They Might Be Giants did a wonderful appearance on NPR's Science Friday to promote their album Here Comes Science, and finished off with two possible future albums, both of which have my vote:

* There Goes Your Liberties (a history of civil liberties and the War on Terror)

* Here Comes the Syndicalists (a history of the labor movement in America)

I have a feeling they were kidding, but guys, if you're listening, those are great ideas!

They Might Be Giants: Here Comes Science (broadcast Friday, September 25th, 2009)

MP3 Link

Here Comes Science CD/DVD

BB guestblogger Aman Ali's post about a modest bathing suit designed by Muslim women for Muslim women has sparked debate. At the time of this post, I'm also seeing that an anonymous Muslim woman has voiced her thoughts in the thread, and I encourage you to go read. She ends: "I own a burqini and LOVE IT."

Still, some non-Muslim commenters in the related thread take the position that "modest swimsuits" such as the burqini are a form of Muslim oppression against women. I think that's a silly, narrow, and factually inaccurate position.

I thought it might be helpful to point out a few related Western apparel websites:

* Stitchin' Times Women's Swimsuits
* Lilies of the Field: Modest Women's Apparel
* Simply Modest Swimwear Solutions

...and, I want to point out this series of posts about Victorian Bathing Machines, contraptions that allowed 18th century folks in England to bathe in the sea while adhering to the cultural norms of the era. Above, one proponent of modest sea-bathing in that era.

My point, such as it is: why must our first reaction to stuff like a Boing Boing post about burqinis be to judge or condemn? You may or may not choose to wear one, but the world doesn't revolve around you. I believe it is more fruitful to try and learn about and appreciate cultural differences than to get all flustered about whether or not you approve.

The commenter who loves her burqini (or any one of the smiling American customers on this "modesty swimsuit" website) does not care what you think about her garments or her beliefs. Nor should she.

Let all forms of happy mutancy prevail. (Thanks, Clayton Cubitt)

Cash4Gold, a company that offers money for gold jewelry and coins you send them, has dropped the website Consumerist as a defendant in a lawsuit against ex-employees. More here. (thanks, Ben Popken)

Aman Ali, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the co-author of 30 Mosques, a Ramadan adventure taking him to a different mosque in New York City every day for a month.

When I first heard of this product a few years ago, I'll admit it made me laugh, even with me being a Muslim. It's a swimsuit called the Burqini that's designed for Muslim women.

Men and women in Islam are both asked to dress modestly but many of the swimsuits designed for women today are too revealing to allow them to do that. As you can see, the Burqini doesn't show any skin but it's not too loose to the point where it's difficult to swim.

No woman should be denied the freedom to have a fun filled day at the pool or beach, which is why this company designed the Burqini. The more I thought about the product, the more I began to realize how awesome it is. It's another way Muslims have been able to adapt to local cultures and customs without compromising their beliefs, an issue many religions face today.

The Burqini has gotten a lot of backlash from governments in Europe. But I don't think any government has a right to tell people how to dress. How come a woman is not allowed to wear a burqini to a pool, but there's no law saying she can't wear a giant panda suit? If she wants to wear either of those outfits, hey go right ahead.

Burqini's official site

This clever video pieces together scenes depicting the already-hoary suspense-film cliche in which a cellular phone's signal (or battery) gives out at just the wrong (right) time so that the characters will have something to be in suspense about. One thing I will always and forever love Iain Banks for is his 2003 novel Dead Air, a gripping, taut suspense novel in which everyone has a cellphone that always works. I was struck when I read it, believing that Banks had just created an entirely new genre: suspense novels in which none of the tension comes from characters not knowing key facts.

No Signal (and other cellular drama)

Sam sez, "An open letter to Lily Allen, explaining the facts around filesharing, sung to the beat of one of her tunes."

I love this -- it's a great mix of compassion, artist's manifesto, and humor. I don't know much about this Dan Bull character, but I like the cut of his jib.

Dan Bull - Dear Lily (Thanks, Sam!)

A lawsuit against Bank of America on uncertain grounds is seeking nearly two sextillion dollars in damages:

A billion trillion, also known as a "sextillion," could be written as a 1 followed by 21 zeros. I know the dollar has weakened lately, but a sextillion dollars would still be a lot of money. The gross domestic product of the entire world in 2008 was only $60 trillion, so even if Chiscolm won it might be a little hard to collect.

"These are the kind of numbers you deal with only on a cosmic scale," said Sylvain Cappell, who is New York University's Silver Professor at the Courant Institute for Mathematical Sciences, and so presumably can count really high. "If [Chiscolm] thinks Bank of America has branches on every planet in the cosmos, then it might start to make some sense."

Bank of America Sued for 1.784 Sextillion Dollars

A reader writes, "The National Organization for Women is calling to action everyone in the U.S. to push for net neutrality. They're specifically supporting the Internet Freedom Preservation Act of 2009 (H.R. 3458), and have a page up for contacting representatives in congress to push for it as well."

The Internet has allowed NOW to connect like never before with members and allies, potential supporters, students and educators, government leaders and countless others who can help advance equality for all.

The Internet offers a platform for dialogue amongst feminists who might not otherwise have a chance to strategize together. It empowers women by providing them with information about their status, threats to their rights and opportunities for advancement. It presents a tool for democratic participation by allowing women's rights advocates to easily petition their elected officials and keep tabs on their records.

Without a doubt, the women's rights movement benefits immensely from the unprecedented power of an open and accessible Internet. But, can we rely on the big companies that bring us the Internet to preserve its open nature? The simple truth is: No, we can't.

Add Your Voice to NOW's Call for Open Internet

Jake von Slatt sez, "An absolutely exquisite monster MAME cabinet - check out the CNC carved lithopanes!"

Steampunk MAME!

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the New York City mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, New York.

 

They gave me the creeps when I was a kid, but damn did their cereals taste good. Not sure if anyone has noticed, but there has been a sudden reemergence of all things Monster Cereal and this site is documenting every step of it. Who would've thought there was such a large cult following for Count Chocula and company?

Who's your favorite of the bunch? Count Chocula may have swag, but Boo Berry's sedated brows kill.

See all the collectibles showcased: http://monstercereal.blogspot.com

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the New York City mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, New York.


If you live in New York City or any other major city, you may have seen a store sign scream "Halal Meat" or "Halal Certified." These signs are nothing but comfort for many Muslims who want meat that's prepared in accordance to the Islamic guidelines. The whole halal-making process is very similar to the kosher-making one. In fact, many Muslims, including myself, limit their meat consumption to only kosher and halal meat since they both fall under a similar rigorous certification.

So when I get tired of tuna sandwiches and want to get my halal grub on, where do I go? Zabihah.com - it's really the authoritative guide to halal dining. It's a wiki-site created by the brilliant Shahed Amanullah back in 1999. Shahed meticulously typed in 200 restaurants himself, and now the site bolsters around 6,000 halal restaurants worldwide. Anyone can add their own restaurant and leave a review or two.

Anyone like to recommend their favorite halal eatery? Please do share!

Visit the site: www.zabihah.com

A new article in Smithsonian posits that Jackson Pollock hid his full name in the abstractions of his famed piece Mural. The article's author, art historian Henry Adams, says that his wife, also an art scholar, was the first to notice the letters. From Smithsonian:

I was researching a book about Pollock's lifelong relationship with his mentor, Thomas Hart Benton, the famed regionalist and muralist, when I sat puzzling over a reproduction of Mural after breakfast one morning with Marianne, herself an art historian. She suddenly said she could make out the letters S-O-N in blackish paint in the upper right area of the mural. Then she realized JACKSON ran across the entire top. And finally she saw POLLOCK below that.

The characters are unorthodox, even ambiguous, and largely hidden. But, she pointed out, it could hardly be random coincidence to find just those letters in that sequence...

Pollock's possibly writing his name in Mural testifies to an overlooked feature of his works: they have a structure, contrary to the popular notion that they could be done by any 5-year-old with a knack for splatters. In my view, Pollock organized the painting around his name according to a compositional system—vertical markings that serve as the loci of rhythmic spirals—borrowed directly from his mentor, Benton.

"Decoding Jackson Pollock"

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

Here's the conclusion to 500 Pound Planet, the cartoon I made with Josh Dolgin. I really hope you've enjoyed it, and would love to hear some reviews/criticism/impressions.

Previously:

500 Pound Planet: Prelude

500 Pound Planet: Chapter One

500 Pound Planet: Chapter Two

500 Pound Planet: Chapter Three

Ben Marks and the crew at The Collectors Weekly, immersed themselves in an Antiques Roadshow taping last month in San Jose, California, and documented their experience. Ben brought a Pogo animation cel for appraisal and his colleague Jessica Lewis had a Elks Club fob from the early part of last century. From Collectors Weekly:

Inside the set, the energy is exhilarating. The appraisers are laughing, fiercely examining items, calling out to one another: “Hey, you gotta take a look at this!” The excitement is contagious and we quickly become wrapped up in the psychology of television, people with dreams, and family secrets being revealed.

(KQED volunteer Lyn) Johnson leads us to Jewelry to see what we can learn about the Elks piece. As we wait, an appraiser named Barry Weber is talking to a colleague about a guest’s item. The conversation is mostly about what the guest may already know about the item, and whether they should pitch it to go on camera.

At the Jewelry table, Adam Patrick of A La Vielle Russie, Inc. examines an Elks fob from the early 20th century. The piece is made of 14k yellow gold, includes a diamond and a sapphire, and holds an elk's tooth. It was appraised at $750 to $800.

As Bemko told us the day before, the show’s dual goals include informing a guest about his or her item, as well as documenting the guest during what she called a “vulnerable” moment. If the guest knows too much, it doesn’t make for great TV. Weber knows this, and they want to be sure not to waste anyone’s time with a pitch that might get shot down.

"An Inside Look at Antiques Roadshow: A Collectors Weekly Special Report"

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

Canadian literature (or CanLit, as some insist) has gradually become a genre of its own- one of books that are bleak, desperate, *meaningful*, and above all, dull.

New DIY publisher The Workhorsery aims to do something about that by releasing You and The Pirates, Jocelyne Allens' superfun debut novel.

The book dares to star you (a snarky prairie-girl expat) in its second-person wackjob tale of terrorists, cats and pirates in modern-day Tokyo. Check it out!

Free chapter (PDF)

Amazon page (link)

There's something pleasing about finding your last Tic Tacs wedged inside the dispenser and freeing them. The creator of this "Collecting Stuck Tic Tacs" gallery seems to agree. (Thanks, Dean Putney!)

British Airways has broken new exciting new ground in the race to make flying as awful as possible: they have announced a fee (ranging from £10-60 per passenger) for advance seat selection, explaining that this will be the only way that families and other groups travelling together can be assured that they'll be sitting next to each other. I wonder what happens if you don't pay it while flying with a two-year-old in her own seat; do they seat her at the other end of the plane from you and explain to the strangers on either side of her that they're responsible for her well-being for the duration?

Best part: BA is billing this as a way of improving the flight "experience" because you can now be certain you'll get the seat that you want. War is peace, love is hate, the airline industry cares about passengers.

A BA spokeswoman said: "Customers frequently request specific seats, but in the past we've only been able to confirm them 24 hours in advance or on the day.

"We know people want to secure them in advance and have real control over their flying experience. This will allow them to do that."

British Airways sets seat charges

Vladimir goes to work on Franz. Nice bug sketch!

Nabokov Edits Kafka's Metamorphosis

Not sure if this is Shonen Knife playing "Twist Barbie" but I like it.

The UK Sun (an admittedly sensationalist source) claims that hundreds of people are living in the storm sewers beneath Las Vegas, scraping by on coins left in slot machines. The underground community is documented in a recent book called Beneath the Neon.

It is estimated the population of the underground community could be as many as 700. As well as credit-hustling, they earn their money off the wildly excessive city above by begging and "dumpster diving" - raiding bins and skips.

There are around 350 miles of flood channels running under Las Vegas. Most inhabitants are in the area under the city's strip.

Another couple, Amy and JR, have lived in the tunnels for two years, having moved to Las Vegas in search of work, wealth and a slice of the famous Sin City action.

Putting down the Twilight vampire book she is reading for the third time, Amy, 33, explains: "My husband and I have been down here two years this week.

"We were living with my mom in California but the house was full and we had to leave.

"I heard Las Vegas was a good place for jobs. It's the city that never sleeps, with all the bright lights, and I'd always wanted to come.

"But it was tough and we started living under the staircase outside the MGM casino. Then we met a guy who lived in the tunnels. We've been down here ever since.

Lost Vegas (Thanks, Bas!)

(Image: AUSTIN HARGRAVE)

I don't know anything about this PSA advising young people to stay away from chat rooms lest the cute boy on the other end turn out to be Cthulhu, waiting to take their sanity, but I certainly support its message.

Cthulhu PSA

Al Franken's Senate career just keeps on getting better: this week he read the Fourth Amendment ("no Warrants shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.") aloud to a high-ranking Department of Justice official who was making the case for renewing the PATRIOT Act's provision for roving wiretaps.

"That's pretty explicit language," noted Franken, asking Kris how the "roving wiretap" provision of the Patriot Act can meet that requirement if it doesn't require the government to name its target.

Kris looked flustered and mumbled that "this is surreal," apparently referring to having to respond to Franken's question. "I would defer to the other branch of government," he said, referring to the courts, prompting Franken to interject: "I know what that is."

Kris explained that the courts have held that the law's requirements that the person be described, though not named, is sufficient to meet the demands of the Constitution. That did not appear to completely satisfy Franken's concerns.

Al Franken Reads the 4th Amendment to Justice Department Official (via Greg Laden)

Here is an absolutely adorkable fan-video for Plants vs Zombies by some talented Australian plants and zombies.

A Lawn Defence at Any Hour (via Wonderland)

I love the citizen science motivation behind this doula/student midwife's project to photograph her cervix every day through one entire month: "to better understand my cycle and the changes in my cervix throughout the month."

Beautiful Cervix Project (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

I've never used Giottos Rocket Blaster. I just like the way it looks.

From Cool Tools:

This rubber rocket doesn’t provide as much pressure as Dust-Off. But it does exhale a forceful-enough blast for dusting photo/electronic gear, and standing upright on its base sidelines as playful desk dressing/stress-relief toy. I squeeze the oblong bladder (the rocket’s body) and a burst of air entering through a hole at the bottom exits the narrow hard plastic red nozzle.

The LA Philharmonic has a brand new Guitar Hero-inspired conducting game that lets you pretend to be music director Gustavo Dudamel. It's available on iPhone and on the Web.

Bravo Gustavo

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He currently resides in Harlem, New York.

 

A dramatic reading of tweets. The guy reading Lohan is the best. Who do you think should be read next?  (thanks James, No You First)

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He currently resides in Harlem, New York.

Is anyone here following We Love You So? A blog Spike Jonze and Co. set up giving us a  nice glimpse into all the little insights and influences that helped bring Where The Wild Things Are to life. The photo above is from their Where the Wild Things Ought To Be Contest, a cute photoshop competition that has some really clever entries. 

Ch ch check it out- http://weloveyouso.com

R.U. Sirius interviewed Randa Milliron, CEO of Interorbital Systems, "a 'rocket and spacecraft manufacturing company' that locates itself at the Mojave Airport and Spaceport in Mojave, California. They recently announced that they were offering to send people's personal satellites into low-earth orbit on a NEPTUNE 30 rocket for the low low low cost of $8,000."

The 8k Personal Satellite (and Other Space Adventures)

Stephen sez, "In re-reading the Hobbit, I realized that the opening chapters made it sound like Thorin was running a con. From there, I wondered what Thorin's pitch would look like if it were a modern con, which resulted in me writing a Nigerian 419 fraud letter for the Hobbit."

Dear MR BAGGINS, Fellow Conspirator,

I am Thorin Oakenshield, descendant of Thrain the Old and grandson of Thror who was King under the Mountain. I am writing you to discuss our plans, our ways, means, policy and devices for rescuing our treasure from the dragon Smaug.

During the reign of Thror our kingdom was a prosperous one. Kings used to send for our smiths, and reward even the least skillful most richly. Fathers would beg us to take their sons as apprentices, and pay us handsomely, especially in food-supplies, which we never bothered to grow or find for ourselves. Altogether those were good days for us, and the poorest of us had money to spend and to lend, and leisure to make beautiful things just for the fun of it, not to speak of the most marvellous and magical toys, the like of which is not to be found in the world now-a-days.

Hobbit 419

I really like the way George's brain machine spectacles turned out! (More pics here.) He built them using Mitch Altman's Brain Machine Kit, available from Maker Shed.

Susan Olsen, who played Cindy ("the youngest one in curls") will be signing copies of her new book, Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour, at the Santa Monica Public Library on September 26 at 1pm.

Derek Thomas of the LA Weekly calls The Brady Bunch Variety Hour "one of most hallucinogenically bad variety shows to have ever aired on television."

Susan Olsen ... tells all in Love to Love You Bradys: The Bizarre Story of The Brady Bunch Variety Hour — including how Maureen McCormick was constantly coked up and why Robert Reed was totally okay with dressing up as Carmen Miranda.

Susan Olsen booksigning in Santa Monica

Jeff sez,

An iron fence on W. 21st St. in New York depicts the classic image of a rocket crashing into the Man in the Moon from Melies' 1902 pioneering science fiction film, Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon).

The fence is across from the Clinton School of the Arts for Writers and Artists, and I happened to snap this photo during lunch break. After I was done shooting about 10 or so photos, I noticed that a crowd of kids had surrounded me and continued talking about the image as I walked away.

Soooo, teacher that I am, I went back and asked if any of them knew what it was. None of them did, but they agreed that it was "awesome" and wondered if the thing in his eye might be a bullet. I explained about the Melies film, its history, and what the image was supposed to be, all of which the kids said was even more awesome, so they asked me to repeat the title so they could watch the film on Youtube.

I remember being fascinated by a still of the original scene in a book when I was their age, um, many moons ago. Not only is the fence homage cool in itself, but it was wonderful to see that "A Trip to the Moon" continues to inspire.

Melies Moon Fence (Thanks, Jeff!)

Jeff VanderMeer sez,

What Is Last Drink Bird Head? That's the catalyst editors Ann and Jeff VanderMeer provided to over 80 writers in creating this unique anthology, with all proceeds going to ProLiteracy.org. All each writer got was an email with "Last Drink Bird Head" in the subject line and the directions "Who or what is Last Drink Bird Head? Under 500 words." Like any surrealist writing game, it either sparked a response or it didn't.

The result? Last Drink Bird Head is a blues musician, a performance artist, a type of alcohol, a town in Texas, and even a song sung by girl scouts in Antarctica. Contributors include Peter Straub, Caitlin R. Kiernan, Brian Evenson, Henry Kaiser, Gene Wolfe, Hal Duncan, Jeffrey Ford, Rikki Ducornet, Holly Phillips, Stephen R. Donaldson, K.J. Bishop, Michael Swanwick, Ellen Kushner, Daniel Abraham, Jay Lake, Liz Williams, Tanith Lee, Sarah Monette, Conrad Williams, and Marly Youmans.

Famed designer John Coulthart did the interior, which features bobbing bird heads in the corners of the pages, so that the antho is also a flipbook.

LAST DRINK BIRD HEAD FOR CHARITY: Party, Pre-Orders, Awards, and More (Thanks, Jeff!)

Bionic Eye is a $0.99 augmented reality app for the iPhone to help you find fast "food" chain restaurants.

From Cult of Mac:

Designed for the iPhone 3GS, Bionic Eye is an augmented reality app that overlays information about nearby points of interest over the iPhone’s camera. Hold the camera up to the building in front of you, and thanks the iPhone’s GPS and compass, the screen is overlaid with little virtual signs that say what’s inside. It also includes virtual signposts showing the way to the nearest subway station or Starbucks coffee shop.

Bionic Eye iPhone App Points the Way To the Nearest Hooters

Aman Ali, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the co-author of 30 Mosques, a Ramadan adventure taking him to a different mosque in New York City every day for a month. For the month of Ramadan, my friend Bassam and I gave you guys an insight into how Muslims across the United States observe Ramadan with our project 30 Mosques in 30 Days. But Iranian-American Jason Rezaian gives an interesting and critical look at Muslims observing Ramadan in five predominantly Muslim countries. Rezaian talks about how local cultures can sometimes twist Islam's religious practices. Take his Dubai story for example:

Dubai tends toward gluttony every month of the year, but during Ramadan, things are even more over the top, with nearly every eating establishment offering an Iftar fast-breaking gut-buster at sundown. It's Dubai doing what it does best: using its limited resources for its own commercial advantage. Even American fast-food outlets in Dubai offer Ramadan Value Meals, usually adding a dessert to the already calorie-packed meal deal. At the Dubai Mall, McDonald's was the only major international food chain that didn't have a special offer, just a banner that read: "Ramadan Kareem"--"Happy Ramadan."

Slate: My Ramadan World Tour

Everybody needs a robot eye on their sleeve to look out for invisible monsters.

“Miruko,” a wearable eyeball-shaped robot with a built-in camera and wi-fi capabilities, is designed to augment human perception by sensing and reacting to objects that cannot be seen with the naked eye.

In this video, Miruko’s creators demonstrate how the robotic eyeball can be used as an interface for a virtual monster-hunting game played in a real-world environment.

Worn on the player’s sleeve, Miruko’s roving eye scans the surroundings in search of virtual monsters that are invisible to the naked human eye. When a virtual monster is spotted, the mechanical eyeball rolls around in its socket and fixes its gaze on the monster’s location. By following Miruko’s line of sight, the player is able to locate the virtual monster and “capture” it via his or her iPhone camera.

Miruko: Wearable eyeball robot interface

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

Professional animators script, record, and "lock" audio before animating a frame. Josh Dolgin and I are not professional animators.

We wanted 500 Pound Planet to have a loose, improvisatory feel. So we decided on a general plot outline, a handful of settings and scenes and a cast of characters. For each character, we animated a number of facial expressions, hand gestures and lip-positions, so that we could figure out what they're saying at any point and drop it in.

This "worked" in a sense, but also made for a lot of crazy, since everything was infinitely malleable. We could always record more, tweak a line, second-guess a plot point- whatever. The process became so maddening that we bickered constantly over every detail and bit by bit, that's what the film became about- our spiteful, imploding "marriage", which we kept alive for the sake of the children- our deformed, clay puppet kids. Enjoy!

Previously:

500 Pound Planet: Prelude

500 Pound Planet: Chapter One

500 Pound Planet: Chapter Two

Two armed thieves entered the Musée Magritte in Brussels at 10am this morning and made off with surrealist René Magritte's Olympia, valued at £3 million. One of the thieves rang the bell and asked to be let in. When he entered he pulled a gun and ordered the woman who answered the door to let his accomplice in.

A policeman said: “There were three museum workers inside at the time and two Japanese tourists. All five of them were ordered out the back and told to keep quiet by the man with the gun.

“In the museum the other person stole the painting and they both made good their escape. They seemed to know which painting they wanted to steal - they took the whole painting off the wall, including the frame.”

What usually happens to stolen paintings? Do the thieves hold them for ransom, do they sell them to private collectors who have secret museums in the homes, or what?

Armed thieves steal Magritte painting in daylight raid

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

When I was a kid I was often reprimanded and sometimes even kicked out of class for drawing comics in school. Now, research has shown that comics are a great way to turbo-charge literacy in reluctant readers (especially in boys), and comics are suddenly being welcomed into classrooms all over the world.

With this in mind, my partners at Bitstrips and I have developed Bitstrips for Schools, an educational comic-making service. We piloted it last spring in a handful of Ontario classrooms, and the kids went crazy for it, creating almost 3000 comic strips in six weeks time (see video). Their creativity has astounded me, as have the incredibly cool and dedicated teachers I've had the chance to work with (link).

Bitstrips for Schools has since been licensed by the Ontario Ministry of Education, which means that 2 million kids now have at their fingertips the tools to make their own comics.

We also just introduced a "self-serve" option that lets teachers outside of Ontario buy cheap one-classroom licenses.

So yes, in interests of full disclosure, this is a plug for a website I have an interest in. But it's also a website I'm super proud to be a part of!

Bitstrips for Schools.

Glyn sez, "In 2005, Boing Boing reported on the arrest of a London geek for the 'crime' of carrying a 'bulky' backpack (e.g., a laptop bag), wearing an 'unseasonably warm' coat (it was one of the coldest July days on record), and 'avoiding the police' (he was looking at an SMS on his phone when he went through the turnstiles and so didn't make eye-contact with the officers there). [Ed: his house was subsequently raided, his data and computers confiscated and examined] After four years the police have finally admited they should never have arrested him in the first place."

I would like to apologise on behalf of the Metropolitan Police Service for the circumstances that arose on 28 July 2005 including your unlawful arrest, detention and search of your home. I appreciate this has had a deep and traumatic impact on your lives and I hope that the settlement in this case can bring some closure to this.

I shall ensure that the officers concerned are made aware of the impact of the events of that day and also the details of the settlement in this case.

Yours sincerely

[signature of Chief Superintendent Wayne Chance]

Borough Commander
Southwark

Innocent in London - 'Suspicious behaviour on the tube' (Thanks, Glyn!)

Lily Allen's anti-piracy rant has made her notorious among copyfighters, who have subjected her site and her words to close scrutiny, discovering that Allen's website is chock-a-block with infringing scans of newspaper articles, infringing mix-tapes (even the rant she posted was lifted from Techdirt). Her all-caps responses ("I THINK ITS QUITE OVIOUS THAT I WASNT TRYING TO PASS OF THOSE WORDS AS MY OWN , HERE IS A LINK TO THE WEBSIITE I ACQUIRED THE PIECE FROM.") are the kind of nutty, defensive shouty words that chum the water online.

It's tempting to count coup here and write Allen off as a hypocrite, but there's a more important story here. Allen just hasn't thought this through. Copyright is problematic for everyone: musicians, fans, bloggers. The absence of clear affirmative rights to make personal copies, to share with your friends, to copy for the purposes of discussion and commentary (as opposed to the fuzzy and difficult-to-interpret fair use guidelines, which have been further confused by the entertainment industry's bold attempts to convince us all that they don't matter and can't be relied upon) means that we're all in a state of constant infringement.

A law that no one understands and no one abides by is no law at all. Parts of copyright -- the right to regulate how commercial licenses with industrial entities work -- are really important to me and to all working artists. But if we continue to try to expand copyright to cover everything, every interaction that involves a copy (which is every interaction these days), then the broad consensus that copyright is nonsense will continue to grow, and we'll lose the good stuff as well as the ridiculous stuff.

For the record, I am a small-time Lily Allen fan, and I bought her latest CD after hearing it for free, when a friend emailed me some tracks. If Ms Allen would prefer, I can stop buying and listening to her music, given that I discovered it through "piracy."

Also, this is not the only infringement on her blog. While she's trying to point out how much damage 'pirates' do to the music industry she blatantly infringed the copyrights of a number of newspapers by posting scanned articles.

To make things even more absurd Techdirt discovered that Lily is pirating music herself by offering some unauthorized mixtapes (tape 1 and tape 2) on her website LilyAllenMusic.com. The tracklist of one of the mixtapes reveals a list of no less than 19 unauthorized tracks. This means the RIAA can easily sue her for millions.

Lily Allen Pirates Music, Is Clueless About Copyright

David "Everything is Miscellaneous/Small Pieces Loosely Joined" Weinberger sez, "I've started a series of video interviews with FCC Broadband Strategy folks (and others) about the process and its progress. The first is with Blair Levin, director of the initiative. He explains the value of broadband; confirms that broadband means access to the open, neutral network; defends the impartiality of the initiative's process; and talks about the causes of the U.S.'s low ranking when it comes to broadband access, prices, and speeds."

He's also posted interviews with Sascha Meinrath on mesh networking, and Clay Shirky on why freedom ought to be a part of the infrastructure.

Broadband Strategy Week (Thanks, David!)

Nelson C sez, "Daryl Cunningham (a student mental health nurse based in London) is working on a comic book called Psychiatric Tales, due out in early 2010. On his LJ he posts a chapter on schizophrenia."

Schizophrenia (Thanks, Nelson!)

Mike Thompson's "Blood Lamp" is a single-use lantern that draws its energy from a drop of your blood, making you consider the cost of energy in a uniquely personal way.

For the lamp to work one breaks the top off, dissolves the tablet, and uses their own blood to power a simple light. By creating a lamp that can only be used once, the user must consider when light is needed the most, forcing them to rethink how wasteful they are with energy, and how precious it is.

Blood Lamp (via Cribcandy)

Sneakey is a project from Benjamin Laxton, Kai Wang, and Stefan Savage at the UCSD vision lab that has shown that it is possible to duplicate keys from photos taken at a distance and/or an angle. They've published a paper and are offering to release their code if there is "sufficient interest."

The access control provided by a physical lock is based on the assumption that the information content of the corresponding key is private --- that duplication should require either possession of the key or a priori knowledge of how it was cut. However, the ever-increasing capabilities and prevalence of digital imaging technologies present a fundamental challenge to this privacy assumption. Using modest imaging equipment and standard computer vision algorithms, we demonstrate the effectiveness of physical key teleduplication --- extracting a key's complete and precise bitting code at a distance via optical decoding and then cutting precise duplicates. We describe our prototype system, Sneakey, and evaluate its effectiveness, in both laboratory and real-world settings, using the most popular residential key types in the U.S.

Sneakey (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

As part of the ongoing serialization of my forthcoming novel MAKERS, Tor.com has commissioned Idiots' Books to produce 81 CC-licensed, interlocking illustrations, one for each installment. Periodically, Tor is adding these to a little Flash-toy that lets you rotate and realign the images like tiles (each has edge-elements that matches up with the others). They've just put up the 5X5 grid, which I'm finding addictively fun.

Makers Tile Game 5x5

How much design goodness can be packed onto a bottle cap? Judge for yourself.

Soda Caps Unused & Cork Lined

David and I love the 1979 movie Over the Edge, about youth run wild in a suburban cultural wasteland. The (out-of-print) soundtrack is terrific, and so were the kids in the movie (most were not professional actors).

On the 30th anniversary of the movie, Mike Sacks of Vice magazine put together an oral history of the movie with comments from 20 members of the cast and crew.

Jonathan Kaplan (director): I was only 30 when I was hired to do Over the Edge, but I had some unique experience, which helped. I had studied with Martin Scorsese when I was younger. And I had been the director of an infamous Sex Pistols movie called Who Killed Bambi?

What I took away from that experience was the spark and the truth that I saw in the punk aesthetic. And I saw that same spark and truth in the Over the Edge script. I thought, These kids are American punks. They’re not as articulate as the English punks, but they’re also in a rage.

With that in mind, I decided to attack Over the Edge from a punk angle: keep it simple. No fancy camera moves, visual effects, nothing fancy. I remember when I first saw Super Fly. There were boom shadows, badly shot scenes, and mistakes. But there was a simplicity and an authenticity to it that I really appreciated.

When it came time to cast Over the Edge, we tried to go for that same authenticity. We wanted real teens, as opposed to professional actors—and kids who were also age-appropriate. No twenty-somethings playing 14-year-olds.

Here's the Over the Edge trailer.

OVER THE EDGE: An Oral History of the Greatest Teen Rebellion Movie of All Time

Bassam Tariq resides in New York City. He is the co-author of the blog 30 Mosques which celebrated the NYC mosques during the blessed Islamic month of Ramadan


Iqbal Hussain is a controversial painter based in Pakistan. Not controversial in the Western sense - he's no Dash Snow or Andres Serrano - Iqbal showcases a side of Pakistan that many Pakistani's would rather not acknowledge.

I'm no expert on Hussain's work, so I'll quote excerpts from a fine article on All Things Pakistan written by Pervaiz Munir Alvi.

Iqbal's women are not nude or semi-naked or involved in some illicit acts as their profession might suggest. They are mostly some unknown and unremarkable women of modest looks and appearance.