in a letter to Geithner, Liddy wrote that the bonuses could not be cancelled altogether because the firm would risk a lawsuit for breaching employment contracts. Liddy also expressed concerns about whether changing the bonuses would lead to an exodus of talented employees who are needed to turn the company around.
"We cannot attract and retain the best and brightest talent to lead and staff the AIG businesses -- which are now being operated principally on behalf of the American taxpayers -- if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. treasury," Liddy wrote.
That would be the "best and brightest" sleazeballs who created this train wreck of a company, who were principal culprits in the tanking of the global economy? These people should be drawing unemployment checks, not stealing taxpayers' money.
I started a #pitchforks Twitter hashtag a while back, and this is precisely why.
(Photo by blhphotography)
• We took apart the new iPod Shuffle's headphones in search of the rumored "DRM" chip. We found something.
• Last-gen inline headphone controls won't work with the new Shuffle, either.
• An elderly gent travels in style atop his Z-001.
• Don Relyea makes strange art that resembles cities or circuit boards, but is in fact inspired by food,
• Behold! A Victorian DeLorean
• The HULC Exoskeleton lets soldiers lift more than 200 pounds with relative ease.
• The ABL industrial apple peeler has a mean theme tune.
• Pick your reference: Pip-Boy, Leela, Dick Tracy. However you slice it, it's an honest-to-god wrist computer. At last!
Hand painted shoes (Thanks, Allison!)
The Itinerants of Mumbai (Thanks, Avi!)Charmayne sets the subjects of David’s photos back into movement through poetic inspiration. Her writing reminds us of the mythical dimension of itinerant life, which is present in every civilization. Sedentary societies have indeed always had an ambivalent relationship to the people of the wind, as Japanese villagers call them. Itinerants have been perceived in turns as indispensable trading partners, threatening agents of change and as objects of desire. David and Charmayne’s images and words bring to life some of the multiple avatars of that nomadic spirit that all of us carry deep inside and which refuses to leave.
This is probably why, turning these pages, even those of us who chose or inherited comfort and security cannot help but sigh at the thought of these untied lives, which seem to be fed by faith and magic more than anything else. Of course nomadic life, as intense and meaningful as it can be, is usually driven by necessity more than choice. But for an instant, it is liberating to believe that most of the people in this book would never trade itinerancy for routine and standardization.
Geek Reading with Cory Doctorow, Rudy Rucker, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders
Join EFF on Monday, March 23rd, for a fundraising event featuring award-winning writer Cory Doctorow. Cory will be reading from his novel, "Little Brother," a story of high-tech teenage rebellion set in the familiar world of San Francisco. As he currently calls the UK home, this is a rare opportunity to to hear Cory read from his work in person. He will be joined by fellow writers Rudy Rucker, Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders reading from their latest works.7pm on Monday March 23, at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco.
Admission is $25. No one turned away for lack of funds. Must be 21 or older to attend.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
The recession is leading lots of out-of-work folks to try new things, reports the Times:
Economists say that when the economy takes a dive, it is common for people to turn to their inner entrepreneur to try to make their own work. But they say that it takes months for that mentality to sink in, and that this is about the time in the economic cycle when it really starts to happen — when the formerly employed realize that traditional job searches are not working, and that they are running out of time and money.
Mark V. Cannice, executive director of the entrepreneurship program at the University of San Francisco, calls the phenomenon “forced entrepreneurship.”
“If there is a silver lining, the large-scale downsizing from major companies will release a lot of new entrepreneurial talent and ideas — scientists, engineers, business folks now looking to do other things,” Mr. Cannice said. “It’s a Darwinian unleashing of talent into the entrepreneurial ecosystem.”
That's great. Except for one thing, which the article completely misses: You won't find too many people in their middle ages or older in this category. Why? Because they can't get health insurance. America's health-care system makes it all but impossible for an older worker to try something new.
Even younger startup owners who are relatively healthy and have insurance are just a half-step from disaster. The insurance industry is in the business of not paying claims whenever possible, after all, and health insurers are working hardest to find ways not to cover people who might get sick even as they deny as many claims as possible from people who've been paying premiums.
The day we have national health care is the day that we unleash a wave of entrepreneurship the likes of which we've never seen before. That's one of the best reasons for moving toward such a system.
(Image: Catherine "Kate" Puzey, from her online photo album.)
I have been traveling in the Republic of Benin in West Africa for the last two weeks, and am writing this blog post now from the country's sorthern port capital, Cotonou. Two days ago, a 24-year-old Peace Corps volunteer from Georgia named Catherine Puzey, who maintained a colorful and passionate personal blog, was found dead outside her home in a remote, rural village about a seven hour drive north of here. Her death is understood to have been a murder, though neither the US nor Benin governments have officially declared it so. By coincidence, my travel partner and I passed through that very same village, on that same day. We spent most of the day just 10 km from Badjoudè, where the young Ms. Puzey lived and volunteered as an English teacher for the past two years, and died.
Kate, as she was known to friends, maintained a (Blogger) blog here, and a photo album series on Picasa, which was last updated just a few weeks ago. Judging from both, and the comments piling up elsewhere, she was loved intensely by family, friends, and fellow volunteers -- and by the Beninois community that had become her home.
This very traditional village is close to the border of Togo, in the northwestern part of Benin. My fellow travelers and I spent most of that day in the nearby village of Alédjo-Koura, a short drive away. The roads in this area are just rough, red, dirt. It is absolutely not an area frequented by tourists or foreigners. It was so strange to realize we'd been so close to the site, so randomly on that day, in such an unconnected place off the beaten path.
I heard about the incident when we were en route back to the capital a day later, long after we'd left the area. An AP wire item came out last night, as did one post, and then another, on an ABC News blog. The Peace Corps and the US State Department issued statements, but without details. An investigation is ongoing, I'm told by a source in Cotonou familiar with the case.
As Africa goes, Benin really is a stable, peaceful, relatively safe country. Poverty and related health problems are intense and widespread; domestic violence is a big problem. But I'm told that violence of this kind in rural communities is rare, and violence against foreigners, particularly NGO workers or aid volunteers, more so.
Earlier today, I spoke to two Beninese men I know here in Cotonou who happen to be from an adjacent village. We'd all been traveling together on the 12th. They said the people in Benin tend to (their words here) "respect foreigners," and the incident saddened and angered them. Translating, roughly: "It's terrible for our community when something like this happens, because the West already thinks badly of Africa and of Africans. One violent act like this, committed by one bad person, means the assistance and development our country so desperately needs will become more scarce, and that fewer volunteers like her, fewer means of support and change, will come."
I realized after speaking with them that on the road back to the capital yesterday, our shared car had crossed paths with the string of vehicles carrying government investigators and Benin's security minister up to Badjoudè. Government vehicles, I've learned on this trip, blare out distinctive siren sounds that distinguish them from normal police or fire vehicles. They tend to move in squads for security. We'd passed similar caravans carrying Benin's president Boni Yayi earlier in the week near the Cotonou airport, as he was coming back from a trip to India.
Ms. Puzey's blog is a beautiful read. Cleary, she loved this place, and many of the people of the place she called home in turn had great affection for her. I've just sat here for hours in a Cotonou hotel bar, reading her blog posts and poring through her photos. Here is a snip from my favorite entry, about ambient noise in the village -- something I've been very aware of on this trip:
I realized some time ago my education here goes way beyond the local language and customs. I’ve become familiar with so many new sounds. I now know the sound of a chicken when it’s being killed, a goat when it’s giving birth, the baby next door when it’s hungry. I know the sound of the tonal repetitions in the local language when two close friends meet in passing; the rumble of the flour grinder two houses down and the hum of a nearby generator; the sound of mice and big lizards running around my ceiling at night and the ruckus that ensues when one chases the other (I always root for the lizard); the sound of the marché across the way from me carrying on well into the night; the deep-throated grumble of cattle as they graze in front of my house; the low clicking orders of their herder; the whining of children versus the baying of goats, though I swear one goat sounds like he’s always saying in a deep grumpy voice “Badddddd!” (I’ve named him Eeyore); all the different bird and insect calls. I’m even learning to discern the voice of each student who, in passing at night, will see me cooking dinner by candlelight and holler out from the dark “Good Evening, Madame Catherine!”
This passage, from another post (which includes a mention of her work holding workshops on family planning, conflict resolution and women's health with village girls) really hits home for me now, as I shift from my brief experience of village life here toward a return to Los Angeles:
Even in its calmest moments -– say, the minute just before a gorgeous sunrise over the plains -– [Africa] is vibrant and tussled, never at rest, never totally tranquil.My condolences to the friends and family of this beautiful young woman.I think in America we sometimes overlook how many of us live in ideal magazine images of our own making.
This gentleman, Gabriel Cardona, was a hit man for a Mexican drug cartel. His eyelids are tattooed with eyes.
Of course, they're allowed to know what's in the treaty -- but the public, activist groups, consumer rights groups, and the artists whom this treaty is supposed to protect are all forbidden from knowing what it says.
What an embarrassment for an administration that holds itself out as an end to the corrupt, business-as-usual beltway fandango.
Chairman , Mr. Eric H. SmithWho are the cleared advisors that have access to secret ACTA documents?
President
International Intellectual Property AllianceVice-Chairman
Mr. Jacques J. Gorlin
President
The Gorlin GroupSandra M. Aistars, Esq.
Senior Counsel, Intellectual Property
Time Warner Inc.Kira M. Alvarez, Esq.
Director, International Government Affairs
Eli Lilly and CompanyMark Chandler, Esq.
Senior Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary
Cisco Systems, Inc.Ms. Erin L. Ennis
Vice President
The U.S.-China Business CouncilFrancis (Frank) Z. Hellwig, Esq.
Senior Associate, General Counsel
Anheuser-Busch Companies, Inc.J. Anthony Imler, Ph.D.
Director, Public Policy, Latin America
Merck & Co., Inc.Ms. Mary A. Irace
Vice President, Trade and Export Finance
National Foreign Trade Council, Inc.Jeffrey P. Kushan, Esq.
Sidley, Austin, Brown & Wood LLP
Representing Biotechnology Industry OrganizationStevan D. Mitchell, Esq.
Vice President, Intellectual Property Policy
Entertainment Software AssociationDouglas T. Nelson, Esq.
Executive Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary
CropLife AmericaTimothy P. Trainer, Esq.
President
Global Intellectual Property Strategy Center, P.C.
Representing the Thomas G. Faria CorporationNeil I. Turkewitz, Esq.
Executive Vice President
Recording Industry Association of AmericaMs. Susan C. Tuttle
Governement Programs Executive
IBM CorporationMr. Herbert C. Wamsley
Executive Director
Intellectual Property Owners AssociationMs. Anissa S. Whitten
Trade Director
Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.Ms. Deborah E. Wiley
Senior Vice President
John Wiley and Sons, Inc.
Association of American Publishers, Inc.Shirley Zebroski, Ph.D
Director, Legislative Affairs
General Motors Corporation
As these ideas were articulated, there was intense debate about the merits of various scenarios. Would DRM or walled gardens work better? Shouldn’t we try a carrot and stick approach with education and prosecution? And so on. In all this conversation, there was one scenario that was widely regarded as unthinkable, a scenario that didn’t get much discussion in the nation’s newsrooms, for the obvious reason.And here's the money-shot:The unthinkable scenario unfolded something like this: The ability to share content wouldn’t shrink, it would grow. Walled gardens would prove unpopular. Digital advertising would reduce inefficiency, and therefore profits. Dislike of micropayments would prevent widespread use. People would resist being educated to act against their own desires. Old habits of advertisers and readers would not transfer online. Even ferocious litigation would be inadequate to constrain massive, sustained law-breaking. (Prohibition redux.) Hardware and software vendors would not regard copyright holders as allies, nor would they regard customers as enemies. DRM’s requirement that the attacker be allowed to decode the content would be an insuperable flaw. And, per Thompson, suing people who love something so much they want to share it would piss them off.
Revolutions create a curious inversion of perception. In ordinary times, people who do no more than describe the world around them are seen as pragmatists, while those who imagine fabulous alternative futures are viewed as radicals. The last couple of decades haven’t been ordinary, however. Inside the papers, the pragmatists were the ones simply pointing out that the real world was looking increasingly like the unthinkable scenario. These people were treated as if they were barking mad. Meanwhile the people spinning visions of popular walled gardens and enthusiastic micropayment adoption, visions unsupported by reality, were regarded not as charlatans but saviors.
When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times. One of the effects on the newspapers is that many of its most passionate defenders are unable, even now, to plan for a world in which the industry they knew is visibly going away.
When someone demands to be told how we can replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won’t break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren’t in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
Happy Pi Day, everyone (and condolences to our non-American cousins who have to wait until July for 22/7 day). I'm a single dad this weekend -- Alice is at SXSW -- so the baby and I are going to go down to Hackney City Farm and order a huge slice of pie, then go and celebrate with the chickens, ducks, piggies and bunny-rabbits.
FREE RANGE KIDS (Intro) by Lenore SkenazyYet here in the nice, safe, scurvy-free twenty-first century, we worry about our kids riding their bikes to the library, or walking to school. We worry when we can’t reach them on their cells. In fact, cell phones—though I love them dearly—are a great example of how everything has gotten so mixed up. We give them to our kids because we don’t want to worry. We say, “They’re for emergencies.” And yet now, if you ex- pected to hear from your daughter after her Mandarin lesson and you can’t reach her immediately, you may well start to think: What happened?! Lost, dead or white slavery? (Which, for our purposes, includes Hispanic, Asian American, African American, Native American, and Inuit slavery, too.)
So now the phone—the very device that was supposed to reas- sure you—is making you freak out when you never would have freaked before. Back in the good ol’ 1990s, you’d at least have waited for your kid to be a few minutes late before the heart-stopping scenarios kicked in. Now anxiety is on speed dial.
And so we worry all the time: Is he safe? Is she OK? Did he eat all his baby carrots? (Answer: no.) And what happens when we don’t worry?
Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry
Fred von Lohmann from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "The sharp reviewers at iLounge spotted out a misfeature in the new iPod Shuffle that other reviewers overlooked: third party headphones for it apparently will require an Apple 'authentication chip,' something that is already required for various iPod docks. Yet another example of Apple's DRM hypocrisy. Apparently it's OK for Apple to use DRM to lock in consumers and hobble competition, even as it rails against DRM on iTunes music."
Apple Adds Still More DRM to iPod Shuffle
Update 2: We took one apart and found a mysterious chip inside the new Shuffle's headphones. Have no idea if it's DRM or not -- Rob.
Update: We did a quick test in the gadget dungeon: existing inline headphone control adapters for the iPhone and other iPods won't work in the new Shuffle. -- Rob.
Katamari Damacy Gets Ported To Nike Dunks
(via Wonderland)
"This is a hilarious yet edifying talk on Sex given by Prof. Sapolsky to his Bio l50/250 Human Behavioral Biology class at Stanford in Spring 2002" -- regular readers of this blog will remember Sapolsky as the incredibly fascinating, funny and engaging scientist whose Stanford lectures on stress are some of the most interesting biology presentations I've ever heard.
He's absolutely scintillating on the subject of primate sexuality: funny, informative, and filled with aha moments that'll have you rethinking your relationship to your naughty parts.
Prof. Robert Sapolsky on the Neurobiology of Primate Sexuality (Thanks, Avi!)
Jibetarian - 芦村康吉 (Thanks, Robert)
The term is a pun on the word ji (ground, earth) and vegetarian. I think most of you have seen this kind of work before, but I can’t even begin to imagine how the artist balanced this life sized sculpture while crafting it. It is a massive undertaking - to so finely shape a person that it can balance all by itself. I felt moved by the open mouth and stare of skeletal figure, like a post apocalyptic corpse, a Hiroshima meets Pompeii figure, tragic, doomed and beautiful at the same time. Like a corpse withered by an atomic blast, mere moments before collapsing in a smoking pile of bones in a radioactive desert. Art at it’s finest, a fruitful composition of idea and execution.
Great TED talk by Aimee Mullins: "How my legs give me super-powers."
Athlete, actor and activist Aimee Mullins talks about her prosthetic legs -- she's got a dozen amazing pairs -- and the superpowers they grant her: speed, beauty, an extra 6 inches of height ... Quite simply, she redefines what the body can be. About Aimee MullinsAimee Mullins: How my legs give me super-powersA record-breaker at the Paralympic Games in 1996, Aimee Mullins has built a career as a model, actor and activist for women, sports and the next generation of prosthetics.
(Alice in Wonderland Pullip Dolls. Photo by Julie Wolfson/LAist)
My daughters (who love the dolls sold at Valley of the Dolls) are excited for me to take them to the Mad Tea Party at Royal/T in Culver City, Calif. on Saturday, March 21 (from 3-9pm).
When Scot Reyes, owner of the pop culture doll shop The Valley of the Dolls (see LAist's visit to this store), announced his plans for a Mad Tea Party at Royal/T, LA Lolitas and doll collectors took notice. Then "lolitamom" posted the event information in this Live Journal entry on the la loligoth page prompting several lolitas to discuss their costume plans for the big party. Variations on the Queen of Hearts costume is sure the be popular and a some goth Cheshire cats too.LA Lolitas Getting Dolled Up for the Alice in Wonderland Mad Tea Party in Culver CityLA Lolitas, doll collectors, and other Alice in Wonderland fans have until Saturday, March 21 (from 3-9pm) to get dolled up and ready for the Mad Tea Party at Royal/T. With music by International Pop Conspiracy, high tea, a raffle, and a Valley of the Dolls pop up shop, it is sure to be a magical day. LAist will be there to check it out.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
On an NPR newscast the other day, a reporter pronounced the year 2012 as "two-thousand-twelve" while someone he interviewed called it "twenty-twelve." I'd have gone for the latter, but the different choices made me wonder when we're going to give up what we've been doing this entire decade, clumsily calling everything "two thousand something," and move to the style we used during most if not all of the last century.
I'm going with the twenties starting next year: twenty-ten, twenty-eleven and so on. YMMV.
There hasn't been much consistency in this area, as far as I can tell. Did anyone pronounce 1907 as anything but nineteen-oh-seven? Did anyone actually say nineteen-hundred-seven? (I'd wager a (UPDATE) week's day's pay -- the money goes to charity if I lose -- that nobody used one-thousand-nine-hundred-seven.)
Wait, it gets more complicated. We have to think about the names we use for centuries, too. The 20th Century was also the nineteen-hundreds. But in the 21st Century, are we in the two-thousands? That sounds off, but the twenty-hundreds sounds totally wrong.
Am I spelling these years wrong, too? Should there be hyphens between the numbers? Calling the grammar police.
No big deal. Still, it's pleasant to contemplate a benign problem for once.
(Flickr poto by hyperspace328)
Described as a cross between a satellite and a spy plane, the Pentagon is going to spend $400 million to make a 450-foot dirigible "that will float 65,000 feet above the Earth for 10 years, providing unblinking and intricate radar surveillance of the vehicles, planes and even people below."
Every household should by required by law to have a horny toad cozy covered Roomba in operation at all times. Horny Toad Roomba Cozy (via Craft)
A truly unique event! Discover five historic sites related to spiritual organizations that took root in Los Angeles in the early part of the twentieth century.Los Angeles is home to a number of religious sites and organizations, many of which are deeply woven into the city’s history. “City of the Seekers” will celebrate this unique identity and the architecture that embodies it.
This special one-time-only tour offers a rare chance to explore historic religious sites not typically open to the general public. Here's a preview of tour locations; check back for updates.
Self-Realization Fellowship Mother Center
in the former Mount Washington Hotel (1909)The Self-Realization Fellowship Mother Center is located in the former Mount Washington Hotel, on the crest of Mount Washington. The Self-Realization Fellowship has used the Mission Revival-inspired building as its headquarters since 1925. For nearly thirty years, Paramahansa Yogananda, founder of the Self-Realization Fellowship and widely considered the father of Yoga in the west, led daily prayer and meditation sessions in the gardens surrounding the hotel and held lectures, seminars, and writing sessions in the main building. The site still serves as the Fellowship's international headquarters.
There are also several related events that day, including an art exhibit of religious album covers, a talk by Erik Davis, author of The Visionary State: A Journey Through California’s Spiritual Landscape, and an "evening full of rare, unusual, and never-before-seen short films and video that explore the magical, mystical side of our city," hosted by Davis and Process Media's Jodi Wille.
Detroit's Beautiful, Horrible Decline (via MeFi)
In life both men had been devout Catholics, but one was a politically conservative advertising man, the other a left-wing journalist; you'll have to trust me that they liked each other. One was buried, one was cremated. One was embalmed, one wasn't. One had a typical American funeral-home cotillion; one was laid out at home in a homemade coffin. I could tell you that sorting out the details of these two dead fathers taught me a lot about life, which is true. But what I really want to share is that dead bodies are perfectly OK to be around, for a while....Judging from their Web site, Crossings is a fascinating non-profit organization. They're a clearinghouse of information about home funerals and "green" burials. Apparently, as long as you're not in Connecticut, Delaware, Indiana, Nebraska, New York, it's perfectly legal for anyone to play the role of funeral director. Crossings even run, er, "hands on workshops" to teach you how to deal with the logistics of death at home. I'm not sure whether hands-on means that they provide a practice body or you have to bring your own. From the Crossings Web site:
A movement toward home after-death care has convinced thousands of Americans to deal with their own dead. A nonprofit organization called Crossings maintains that besides saving lots of money, home after-death care is greener than traditional burials—bodies pumped full of carcinogenic chemicals, laid in metal coffins in concrete vaults under chemically fertilized lawns—which mock the biblical concept of "dust to dust." Cremating an unembalmed body (or burying it in real dirt) would seem obviously less costly and more eco-friendly. But more significant, according to advocates, home after-death care is also more meaningful for the living.
"The Surprising Satisfactions of a Home Funeral"
How is home funeral care different from funeral care by a funeral director?Oh, and the Do-It-Yourself Coffins and Fancy Coffins books pictured above are real. From the DIY Coffins book description:
Funeral care refers to the time between the last breath and final resting - whether that be cremation or burial. Most people hand over this care to a funeral home, but in so doing limit their options to costly, impersonal, and sometimes invasive procedures provided by an emotionally uninvolved funeral director. Home funeral care refers to one's family and friends performing these last deeds of love - including the process of washing, dressing, and laying out their loved one's body....
What about embalming? You may be surprised to learn that embalming is almost nevcr required for the deceased. There are some situations where this is so, such as when out of state transportation is necessary. For the most part, however, embalming is not required and is undesirable due to the highly toxic chemicals used and the invasive procedures required for embalming. Embalming only delays the breakdown of the body, it does not prevent this breakdown. It also denatures the body and artificially changes it at a time when peace and tender handling are most important. Caution: Most funeral directors require embalming if you use their funeral home and choose to have a viewing of the deceased.
Crossings: Caring For Our Own At Death
All of the tools and techniques needed to produce strong and beautiful coffins are presented here in clear, concise language. Color photographs illustrate every step in the construction of three pet-size and three human-size coffins. Detailed patterns are provided and different box construction techniques are revealed. One box design even doubles as a beautiful blanket chest or coffee table. Once the coffins are built, the discussion turns to the many moldings, appliques, linings, and finishes which may be used to make each coffin unique. A color gallery is also provided. With full color illustrations and detailed instructions, this book is a challenge to the novice and a joy for the experienced craftsman.
"Do-It-Yourself Coffins: For Pets and People"
"Fancy Coffins to Make Yourself"
Here's Penn Jillette -- a teetotaller for all substances -- calling for the legalization of marijuana on the incredibly sensible grounds that a) Many presidents, including recent ones, have smoked pot; b) Lots of other happy, well-adjusted people smoke pot; c) Imprisoning pot smokers by the millions costs a lot of money and ruins the lives of millions of otherwise fine Americans.
I'm with Penn. I don't take any mood-altering substances -- not even refined sugar! Well, OK, I'll have up to two cups of coffee, but only before noon (I bend this rule while travelling and jetlagged, though I shouldn't). I don't drink alcohol.
But hell, if you want to change your state of mind with a chemical, it's your goddamned state of mind to change. What liberty could be more fundamental than the liberty to choose how you think? Taking mood-altering substances is, in and of itself, victimless (though the drug trade that's sustained by drug prohibition has plenty of victims, and people can certainly destroy their lives with drugs, a tragedy that is vastly exacerbated by prohibition). I've lost several dear friends to drug overdoses and none of them were suicidal: they died because street dope varies wildly in potency and the heroin they took was purer than they'd anticipated.
As far as I'm concerned, everything that we call "drugs" -- including crystal meth, heroin, crack, and other drugs that destroy lives in vast swaths -- should be legalized and brought into the light of day so that the people who have problems with them can get help without the stigma of criminality and so that the people who don't have problems with them can get on with doing their thing.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
We're heading into scary territory with space garbage. The AP reports on Space station's close call with junk: More to come:
The near-hit of space junk Thursday was a warning shot fired across the bow of the international space station, experts said.
There's likely more to come in the future. With less than an hour's notice, the three astronauts were told they'd have to seek shelter in a Russian capsule parked at the space station in case a speeding piece of space junk hit Thursday.
If it hit and they were in the main part of the station, they'd have only 10 minutes of safety, Mission Control told them. A hole in the space station could mean loss of air, loss of pressure and eventual loss of life.
What freaks out people who believe we need to get off this planet -- for exploration and ultimately survival of our species --is this possibility: If enough of these things collide with each other and then create more junk, the planet could be eventually surrounded by a ring of debris that makes any space travel impossible.
The big Space Cleanup needs to start, pronto. But how?
Continuing our exploration of Make, Volume 17, "The Lost Knowledge issue," we'll chat with Heather McDougal, author of "Your Own Wunderkammer," a how-to on building Cabinets of Wonders. She'll explain how anyone can make a mini-museum of the awesome and the bizarre in their own home. For more on the subject, visit Heather's blog: Cabinet of Wonders. Also, the hosts of Make: Talk will present their favorite tricks, tips, and tools for makers, and we'll be giving away prizes!
Recently on Offworld, Ragdoll Metaphysics columnist Jim Rossignol officially declared 2009 the year of the real-time strategy genre, French guerrilla artist Space Invader was caught on film, Dr. Mario talked Universal Health Care, and a new group is taking a games-centric approach turning NES/Famicom clones into classroom computers for the developing world.
We also saw indie things: an upcoming PC game that lets you ghost-ride a moon rover, an excellent customizable pixel-platformer browser game, submissions open for worldwide indie showcase Indiecade, a teaser for the Alien Hominid/Castle Crashers dev's new game (above), a fantastic looking new downloadable DS game from the Boy and his Blob remake team, an audio preview of a new game from the creator of I Wish I Were The Moon, and a new DIY 8-bit retro console for you to make your own games.
Console/handheld/PC things: the first video of Steven Spielberg/EA's Boom Blox sequel, a fascinating look at the peculiar appeal of Peggle, amazing new games built with just 4K of Java, action-man kung-fu-grip gaming with the PS3's Rag Doll Kung Fu, rhythm in real life with a new DS game, and retro-futurist downloadable Wii music game Bit Trip: Beat coming on Monday.
iPhone things: a multiplayer game about personal/inter-relational growth, love, and money called KarmaStar, Japan signing up for the iPhone with a new dedicated magazine, ragdoll physics injuries with Stair Dismount and board game legend Reiner Knizia seeking iPhone devs.
Toy things, and things to wear: a Metal Gear crossover with vinyl art progenitor Michael Lau, a custom Earthbound toy, a new games-like site from Argentina cutesters DGPH, a new Nintendo character T-shirt from kaiju artist Lamour Supreme for 8bitpeoples, and UNIQLO's massive game crossover T-shirt line revealed.
Musical things: the excellent near Ed-Banger-esque soundtrack to iPhone game Edge, chiptuner Tettix vs Fighting Games, Rockstar/Timbaland's music tracker app back on track for a 2009 release, shoegaze made of hacked-firmware dot matrix printers, and Chamillionaire, Kanye, and Jay-Z done 8-bit style.
Scopitone ArchiveLike Soundies (the films made for the Mills Panoram film jukebox in the 1940s), Cinebox films were printed so that the image is projected backwards when shown on a normal 16mm projector. The soundtrack is also printed in a non-standard manner, with the result that the sound lags behind the image by about half a second when projected on a normal 16mm projector. Perhaps because of these oddities, or because the Cinebox was never as popular in the United States as the Scopitone, Cinebox films are much harder to find than Scopitone films.
In the summer of 1965, there were reportedly 612 films available for the Cinebox.
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
Tabloid journalism is often worse than none at all. But now, the NY Times reports, the media business' bottom feeders are going after the corporate sleazeballs who blew up the economy.
The tabloid media, of course, have always peered into the excesses of the rich and famous with a mix of puritan disapproval and voyeurism. But these outlets and other news organizations are now recording troubling uses of taxpayer money at country clubs, private airports and glamorous retreats and, in so doing, explicitly tapping into a fierce populist anger at corporate America, and even pressuring Congress to hold companies accountable.
TMZ, a Web site better known for unflattering paparazzi shots of Britney Spears and Rihanna, drove mainstream coverage and Congressional outrage with a blog post late last month that exclaimed, “Bailout Bank Blows Millions Partying in L.A.” The site reported that Northern Trust, a bank that received $1.6 billion in taxpayer money, had hosted hundreds of clients and employees at a golf tournament and a series of parties in Southern California. “Your tax dollars, hard at work,” the site wrote.
Northern Trust never sought the bailout funds, but agreed to take them last fall at the behest of the government. Regardless, the photos of Tiffany gift bags and the grainy video clips of Chicago and Sheryl Crow performing for the group angered readers —as well as Congressional Democrats, who demanded in a letter that Northern Trust repay what the company “frittered away on these lavish events.” The bank said it would do so “as quickly as prudently possible,” news that earned four exclamation points from TMZ.
More context on Mark Dery's Shovelware blogUsing as his point of departure Lon Chaney's chilling observation that "there's nothing funny about a clown in the moonlight," Dery deconstructs the postmodern archetype of the psychopathic clown. In this perversely funny, closely argued essay, Dery ranges broadly over the psychic geography of American culture. Balm for the souls of those scarred for life by childhood encounters with balloon-twisting bogeymen in fright wigs.
Keywords: evil clowns, clownaphobia, John Wayne Gacy, Cacophony Society, culture jamming, Batman, The Joker, R.K. Sloane, Shakes the Clown, Jim Knipfel, The Fool, Stephen King's IT, Quentin Tarantino, American pathologies, Bakhtin, the carnivalesque, Arkham Asylum.
Derek Bledsoe, Boing Boing Video producer, is blogging daily Boing Boing Video episodes while Xeni's on the road in Africa.
On Wednesday, March 11, 2009 the United Nations' Commission of Narcotic Drugs held its 52nd session in Vienna, Austria, just10 years after Kofi Annan's pledge to have a "drug free world" by 2008. Representatives from around the world attended the conference voicing support and opposition to the centuries old "war on drugs."
Working with Witness and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, we cut together excerpts from "Dare to Question? Using Video to Take on UN Drug Policies" and other testimonials appealing to the United Nations to reconsider its hardline policies combating the cultivation and use of illicit drugs.
Most of the experts interviewed agree that an ideal world would be a drug-free world but perhaps we should put that on the shelf among other concepts like a world without war, disease, or Fox News.
Some interesting facts according to drugstatistics.com:
75% of drug related arrests are related to marijuana 65% of drug related arrests are for simple possession of marijuana
The Hungarian Civil Liberties Union also staged a press conference at the entrance of the Vienna International Center speaking from wire cages, attempting to draw attention to unjust penalties and human rights abuses of drug offenders around the world.
We'd like to especially thank the Director of the HCLU, Mr. Balázs Dénes and Istvan Gábor Takács, HCLU's Video Advocacy Guru and Peter Sárosi, DPP Director. To learn more, you can visit Dare to Act and Drug Reporter.
Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.
(Special thanks to Boing Boing Video's hosting and publishing provider Episodic.)
Science Fiction and Fantasy First Editions
The Hugo Awards and the Nebula Awards are the traditional yardsticks for fantasy and science fiction writing. Since 1953 when the Hugos began, (the Nebulas started in 1965) there have been 82 titles awarded one or the other prize - and 19 titles with the distinctive honor of winning both.The Fine Books Company in Rochester, Michigan, is offering first editions of all the Hugo and Nebula Award-winning novels for a cool $116,530. From Asimov to Zelazny, every book which won either (or both) award is here. And that's not all.
The listing includes 126 books, and 95% of them are signed or inscribed, and in fine or better condition.
David Aronovitz, from The Fine Books Company, describes the collection as a unique gathering of books that has never been offered for sale anywhere before and in all likelihood will never be offered again.
I've just finished Thomas Geoghegan's classic memoir of his life as a labor lawyer, "Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back," in its revised, 2004 edition (which includes a lengthy afterword on labor in the 2000s). This is one of the best books I've read about labor politics in America, striking a balance between the romance and heroism of the best labor struggles in US history -- the workers who risked everything to bring us vacation pay, a minimum wage, the weekend, overtime, an end to child labor, and fundamental free speech and free association rights -- and the venality, pettiness and criminality of the worst of labor, from the big unions' historic exclusion of the poor and non-whites to the corruption, violence and fraud that has dogged labor through its American history.
Throughout, Geoghegan keep the focus where it belongs: on the injustices faced by working people -- from labor, from management, from government -- and on the failures of these systems to improve their lot on life, and looks deeply into history, politics and sociology to explain why and how labor has failed laborers.
Geoghegan is a lifelong, old-time labor lawyer whose practice has encompassed defending unions from management to defending workers from unions -- representing clients whose corrupt Work Agents have had them beaten up, smeared and excluded; representing workers who've been robbed of their pensions, unfairly dismissed, even arrested, under the most shameful, sleazy circumstances. He writes like a poet, like a Hunter Thompson crossed with Studs Terkel, full of humility, wry humor, and a burning anger at all that's wrong in the world. He tells the stories of the fights he's fought -- with, for and against the Teamsters, the mine workers, nurses, pilots -- from union elections to wildcat strikes.
Geoghegan is unabashedly pro-union, even though he's seen the worst of what unions can become. In a world in which employers hold all the cards -- times like now, when every worker worries about job security -- workers who fight on their own to demand justice (fair pay, safe working conditions, fair treatment, pensions) always lose. Workers who fight together can win -- have won, anyway.
Of particular interest to me was Geoghegan's account of the changes in American labor law over the years, the systematic gutting of the legislation that unions won in the first half of the 1900s, changes that moved the fight from the right to strike to the right to unionize to the right to receive your pension to the right to be treated as an employee at all. In Geoghegan's view, it's this legislative failure that's put labor into its death-spiral -- and it was labor's failure to stand against legislative reform that paid the way for it.
It's hard to love imperfect things -- countries, movements, people -- but it's also fundamentally adult to acknowledge the imperfections in the things that matter to you, and to fight to improve them rather than writing them off.
For everyone who's ever retreated to the pat, easy position that "labor's gone too far," Geoghegan's book is an important, nuanced, gripping and immensely enjoyable rebuttal: proof that in many places, labor didn't go far enough.
Which Side Are You On?: Trying to Be for Labor When It's Flat on Its Back, Revised Edition
Fingerprinting Blank Paper Using Commodity Scanners
This paper presents a novel technique for authenticating physical documents based on random, naturally occurring imperfections in paper texture. We introduce a new method for measuring the three-dimensional surface of a page using only a commodity scanner and without modifying the document in any way. From this physical feature, we generate a concise fingerprint that uniquely identifies the document. Our technique is secure against counterfeiting and robust to harsh handling; it can be used even before any content is printed on a page. It has a wide range of applications, including detecting forged currency and tickets, authenticating passports, and halting counterfeit goods. Document identification could also be applied maliciously to de-anonymize printed surveys and to compromise the secrecy of paper ballots.
Nothing complements the thousand-yard-stare of a gamer who's been through the Console Wars and seen the worst atrocities that toons can wreak against sprites than a medal to celebrate your achievement. Super Mandolini's "Console Wars Veteran" pins are those medals.
Console Wars Veteran I
Console Wars Veteran II
Console Wars Veteran III
Console Wars Veteran IV
(via Wonderland)
Donate to Clarion South (Thanks, Eileen!)Clarion West knows how hard it can be to raise money for a writer's workshop, and after last year's laptop theft we know how generous our grads and supporters can be.
So when we saw the notice that Clarion South needs help, we decided to pitch in.
We're issuing a challenge to grads and supporters of the US workshops, Clarion and Clarion West. For every dollar a C/CW grad or supporter sends to Clarion South, we'll send a dollar too, up to a total of US$500.
Here's how it works: go to http://www.clarionsouth.org/donate.htm and make a donation. Then send an email to info@clarionsouth.org, telling them how much you sent and that it's for the Clarion West challenge. That's all. They'll check the info and pass it on to us, and we'll send them money.
Grads of Clarion South include Ellen Klages, Cat Sparks, and other exciting new writers. It's the only Clarion-style workshop in the southern hemisphere. It deserves to live!
PS: The three workshops are: Clarion West, Clarion South, Clarion
Incredibly, the Obama administration claims that disclosing the details of this secret copyright law would endanger "national security."
But now, like Bush before him, Obama is playing the national security card to hide details of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement being negotiated across the globe.Obama Administration Declares Proposed IP Treaty a 'National Security' Secret (Thanks, Javier!)The White House this week declared (.pdf) the text of the proposed treaty a "properly classified" national security secret, in rejecting a Freedom of Information Act request by Knowledge Ecology International.
"Please be advised the documents you seek are being withheld in full," wrote Carmen Suro-Bredie, chief FOIA officer in the White House's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative.
The national security claim is stunning, given that the treaty negotiations have included the 27 member states of the European Union, Japan, South Korea, Canada, Mexico, Australia, Switzerland and New Zealand, all of whom presumably have access to the "classified" information.
Jon Stewart creams Jim Cramer on the Daily Show
Tonight we had the big face-off, the heavyweight bout, the Super Bowl square-off between CNBC's Jim Cramer and Comedy Central's Jon Stewart. Cramer was especially upset about being included in a segment TDS produced on the horrible and almost criminal reporting CNBC has been airing as THE go-to business network after CNBC's Rick Santelli attacked average working-class people who got caught up in the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Santelli dubbed them as "losers." Well, the only loser tonight was Cramer and CNBC.Jim basically sat there, starry-eyed like a lost puppy, and was virtually silent throughout the three-segment show featuring him. He basically waved the white flag and said, "You got me."
Comedy Central had to edit out eight minutes of video to accommodate the show format, and it will be available on their website tomorrow.
Stewart's point was that Wall Street got fat off of all our pension plans, 401K's and long-term investments, while the "Fast Money" crowd cashed in our long-term investments -- and CNBC was complicit in the entire gambit...
Update: Via Twitter, @vonross adds, "This was a youth-oriented futurist/kosmist zine started in the 20's, purged & retasked by Stalin during WWII, it went to roots of modernism."
2.5 GB torrent of PDFs of full issues of "Техники молодежи" (!!!!1111!ONE!)
Обложки "Техники молодежи" (30е - 50е, СССР)
Обложки журнала Техника молодежи (29 фото)
(Thanks, Mike K!)
The Fair Use Massacre Continues: Now Warner’s Going After the Babies
Of course we can’t show you the videos since they’re, well, censored, but the YouTomb snapshots tell most of the story. One showed a 4 year old lip-syncing to the old Foreigner hit, “Juke Box Hero.” The other apparently showed a baby smacking its lips to the tune of “I Love My Lips”—a song originally sung by a cucumber in an episode of “Veggie Tales.” Both videos are obvious fair uses (these are transformative, noncommercial videos that are not substitutes for the original songs, and there is no plausible market for "licensing" parents before they video their own children singing) and perfectly legal—just like the video of a baby dancing to a Prince song that Universal Music Group took down in 2007.
How Moore's Law saved us from the Gopher web (via Futurismic)
Computing power has been rapidly increasing since the mid 1960s, as predicted by physicist Gordon Moore working in Silicon Valley at the time. By the 1990s, there was just about enough power to allow access to text and image-based files via the internet, and Tim Berners-Lee's World Wide Web was born.But network administrators at the time preferred a streamlined text-only internet service, says Topolski, using something called the Gopher protocol.
He suggested that if those administrators had had access to data filtering technology, like that becoming popular with companies and governments today, they would have used it to exclude Berners-Lee's invention, and kill off the World Wide Web.
(Image: Gopher: screenshots)
Have no fear: a new "cybercrime-as-a-service" industry offers hosted, maintained malware deployments that you can rent time on, eliminating the humiliation of groveling before angry teenagers with the technical skills and spare time to get your badware running.
"It was inevitable that services would be sold to people who bought the malware toolkits but didn‘t know how to configure them," Vajdic said.I keep waiting for really solid evidence that cybercrime is as pervasive as it seems to be. The best indicator I can think of would be a cratering of cybercrime prices -- say, botnet owners slashing prices and desperately spamming all and sundry looking for someone who'll pay to use their bots to DDoS an enemy or victim."Not only can you buy configuration as a service now, you can have the malware operated for you, too. We saw evidence of that this year."
"Investors get malware developers to write code for them and then get the writers to host and distribute it, too."
Vajdic showed delegates an email purported to be from a malware 'provider' offering hosted services for an extra $50 for three months.
Vasco's regional director for Pacific, India and Japan, Dan Dica, said company researchers buy the kits online and disassemble them to try to learn the secrets of their programming.
"The kits come with maintenance, support and a user guide," Dica said.
Rebecca explains the current viral anti-censorship protest video: The song of the grass mud horse. (In this case an alpaca)Lessons from China for the World, Rebecca MacKinnon (Global Voices)It features videos of alpacas while child sing about the grass mud horse, but the difference in tones between "Grass mud horse" and "Fuck your mother" is just a subtle tonal change. Since song tones override speaking tones in Chinese, it's a sweet choir of children singing "Fuck your mother." They sound very sweet. The alpacas are fluffy, but slightly creepy.
Definitely best misheard lyrics since "wrapped up like a douche bag in the middle of the night"
This video is coming to represent the fight against censorship. If you type in obscene or politically sensitive words often the software or the server will bounce you to an error message, so people use puns and slight changes in language to defeat the software, but everyone knows what you're really talking about. This is very like how people got around filtering in Napster oh so long ago now.
There's another older meme about a rivercrab wearing three watches. (Ethan mentioned this last year.) It's another homonym pun. It's a play on two government mottos: the "harmonious society" and the "three represents." Harmonious becomes rivercrab, and three represents becomes wear three watches. A rivercrab wearing three watches seems to be a bit about going along with the government plans.
Jim Morrow's absolutely charming -- this sounds like a hot date to me, the kind of place you can take a prospective mate to and discover her/his romantic fitness in a single evening.
A Tribute to Lon Chaney, Jr. (Thanks, Matt!)Award-winning author, satirist, and armchair cineaste James Morrow hosts Ghost of Frankenstein (1942, 60 minutes), and The Mummy’s Curse, two classic 1940’s “B” movies featuring Lon Chaney, Jr.
James Morrow, author of Towing Jehovah, The Last Witchfinder, and The Philosopher’s Apprentice, will be introducing these two classic 1940’s “B” movies featuring Lon Chaney, Jr. Morrow’s most recent novella, a postmodern extravaganza entitledShambling Towards Hiroshima, recounts the extraordinary adventures of Syms Thorley, a Hollywood horror actor based on Chaney, Jr. In 1945 Syms’s career takes a bizarre turn when the U.S. Navy hires him to don a rubber lizard suit and impersonate the giant mutant iguana Gorgantis, a new and terrifying biological weapon that might, if Syms can give a sufficiently persuasive performance, convince the Japanese to lay down their arms and end WWII. Morrow’s presentation will include critical observations and historical tidbits of interest to film scholars and movie buffs alike.
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