Dan Howland has made his amazing theme-park zine omnibus, The Journal of Ride Theory Omnibus, available as a free PDF download -- and he's thrown in his great book Dome and Domer: The Increasingly Stupid Story of the Millennium Dome along with it! Link (Thanks, Dan!)

See also: Journal of Ride Theory amazing zine is now an amazing book

Matt Mason, author of The Pirate's Dilemma, sez, "Jesse Alexander (producer of Heroes and Lost) and I have been working on turning The Pirate's Dilemma into a TV show, we've just put a teaser up for what that show might look like here: Jesse read the book and saw the pirates I talked about from the worlds of youth culture as real life heroes - people with no special powers who managed to to turn society and old business models upside down with superhuman strength. We connected and started working on this idea, along with John Carluccio and Mark Kotlinski from CurrentTV. The trailer is an early sketch of where we are going with this.

"Also I finally got my publishers to put the book out as a pay-what-you-want PDF!" Link to video, Link to downloadable PDF (Thanks, Matt!)

See also:
Pirate's Dilemma slideshow video -- pirates will save the world
Pirate's Dilemma author's speech: "To get rich off pirates, copy them"

Guilherme sez, "June 30th is the 50th birthday of NAACP v. Alabama, a landmark case protecting the right of association. Alabama's efforts to expel the NAACP from its state included its demand of the NAACP's membership list. The Supreme Court struck down this demand, noting the importance of associational privacy for dissent: "Inviolability of privacy in group association may in many circumstances be indispensable to preservation of freedom of association, particularly where a group espouses dissident beliefs"" In commemoration of the birthday, the Electronic Privacy Information Center is hosting an essay written by Law Professor Anita Allen at the link: 'NAACP v. Alabama, Privacy and Data Protection.' Some excerpts:"

In NAACP v. Alabama, the Court affirmed that the constitutional rights of speech and assembly include a right of private group association. The idea that Americans are free to join private groups was not new in 1958. However, the Court's decision to allow private groups to keep membership information confidential was an important constitutional milestone."

Whether handwritten on lined paper or stored electronically in a computer system, membership data is constitutionally protected from mandatory disclosure.

The fact that technology has made it easier to collect, store and share data revealing individuals’ group memberships should be of no consequence. The principles of expressive private association, confidentiality and anonymity embodied in the NAACP case should have an abiding place in the jurisprudence of every enlightened democracy.

Link (Thanks, Guilherme!)

Yoder sez, "Bill Jakob, a former trucking company owner with law enforcement experience, spent 'several months' pretending to be a federal agent in the town of Gerald, MO. Jakob apparently spent his time aggressively busting drug suspects, with the complicity of the local police department, claiming 'he did not need search warrants to enter their homes because he worked for the federal government.'"

Gosh, I guess that spending seven years telling everyone that the War on Terror demands that we defer to authority and trust in secrecy means that we end up being credulous patsies for con-artists -- who could have foreseen it?

The strange adventures of Sergeant Bill have led to the firing of three of the town’s five police officers, left the outcome of a string of drug arrests in doubt, prompted multimillion-dollar federal civil rights lawsuits by at least 17 plaintiffs and stirred up a political battle, including a petition seeking the impeachment of Mr. Schulte, over who is to blame for the mess.

And the questions keep coming. How did Mr. Jakob wander into town and apparently leave the mayor, the aldermen and pretty much everyone else he met thinking that he was a federal agent delivered from Washington to help barrel into peoples’ homes and clean up Gerald’s drug problem? And why would anyone — receiving no pay and with no known connection to little Gerald, 70 miles from St. Louis and not even a county seat — want to carry off such a time-consuming ruse in the first place?

Link (Thanks, Yoder!)

The US's "Terrorism Liaison Officer" program is being expanded -- this is a program that trains utility workers and other government employees to snitch on people whom they deem "suspicious" and embroil them in a never-ending round of Orwellian surveillance and background checks.

Because nothing helps us find the terrorist needles in the haystack like inviting every junior G-Man in the land to make the haystacks larger!

In Colorado, TLOs report not only illegal but legal activity, such as bulk purchases along Colorado’s Front Range of up to 150 disposable cellphones. TLO supervisors said these bulk buys were suspicious because similar phones are used as remote detonators for bombs overseas and can be re-sold to fund terrorism.

Taking photos or videos can be deemed suspicious because “surveillance is a precursor to terrorist activity,” said Colorado State Patrol Sgt. Steve Garcia, an analyst in Colorado’s intelligence fusion center south of Denver, which handles TLO-supplied information.

Colorado, California and Arizona are among the first to deploy TLOs after establishing robust state-run fusion centers, which initially relied on tips from private citizens. Federal security agents now sit in 25 of those centers, including Colorado’s.

Link

John sez, "Frances Pinter and David Percy have made a short documentary film about business models in the publishing world that use Creative Commons licenses. Frances has been heading a CC-based publishing project called the Publishing and Alternative Licensing Model of Africa (PALM Africa). It is based in Uganda, and South Africa." Link (Thanks, John!)

Eric sez, "Instructables user madhatter1138 meticulously interpreted the 'Jungle Cruise' ride at Disneyland into a backyard playhouse for his lucky daughters. He posted a slideshow of the construction and the finished product up on the site." Link (Thanks, Eric!)

Scott says:

One of my favorite comics from the last year is The Amazing Joy Buzzards, an over-the-top title about the world's greatest rock 'n roll adventure band. With their trusty sidekick, the mythical Mexican wrestling genie, El Campeon, in tow, the Buzzards hop from one fast-paced adventure to the next, saving mankind from monsters, super-villains and evil beasties while living the rock 'n roll lifestyle to the fullest. Writer Mark Andrew Smith (Aqua Leung, Pop Gun) and and Artist Dan Hipp (GYAKUSHU!) have created a zany tour de force that will remind any reader that comics can still be fun without sacrificing story. Image Comics has just released a new "director's cut" super-deluxe trade paperback.

Amazing Joy Buzzards Volume 1: Here Come The Spiders ($14.99 at Amazon) | ($15.99 at Heavy Ink)

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets we spotted a weird Rubik cube, overclocked a Mac Pro that none of us actually own; and wondered how one fits a headphone amp in a CD-ROM drive.

What is it we do? We covet. John wants an MSI Wind running Leopard and a brilliant Invader Zim sculpture; Joel wants a vestal grenade watch and a kegerator-cum-boombox on his hitch; and Rob wants a Sound Chaser to pipe audio unicorn chasers into his ears after every bad phone is announced.

There was a hippy control net; classic flip clocks; a frightening Gigermobile; a homemade autogiro from China; an unexpectedly-useful ladybug gadget; a GLaDOS GPS hack; and a disconcerting Elvis Terminator thing.

Let there be music! If you don't like the AirPiano, try the Time Harp. The visual arts, however, are a different matter: destruction in the name of beauty and a video card with an identity crisis.

Lastly, loose lips won't sink ships with the flying dildo drone.

A few years ago, my friends Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate converted a civil service vehicle into the SS Alphafox, a fire-spitting rover straight out of 1960s science fiction. Now, they're transforming an old VW Bug into a snail. From the project description:

The snail will be roughly 12 feet long, 6 feet wide, and 8 feet high. The body and head will be built out of scrap galvanized metal cut into scales and the shell will be shaped from perforated steel. The structure of the shell and its growth rings will have Jon’s trademark rivet detail. The shell will offer a great opportunity for a beautiful patina job. The snail will be driven from a bench seat set back into the shell. To do this, we are extending the power and steering mechanisms up and back. This is all built on a Volkswagon Beetle frame that is completely stripped.

We are working out the light scheme; we would like something to outline the shape of the snail and the means for the shell to glow from within. We are also working out the details of the details; amber antique headlights, small brass touches on handles, a tiny “hobbit” door to enter the shell. Being Jon, the snail will have a bit of fire on it; 2 small fire poofers out of its antennae.

Snail car (Form and Reform)

Previously on BB:
• Jon Sarriugarte's fire and metal art

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration is testing faux speed bumps that are painted on the road. Their substance is merely an optical illusion, but apparently they slow people down. Until they realize the bumps are two dimensional anyway. From the Associated Press:

The 3-D markings are appealing because, at $60 to $80 each, they cost a fraction of real speed bumps (which can run $1,000 to $1,500) and require little maintenance, said Richard Simon, deputy regional administrator for the highway safety administration.

On one of three streets tested in the Phoenix trial, the percentage of drivers who obeyed the 25 mph speed limit nearly doubled. But the effect wore off after a few months.

"Initially they were great," said the Phoenix Police traffic coordinator, Officer Terry Sills. "Until people found out what they were."

Fake speed bumps (Associated Press)

I've had rotten luck with voice recorders. Quite a few micro-cassette recorders have conked out on me over the years (sometimes while conducting interviews for magazine articles). Once I used a minidisc recorder and ejected the disk without first stopping the recording and I lost everything.

When I interviewed Martha Stewart for Wired last year, I used both a tape recorder and a microphone attachment for my iPod to record our conversation. When we sat down to talk, I decided at the last second to I pull out my laptop and used the built-in mic to record the conversation.

When I got back to the hotel room and turned on my three recording devices, I learned that the tape recorder and iPod didn't record the conversation (probably my fault), but the laptop recording was OK. If I hadn't used the laptop, I would have been dead in the water. No way would Martha have granted me another interview.

Currently I'm writing a book about DIY, and I'm interviewing a bunch of alpha-DIYers. As I'll be walking around talking to people in their yards, workshops, launch-sites, compounds, and so on, using a computer to record my interviews with them is not practical. Last week I bought an Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder. So far, it's worked beautifully. The interface was pretty easy to figure out, and the built-in USB plug is very handy. I just stick it my computer and it mounts like a disk. I copy the file (WMA format -- bummer) and use ffmpegX to convert it to MP3. Then I use the excellent Listen&Type to play the audio file when I transcribe.

It uses a single AAA battery (advertised to run 21 hours per battery), and you can switch the microphone between dictation and conference mode. The 256 MB of flash memory records almost 18 hours in the high quality mode (which is what I use) and 69 hours in the lowest-quality mode. I guess you could use the thing as a jump drive, too.

I'll let you know if this thing let's me down, but so far I have a good feeling about it.

Olympus WS-110 ($64.68 at Amazon)

(via Joey deVilla)

Brian says:

I called Bank of America to request a credit line increase. They asked me to enroll in the Credit Protection Plus program and I declined. But today they sent me this letter congratulating me on enrolling and explaining the program fees.

A few bloggers (myself included) are quite unhappy with Bank of America. What happens is this:

1. We call their 800 number for a routine transaction

2. They offer us enrollment in one of those shady "credit protection plus" programs

3. *we decline*

4. Two weeks later, we get a letter thanking us for enrolling, and telling us what the charges are

I've also setup a Credit Protection Plus Fraud PBwiki to help organize ourselves in the fight against them. Please add your story if you've been victimized by Bank of America.

Bank of America: enrolls you in "Credit Protection Plus" without your permission (dustball@Mindsay)

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Bank of America loses $50 million from customers upset by false arrest

The funny people who run the American Family Association’s OneNewsNow site are so frightened of gays that they've set up a filter to change every instance of the word "gay" to "homosexual."

And while they may have fixed this particular instance, it looks like they haven't gone back through their archives and corrected other articles where this happened, such as this article where professional basketball player Rudy Gay is referred to as "Rudy Homosexual."

The Dangers of Auto-Replace (Right Wing Watch)

The talented artisans at Pressure Printing are now offering this lovely intoglio print by the amazing Audrey Kawasaki. A limited edition of 50, the 8-3/4" x 12-3/4" print is embossed and hand-colored by Audrey. The work is titled Okimiyage, which means "a parting gift" or a "rememberance."
Audrey Kawasaki print (Pressure Printing)

Previously on BB:
• Audrey Kawsaki: Juxtapoz profile
• Audrey Kawasaki interview on MacTribe
• Audrey Kawasaki at Roq La Rue

Carleton Watkins was a critically-acclaimed landscape photographer in the 19th century. His photos of Yosemite are considered groundbreaking examples of stereoscopic photography. Smithsonian has a feature on Watkins and a pleasant narrated slideshow about his Yosemite 3D photographs. From Smithsonian:

In July of 1861 (Watkins) went to Yosemite--with a dozen mules to carry his mammoth plate camera, which uses 18 by 22 inch glass plate negatives; a stereoscopic camera; tripods; glass plates; chemicals; other supplies and a tent for a darkroom. The trails into and through the valley were spectacularly scenic, but also treacherous.

Watkins returned from Yosemite with 30 mammoth plate and 100 stereoscopic negatives. They were quickly revered as images of superb technical and artistic quality. Watkins explained that he was just able to select the spot which "would give the best view." He was also a patient and precise camera and developing process technician. One reviewer admired Watkins' photographs for their "clearness, strength and softness of tone." In part because of Watkins' Yosemite pictures, in 1864 Congress passed and President Lincoln signed legislation preserving Yosemite Valley. The law was an important first step in the creation of the National Park Service in 1916. In 1865, Mount Watkins in Yosemite was named after Carleton Watkins.

Carleton Watkins (Smithsonian)

A Seero user mapped video of the famous car chase scene from Steve McQueen's Bullit (1968) onto Google Maps. The creator, "Steve McQueen," says: I'm a huge fan of 'the king of cool' and of all movie car-chase scenes. I thought it would be great to mashup famous chases with their GPS tracks. Keep in mind some of the chases cut from one place to another...so I tried to be as accurate as possible. Bullit car chase (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

UK-based Russell Porter chronicles alt music culture in the Porter Report with aggressive wit and offbeat charm.

Today, part two of his exclusive interview for Boing Boing tv with the rap / IDM / hiphop / house / genre-bending artist Cadence Weapon, aka Rollie Pemberton, who hails from Edmonton, Canada.

Cadence Weapon, who is 22 years old, is touring Europe and US throughout the summer. Dates are listed -- where else? -- on his MySpace, along with various blinky things. His newest record Afterparty Babies was just released on Epitaph, and is, as the kids say, fierce.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloads, and instructions for subscribing to the daily BBtv video podcast.

Air India pilots flying passengers from Dubai to Mumbai allegedly fell asleep en route, reports the Times of India. According to the newspaper, the plane overshot Mumbai on autopilot and went halfway to Goa before air traffic control finally woke the pilots. Air India denies it. From AFP:

Air India on Thursday said a plane had overshot its Mumbai destination on June 4 but furiously denied it was because the pilots were sleeping, putting the glitch down to a brief communications breakdown.

"The report is absolutely incorrect, devoid of facts, misleading and irresponsible. It is a figment of imagination," Air India spokesman Jitender Bhargava told AFP by telephone from Mumbai.

"We have gone through the flight reports of the last 30 days. A plane did cross Mumbai for 15 kilometres because it had lost contact for a few moments. At those speeds 15 kilometres is covered in a very short time."

Sleeping pilots? (AFP, via Fortean Times)

A group of interdisciplinary researchers are studying whistles, flutes, and other noisemakers found at pre-Columbian sites in South Central America. For example, archaeologists exploring an Aztec temple discovered a human skeleton holding an unusual skull-shaped whistle in each hand. The researchers dubbed the instrument's wail, the "Whistle of Death." The Associated Press has an article on the topic of pre-Columbian noisemakers including sound samples (snip of photo by Alexandre Meneghini):

The Aztecs sounded the low, foghorn hum of conch shells at the start of ceremonies and possibly during wars to communicate strategies. Hunters likely used animal-shaped ocarinas to produce throaty grunts that lured deer.

The modern-day archaeologists who came up with the term Whistles of Death believe they were meant to help the deceased journey into the underworld, while tribes are said to have emitted terrifying sounds to fend off enemies, much like high-tech crowd-control devices available today.

Experts also believe pre-Columbian tribes used some of the instruments to send the human brain into a dream state and treat certain illnesses. The ancient whistles could guide research into how rhythmic sounds alter heart rates and states of consciousness.

Pre-Columbian sounds (Associated Press)

Naxos produces fantastic, professionally read audiobooks of contemporary and classic lit -- and they distribute them on CD and as DRM-free, watermark-free MP3s. Basically, this is a company that assumes you're a valued customer, not a dirty thief. They're pioneers in the growing field of DRM-free audiobook providers, who, unlike market-leader Audible (a division of Amazon) allow publishers and writers to decide whether or not they want to their books crippled with DRM.

Back when Amazon bought Audible, they claimed that they would drop DRM if there was enough public outcry and now they claim that something may be in the works, but no one has seen any DRM-free audiobooks from Audible, and no one at Audible is available to do a deal for DRM-free books.

In the meantime, I was lucky enough to meet the Naxos folks at Book Expo America in LA last month and they were absolutely charming. I asked them if they'd be willing to post some MP3s of their stuff for the benefit of Boing Boing readers and they were only too happy to -- so now you can download a free Sherlock Holmes story (the gloriously titled "Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle") and the first chapter of Tom Sawyer (including Twain's inspiring introduction).

I love having the chance and the choice to support audiobook companies that respect readers' rights and the author's right to decide whether DRM should be larded onto his books. Naxos's MP3 store works great and is filled with wonderful titles for your delectation. Link

Check out this clip of Canadian NDP MP Bill Siksay from Burnaby-Douglas, speaking in Parliament about the Canadian DMCA. Siskay also co-sponsored Charlie Angus' Net Neutrality Bill. It's great to have copyfighters like these in government -- gives me hope for Canada! Link (Thanks, Charlie!)

Tom Coates's 2006 rant about the pace of change and the TV industry is as fantastic today as it was two years ago: in it, he takes issue with the entertainment execs who say that they can't be blamed for their failure to come to grips with new technology -- after all, everything is changing so quickly!

I'm completely bored of this rhetoric of endless insane change at a ludicrous rate, and cannot actually believe that people are taking it seriously. We've had iPods and digital media players for what - five years now? We've had Tivo for a similar amount of time, computers that can play DVDs for longer, music and video held in digital form since the eighties, an internet that members of the public have been building and creating upon for almost fifteen years. TV only got colour forty odd years ago, but somehow we're expected to think that it's built up a tradition and way of operating that's unable to deal with technological shifts that happen over decades!? This is too fast for TV!? That's ridiculous! This isn't traditional media versus a rebellious newcomer, this is a fairly reasonable and incremental technology change that anyone involved in it could have seen coming from miles away. And it's not even like anyone expects television or radio to change enormously radically over the next couple of decades! I mean, we're swtiching to digital broadcasting in the UK in a few years, which gives people a few more channels. Radio's not going to be fully digital for decades. Broadcast is still going to be a dominant form of content distribution in ten and maybe twenty years time, it just won't be the only one. And five years from now there will clearly be more bottom-up media, just as there are more weblogs now than five years ago, but I'd be surprised if it had really eradicated any major media outlets. These changes are happening, they're definitely happening, but they're happening at a reasonable, comprehendible pace. There are opportunities, of course, and you have to be fast to be the first mover, but you don't die if you're not the first mover - you only die if you don't adapt.

My sense of these media organisations that use this argument of incredibly rapid technology change is that they're screaming that they're being pursued by a snail and yet they cannot get away! 'The snail! The snail!', they cry. 'How can we possibly escape!?. The problem being that the snail's been moving closer for the last twenty years one way or another and they just weren't paying attention. Because if we're honest, if you don't want or need to be first and you don't need to own the platform, it can't be hard to see roughly where this environment is going. Media will be, must be, transportable in bits and delivered to TV screens and various other players. And there will be enormous archives available that need to be explorable and searchable. And people will create content online and distribute it between themselves and find new ways to express themselves. Changes in the mechanics of those distributions and explorations will happen all the time, but really the major shift is not such a surprise, surely? I mean, how can it be!? Most of it has been happening in an unevenly distributed way for years anyway. And it's not like it's enormously hard to see what you've got to do to prepare for this - find a way to digitise the content, get as much information as possible about the content, work out how to throw it around the world, look for business models and watch the bubble-up communities for ideas. That's it. Come on, guys! There's hard work to be done, but it's not in observing the trends or trying to work out what to do, it's in just getting on with the work of sorting out rights and data and digitisation and keeping in touch with ideas from the ground. This should be the minimum a media organisation should do, not some terrifying new world of fear!

Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

Dave sez, "Spotted this Google-themed sari in a fancy shopping mall in Gurgaon, India (the tech hub south of Delhi). I couldn't get the backstory because (proving that India is nearing Western standards in every way!) a guard started rushing over to bust me for taking pictures."

I guess it really is true, what they say: Working for Google means never having to say you're sari. Link (Thanks, Dave!)

Neatorama's got a roundup of the dumbest anti-terrorism patents: no technology is too stupid and expensive to defend us against imaginary bombs!

U.S. Patent 6844817, Aircraft anti-terrorism security system, by Wolfgang Gleine. Issued Jan 18, 2005.

Problem: Terrorists want to hijack a plane by trying to break down the cockpit door.

Solution: After hardening the cockpit door, airlines should add the next logical step: airplane trap door that springs open to entrap terrorists below deck.

Bonus: Great prank to pull on the co-pilot going on a bathroom break.

Improvement Suggestion: Add an alligator pit to the trap door ...

Link (via Schneier)

Stones Edges offers free samples of their papercraft game-terrain -- check out the full (and reasonably priced) sets, which allow you to build entire, elaborate multi-level scenes out of paper and glue. And the free stuff's great too: Whose desk wouldn't benefit from some 1" paper crates? Link (Thanks, Eclecticos!)

Jacob sez, "Some of the cigarette vending machines in Japan use a camera to do age verification. They can be tricked by holding up something so simple as a photograph from a magazine. Pwned."

When the reporter went to check out the new age-verifying machines after they were introduced in the Osaka area in June, he soon discovered that the machines equipped with face-recognition cameras would let him buy cigarettes when he held up a 15-centimeter (6-in) wide magazine photo of a man who looked to be in his 50s.

The reporter also went to Kobe, where different face recognition hardware is being used. There, he bought cigarettes using an 8-centimeter (3-in) wide magazine photo of a female celebrity in her 30s. He also reportedly tried to use a 3-centimeter (1-in) wide photo, but the machines rejected it.

Link (Thanks, Jacob!)

In today's NYT, an obituary for David Caminer, "the first corporate electronic systems analyst." He worked for the Lyons chain of tea shops in the UK, and developed early ways to use computers for business purposes in the 1950s, "including standardizing flavorful, cost-effective cups of tea." He died June 19 in London, at age 92. Snip:

The death was announced by the Leo Computers Society, whose purpose is to keep alive the memory of LEO, the computer Mr. Caminer helped develop for J. Lyons & Company. It was the world’s first business computer, a distinction certified by Guinness World Records.

Lyons was the first company in the world to computerize its commercial operations, partly because it had so many of them: it had more than 200 teahouses in London and its suburbs, with each Lyons Corner House daily generating thousands of paper receipts and needing scores of fresh baked items.

In addition to running the tea shops, Lyons catered large events like tennis at Wimbledon and garden parties at Windsor Castle; it also operated hotels, laundries, and ice cream, candy and meat pie companies. And, of course, tea plantations.

As a result, the company required exceptionally efficient office support. So it was only natural it would look at the “electronic brains” that scientists in the United States were developing for scientific and military purposes as a way to streamline its own empire. Mr. Caminer’s role was finding ways to retain traditional clerical rigor while speeding up the company’s logistics and finances many times over.

David Caminer, a Pioneer in Computers, Dies at 92 [NYT]

See also: LEO Computers Website, "the LEO Computers Society, membership of which is open to all ex-employees of LEO Computers and its succeeding companies, and anyone who worked on a LEO computer."

pie tins in space
cookie jars
red eye rice treats
guinness cupcakes
thorax cake (shown above)
i like cake
bag

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

Devo is suing McDonald's over New Wave Nigel, a toy that the fast food restaurant gives away with some Happy Meals. New Wave Nigel is part of an American Idol-related line of freebies based on various genres of music. From AAP:

"We are in the midst of suing them," (Devo's Jerry) Casale told AAP.

"This New Wave Nigel doll that they've created is just a complete Devo rip-off and the red hat is exactly the red hat that I designed, and it's copyrighted and trademarked.

"They didn't ask us anything. Plus, we don't like McDonald's, and we don't like American Idol, so we're doubly offended."

Devo sues McDonald's (Stuff.co.nz, thanks Tara McGinley!)

Oh no! Walt Disney World's Adventurer's Club -- a wonderfully eccentric nightclub/cabaret that features "on stage" character actors as well as remote-controlled robotic masks, puppets, instruments, stools, and other gags that interact with the guests -- is scheduled to close!

The Adventurer's Club is hands-down the coolest and most interesting attraction at Disney World, but it resides in the otherwise drab and uninteresting Pleasure Island nightclub district, which is going to shut down, and take the Adventurer's Club with it.

A group of Club fans is circulating an online petition. I'm not sure it'll do any good, but I've signed it.

The Adventurers Club has no equal. It is a unique treasure at Walt Disney World and does not deserve to be lumped into the same category as the other "night clubs" on Pleasure Island. We humbly request that it be allowed to stay open, even if it needs to be moved, refurbished, updated, and/or more heavily advertised. A lot of people do not know what this club is all about, but those that do find it a highlight of their trip.

Link

I wish I knew more about these downright hostile signs. (via A Guide to all things tacky fabulous in Orlando, FL)

Dawn sez,

Strange Horizons's fund-raising drive started June 1st, and we'd hoped to end it by the end of the month, but it looks as though we will need to extend it, as we've only met our goal halfway. Our goal this year is $6,000 and we're doing things a little bit differently than we have in previous years. This year we are giving away prizes mid-drive. Prizes are being awarded to random bloggers--if someone posts a blog about our fund drive during a given week, they are entered into our drawing for that week's prize. This week, the winner of the blogger incentive prize will win a piece of fiction written by Tim Pratt exclusively for this prize. The winner will receive a hand written copy and also two of Tim's books. We are also giving away prize packages when we reach different amounts: $2,000, $4,000, and $6,000 dollars, respectively. The winners of those drawings will receive Escape Pod: Collections 1-5, a five-disc set containing the complete archives of the first thirty months of episodes from Escape Pod.

We're a nonprofit online speculative fiction magazine that pays professional rates for fiction; we're run by a staff of volunteers; we've published new material every week, freely available online, for nearly 8 years (and almost all of it is still available in our archives), including fiction, poetry, articles, reviews, art, and columns; we're funded entirely by donations, in a sort of public-radio-like model; in the US, donations to us are tax-deductible. Stuff we publish gets picked up regularly for Year's Best reprint volumes. Last year a story we published was on the Nebula ballot and another was on the Hugo ballot. Also, our Editor-in-chief, Susan Marie Groppi, was nominated for the World Fantasy Award.

Link (Thanks, Dawn!)

My friend Joe Hutsko contacted with the intriguing offer to serialize his novel, The Deal, on Boing Boing. I jumped at the chance. I read The Deal when it first came out in 1999 and loved the thrilling story about a Apple-like company's undertaking to create an iPhone-like device.

Here's a link to Chapter 04 as a PDF or a text file. (Here's chapter 1 and an introduction to the book, and here are the previous chapters)

To buy a paperback copy of the book, visit JOEyGADGET or purchase directly from Amazon.

Harpo Marx -- my second-favorite Marx brother -- explains the origin of the Gookie, his magnificent, world-beating funny-face (there was a fantastic Animaniacs version of this -- post links to it in the comments below if you know where it lives online!)

Gookie was funny enough to look at when he wasn’t working, but when he got up to full speed rolling cigars he was something to see. It was a marvel how fast his stubby fingers could move. And when he got going good he was completely lost in his work, so absorbed that he had no idea what a comic face he was making. His tongue lolled out in a fat roll, his cheeks puffed out, and his eyes popped out and crossed themselves.

I used to stand there and practice imitating Gookie’s look for fifteen, twenty minutes at a time, using the window glass as a mirror. He was too hypnotized by his own work to notice me. Then one day I decided I had him down perfect--tongue, cheeks, eyes, the whole bit.

Over the years, in every comedy act or movie I ever worked in, I’ve “thrown a Gookie” at least once. It wasn’t always planned, especially in our early vaudeville days. If we felt the audience slipping away, fidgeting and scraping their feet through our jokes, Groucho or Chico would whisper in panic, “Ssssssssssst! Throw me a Gookie!” The fact that it seldom failed to get a laugh is quite a tribute to the original possessor of the face.

Link (via Kottke)

The Guardian's Marina Hyde discusses the rampant abuse of CCTV spy-cameras placed by local governments -- the junior G-Men who use cameras to follow women with cute butts around town.

. A couple of months ago it was discovered that Poole borough council, in Dorset, had used the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act - designed to track serious criminals and terrorists - to determine whether a school applicant and her parents lived where they said they did. They did, and were appalled to discover they had been spied on for three weeks, the subject of surveillance notes such as "female and three children enter target vehicle and drive off". Target vehicle, if you please! The thought of some deep-cover council drone jotting this stuff down as though it were an elite Delta Force operation is not as funny as it is horrifying.

Just who are these people, these swelling legions of unelected, ill-qualified monitors who wield such extraordinary power in our surveillance society? Clarification in one case came last year, when the civilian in charge of a Worcester police station's surveillance team was suspended after detectives found, among one day's footage, a 20-minute sequence of close-ups of a woman's cleavage and backside as she walked oblivious through the streets. Whether the woman ever discovered she was the star of a kind of pervert Truman Show is not recorded. But the offending monitor escaped with a warning and was - unbelievably - back in post within weeks.

Link (via Blogzilla!)

These cool mid-century arrow bookends just sold on eBay for $75. What a deal! They're brass and blackened steel. I love the design.
Arrow Bookends (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

Reid sez, "I, unfortunately, have an AT&T cell phone. I check my bill every few weeks. Today, I went to log in, and was greeted by a terrific new advertisement for their online billing system. It's as if their marketing department thinks that warrantless wiretapping is funny or something. " Link, Link to screenshot (Thanks, Reid!)

Rogier van Bakel says:

Watch the London community support officers (they're not real cops, but deputied volunteers who fancy themselves real ones) as they confront a videographer who has the temerity to take footage of a public street. It starts with a sudden gloved hand over the camera lens, then it's "give me a good reason why you're filming," then it's on to "papers please"; and when the guy behind the camera, sensibly enough, asks under which law he's not allowed to film there, the bully-boy hisses "shut up." Twice.

Pretend cops bully videographer, videographer wins

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets — a site which we suspect you'll enjoy reading even if you often find gadgets tire- and irksome (so do we!) — we spotted these top-notch crank-powered greeting cards from Hallmark, of all people; hacked sunglasses that block CCTV cameras; a book about making LEGO weapons; a human-powered party bike, complete with lights and sound system; and the Venture Bros. era-appropriate love of fancy chairs.

A team of Israeli art students made a wooden coffee grinder shaped like a cuddly tumor; a crappy newspaper made a crime spree by stupid kids the fault of Grand Theft Auto; ICANN unveiled a new plan for top level domains, putting me only $100k away from owning http://cluster.fuck.

Rob documented BBG's first word coinage; John exposed a traumatic misunderstanding of the nature of lumberjack hibernation; I got off my ass and started rounding up deals again.

One of Pixar's own made a cute Wall•E in LEGO. (And I'm going to see it tonight. I'm pumped!) AT&T may actually be adding MMS to iPhone, which for the first time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple. Nokia released some new phones, which for the second time allowed people on the internet to express their opinion about Apple.

Then there were the sexy stormtrooper boots, our enthusiasm over which only slighted muted by the acknowledgement that every stormtrooper was a clone, then brought back into vibrant excitement when reader Rob Cockerham invented the term "Fett footish."

There was a Steampunk sonic rifle. Despite indications to the contrary, use of the term did not cause the internet to implode. Yet.

Helio, a company that thought it could build a business by buying expensive phones and selling them to poor teens has — surprisingly — been sold for scrap. Perhaps they'd have been better selling buckets for making dogsicles.

Once again, someone made a dot-matrix toaster, but only in their mind. (Hey, MAKE:RS! You can do this!) World of Warcraft added a real-world security dongle to protect you from gold farmers stealing your account. Yahoo hiked domain prices in a fairly scummy manner.

And someone made a lamp from dishes which looks an awful like the stuff I used to make on the lathe when I was sequestered in wood shop for seventh-grade homeroom.

In Make, Vol. 14, Thomas Zimmerman wrote about how to make a lensless microscope. In this episode of Make's Weekend Projects, Kipkay provides a video step-by-step. Make a lensless microscope

Squint/Opera's photography exhibit "depicts imaginary scenes in London in 2090, when rising sea levels have inundated the city." They made it look like fun! Flooded London

A building fit for a king -- in this case, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz.

In competition with some of the world’s greatest architects, Snøhetta has won the competition about designing Saudi Arabia’s new Cultural Center. Saudi Aramco – the world’s largest oil company – is the client.

King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz set the cornerstone for the Cultural Center which will house a museum, library, theater, cinema and more. The building reflects the history of oil in Saudi Arabia and is different from the country’s architectonic traditions with its abstract and spectacular form.

Along with five other internationally know architect offices, Snøhetta participated in the competition and was chosen in preference to famous names as Zaha Hadid and Rem Koolhaas.

Saudi Arabia’s new Cultural Center

From one of my favorite blogs about books, Bookride, a "tall tale from the trade":

A similar tale is set in 1965 in a provincial bookshop where trade is slow. The dealer has a sale of the books upstairs, lesser books but useful stock--even after severe reductions there are 10,000 books left. Rather than haul them down to the dump he decides to give the whole lot to the young girl who comes in on afternoons when he is out doing house calls, fishing, watching cricket etc., She graciously accepts them and says she will arrange to have them out as soon as possible. He sets off to a local auction and on his return is greatly surprised to find all the books have gone. The girl explains that a guy came in from a movie company needing 10000 books - for the book burning scenes in Fahrenheit 451 that they were filming nearby. She only charged £1 per book.

Tall Tales from the Trade

Earth is filled with incredibly strange creatures, from thermophiles like the one seen here that can survive in temperatures up to 121 degress Celsius to the bacterium Deinococcus radiodurans that thrives in 2000 times more ionising radiation than would fry a human. New Scientist features a survey of ten "extremophiles." The headline is a bit off though, reading: "The most extreme-life forms in the universe." Of course, studying these unusual organisms could give scientists insight into what life might exist on other planets, but all of the creatures in this article are found right here at home. From New Scientist:

There's hardly a niche on Earth that hasn't been colonised. Life can be found in scalding, acidic hot pools, in the driest deserts, and in the dark, crushing depths of the ocean. It has even found a toehold in the frigid polar regions and in toxic dumps.

"Life on Earth has radiated into every conceivable – and in some cases almost inconceivable – ecological niche," says Chris Impey of the University of Arizona in Tucson, US.

The very existence of these hardy organisms hints that life might be able to eke out an existence in the cold, dry climate of Mars, the icy, acidic conditions of Jupiter's moon Europa, or in countless other spots beyond our solar system.

Extremophiles

Tyler Boudreau, who served in the Marine Corps infantry for more than a decade, wrote a fascinating personal story for Industry Standard about digital technology on the battlefield. It's an interesting story about how IT can get in the way of human initiative and common sense. Boudreau's book, Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine, will be published in September by Feral House. From the article:

Unfortunately, high-speed communications and bold initiative do not always go hand in hand. With such an abundance of information available simultaneously at all levels, micromanagement can creep unnoticed into the chain of command and pull it apart. For example, if a general is able to follow an ongoing firefight through email and IM, and he is inclined to believe he knows what's best for the units in contact, then he very well might start directing those small units from afar, consequently eliminating the need for his colonels, captains, and sergeants to do any thinking of their own.

I witnessed this firsthand in al Anbar.

Article: I.T. vs. Initiative, Buy Packing Inferno: The Unmaking of a Marine

Near At the village of Avebury is a Neolithic stone circle and henge that's older than Stonehenge. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the roughly 5,000-year-old Avebury monument is approximately 421 meters in diameter. Filmmaker Ric Kemp shot a lovely psychedelic 8mm film at the site with a spaced-out soundtrack by Neil Mortimer, produced by Mark Pilkington. Avebury Monument

Klaus Pierre, a French/German actor-waiter-whatever, aspires against all odds to become America's next great action hero. In today's episode, he takes his skills to the beach, and encounters a true Hollywood action hero, Matthias Hues.

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and instructions for subscribing to the BBtv video podcast feed.

Previous Klaus Pierre episodes on BBtv:

Klaus Pierre: Super Pretty Action Hero Star

Klaus Pierre: Red Carpet Botox Dreams

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America: Pirate Musical of Epic Fail

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America, studies Savate

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America at Coffee Shop.

Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America, studies Swordfighting

Point Break and heartbreak

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says:

Funny animal comics don't get enough respect.

Many incredibly talented artists worked in funny animal comics... some, like Kurtzman and Frazetta, went on to fame in other genres. Yet the only artist working in this field that most people are familiar with is Carl Barks. Uncle Scrooge comics are fine, but they're just the tip of the iceberg. In the 1940s and 50s, there was a wealth of funny animal comics all drawn in completely unique styles. I have to admit that comics aren't my strong suit, but when I see a comic like this one, I want to know more about the people responsible for them.

Here is Supermouse Comics number 4, drawn by Milt Stein. Little is known about Stein's career. Tom Sito points out that he was an animator at Famous for a time, and he worked on Tubby the Tuba for Dr. Alexander Shure's Westbury Long Island Company, the tradtional forerunner of NY Tech's Computer Animation Program. He committed suicide in 1977. Milton Knight adds, that Stein "animated some very expressive scenes at Terry in the early 40s (the girl mouse puppet in Down With Cats). And in the 60s, he animated the humorous characters on an independent TV pilot that Jerry Beck likes to include in his "Worst" ASIFA shows, titled Cosmic Raymond. I think Stein was one of the most neglected artists of all time; and he drew far better than Barks!"

Supermouse Comics number 4