A copyeditor at the Toronto Star greeted the news that union copyeditor jobs were being eliminated in favor of freelancers by heavily editing the publisher's memo announcing same, pointing out all the ways in which the publisher could benefit from editorial aid.

This is very funny stuff, but having looked at the markup, I have to say that I would ask for a different copyeditor in future. A lot of these edits ("avoid simplistic qualifiers" for "very") fall under the heading of "creative disagreement" not "helpful suggestion" or "correction." I've generally benefitted from copyeditors who know the difference, but on the rare occasion where I've had to deal with a couple hundred pages of redlines by a copyeditor who thought that he was my co-author, it's been quite a struggle.

Disgruntled Star Editor Takes Constructive Revenge (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

The Zoomquilt II, a 2007 sequel to the jarring Zoomquilt of 2004, is an even more hypnotic Flash zoom-through collaborative painting with bits from more than 30 different artists. Zoomquilt 2 (via @Chris_Carter)

I'm in the market for a new MP3 player -- my second-gen iPod Nano is finally dead, and I don't want to buy another iPod, or any other player with DRM built in. I figure that any company that wants to devote its engineers to figuring out how to frustrate my desires doesn't really want my business.

Who'd got a suggestion? I'm looking for something:

• * small (Nano-sized or smaller),

• * low-capacity (8GB is fine, all I use it for is podcasts),

• * chargeable and connectable with a standard USB cable,

• * reasonably rugged,

• * with an LCD,

• * capable of marking some files as podcasts or audiobooks and remembering where you stopped playing them, and,

• * most importantly, I'm looking for something that can be connected to a set of lanyard headphones like these

I don't care if it has WiFi or Bluetooth, or if it plays games, or if it has a "store" on the net that lets me get music for it directly. I just want a chunk of solid-state storage with a headphone jack and a decent menuing system and headphones I can wear around my neck so that they don't get tangled in things.

Suggestions? Feed the comments, below (don't send email, I'm taking a break from it for the weekend).

Master haunt modeller Ray Keim sez, "After a little bit of experimentation and a lot of patience, I figured out how to carve Putka Pods [ed: small, pumpkin-like dried seeds] into extremely tiny jack-o-lanterns!"

Putka Pod Possibilities! (Thanks, Ray!)

And Now, Some Ripped-From-the-Headlines Context.....

Christian sez, "Just now it has been announced in the press by the official Danish Anti-Piracy agency, Antipiratgruppen, that they are throwing in the towel and will seize their operations completely; to find and prosecute music copyright offenders. Here is a translation of the first published article in today's Danish press."

"We have to, because it is has been announced by the state court, that it takes very strong and concrete evidence to have these people prosecuted. We have simply not been able to establish the necessary evidence..."

An overview of Danish trials shows an extremely small possibility of getting sentenced - unless the the accused confesses. Four principal state court trials last year lead to three acquittals and only a single sentence for illegal file sharing. And this sentence only came into place because

"Out of the four cases we can establish, that the courts do not sentence owners of Internet connections simply because of technical identification of IP-adresses and technical recognition of files," they say.

Danish anti-piracy agency throw in the towel (Thanks, Christian!)

A British corporate law firm has created a new unit that will help easily offended corporate giants track down and sue anonymous Internet forum posters. They will also target whistle-blowers. They specialize in figuring out how to get ISPs to turn over their subscribers' personal information.

A spokeswoman for Wragge said: "Courts can compel Internet Service Providers or telephone service providers to make information available regarding registered names, email addresses and other key account holder information.

One growth area is identifying individuals involved in leaking confidential information, such as client or financial details, to competitor companies. With the help of employment law specialists, the team can assist both in finding the source of such leaks and advising on any subsequent employment aspects."

Birmingham Wragge team to focus on online comment defamation (via Futurismic)

Skeptics who believe that a university is actually a diploma mill often prove their point by enrolling their cats in the university's program and seeing whether the cat can get a degree. Some enterprising Wikipedians have assembled a list of several such cats.

Colby Nolan is a housecat who was awarded an MBA degree in 2004 by Trinity Southern University, a Dallas, Texas-based diploma mill, sparking a fraud lawsuit by the Pennsylvania attorney general's office.[1]...

Ben Goldacre, a UK-based science journalist, obtained a diploma in nutrition from the American Association of Nutritional Consultants for his dead cat, Henrietta, while investigating allegations about fake qualifications.[5]

List of cats with fraudulent diplomas (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

(Image: Count the cats!, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Eva 101's Flickr stream)

If you're a self-identified vampire, "otherkin" or "energy worker," there's a Meetup for you in the Bay Area.

The Vampirism, Energy-work and Otherkin Society (VEOS) is a loosely-organized San Francisco based group. This group is open those identifying as vampire (sang or psy), donor, otherkin, and to those who wish to learn more about such topics. Other energy-workers are also welcome, so long as you have no problem with the vampiric side of energy work.

This group is NOT open to role-players, recruiters of any type, or those seeking to promote any form of religion (discussion about religion is OK, preaching is not).

You know, I bet it's actually a pretty nice night out. As one member says, "we are all nice people and we have a good time when we get together."

Welcome to Bay VEOS (via JWZ)

We'll never know what was originally intended for this Techdirt tee, but we can see the aftermath of the takedown notice it attracted!

DMCA Takedown T-shirt (Thanks, Dennis!)

My latest Locus column, "Teen Sex," explains why I think young adult literature should have sex -- and other "mature" topics -- in it.

There's really only one question: "Why have your characters done something that is likely to upset their parents, and why don't you punish them for doing this?"

Now, the answer.

First, because teenagers have sex and drink beer, and most of the time the worst thing that results from this is a few days of social awkwardness and a hangover, respectively. When I was a teenager, I drank sometimes. I had sex sometimes. I disobeyed authority figures sometimes.

Mostly, it was OK. Sometimes it was bad. Sometimes it was wonderful. Once or twice, it was terrible. And it was thus for everyone I knew. Teenagers take risks, even stupid risks, at times. But the chance on any given night that sneaking a beer will destroy your life is damned slim. Art isn't exactly like life, and science fiction asks the reader to accept the impossible, but unless your book is about a universe in which disapproving parents have cooked the physics so that every act of disobedience leads swiftly to destruction, it won't be very credible. The pathos that parents would like to see here become bathos: mawkish and trivial, heavy-handed, and preachy.

Cory Doctorow: Teen Sex

BB pal Tim Biskup has a show of paintings and sculptures opening at the Barracuda Shop in Los Angeles next Friday evening, November 13. The show, titled "I Hate Everyone But You," will also feature prints by designer Matt Goldman and runs until December 3. Dig Biskup's psychedelic Vader above? Check out his take on Astroboy after the jump.

This "collectible" and curious coaster set from Wendy's is up for auction on eBay. The starting bid is $9.99. According the listing, "All pieces are in EXCELLENT condition except the corner of the cheese has a small chip but still very usable."
"Collectible Wendy’s Restaurant Hamburger Coaster Set" (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

It supports Windows, Linux, and Macintosh operating systems, will retail for $74.99, and is not a joke. [OpenOfficeMouse]

That is not Batman's boat but rather Earthrace, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society's ultraslick bio-diesel-powered anti-whaling speedboat. It's 80-feet long and very stealthy. Next month, it will head out to the seas around Japan to, er, protest the country's whaling industry. Life magazine has photos of Earthrace currently docked in Auckland, New Zealand. (Click image to see full photo by Phil Walter/Getty Images.) "Superbad Anti-Whaling Stealth Boat"

BocasResearchStation sez, "This video shows an octopus cleverly trying to camouflage itself amongst seaweed in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Hiding is the primary defense mechanism for these creatures, and this little guy is making use of branches of algae to try to get by unseen."

An Octopus Pretending to be Seaweed (Thanks, BocasResearchStation!)

Thessaly sez, "For those who wish Halloween wasn't over: Caitlin Roper holds the record for making the world's largest collection of jack-o-lantern grapes. She cut the lids of six grapes and hollowed them out before hand-carving faces into each one. They may also possibly be the world's SMALLEST jack-o-lanterns, but this is not verified."

Largest Collection Of Jack-O-Lantern Grapes (Thanks, Thessaly!)

The trailer above is for Between The Folds, a new feature documentary film presented by PBS's Independent Lens. You can view the whole film on PBS on December 8 or at one of Independent Television Service's free Community Cinema screenings upcoming around the country. From MAKE:

The film documents "a determined group of theoretical scientists and fine artists who have abandoned their careers and scoffed at their graduate degrees to forge new lives as modern-day paper folders."

Featured in the film are MIT's youngest-ever tenured professor Dr. Erik Demaine; mathematician, sculptor, puzzle maker, and self-taught computer scientist Marty Demaine; master free-style folder Vincent Floderer; pioneering Israeli educator Miri Golan; mathematics professor Dr. Tom Hull; trained artist and instructor Paul Jackson; one of the most technically accomplished folders in the world, Eric Joisel; one of only a few handmade origami papermakers in the world, Michael LaFosse; origami "hyper-realist" and physicist Dr. Robert J. Lang (who was profiled in CRAFT Volume 05); material artist with a masterful understanding of patterns and geometry, Chris K. Palmer; and the father of modern origami, Akira Yoshizawa.

More clips from the film after the jump!

Next year, the UK's Royal Mail will sell 1st class stamps that feature images of 10 famous British album covers. The postal service collaborated with music mag editors and design writers to come up with the list — interestingly, no Beatles albums were chosen, but artists represented include Led Zeppelin, The Clash, Pink Floyd, Coldplay, David Bowie, and The Rolling Stones.

I wish the USPS would do something like this instead of boring us with stamps decorated with bells and reindeers.

Studio Dempsey via Creative Review

James Kuhn is a Michigan-based artist who likes to paint his own face in the most intricate, creative ways. I love the one where he puckers up to represent a dog's butt. I've always wondered what my mouth would look like as an anus.

James Kuhn's Flickr via Web Urbanist

Marisa Kakoulas at the excellent tattoo blog Needles and Sins writes about Tattooed Under Fire, a documentary by Nancy Schiesari on the tattoos -- and lives -- of soldiers at Fort Hood. The film was created long before yesterday's mass shooting, and will air on public television stations around the country starting next week.

Fort Hood -- the largest US military facility in the world -- is a major center for soldiers being deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, and also houses the Army's Warrior Combat Stress Reset Program, which helps soldiers deal with post-traumatic stress when they return. In both cases, deployment and return home, soldiers work out heavy issues, and many seek tattooing as a way to express them or even see the process as therapy.

Tattooed Under Fire documents the young men and women at Fort Hood who seek solace at the tattoo studio, confessing fears, expressing anger, sharing secrets, and relaying personal war stories.

(Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

Related, on BB: An Insider's View of the Fort Hood Tragedy

This is the Glottal Opera, featuring the vocal chords of the band Kaya: Sally Stevens, Alexi Kaye, Emma Deans and Juleiaah Boehm. John Fink directed the video and Deborah Szapiro was producer. (Thanks, Dean Putney!)

It's been a good 20 years since I had a real hankering to wear Doc Marten's around, but I have to say I'm tempted by these skeleton boots whose bones glow in the freaking dark!

1914 BONES 14 EYE BOOT BLACK LAMPER (via Street Anatomy)

Michael Geist sez, "The latest round of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (the secret copyright treaty) talks have now wrapped up with the usual bland press release confirming that the talks focused on Internet and criminal enforcement, indicating that the next meeting will be in Mexico in January 2010, and pledging to complete the treaty as quickly as possible. More interesting is the unofficial release - the leaked document that provided the information on what the Internet enforcement chapter actually says."

The Leaked ACTA Document (Thanks, Michael!)

Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books.

On September 15, 2009, THE LOST SYMBOL came off press. Fans of THE DA VINCI CODE, with more than 80 million copies in print perhaps the bestselling novel of all time, were thrilled--they had been waiting for Dan Brown to write another book for six years. Random House, B&N, and Amazon were delighted; they moved more than a million copies in twenty four hours and another million copies by the end of the week; two months later, it still sits high atop the bestseller lists.

The Masons breathed a sigh of relief, because, even if Brown had sensationalized their secret rites and made them look a little silly (drinking wine out of skulls and all that--which come to think of it, is a lot less demeaning than donning fezzes and driving miniature cars in parades, which members of the Masonic fraternity called the Ancient Arab Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, better known as the Shriners, do right out in public), he portrayed them as men of reason, and implied that their ranks are still as crowded with the powerful and the wealthy -- Cabinet secretaries, plutocrats, Senators, Museum directors -- as they were two centuries ago, when they could count Goethe, Mozart, George Washington, Lafayette and Paul Revere among their members.

I was guardedly hopeful myself. With all those Masonic symbols on its cover, I figured that CULTS, CONSPIRACIES AND SECRET SOCIETIES stood a small chance of being captured by THE LOST SYMBOL's commercial gravity, much as a tiny planetesimal can get pulled into a gas giant's orbit. But happiest of all was Lynne McTaggart, the real-life author of THE FIELD and THE INTENTION EXPERIMENT, whose books and research in the field of Noetic Science are specifically cited in THE LOST SYMBOL's pages.

(Watch video: YouTube, Dotsub, or download MP4.)

A quick little goodie from Boing Boing Video. Last night, I sat in on a live recording session at Santa Monica's Village Studios with the Carolina Chocolate Drops, described as "African-American string band revivalists." They were amazing: I have never been so emotionally moved by someone playing a musical jug (and banjos, fiddles, cow bones, and kazoos). Their performance was witnessed by a handful of music biz folks and oldtime music enthusiasts, and made me feel deeply homesick for Appalachia (I'm also craving cornbread and butterbeans today - there's a song for that).

The Chocolate Drops have a new record coming out in 2010, and Boing Boing will be all over it like gravy on grits. If you dig R. Crumb, Smithsonian Folkways recordings of pre-blues and pre-bluegrass banjo music, and love folks who bring new life to authentic American music, you will flip out.

So, the video above: after the Drops' performance and recording session ended, Dom Flemons (of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, seated in center in the video), Blind Boy Paxton (seated at left in the video), and Frank Fairfield (seated far right) sat down together and jammed pure, sweet magic for a spell. I wasn't prepared with a proper camera or crew, but I grabbed my iPhonetraption out of my pocket and got to shootin'. I hope you enjoy it as much as everyone in the room did. Pure magic, these guys.

Yesterday, a shooter opened fire on America's largest Army base, killing 13 and injuring many more. As of this morning, 27 people were still in the hospital. The alleged shooter, Maj. Hasan Nidal Malik, was at first reported dead. Since then, it's been confirmed that he survived and is in custody.

The media, obviously, has been all over this. But one reporter--and a journalism school buddy of mine--Amanda Kim Stairrett, knows Fort Hood and the impact this incident has had on the Base better than most. Amanda Kim is the military editor at the Killeen Daily Herald. Her office is just down the road from the Fort's main entrance and she's been covering military news for more than four years, since before she graduated college. Fort Hood is her beat and this community is a central part of her life.

I called Amanda Kim this morning to get her perspective on the shooting and its aftermath. In our interview, she talked about the confusion that followed the shooting, the history of violence at Fort Hood, the way media circus impacts soldiers' families, and why she won't do speculative reporting.

Mark blogged earlier the very special benefit event for Machine Project taking place on the evening of Saturday, November 7 at Mister Jalopy's personal studio in LA this weekend -- and, well, dammit, I'm blogging about it again.

I stopped by the space a few days ago to see how preparations were going, and HOO BOY, if you can afford the fundraiser tickets (I know times are tough for many), they're really going to great effort to construct what is sure to be an amazing event. And, of course, all proceeds benefit one of the world's coolest independent tech-art institutions. If you love something like that, you have to feed it, and Mister Jalopy's going to feed it lasers and pizza.

For starters, Jalopy's "awe-inspiring Silverlake studio is almost never open to the public," as Mark said, but I saw the stuff they're constructing: laser mazes, fake museum ID creation stations, an industrial pizza oven, all kinds of crazy crafty Maker pranky goodness.

More about the event from Dinosaurs and Robots...

November 9 would have been Carl Sagan's 75th birthday. To celebrate the man, his work and the awesome wonderment of science, Broward College in Davie, Florida is hosting the first ever Carl Sagan Day tomorrow (Saturday the 7th). If you're in that area, they've got a whole day's worth of activities going on---from planetarium shows and stargazing, to a "Cosmos" marathon, to appearances by Bad Astronomy blogger Phil Plait and James "The Amazing" Randi (who was a personal friend of Sagan's).

The majority of us not conveniently located in southern Florida, however, will have to find other ways to celebrate. Perhaps you've already got a Beethoven's Birthday-style public march planned, but, if not, you can at least enjoy some fine video tributes. BoingBoing already linked to the soothing memorial techno remix of Sagan's "Cosmos" PBS show, so I'm going to go in a different direction and offer you one of his last interviews, from May of 1996, on Charlie Rose. Among other things, Sagan talks about his (then) new book (and one of my favorites), "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark". Enjoy.

Thanks to the Bad Astronomy blog for the holiday tip-off!

Though for die-hard RPG nuts it'll have been a red letter week with the release of Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins, it hasn't been enough to wean me off my daily regimen of pushing further into the Borderlands and compulsively playing through the two levels that make up the Left 4 Dead 2 demo (above, now fully released to the public) with each character, hoping for just one more scrap of rarely-triggered dialogue to more fully flesh out just who these characters are that I'll be spending most of the winter with.

But it's without any facetiousness that I admit that there's one game release this week that's particularly pricked my ear:

Joe R Lansdale's comic book adaptation of Robert E "Conan" Howard's classic horror story Pigeons From Hell has everything going for it: a spooky original story to adapt, a masterful horror writer on the adaptation, and terrifying art and colors by Nathan Fox and Dave Stewart. Together, they are a potent mix of gore, suspense, folklore, and terror.

Howard's original story is a much-loved gothic bayou horror classic, about a haunted house where the blood of slaves and the cruelty of their masters wreak a curse on a huge, rotting mansion. Lansdale's update of the story -- the new protagonists are a pair of sisters descended from the slaves who inherited the house from their masters; they go to take possession with their friends in a kind of Scooby Doo pack -- only lightly changes the material, leaving the scare intact.

But best of all is Fox's art and Stewart's coloring, which are blood-soaked, entrail-laden, and painted in an eerie palette.

If you like a good scare -- and creepy, gothic art -- then this is your thing. Many thanks to Dark Horse for supplying a review copy.

Pigeons From Hell

Image via Sandy Austin's Flickr

People always ask me what I like to do in Tokyo. What's fun? What's cool. Well here's my dirty secret. Most nights, I sit in my parents' living room and watch silly game shows while drinking green tea and eating persimmon.

Jeff sez, "'Guerrilla archivist' Rick Prelinger is once again joining forces with the Long Now Foundation for the 4th in his series of screenings titled, 'Lost Landscapes of San Francisco.' In the first talk of this series, Rick unveiled a jaw-dropping, now-famous restoration of a first-person perspective streetcar ride up Market Street, circa 1905."

As in past years, Lost Landscapes 4 will be an eclectic montage of rediscovered and rarely-seen film clips showing life, landscapes, labor and leisure in a vanished San Francisco as captured by amateurs, newsreel cameramen and industrial filmmakers.

This year's Lost Landscapes will include much new and unseen material from Prelinger Archives and other collections, including newly discovered films shot by longtime San Francisco residents. Unlike most film screenings, Lost Landscapes relies on audience members for the soundtrack -- we encourage viewers to interact with the film, shout out questions and identify mystery scenes.

Rick Prelinger's Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 4 « Spots Unknown San Francisco (Thanks, Jeff!)

The Succeedblog is a lovely, optimistic, "wonderful things" approach to the web -- rather than amusing its readers with pictures of bad things, captioned with "FAIL," it focuses on pictures of great things, captioned with "SUCCEED". Lovely.

Succeedblog (via Make)

The Brainwave Sofa is a sofa modelled on your very own brainwaves. Stop thinking spiky thoughts. Try to think, you know, cushy. Soft. Inviting. That's it. Right there. Hold it now. Print!

Dutch industrial designer Lucas Maassen, co-designer of the Brainwave Sofa with Belgian designer Dries Verbruggen (of Unfold), had his brain activity measured at the EPI (Eindhoven Psychology Institute) while he closed his eyes for 3 seconds. The moment a person closes his eyes, during this measurement, the Alpha-activity becomes 8 to 12 Hertz larger. This Alpha-activity prepares the brain for multiplication of the visual stimuli when the eyes are opened again. Such a measurement creates a 3D Landscape of (brain)waves, which looks different with every measurement. This three dimensional form, in other words is a unique display.

Brainwave sofa by Unfold & Lucas Maassen (via Medgadget)

Popular Science is reporting that a piece of bread, dropped by a passing bird, has managed to damage the Large Hadron Collider.

The bird dropped some bread on a section of outdoor machinery, eventually leading to significant over heating in parts of the accelerator. The LHC was not operational at the time of the incident, but the spike produced so much heat that had the beam been on, automatic failsafes would have shut down the machine.

If this really is the work of time-traveling Higgs boson particles, however, they're demonstrating a lot of creativity, but not a lot of competence. The Bird Incident won't delay the reactivation of the facility, which is still scheduled for later this month.

Baguette Dropped From Bird's Beak Shuts Down the Large Hadron Collider (Really), Popular Science. You should follow the link just to see their illustration "according to eyewitness accounts". Via stevesilberman.