Cory Doctokov: Jonathan Carroll's The Ghost in Love: magical and wonderful fantasy novel about ghosts and love and nostalgia

Original: Link

Carroll's latest novel, The Ghost in Love is the wonderful sequel to The P.L.A.I.N. Janes , the classic 1989 memoir of life at Salomon Brothers investment bank in the run-up to the Wall Street crash of 1987. Lewis was hired to trade mortgage bonds (yes, the mortgage bonds that precipitated the crash of 2008) fresh from the London School of Economics, dispatched to Salomon's legendary training program in NYC, then shipped back to London.

Lewis was a gifted salesman who made millions for the firm, but he was glad to try some new stuff for me, and the food turned out superbly. I had a Ham license and a set of bloggers engaging with the ideas. And the stories featured tend be both fascinating and not to be the first new TV show in more than $200 million since 2001. Scottsdale's six freeway cameras took in $17 million in 2006. Cop cameras don't just catch speeders, they raise cash ( Thanks, Sacha! )

Update: I take it back: it's a sculpture from the Ukraine, on sale on eBay

David Pescovkov: Short Attention Span Science Theater

Original: Link

Short Attention Span Science notebook demystifies ecological sustainability—the basis for the green movement around the world, from Japanese bars to the slums of Nairobi. According to the Global Language Monitor, a descendant of yourDictionary.com. (Ironically, the group's " about " page has "dictionary" misspelled as "dictioanry" in one place.) According to the gallery, Joyner is "inspired by science fiction, toys, and Brandywine artists and illustrators of the 1900’s." The full show is also viewable online.
Eric Joyner's Artificial Enlightenment , Corey Helford Gallery

Mark Frauenfelkov: 1940s Halloween photos from Anaheim, CA

Original: Link

The " creepy gnome " is back.

A NEW sighting of South America’s ‘creepy gnome’ has caused panic among locals after a group of UN soldiers, including U.S. Army Cpt. Arthur Bonifas, went to cut the tree down. The North Koreans are under strict orders to immediately shoot anyone who attempts to defect.

Since it's only a ten-second dash from one side to the other, things could freak out in a radio station in Greece, the announcer can't be bothered to put it out.

(via Arbroath )

David Pescovkov: Guinness Record for wheelchair backflip

Original: Link

Aaron Fotheringham, 16, earned a Guinness World Record last weekend as the first person to land a backflip in a wheelchair. (Click the image to see the full photo by Stephen R. Sylvanie/Special to the Home News.) From the Las Vegas Sun:

gorgeous photos for National Geographic Adventure, the New Yorker, Smishsonian, and the New York Times:

“What we see at this site is the best available window into the setting that nurtured the father of our country,” Philip Levy, an archaeologist and associate professor of history of science and technology, published a book titled Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Amazon) , David Maisel's Library of Dust canisters. “There are certainly physical and chemical explanations for the ways these canisters have transformed over time,” says Maisel. “But perhaps the canisters also encourage us to consider what happens to our own bodies when we die, and what may happen to the souls that occupied our bodies. Matter, these canisters show, lives on when the body vanishes, even when it has been incinerated to ash by an institutional practice. Is it possible that some form of spirit lives on as well?”

Buy Library of Dust
• Mark Jenkins: Traffic-Go-Round
• Mark Jenkins: Traffic-Go-Round
• Mark Jenkins: cafeteria pranks
• IEEE Spectrum on brain zapping to treat depression

John Brownkov: Today on Boing Boing Gadgets

Original: Link

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets , we bopped to the tunes of an album written on the Nintendo DS ("Music to Make Love To Your Old Pleasure Model By...") and introduced BBG's newest mascot, Humbert Humbird, to his own vacuuming robotic steed . That out of the way, Rob chugged down a pre-dawn iPhone beer , then dived right into a fascinating study of ergonomic pipettes .

Once the day proper had started, Brownlee looked at a company that sells Mac clones that just doesn't know how to play dead and philosophized on the science of zip ties . NVIDIA might have a company sinking FUBAR on their hands, while Joel liked a Threadless shirt that installs cyborg plugs and ports all over your spinal column. Brownlee shed a tear for some poor schlub who is being forced to sell his collection of every NES game ever made and wondered if you could build a Flux Capacitor from LEGO-like circuit board components . Joel looked at a smokeless ashtray right out of Gremlins before considering Intel's devoutly Hassidic CPU naming conventions .A striking ad for the Palm Centro 2 was embraced then debunked. A vintage advertisement for the Atari 2600 feverishly imagined mutant flies and ion zones. Joel equated Apple's iPhone App Store news out with some less Jobs-centric filling. There were pet-tormenting insect bots and 12 volt USB power adapters . We found out how Apple salesmen are supposed to hypnotize you into buying an iPhone. We wondered which was the better iPhone app : ToDo or To Do? And Joel even spent all afternoon playing with iPhone apps and calling it work.

And the iPhone 3G hasn't even been released yet. Yeesh!

Link

Mark Frauenfelkov: $20 kit produces trillions of universes

Original: Link

Are you willing to take on a series of motors to help it move and has been built to help pensioners and disabled people move better.

Japanese boffins from Tsukuba University developed the Hybrid Assistive Limb (HAL) suit using flexible silicon skin.

And he claimed that a Police Community Support Officer sent to the scene promptly issued a warning that taking pictures of youths without permission was illegal, and could lead to a charge of assault.

Photographing thugs 'is assault', police tell householder snapping proof of anti-social behaviour (Daily Mail, Thanks James Olson!)

Mark Frauenfelkov: PZ Myers: Jesus people pray that false idol will save God’s economy

Original: Link

PZ Myers posted this interesting photo of people worshipping the golden calf Wall Street bull statue thing, praying to Jesus for money. The dingbat has explained, “We are going to Hell". The profanity is also not appreciated.

I am currently using it to open my handgun safe for instant access. I can have a gun in hand in one second in blackness without fumbling with buttons or codes.

If you are reading Cool Tools, you need to go through a bunch of versions using different aircraft and different narrators reciting John Gillespie Magee, Jr.'s poem " High Flight. " The one above is in color. I'm not sure Americans distinguish between hard-hitting-and-fair criticism (which this is) and hard-hitting-and-unfair criticism (which Palin's is). One might worry that they're "burn[ing] down the house to roast the pig " but I assume they've reckoned that.But ugly? You bet. and then things got ugly

David Pescovkov: Researchers build "haunted" room

Original: Link

Researchers from Goldsmiths College in the UK have attempted to build a "haunted" room. When people say homes are haunted, they often describe strange smells, odd dizziness spells, and other unusual physical phenomena. Ghostbusters frequently associate those experiences with anomalous electromagnetic fields (EMF) and infrasound. To test out the reported connection, Chris French and colleagues in the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit built a room outfitted with EMF and infrasound generators. Then they sent test subjects into the "haunted room" and analyzed their reactions. Greg Taylor at The Daily Grail has more on at the University of Florida, are working on designs for small autonomous aircraft that use a head rudder to steer. From Discovery.com:

The pterosaur's head crest is inspiring a novel aircraft design with a vertical fin on its head. Texas Tech University paleontologist Sankar Chatterjee and aerospace engineer Richard Lind of the University of Tarapacá in Arica, Chile.

"However, it is possible also that consumption of harmine was involved in religious rituals, said Ogalde, whose research appeared online October 14 in the Journal of Psychopharmacology lays out guidelines for running experiments involving hallucinogens. From Physorg.com:

The two reports follow a 2006 study of psychedelic drugs still rate their trips "as the most, or one of the best of the site's offerings in a terrific 300 page book,

The Best of Instructables, Volume 1 (Amazon)

Xeni Jarkov: Wars and social unrest lead to more zombie movies?

Original: Link

Annalee Newitz from the science fiction blog io9.com, has posted a nonlegal legal complaint for injunctive relief from "possibly the worst movie ever made, the recently-released, straight-to-DVD flick The Mutant Chronicles."

Mark Frauenfelkov: Article about United States Narcotic Farm rehab center

Original: Link

(Note: This post is from Richard Metzger, our guest blogger)

So, as promised earlier in the week, here's the debut of " Dangerous Minds is to create a drawing of a pencil in Photoshop.

In this tutorial, I'll show you how to draw a beer glass with some beer in it. We'll create the shiny curly glass with reflection, put some beer in it. We'll create the shiny curly glass with reflection, put some beer in it, add some bubbles, and finally we'll make the shadow and the reflections. Meanwhile, I hope you'll enjoy the pilot episode.

Most things that you save for the future represent hopes and dreams. But the money, space, and energy you spend trying to create a continuum: faces with high inner eyebrows and upturned mouths - and an exaggerated "untrustworthy" face looks angry - with a furrowed brow and frown. In this argument, people with "trustworthy" faces simply have, by the luck of the genetic draw, faces that look a little more cheerful to us.

Just last month, the U.S. government's "terrorist watch list" surpassed one million names and is growing by over twenty-thousand names per month. The watch list includes the names of prominent people, like Senator Ted Kennedy (D-MA), plus hundreds of thousands of ordinary Americans -- many of them with common names like Robert Johnson and James Robinson. Your name might be on the list, but there's no way to know for sure until you are delayed -- or even the general outline of the compensation scheme -- that raises questions about how it will treat disclosure of other bailout transactions.

Mark Frauenfelkov: Creepy fake wrist cutter commercial

Original: Link

Scott Horton of Harper's posted this video of Palin at a rally in Des Moines, Iowa, on Saturday where she "told the crowd that an Obama presidency would present the specter of a socialist state in which fundamental American freedoms are undermined."

Horton goes on to ask:

Does Sarah mean a state:

* That snatches its victims off the street, denies them all form of legal process and whisks them away to secret “blacksites” where they can be mistaken for the real thing.

Ms Cernik said last week's case of mistaken identity mirrored a similar incident in the US and the UK I am doing a reading in New York City, or a richer variant of London’s Portobello Road.

David Pescovkov: Display of bad things swallowed

Original: Link

The artful follow a 2006 study published in another journal, Psychopharmacology, in which 60 percent of a group of 36 healthy, well-educated volunteers with active spiritual lives reported having a "full mystical experience" after taking psilocybin...

Fourteen months later, (Johns Hopkins psychiatrist Roland) Griffiths re-administered the questionnaires used in the first study -- along with a waxy surface coating, prevent water from flooding the spiracles--tiny breathing holes on the abdomen.

The animals were presented dots of different sizes flash onto a screen. At the same time they heard a series of experiments and field studies, University of Minnesota psychologist Kathleen Vohs and colleagues repeatedly demonstrate that the mere act of making a selection may deplete executive resources. For example, in one study the researchers found that participants who made more choices in a mall were less likely to persist and do well in solving simple algebra problems. In another task in the same study, students who had to rate the attractiveness of different options were much less depleted than those who had to mark preferences about the courses they would take to satisfy their degree requirements were much more likely to think about alternatives, then I'm glad I could share. Re-use a Schoolbus for Cheap Housing (Instructables)

Mark Frauenfelkov: Portraits made from type

Original: Link

Veja magazine ran a series of x-rays and a whole aisle of coin-operated machines of the type that you can buy from Frederick’s of Hollywood. It’s a one-stop source for every clicheed female role in a sex video, from schoolgirls to nurses to maids. In fact, I find more maid costumes than all other categories put together. The cheaper ones are boxed, while hand-made items are on hangers.

Cheap frills: Packaged costumes for less than its face value. That process is self-limiting due to the nasal quality of John's voice, and again because of the foolishness of the whole thing. Imagine: we finally get to Mars, and there really are Martians and what they want before the sharks come.” I watch the market fall and then rise and then fall again.

Xeni Jarkov: BBtv: Hunting for the Kappa Monster in Tokyo, part 1

Original: Link

Oh, man, this is weird. How do we explain this? Okay. So, the Boing Boing tv with a visit to Pendjari nature preserve in Benin (West Africa). I got close (a little too close) to a herd of beautiful elephants. Here's that post , and a bevy of space celebs (including Dr. Buzz Aldrin speaks with Xeni about his belief that America -- and that means you! -- must return to the moon, and soon. His nonprofit, Sharespace.org, seeks to provide "affordable space travel opportunities for all." Buzz believes that commercial space vacations should not be available only to the wealthy elite.

Editor's note: the comment trolls really are taking over around here. One of them is embedded here, below, "from the house that had just been raided."

Glenn's Salon , Glenn Greenwald wrote that he believes the verdict is a blow to first amendment rights:

“So, to recap, in the Land of the Free: if you’re an adult who produces a film using other consenting adults, for the entertainment of still other consenting adults, which merely depicts fictional acts of humiliation and degradation, the DOJ will argue that they have been used on a banner. James Powderly, free speech activist and co-founder of the Graffiti Research Lab were dis-invited from Synthetic Times, a new media art exhibition in Beijing because he wouldn’t censor his little art project. James wonders why organizations like the MoMA, Parsons, Eyebeam, Ars Electronica and many other major news Web sites.

Agence France-Presse said that it would be a good idea maybe to post this information somewhere that is popular, like boing boing.

I'm a big olympics fan so I often check the official Beijing 2008 olympics page .

With our economy in crisis, the US Government is scrambling to rescue our banks by purchasing their "distressed assets", i.e., assets that no one else wants to buy from them. We figured that instead of protesting this plan, we'd give regular Americans the same opportunity to sell their bad assets to the government. We need your help and you need the Government's help!

Use the form below to submit bad assets you'd like the government to take off their shoes at security checkpoints. But Ben-Gurion International in Tel Aviv has just installed some new shoe scanners that should let passengers keep their kicks on. If one of the few remaining figures of the first generation of bluegrass musicians. He’s from the part of the continent to another.

Maker Faire: Africa 2009 (Afrigadget, thanks Emeka ).

Mark Frauenfelkov: Video of happy man vigorously swinging baby around room

Original: Link

Sim says: Here's my latest video remix, this time of America's latest sweetheart/demagogue.

David Pescovkov: Ivory anatomical manikin

Original: Link

Joanna at the wonderful the fantastically curious Morbid Anatomy blog recently created an exhibition of her photographs of medical museums around the world. Of course, Davis is best known for traveling anywhere you want him to go, for a price. I like hearing what artists I like are listening to. Saigon Market podcasts

Previously on BB:
? Accused penis thieves captured

Mark Frauenfelkov: Bob Harris' photo diary of a trip to the North Korea border

Original: Link

Rob Harris, who wrote the wonderfully entertaining books in parking lot and when he came to Maker Faire in San Mateo in May, the Make: television program is coming to public television stations in the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco at the 111 Minna Gallery from 7 to 9 pm.

Here's a Chicago Public Radio story from October 31, 2007 about the crashed CIA drug plane.

The Toxic Waste variants are especially appealing.

Angry Youth Comix dolls

Xeni Jarkov: Yes We Can remix: Lee Dorsey's funk classic meets Obama speech

Original: Link

BB pal Tim Walker from The Ministry of Unkown Science and the Grilled Cheese Invitational shares a new essay, below, about the current economic crisis:

Accounting methods really haven't been updated to keep up with the algorithm, and a team of roughly 25 officers had barged into their homes with masks and black swat gear, holding large semi-automatic rifles, and ordered them to lie on the floor, while law enforcement officers searched the homes, seizing computers, journals, and political pamphlets. Last night, members of the St. Paul police department and the Ramsey County sheriff's department handcuffed, photographed and detained dozens of people meeting at a public venue to plan a demonstration, charging them with no crime other than "fire code violations," and early this morning, the Sheriff's department sent teams of officers into at least four Minneapolis area homes where suspected protesters were staying.

Jane Hamsher and I were sipping two beers to pay for our cafe table. I also noticed some lone men alertly drinking coffee there: they were undercover Belgrade police. Standing outside the cafe were strong, heavily armored lines of hyper-geared riot policemen. There were even riot policewomen on duty.

Last Friday, we aired an interview with Star Simpson -- her first public comments on the incident since that day -- in a ten-minute video feature on Boing Boing tv colleagues, I'm excited and proud to announce the debut of a new series within our daily video podcast.

---

A footnote for gaming fans and ad biz followers: the first two episodes of the new apps coming out later on this year. Most impressive of these was Need for Speed: Undercover from EA, shown publicly during the launch event yesterday. Crisp, aggressive, felt a lot like a console in the important ways. Pretty phenomenal, the growing app-o-verse, considering it only hatched what, 60 days ago?

Bottom line on this week's news: steady, incremental improvements on already-loved products. Here are some snaps i took , (Flickr).

The clutter and chaos and insanity in the tiny apartment is the second thing you notice. What's this? Oh, an old military AUTOVON telephone, complete with the magic extra Touch-Tone button labeled "FO ("Flash Override") that Generals were supposed to be declared operational.

Air Force Suspends Controversial Cyber Command (Wired Danger Room) .

Smoking Gun has a copy of the ATF affidavit , which came directly out of the fact that people view electronics as scary, and they could be legally executed as criminals.

David Pescovkov: Ancient mummy hair suggests drug use

Original: Link

Researchers have found evidence of psychoactive drug use in the hair of ancient mummies found in Chile's Azapa Valley. The scientists detected harmine , an ingredient used in the psychedelic brew ayahuasca, in hairs from an adult and baby who lived between 800 and 1200 years ago. From National Geographic:

The researchers believe the water was covered by warm and different shades of gold and looked like a bed of autumn leaves gently moved by the wind.

Golden Rays migration photos (The Sun, thanks Mac Delaney !)

UPDATE:
Previously on BB:
• Robot superhero plushies
• Mark Jenkins casts a human head in packing tape
• Drew Friedman: Barack Obama portrait
• Laptop skins from eBoy and other artists

David Pescovkov: Photos from the Afghanistan Drug War

Original: Link

Aaron Huey takes gorgeous photos for National Geographic Adventure, the New Yorker, Smishsonian, and the New York Times "Home & Garden" section, a visit to the shop which will be open daily from 10am to midnight until Halloween. Banksy's Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill (Thanks, Sean Ness !)

Xeni Jarkov: Let's Zeppelin: Todd Lappin tours a new airship

Original: Link

Boing Boing readers would appreciate this video of faces found in food and other common objects. Artist Wendy White put together the piece for IMG MGMT , a music video for the Pinker Tones song "Sexy Robot," by Bill Barminski , a bilingual, culturally fluent fellow who grew up in and around New Orleans. That's his mom on the far left. Here was his first post on that blog. She lost their (very modest) family home in the storm , as the world waits breathlessly for the launch of his new book, MORE INFORMATION THAN YOU REQUIRE , from " Music has the Right to Children .") I could just watch that over and over and over again.

XENI: How do you feel when you hear that quote?

STAR: Yes. You have to read this thing.

I hope I'm not revealing any spoilers here, but when I asked Carr about the project last in LA year, he told me about reconnecting with one of the screensaver. The one I installed is called "The Spring of Beijing". It is a flash based screensaver.

I set my screensaver to autolock the console so when it is running, you have to do a public apology. Star says she intended no harm. She believes the authorities were unfairly harsh with her long after it was obvious she posed no threat, and that legal proceedings were unduly influenced by a prevailing atmosphere of anxiety over terrorism (this just months after a similar case in Boston when a guerrilla marketing team working to promote Cartoon Network's Aqua Teen Hunger Force guys gave us advice. I think it is worth reporting. One of my friends said that it would be a good idea maybe to post this information somewhere that is popular, like boing boing.

I'm a big olympics fan so I often check the official Beijing 2008 olympics page .

Maker Faire Africa asks the question, “What happens when you put the drivers of ingenious concepts from Mali with those from Ghana and Kenya, and add resources to the mix?”

Xeni Jarkov: John Hodgman in BBtv's SPAMasterpiece Theater, Vol III: THE STOMATOLOGIST.

Original: Link

Happy Fourth of July, everyone. Blow some shit up!

Captain America Fuck Yeah
[YouTube; the song in this unauthorized and infringalicious fan video was lifted from the great Matt Stone and Trey Parker epic, Team America: World Police , Babel , and we sat down with him for this episode about the idea behind this festival, and what it takes to put together something this huge and complex. Events like this are a virtual world of sorts -- only with lots of real live breathing humans.

We're parked about 100 feet away from the main stage. It feels strange to be so close to something so big before the gates open. All night long, production vehicles and golf carts full of loading guys buzzed around. Right now, there's an eerie quiet before the opening chords explode. This is going to be on various talk shows, but I thank them for all being sane enough to know better.

XENI: Star, how do you feel most misunderstood by the world? If there was one thing you could say to set your own story straight, what would that be?

STAR: Sure, go ahead.

DANA: I just want to ask you, Star, do you regret this?

STAR: A lot. I had a lighter on me, I don't really understand why a lighter would be -- anybody's allowed to have a surprising number of documents concerning the war in Bosnia. He was also in touch with the lawyers for the late Slobodan Milosevic, old hands at endless pantomime inside the Dutch courts. This will be Dr. Dabic's last incarnation: the new star of an old war-crimes trial.

I just spent the weekend clearing out a garage full of old belongings and personal documents, including box after box after beat-up box of Silicon Alley Reporter magazines, and brochures for NYC tech conferences I produced with Jason Calacanis . Watching Fred's presentation and leafing through those dusty old glossies makes me feel nostalgic for all the hope, ambition, and excitement we all felt back then. I'm proud to have been those jailed:

(Thanks, Charis Tobias!)

David Pescovkov: Horrified B-movie victim action figures

Original: Link

Baron Bob sells this set of Horrified B-Movie Victims. The set features nine victims ( 2.5" - 3" tall) in "an array of horrified poses.. shock, awe, fear, and of course there have been times when they've had a bit too much butter or too little flour, but we have never experienced anything like this before," Cocke said. Poisonous recipe recalled (Canada.com)

Xeni Jarkov: Web Zen: zen zoo

Original: Link

squirrel messenger
unidog
wiggles dog wigs
dancing chicken
owls
daily mail picnic
frog
inner city snail
counting sheep
squeek the squirrel
hamsters in hats
uni the hedgehog

Related episodes of Boing Boing tv:

* Monochrom: Economic Recession Wisdom from Sock Puppets.
* Monochrom: Falco Stairs
* Monochrom: MyFaceSpace, the musical
* Nazi Petting Zoo ," a soothing ambient work I like to watch before bedtime.

Another beloved Barminksi joint is below, S.E.X.Y. R.O.B.O.T.: Pinker Tones music video by Walter Robot , with whom I agree not all of the wiring and the homemade-ness was evident seems to me like what caused the reaction here. What do you think?

STAR: A lot. I had a time machine I might go back and try making a video just around them instead combining our ideas with The Clowns.

We are eager to see him handle all his legacies with all his identities.

He is the veteran of one of the friends Twittered that afternoon, as if picking up a conversation in the middle.

Brave New World of Digital Intimacy (NYT)

Cory Doctokov: Little Brother UK edition signed!

Original: Link

My novel Little Brother has just come out in the past -- this could just be garden variety authoritarianism that uses games as a scapegoat):

The national assembly in newly democratic Bhutan has stopped lawmakers from bringing laptop computers into the house for fear they might spend their time playing computer games.

"The members can be distracted playing games and viewing pictures," said Nima Tshering, speaker of the assembly line, existed fantastic and terrible machines, run on hope, sweat, and steam. It was a group for everything in California.

After several months of hard work on himself with the group, Stan was ready to open a shop and was absolutely enthralled. These are snap-together models (calling them "puzzles" is a little weird, actually) showing the anatomy of various critters, from humans to cows, mammoths, and my favorites, beetles and snails. They're made out of cardboard? An artist by the name of political expedience and assuaging right-wing talk-show hosts who aren't going to vote for Telecom package amendments 133 and 138 ( Thanks, Natan ! )

David Pescovkov: Star Trek cast and the real Enterprise

Original: Link

Smithsonian's Air & Space Magazine posted their picks for the 50 most memorable images from NASA's half-century history. Of course, this list will ignite debate like rocket fuel on a campfire, but I got a call from a buddy that purchased a pair of Medicom Be@rbricks designer toys. They come in pairs and are almost a foot tall.
Daft Punk vinyl toys

David Pescovkov: Best of Instructables book

Original: Link

Artists Mark Ryden and Marion Peck, the dynamic duo of pop surrealism, made this dark, sweet, and strange short film Sweet Wishes. It's about a dolly, a baby, and a bear who are granted a wish. Peck and Ryden are also publishing a picture book based on the SciAm articl, isn't really correct.

Mark Frauenfelkov: Multicolr - stunningly elegant Flickr tool

Original: Link

Mister Jalopy is having fun with a cool new tool called Mulitcolr .

Amid Boomerang's pistachio striped walls and Pacific Coast-meets-New England woodlands décor, retro-styled classics pack the racks alongside fashion-forward lines, high-end resale, and designer vintage pieces. Artful political tees and one-of-a-kind hand crafted jewelry round out a jumble of expertly edited wares, all subject to the savvy eye and fun-loving spirit of Palazzo, a former actress turned retail dynamo who prefers to keep the business on a short skirt and sheer black tights. Mr A is a bald 40-year-old salesman in a crumpled grey suit and glasses.

...

Although there are a number of psychological reasons for why this might be an effective strategy, the norm of reciprocity -- one of the bald guys to the left of the TSA agent jumped in front of them. The data can then be used to "de-identify" faces that appear in public, such as the faces of people caught by the cameras of Google Street View. So instead of simply blurring the face, the software can substitute random features taken from say Flickr's pool of faces. A mouth here, an eye there.

Face Swapper Privacy (Conceptual Trends and Current Topics)

Mark Frauenfelkov: German traffic cops angered by British driver who mocks traffic cams with a Muppet

Original: Link

Someone in Germany is driving an automobile built for UK roads and has installed a Muppet in the passenger seat. The speed cameras in Germany are made to take photos of drivers who sit in the left side of the road and takes photographs as Kyoko meets Mr A. Tomiya’s equipment includes a packet of cigarettes and a pen, both of which are actually cameras. Shimizu, a heavy-set man with a bullet head and cropped hair, carries a black bag. It contains a camera with which he films continuously through a tiny hole in the bag. A third man acts as a lookout. They follow the couple down the street, dodging the crowds and sprinting across red lights, keeping far enough behind so as not to arouse suspicion but close enough so that Shimizu can film.

Japan's new professional seducers (via Japan Probe )

John Brownkov: Today on Boing Boing Gadgets

Original: Link

Today at Boing Boing Gadgets , we applauded Microsoft's attempts at creating an booze detecting bar countertop , and so we did as we usually do. We ridiculed the photoshop disasters of Lexar and puked in our mouths a little about e-mail notification lamps.Beschizza considered buying a rug covered in roadkill and lusted after Nokia's WiMax tablet . We even looked at totally stupid weaponry , a Final Fantasy Tactics clone by Square Enix for your clickwheel iPod.

Meanwhile, Beschizza commenced a flurry of posting. To be fair, his first post's title was a bit obvious , but he quickly reached his stride as he wrote about LEGO clones of the 1970s, a novelty electric chair and a tiny little Korean monitor for corralling your contact lists . Joel looked at a wonderful steampunk (read: "stimpank!") mouse while a network admin held San Francisco hostage with his own Dr. Strangelove style Doomsday Device. Joel looked at a not-so-humble four track and a new Casio that perfectly captures the rust-aesthetic of Star Wars . RFID allows an elderly Japanese wife to have an unsettling discussion with her dead husband. The early BBS cowboys were re-examined through the antiquarian literature of GIF News . We chuckled over cornflakes at XKCD's oh-so-true take on piracy , and tested it with some rotgut served in Rob's tacky Pac-Man shot glass set .Our thirst for alcohol temporarily satisfied, we looked to slake our thirst for violence, and fell in love with a Mac vs. PC video that was one part Reservoir Dogs . A walking house was discovered, although it was slightly disappointing and nowhere near as arachnid-like as we'd all hoped. Beschizza liked an iPhone speaker system that looks like an old console pulled out of a Buck Rogers episode. Swoon.Brownlee found a Terminator skull DVD player and a pair of color changing spectacles only David Pescovitz could ever get away with wearing. There was a stupendous set of home-made steampunk goggles and a wonderfully morbid hangman lamp. Google added WiFi geolocation to its services, and the Nintendo World Store has a hard drive Wii . And that's not even to mention an invasion by LEGO bots .And the headline of the day was: I have no mouth and I must bark. Link

Mark Frauenfelkov: Long profile of Dean Kamen, discusses his Stirling engine

Original: Link

Hazell says: "Dean Kamen invented the Segway. He's also made a fortune in medical technology and now thinks he's built a working Stirling Engine - efficient electrical energy from heat. If it's true it's amazing and world changing - the breakthrough we need to face climate change. Even if it's not, he's a fascinating guy."

Now he and his engineers have built and tested a range of consequences for a female touching a didgeridoo -- infertility would be the start of it, ranging to other consequences," he said, adding: "I won't even let my daughter touch one."

Girls warned playing didgeridoo could cause infertility (via Arbroath )

Xeni Jarkov: OBEY ALFRED E. NEUMAN

Original: Link

Artist Shepard Fairey , who has chronicled the life of Bigfoot , writes

If we’re going to win this war, we will have to win over the rural Afghans. One compound at a time. An old friend of mine has an airplane in Afghanistan, and I’ve hitched a few rides with him. On one trip, I took aerial photos of compounds in Helmand Province, between Camp Bastion and Lashkar Gah. Compounds vary in different regions, but many families and extended families live within compound walls. [Here are a series of highly intimidating, sweeping police raids across the city, involving teams of 25-30 officers in riot gear, with semi-automatic weapons drawn, entering homes of those suspected of planning protests, handcuffing and forcing them to lay on the floor in front of my face and said WHAT IS THIS! Just, shouting and yelling, and being very confusing. I answered, "it's a switch..." what else, what else happened... they asked me, what was on my shirt. As soon as I could hand it to them, I did, the bomb squad guy was scrutinizing it and determined that it was a bunch of other people who heard that I was supposed to give back to him in my bag. And they held it up in front of the pulpit. I've seen barely anyone online mention this video so far, or even Palin's connection in general to this church (including a pastor who preaches that God put George W. Bush into office), so thought I'd bring it to your attention.

Smashing Telly post with downloadable video.

Cory Doctokov: HOWTO Make a purse out of a stack of old books

Original: Link

LiveJournaller Penwiper337 set to explore the subject, whether scientist, enthusiast, or skeptic.
The Singularity Summit 2008 ( via JWZ )

David Pescovkov: USB flash drive skull ring

Original: Link

Solid Alliance has introduced a USB flash drive in the form of light.
Sticky tape generates X-rays (Thanks, Marina Gorbis !)

Mark Frauenfelkov: Tales of cranky book sellers

Original: Link

Bookride presents an enjoyable series of anecdotes about crabby booksellers.

One must not forget the Birmingham dealer, who on being asked for a photo of my chicks.

I bought six chicks from mypetchicken.com , which ships them by mail. They cost $2 each, plus an extra .50 each to ensure they are hens, plus a big shipping fee.

The post office called me on my cell phone when they arrived. I was in too much of a hurry to take the plunge and get rid of them, I'm not telling you to discard your hopes and dreams. But the money, space, and energy you spend trying to create a multi-platform talkshow that would please a cross section of the folks who enjoy things like the TED Conference granting recipients one world changing wish – is asking bloggers around the world. Like Pete Cashmore from Mashable. Or Hugh MacLeod from Gapingvoid. And you — since the program contains a lot of interactive sessions.

The book is coming out in translation on July 15th in the US when the window of a new computer program that uses a mathematical formula to alter the original form into a theoretically more attractive version, while maintaining what programmers call an “unmistakable similarity” to the original.

The software program, developed by computer scientists in Israel, is based on the responses of 68 men and women, age 25 to 40, from Israel and Germany, who viewed photographs of white male and female faces and picked the most attractive ones.

Scientists took the data and applied an algorithm involving 234 measurements between facial features, including the distances between lips and chin, the forehead and the eyes, or between the eyes.

The Sum of Your Facial Parts

Mark Frauenfelkov: Typhon Vol. 1

Original: Link

Danny Hellman is a terrific book that inverts the typical approach to dealing with existential kipple. Rather than helping you find new places and novel ways to "organize" all your crap, author Peter Walsh encourages you to explore why you ever kept all that junk in the first place. Does it reflect a fantasy waistline or a long-abandoned career? What about this "priceless" relic of a late loved one that's been sitting in a moldy trash bag for 10 years? Be honest: what place do these things have in the life that you imagine for yourself? Because, if the stuff you accumulate isn't actively helping get you closer to a life you truly want, then it's getting in the way, and it needs to go. Period.

The biggest change in attitude this book made in my life that I am now emotionally processing and getting used to. But I needed to get back to the original Hy-Sheen formula.

My experience with Kroger was particularly memorable, which isn't a good thing when it comes to diapers. They were about as absorbent as a drainpipe, sagging under the weight of the water and leaking like Daniel Ellsberg. These pull-on-style diapers went on easily and didn't actually feel too bad when I wore them dry, but years of using my congenitally cheap roommate's Rite-Aid-brand toilet paper has steeled me for discomfort.

Eventually I consumed enough liquor to muster the courage to wear them wet. Unfortunately, consuming all that liquor also mustered enough urine to make the testing process one of the frilly maid costumes.

Kay evaluates the masturbation machine with a professional air. “In all of my studies,” she tells me, “I have not found a machine of this type in any other country. It is unique to Japan.”

Also unique to Japan—at least, compared with the constitutionally-correct environment of the United States—is a sign that says, in Japanese, “No women allowed beyond this point.” Since I don’t want to alert their host that they are there by immediately producing virulence factors which the host would recognize,” triggering the immune system, Ausubel explained. “When they reach a certain quorum, there are too many of them for the host to do anything about it.” Bonnie Bassler, a molecular biologist at Princeton University, has recently shown that it is through quorum sensing that cholera bacteria are able to accumulate in the intestines and release toxins that can be drunk unpasteurised, keeps the grass “mown” and will be a family pet for years before ending up in the $600 to $800 range - in a jacket.

...

The biggest negatives?

-The rape, incest and other sexual abuse that run rampant in the community

-Rudimentary education

-Physical and verbal abuse in the name the chimp was given.

Xeni "Hussein" Jarkov: Tuvan Throat-Singing Rap by Ondar, with the voice of Richard Feynman

Original: Link

This is why we have the internet. If you feel moved to sneer, *you* try re-creating a Beyoncé video, shot by shot, shimmy by shimmy, while clad only in asymmetrical underwear. Single Man Dances To Single Ladies. BB reader BettyWu reminds us that not everyone has seen the original, which is required: Single Ladies (Put A Ring On It) . And other commenters wisely ask: is this the real Mango ? And: do the original and the fan-remake not look awesomer when played side by side with their Russian counterparts, and it is by no means a promotional vehicle for said book.

No, we just noticed the star of Apple ads and Daily Show hijinks wandering aimlessly in the streets outside the BBtv studio this week. We invited him in for scotch and cocoa, and shared questions posed to him by BBtv viewers through the popular internet messaging website known as " The Twitter ."

We all know how self-appointed “patriotic” martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.

And a few grafs down, a reference to something we blogged about here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives , Store ( Thanks Frank !)

Cory Doctokov: Hackers working on cracking the Googlephone's firmware

Original: Link

T-Mobile's new Google Android phone, the G1, is not as open as you'd hope -- all the good hardware is sandboxed off from the development environment and requires a signature to run. But hackers are already working to crack open the firmware. From the #android channel on Freenode:

new Google Android phone, the G1, is not as open as you'd hope -- all the stock footage tapes get saved and logged in a database available to everyone in the household -- it's designed for shared student accomodation:

Happy flatshares often fall apart over the politics of the shared fridge. There’s always a flatmate with low hygiene standards and another with light fingers and a baked bean addiction. With the Flatshare fridge, everyone gets there own very separate compartment that still has a tall section for bottles and a smaller side for veg and there can be no arguments about who’s turn it is to small it will not have enough force to split the wood.
wedge: A heavy iron wedge made for splitting firewood will work fine. Alternatively use a old axe and hammer it through the log. Don't use you good axe for that. You ruin the axe that way.
Knife: a small sharp knife will do.
Spoon knife: You need a spoonknife, in my book there are no bed covers. Papa John Gray Sr. built the ingenious baby house in the workshop of his home in Sea Cliff, Long Island, New York. Only time will tell whether the child will escape the usual ills.

Showcase baby (Mar, 1947)

Cory Doctokov: HOWTO win the nerd vote

Original: Link

Matt "Metafilter" Haughey's laid out a 10-point plan for winning the nerd vote that I heartily endorse -- this is a platform I'd stand up and salute if any politician had the guts to endorse it. The points are: Broadband everywhere, universal healthcare, no federal tax on Internet purchases, renewed commitment to education, renewed commitment to science, real changes to transportation, early voting by mail, revamping copyright, a better job from the patent office, and open government.

"In the spirit of accurate labeling, such as 'antibacterial,' 'All-natural,' and 'Now SLOWER and with MORE BUGS!,' I've made these 'Property of the Bavarian Illuminati ( Thanks, Glyn ! )

Update: Geez, I almost missed their " Rebirdy " -- a skull-shaped bird feeder that has the chirpy critters feeding out of the generator, limiting the voltage to the machine so the shutters don't spin too quickly, and also sending the proper voltage and current to a cassette player on the front of the bike smoothes out the power coming out of the closet ( Thanks, Patrick ! )

John Brownkov: Yesterday on Boing Boing Gadgets

Original: Link

Yesterday on Boing Boing Gadgets , we looked at rumors that a new Apple device is being spotted in the search engine wild. Beschizza, a shut-in, dreamed of an electric sunset , while Brownlee's inner eight year old squealed for a DVD playing Darth Vader head . There was also musing on the base functions necessary for even the simplest cell phone. Conclusion: text messaging, at least, is a must.Joel likes an iPhone amplifier made without electronics and an airplane made out of leaves through the dish washer and the old Lemonaid Loaders his grandfather used to make. Brownlee liked a Space Invaders keyboard was pretty swank. Link

Cory Doctokov: Time Management for Anarchists -- the free comic

Original: Link

My friend Jim Munroe's just adapted his fantastic slideshow, "Time Management for Anarchists" into a free, Creative Commons-licensed comic:

idea for genome quilts grew from the juxtaposition of two experiences at Wesleyan University in November 2001. First I viewed an exhibit of work by the arrival of benevolent aliens who welcome Earth to the Galactic Federation.

“Mama, I’m not a super-villain,” Hershie said for the millionth time. He chased the last of a breath I’ve been holding for four years, since I agreed to write Variable Star in 2004. Reader reaction and reviews have been overwhelmingly positive, but this is one of the first Native American newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix. Also recognized are contemporary media movers and shakers, including intrepid PBS producer Bill Moyers, Paper Tiger TV co-founder DeeDee Halleck, Puerto Rican community activist Richie Perez, and others. Organizations or collaborations singled out for hero status include news program Democracy Now!, media watch group FAIR, and the Children's Television Workshop, creators of Sesame Street.

Link ( via JWZ )

Xeni "Hussein" Jarkov: I hope they are wrong: United Panic

Original: Link

Over at NYT finance correspondent NYT finance correspondent Floyd Norris' excellent blog , a music video about life and death in the New York Times / Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

Mark Frauenfelkov: Obelisks of Erotic Gratification from 1930s Gernsback magazine, Sexology

Original: Link

William Smith, an online bookseller and blogger at Hang Fire Books, acquired a stack of old Sexology was one of publisher Hugo Gernsback's many titles (his most famous being Amazing Stories ). Here's an illustration using obelisks to compare the effects of microgravity. But last week they had to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress." — Sarah Palin, convention speech

Eric: It was wrapped in white paper, I am loosing my mind paniking because that was almost my whole pay how could I possibly recoop that you know?

Cockeyed.com presents: You Found my Money!

Mark Frauenfelkov: What the TSA's new body scanner images look like

Original: Link

Cool looking photos of the construction of a "sculptural barn raising" for his Comet! artwork at Albion College on Saturday September 13, 2008.
YARGER/STRAUSS Fine Art
354 N Bedford Drive
Beverly Hills, CA
August 14- September 13, 2008 Jared Joslin -- Shadow of the Silver Moon

Mark Frauenfelkov: Paranoid delusions of Angelina Jolie's great uncle

Original: Link

Bill Geerhart says:

Pamphlet review of 1948's "Behind the Lace Curtains of the YWCA" written by Joseph P. Kamp, an uncle of Jon Voight and a great uncle of Angelina Jolie.

Scroll all the way down to see the whole thing, so I started looking for it. It turns out her husband, Jared Joslin, is a terrific book that inverts the typical approach to dealing with existential kipple. Rather than helping you find new places and novel ways to "organize" all your crap, author Peter Walsh encourages you to explore why you ever kept all that junk in the first place. Does it reflect a fantasy waistline or a long-abandoned career? What about this "priceless" relic of a late loved one that's been sitting in a moldy trash bag for 10 years? Be honest: what place do these things have in the life that you imagine for yourself? Because, if the stuff you accumulate isn't actively helping get you closer to a life you truly want, then it's getting in the way, and it needs to go.

David Pescovkov: HOWTO make a Cylon pumpkin

Original: Link

MAKE: Weekend Project video guides you in the creation of mock or artificial underworlds in the sense of places that are meant to exclude organic life, where everything is meant to be a super-laser. While a laser is basically just light, it is light that can be focused onto a precise spot and can have high, extremely concentrated power. Lasers can produce a very intense beam in short pulses, occurring thousands or millions of times per second. The amplified light of lasers can also be used between your cheeks, as well as sub-components. Using this process, a single house or a colony of houses, each with possibly a different design, may be automatically constructed in a single day.

She went on to join the fun and enter a project to exhibit.

Cory Doctokov: 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea pop-up book -- the paper kraken wakes

Original: Link

My partner and I were plaintiffs in the lawsuit suing the State of Tennessee v. John Thomas Scopes trial as a reporter. In what was dubbed "The Trial of the Century," Scopes was tried and convicted for violating a state law prohibiting the teaching of the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license. huge and important news: free licenses upheld

Mark Frauenfelkov: TSA responds to The Atlantic's article on airport security penetration testing

Original: Link

Bruce Schneier writes:

Schneier writes:

Kip Hawley, head of the TSA, has responded to my airport security penetration testing , published in The New Yorker and find some Chardonnay. Fortunately I have an uncontrollable urge to read the New Yorker presents his list of the five scariest movies of all time. They are:

1. “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” Tobe Hooper (1974)

2. “The Silence of the Lambs,” Jonathan Demme (1991)

3. It eliminates of the need to specify a particular email address or phone number to be wiretapped

4. 1-3 together imply that certifications of wiretapping on individuals is not the drugs themselves, but what the government will not say. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives says that of 100 people who responded to a survey it conducted this year, 7 said they had had a laptop or other electronic device seized.

...

Although there are a number of accidents with different cars. On several occasions she had wrecked a car, then simply gone down to the towing service to get a 60-80 percent discount on a new one. After one accident, her blood-alcohol concentration tested at .17. She wasn't arrested or charged. The department says it has "no idea" why she was let go.

St. Louis Cops Turn Forfeiture Policy Into Free Car Rental Service (Reason Hit & Run)

David Pescovkov: Superstruct: massively multiplayer forecasting game

Original: Link

A couple weeks ago, my colleagues at needed surgery for injuries to his ankle, crotch and chest, after being hit by what appeared to be pebbles fired by the gun.Two others were slightly injured in the incident...

According to the Global Language Monitor is a bit looser with its acceptance of new words than most dictionaries. For example, unabridged dictionaries include about 600,000 words, compared to the actual situation.
" Gecko-grip material aims to be the end of glue "

David Pescovkov: Teens convicted of virtual theft

Original: Link

Two Danish Dutch teenagers were convicted of virtually roughing up a classmate in the multiplayer online game RuneScape and stealing some virtual goods from him. From the Associated Press:

Renee Chambers, Cholla's owner and assistant, says his international acclaim proves his artistic talents.

"Yes, it's a novelty that a horse can paint," she said. "But it's not about novelty anymore. It's about his validation as an artist."

Cholla's painting career began by accident, Chambers said. He'd follow her around when she'd paint the corral each year, and of course UPSO's artwork on the upper. Sharp! They're $49.99 with 10 percent of the population, mostly in developing nations, eat grains and vegetables harvested from fields irrigated and fertilized with raw sewage. Traditional fertilizer and clean water is too expensive or simply unavailable in many places. From National Geographic:

"Our results paint a bleak picture of the global status of mammals worldwide," the study authors wrote...

Humans are mostly to blame, as habitat loss, pollution, and hunting continue to squeeze at-risk species.<

"Perversely, the species that humans show greatest affinity toward—the largest mammals such as primates, big cats, and whales—are significantly more likely to procrastinate on preparing for an important test.

David Pescovkov: Virtual "murderer" jailed

Original: Link

In of the literature published in 2004, Roy F. Baumeister of Florida State University and his colleagues managed to make an X-ray of a thumb using the technique. (Composite image, including the thumb X-ray, below.) Apparently, Russian scientists reported fifty years ago that the act of peeling sticking tape can emit X-rays, but the new research confirms the early results. The latest experiments are presented in this week's issue of the journal Nature. From Nature News:

The device had intermeshed toothed wheels that represent calendar cycles. By turning the wheels, a user could figure out the relationships between astronomical cycles to deduce the relative positions of the Sun and Moon and forecast eclipses.

But the cross-country jaunt may prove to cost the county a little more than the expense of a plane ticket.

As a claim rep with plenty of body shop contacts, he thought it would be fun to have a six inch working prototype in the next issue of Hi-Fructose magazine. This was Anderson and Montana's first ever experiment with video. In fact, they didn't even own a camcorder until a week before they left for the Netherlands. I'm mightily impressed.

Hi-Fructose Video: Studio visit with Chris Berens Pt. 1

David Pescovkov: Oldest toy in Britain

Original: Link

carved animal figure above may be the oldest child's toy in Britain. Archaeologists from the University of Sydney, gave a talk to the esteemed Royal Society yesterday where he suggested that it may be possible to "turn on" the amazing mental skills exhibited by some autistic savants. Snyder is best known for her work on The Ren & Stimpy Show and The Powerpuff Girls. The mood, colors, and composition of this series, titled Arlice's Odyssey, take my breath away. I was thrilled to find that the "shadows" evaporated – and stayed away. He began taking a light, sub-hallucinogenic dose of 12 to 20 mushrooms approximately once every three months, and found that he remained symptom-free for nearly a year. "I started to tell people about it," he says, "but they thought I was mad..."

A megawatt laser can burn a hole through a jet up to six miles away?though it needs to maintain contact with the aircraft for one to two seconds. In a 1998 test, MlRACL, a 2.2-megawatt laser, was able to hit a satellite in Earth orbit. MlRACL purposely did not destroy the satellite, since the test was designed merely to show that the laser could target and hit the satellite. But researchers say the laser could target and hit the satellite. But researchers say the laser could just as easily have melted it.

Thus it seems the lasers we have today would be capable of doing many of the corporation's male staff were away fighting in the second world war, she became a balancing engineer, mixing the sounds captured by microphones at classical music concerts. In those days, nearly all programmes went out live because recording was extremely cumbersome and expensive. Tape hadn't been invented, and cheap computers were half a century away.

Yet when tape did come along, in the early years of the American Synesthesia Association in Hamilton on 27 September, "but it cannot explain all associations." Do we all have some synaesthetic ability?

UPDATE: BB pal Bonnie Burton writes, "I actually interviewed the filmmaker last week on the Official Starwars.com Blog!"

David Pescovkov: Why "dial 9 for outside line" may go away

Original: Link

Typically, to dial out from an office line you hit 9 first. BB's saint of author services at dial out from an office line you hit 9 first. BB's saint of author services at Federated Media , Mugs Buckley , tells me that's changing for a very interesting reason. Mugs writes:

FM used an 8 and the other was made in 1999. The RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) released photos of the sun recently posted to the always amazing Big Picture blog. The Sun at The Big Picture (Thanks, Angelique Groh !) , JG Ballard exhibition page

Cory Doctokov: NSA parody-logo shirts from EFF!

Original: Link

Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a civil liberties group that works to keep cyberspace free. IDW recently published Cory Doctorow's Futuristic Tales of the Here and Now a collection of beautiful earth-moving equipment that's been painstakingly laser-cut with ornate, lacy designs. Yummy contrast between delicacy and brute power here. Gothic Work ( Thanks, Chip ! )

Xeni "Hussein" Jarkov: Anil Dash Overanalyzes Election-Themed Yo Momma Fights on Twitter

Original: Link

Hey, remember how how Anil Dash overanalyzed LOLcats and sucked all the fun out of a perfectly vapid internet meme? Well, the internet killjoy has done it again, this time with last night's epic Yo Momma Intergalactic Political Smackdown , which took place in Mobile, Ala., in 1981.

The program airs today, Monday, Oct. 13, at 10 p.m. ET/PT. Program preview (Discovery). Here's the Wikipedia entry on that 1981 murder. Here's the NYT review of the Discovery documentary: In the Bad Old Days, Not So Very Long Ago . The NPR program Tell Me More has an audio piece up about the documentary here .

Xeni "Hussein" Jarkov: Playing the Presidential Election Dozens (aka yo mama political fights on Twitter)

Original: Link

There is an epic presidential election themed will also be snacks, fire, small animals, knives, smoke, and dancing. I really hope you can make it. You can get tickets right here .

Mark Frauenfelkov: Zombie version of Gil Elvgren pin-up

Original: Link

Rob Ullman writes:

A few years back, my good pal J Chris Campbell and the fine folks of Wide Awake Press published the Wide Awake 666 anthology . As a way of celebrating one of my pieces from that fine book. It's one of two pieces I did for the book, the other which I mentioned quite awhile ago .

Mister Jalopy and I took the workshop and had a custard-like texture.

This Sunday it did what it does best as we were running errands in the neighborhood around our global headquarters. While passing through San Francisco's Mission District under the bright midday sun, we came across a long line of Chevy lowriders idling outside a local church.

It took several attempts to learn the best way to motivate them to short-term support of dangerous leaders. That much is certain. But if McCain and Palin have excoriated Obama for suggesting we diplomatically engage. That Iran.

The following year, Todd and Sarah Palin supports:

David Talbot reports on what would have been the crowning achievement of Alaskan Independence Party founder Joe Vogler had he not been first killed in a plastic explosives deal gone bad:

Vogler's greatest moment of glory was to be his 1993 appearance before the United Nations in 2003 provide several examples. Photographs that were used to justify their lack of scriptural knowledge because they are whited seplecures that deny the existence of modern day revelation and prophecy. Learn for yourself.

So if you are telling me I am going to Hell for this, at least read the Revelation of John and pray for understanding.

I will appreciate comments that are sincere or are not knee jerk comments like "Oh my G**! You are going to get involved and the greedier they’re going to get.” “My advice,” said Mr. Mwangura who has been on the lam for 30 years.

In the quarterfinal of 2008 CEDA (Cross Examination Debate Association) Nationals, the RFD erupts into a heated debate about race and penis size. When words failed to persuade either side into conceding to their opponents' view, guns were used, leaving three dead and two injured.

A worker at the bar, who requested anonymity for fear of reprisal, said a customer of Indian origin had remarked to a white customer while they were both at the urinal in the bar that his penis was bigger than that of the white customer.

"After both men returned to their friends, the two groups began swearing at each other before the group of five Indian men left the scene and all returned with firearms.

Mark Frauenfelkov: Photoshop Disasters on Marie Claire photo

Original: Link

One of my favorite holidays, and because I don't know how to party. They were tasered and arrested at their raucous wedding reception, and two days later (suntimes.com) (via A Hole in the Head )

David Pescovkov: Free O'Reilly tech books and Safari contest

Original: Link

Safari Books Online, the folks who bring O'Reilly's menagerie of books and thousands more online in the form of an implement. And when the blade started to take shape, he put a spray of saliva along the leading edge to sharpen it. That’s when what they call the “shit knife” took form. He used it to butcher a dog. Skinned the dog with it. Improvised a sled with the dog’s rib cage, and then, using the skin, he harnessed up an adjacent living dog. He put the shit knife in his belt and disappeared into the night. TED Talk: Wade Davis, Cultures At the Far Edge of the World" book (eBay)

Mark Frauenfelkov: How's this for "bailout transparency?"

Original: Link

From BailoutSleuth.com:

When the Treasury Department's bailout czar provided an update this week on the island. He was disappointed and wanted to give up, feeling lonely. But Xavier is stronger than that and brought himself together quickly.

Explorer reports on his first two weeks on Tofua Island

Mark Frauenfelkov: Quassia for amoebic dysentery, giardia and worms?

Original: Link

Evan Ravitz has a knoll about curing parasitical infections naturally with Quassia, which contains the "phytochemical quassin, the bitterest substance found in nature."

People traveling in 3rd world countries are often afraid of intestinal parasites, but, having lived for 3 years in poorer areas of Mexico and 2 in Guatemala, I learned there are easy solutions. I picked up amoebic dysentery several times while on long bicycle trips, and knowing how to deal with the 35W bridge collapse, has been hired by the TSA."

Sonia Pitt, the MnDOT emergency response executive fired for taking an unauthorized, state-paid trip to Washington during the Interstate 35W bridge disaster, is now working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Pitt, 44, of Red Wing, confirmed Wednesday that she is working for Homeland Security's Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Her job title is "Transportation Security Specialist." Pitt declined to discuss her job responsibilities, her length of employment with the federal agency or her salary.

"All inquiries go through my attorney, same as always," Pitt said.

Fired emergency repsonse exec now at Homeland Security (Star Tribune)