"Don't cheerleaders all over America make pyramids every day? It's not torture." -- Defense lawyer Guy Womack speaking about alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, during the trial of accused military personnel. Link

A corporate drudgery playset for grown-ups.

Bob, Joe, Ted, and Ann spend eight hours a day, five days a week, at tiny desks in tiny cubicles in a giant room packed with countless similar cubicles in a giant building filled with countless similar rooms.

Each set has one 2-3/4" posable plastic figure and all the necessary plastic parts to build a classic corporate cube: four walls, desk, chair, file cabinet, in/out box, phone, and computer. Comes with a sticker sheet of decor for your cube, complete with graphs, charts, screens for the computer and pithy office posters.

Also includes a job title sticker sheet so you can create a convoluted and meaningless position for your employee.

Link to online store, link to manufacturer website.

The rain here in Los Angeles is really bad. Our lawn is flooded, and my neighbor just told me we live in a flood area. A couple of years ago he took his kayak out and paddled it down our street. I'm a little nervous. But things are even worse a few miles away from our house, in Topanga Canyon. Take a gander at this boulder that rolled onto the road. Link (Thanks, John!)

Kim Cooper sez: Unbelievable and fascinating. This is the circa 1998 internal message board used by the support staff of a Florida call girl ring, foolishly left unsecured so Google could crawl it.

Dip in to any part of the page and it's like lifting a rock off a hill of sleaze. The girls are unreliable. The johns are dumb. The male madame is driven to extremes of emotion over office messiness. A rival escort agency tries to steal the talent. Everyone is hustling, and not just in the obvious ways.

I found this site while researching the obscure bubblegum musical "Toomorrow," an uncommon mispelling which appears on this page. What a treat! Link

UPDATE: (Following links might not be safe for work) Anonymous sez: Fascinating stuff from the shift diary. The site mentions they have an 800 number. Googling for it, I found this old and broken site for "Riga Escorts."

Also this listing for "Anne Marie and friends" escort service:

And this listing for "Amy" (last one on the page)

A little further tracking, and I found the old site on IA."

BoingBoing readers Pam and Anthony asked themselves, "What if the screenplay of Clerks had been written by the editors of the e-zine BoingBoing?" Then they wrote this: ClerkClerk. All I have to say is -- someone better cough up the url for those genuine Tibetan goatskin-covered bongs before I have to bust out the ninja moves. (Thanks, Lee)

Lisa Rein has posted a video capture of The Daily Show's segment on the confirmation hearings for torture advocate Alberto Gonzales, the new Attorney General of the United States. Link

Talented sf and fantasy writer Will Shetterly (whose one-of-a-kind Dogland is the one of the finest novels I've ever read) has written a short-short story called "The People Who Owned the Bible" and blogged it under a Creative Commons license. It's a corker.

Then Jimmy Joe Jenkins's DNA proved he was the primary descendent of the translators of the King James Version of the Bible. At first, Jimmy was satisfied with ten percent of the price of every KJV sold and 10 percent of every collection plate passed by any church that used the KJV. But when some churches switched to newer translations, Jimmy sicced his lawyers on all translations based on the KJV. That got him a cut of every Bible and every Christian service in English. Some translators claimed their work was based on older versions and should therefore be exempt, but none of them could afford to fight Jimmy in court.

So the churches grumbled and paid Jimmy his tithe, except for the Mormons, Christian Scientists, Seventh Day Adventists, Quakers, and Unitarian Universalists. Jimmy said their teachings hurt the commercial value of his property and refused to let them use the Bible. All of those groups dissolved, except for the Unitarian Universalists, who didn't notice a change.

Link (Thanks, Will!)

Justin sez, "Dan Gillmor, formerly of the San Jose Mercury News, and Paul Jones, currently of ibiblio, will be on a panel entitled 'Using Blogs to Create Community; as part of the Triangle Bloggers Conference 2005 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill on Saturday, February 12." Link (Thanks, Justin!)

These folks have hacked a mouse into an Etch-a-Sketch and published their build notes with pictures so you can, too. Link (Thanks, Gregr!)

The government of North Korea has launched a series of television public service announcements called "Let Us Trim Our Hair In Accordance With Socialist Lifestyle!"

Snip from a BBC News story on the campaign: "It stressed the 'negative effects' of long hair on 'human intelligence development,' noting that long hair 'consumes a great deal of nutrition' and could thus rob the brain of energy."

This is really funny, for a number of reasons -- first, Pyongyang's logic flies in the face of the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists, an elite alliance of demonstrably smart dudes who all have very long hair.

Secondly, I met several young men in Richmond, Virginia this past weekend who identify themselves as Socialists. Each were in their 20's, none of them shave, and one -- Silver -- even ran for mayor on the seemingly contradictory "pro-labor, pro-marijuana" platform ("I came in fifth -- out of five candidates," he told me, "I'm demanding a recount... they said I only got two votes, and I know for a fact I got at least ten.") Long hair seemed to be totally de rigeur in this faction of the Party. Clearly, there's a disturbance in the force.

Link to BBC story on North Korean TV PSAs, via William Gibson's blog, which also features a snapshot of a NSFW snowman in Vancouver today.

Update: A dose of sociopolitical hair deconstruction from our pal Kourosh Karimkhany of Wired News.

Why doesn't anybody point out that Kim Jong-Il has the full-on bouffant action going? What, he doesn't want competition? Or are the REAL North Korean power-that-be tweaking their leader indirectly by outlawing his haircut? Where are the retired Kremlinologists when you need them?

Regarding the influence of politics on gentlemanly hair and beard stylin's, reader Andrew Gray says

In 1841, Charles Mackay published a wonderful book on "The Madness Of Crowds"; strange behaviour by societies, or groups, covering everything from the South Sea Bubble and the Tulip craze to fly-by-night London slang. One of the things he touched on was the various approaches to hair - the way long, flowing locks have shot from being a sign of Real Masculinity to Shocking Effeminacy and back over time. Here is an extract of that chapter.

Some of it is amusing - the Papal edict that wearers of long hair were to be excommunicated, or the Russian beard-taxes - and some simply strange, like his theory that the Haircut Issue caused the Hundred Years War. But it certainly seemed apt in respect of this; can we ever out-surreal history?

Following up on last week's Boing Boing posts (1, 2) about tips for finding (and watching) unsecured webcams via Google, this news story offers the security biz take on the issue. Link (Thanks, Xopl).

Boing Boing reader rogueleader says, "More open network cameras -- these are Canon's network attached cameras that have pan, tilt and zoom controls. Java based applet." Link

Reader Flemming says,

I couldn't resist making a little thing that picked up a bunch of them from the google API, and then grabbed the first picture from each of them, and geocoded the IPs a bit to see where they were from. Makes it much easier to access, and it was pretty easy. So, see here, and my blog post about it here.

Reader Brian Smith says,

I put together a list of all the axis webcams google had in an easier browsing way if you're interested. I'm going to do the other types soon. See large compiled lists of cams here and here.

Jesse Andrews tells Boing Boing,

Hey, you might be interested in a hack for grabbing shots from those webcams. It creates a html page showing a snapshot and links back to the cam.

Link

Apple is making legal threats against of bunch of rumors sites, demanding that these journalists disclose the identities of their sources. Bad, bad Apple. EFF is taking up the sites' cause, defending their right to keep their sources' identities a secret. Good, good EFF!

On December 13, Apple filed suit against "Does 1-20" in a Santa Clara court. The company obtained a court order that allows it to issue subpoenas to AppleInsider and PowerPage for the names of the "Does" who allegedly leaked the information in question. EFF is defending the publishers against these subpoenas, arguing that the anonymity of bloggers' sources is protected by the same laws that protect sources providing information to journalists.

"Bloggers break the news, just like journalists do. They must be able to promise confidentiality in order to maintain the free flow of information," said EFF Staff Attorney Kurt Opsahl. "Without legal protection, informants will refuse to talk to reporters, diminishing the power of the open press that is the cornerstone of a free society."

"I am very disappointed by Apple's behavior and its new policy of issuing legal threats to its best customers," added Jason O'Grady, publisher of PowerPage. "Is corporate paranoia really more important than the First Amendment?"

Link

One of the bloggers on the Bangkok edition of metblogs.com is documenting disaster relief efforts in Phuket, day to day, with snapshots and a detailed first-person account.
Link (note: includes some very graphic images which some might find disturbing). (Thanks, Sean)

PC Mag has an article about Wow Wee Toys new animatronic robot toys and tools. My favorite is the $129 chimp head. There's a video on the site.

On the more mind-blowing and unusual side, is the new Wow Wee Robotics Alive Series. These are life-like, animated, remote-controlled robot heads that include stereoscopic hearing so they can track your position and even your distance away. Wow Wee's first demonstration of this technology is a frighteningly real looking monkey head with a fully articulated face. The real stunner, though, is the expected price: $129. George York, Wow Wee's chief designer on the project said he's been working with the company's divisions in Hong Kong and China to have the robots ready for a 2006 release.

(Thanks, Casey!)

I'm not sure quite what to make of this, but it's interesting. The service offers emergency email notification of "natural disasters or other emergencies" in your area ... "provide[s] notification to citizens of local, regional, national and international emergencies utilizing the Internet and electronic mail (email) in a secure and expedient manner." Beware the website, which features a creepy animated talking head and annoying sound. Link (Thanks, Frank Keeney)

Man, this warms my heart on a cold day. You may recall last year's BoingBoing posts (one, two) about a self-taught artist and soul-funk performer named "Mingering Mike," whose work was discovered by crate-diving youngsters at a flea market near DC. After Mike's work made the rounds on a vinyl junkie message board, and BoingBoing, and other blogs, a NYT article followed, and so did attention from art institutions. Now, he's got a website -- and a forthcoming musem debut for his hand-painted album covers. Kick ass!
Link to info on Mingering Mike's first art show (January 21st - April 3) at the Southeastern Center For Contemporary Arts (SECCA) in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.

Following up on previous Boing Boing posts (1, 2 3, 4) about remarks by Bill Gates comparing free culture advocates to commies -- a number of readers picked up the meme and riffed on their own. Here are a few of the many "creative commonist" propaganda submissions received in recent days:

Robert Corr website buttons (thanks, Tama), Kill Sapo's printable graphics, Andrew Mike's Internationale lyrics remixed, a "creative commies blog, Eugéne Roux's desktop graphic shown here -- link to fullsize ("My modifications to the original XP background are, of course, Creative Commons licenced" he says).

Boing Boing reader Dylan Herbert says,

"This is an article posted on OSNews last August. It addresses concerns the author of the piece - David Adams, the man behind the launch of OSNews in 1997 - has with what he labels (and I paraphrase here) the internet-wide 'open-source = communist' meme. It is a brilliant, 9-page essay in which he explores 'why this idea is wrong and demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of economics.' While Adams does not 'deny that some proponents of free software do, in fact, share some ideological common ground with Communist thinkers,' he clearly lays out the stark differences between them." Link.

Wired News also covered the blogosphere brouhaha over Redmond's red scare. Snip:

Glenn Otis Brown, executive director of Creative Commons, wondered whom Gates was referring to when he made the remarks. Certainly not Creative Commons, which is a "voluntary, market-based approach to copyright," Brown wrote in an e-mail.

"I get sad when people cheapen words like 'communist' or 'fascist' by throwing them around recklessly, especially given what those words meant in the not-so-distant past," Brown wrote. "My father was a CIA Cold Warrior for 35 years of his life; he wasn't fighting against GPL'd software. Stalinist purges, the Berlin Wall, tanks in Budapest -- that's communism.

"And let's not forget just how many creative people's lives were ruined by irresponsible name-calling not too long ago. Remember the Hollywood blacklists?" he wrote.

Link

See also this item on Dan Gillmor's blog about Gates' remarks, and this subsequent post.

Robb Doody sez: "VDS is a small company that has created the Windhexe, a hugely powerful vortex machine with no internal moving parts, that uses nothing more than air to pulverize animal byproducts into a very fine(micron-sized particles) powder. It also happens to pulverize **everything** into micron-sized particles. An industry based on these could reduce landfills by 90% with zero emissions,has been used to create products for the cosmetic and health care fields, and could one day eliminate the need for you to put out the garbage."
Link

outside the inbox | big songs for short attention spans | torture tape experiment | vinyl orphanage | vintage jazz | oddio overplay | comfort stand | basic hip | clubbo
Image: A bizarre southern rock oddity from Clubbo.com. (link). web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

You know those little cardboard cup-condoms they slip around your cappucino in Starbucks? These are just like those -- only crafted from real fur. I'd totally buy 'em if they were fake. only crafted from fake fur.
Link to fur-cozy details (Thanks, Susannah).

Update: BB reader John Rambow of the Fodors blog says, "It seems to me that that fur Starbucks holder is a riff on one of the famous objects of surrealism, Meret Oppenheim's creepy-but-I'm-not-sure-why fur tea service, Breakfast in Fur." Link, and another link.

BB reader Christopher Hyson says, "Actually, there is a local firm in the Rochester NY area that has been making these, and the fur is synthetic!" Link

Reader Bryce says, "I was really excited to see the post about the furcozies on boing boing. they were designed by Shannyn Rivera, who graduated from my school (cranbrook academy of art, in michigan) last year. The grad book, published at the end of each school year, features one or two pieces to represent each artist, and the furcozie is hers! The Javawear thing that a reader referred you to looks like a knock-off."

Update 2: Shannyn Rivera tells Boing Boing:

The images on your blog was from our company website, XS Couture xscouture.com or furcozie.com, owned by myself and my design partner, Wil Ayers, who originally designed the Furcozie TM (or what you would call the furry coffee sleeve). It was designed in 2002 as a Cranbrook Academy of Art Graduate project and introduced at the Milan Design show in April of 2003. The Furcozie TM is made of synthetic faux fur and leather trim. There was an article in Dwell that told everyone that it was real fur- which lead everyone to believe it was real fur, but it has NEVER been real fur that we used. It's just really great looking high quality faux fur.

We are in the process of manufacturing a variety of Furcozies TM (in different faux fur colors, trims and and faux fur patterns) to sell this year. As for the JavaWear product, we have no relationship whatsoever to the company or to the design of their product. It seems that their product came out after ours.

As for the JavaWear product, we have no relationship whatsoever to the company or to the design of their product. It seems that their product came out after ours.

A pissed-off principal has cancelled all of the student dances at Leemore Union High School in California because he was freaked out by kids freaking. According to the Rap Dictionary, the meaning of "freak" is:

1. Dance in a provocative way.

2. Have sex.

3. Person who practices the above things; sexually aggressive female (never missing a beat).

4. To take out the filter paper from a Black & Mild pipe-tobacco cigar. "I'm going to freak this Mild"

The principal is particularly bothered by number 1, although I bet numbers 2 through 4 wouldn't thrill him either. Link (to AP report)

The website for hipster-couturier Dr. Romanelli, who hacks up old Nike jackets and restitches them back together with other garments to mashupolicious effect.
Link (Thanks, John Keehler)

Coming on the heels my friend Kirsten Anderson's book Pop Surrealism, comes another lowbrow art book edited by my friend Alan Rapp: Weirdo Deluxe The Wild World of Pop Surrealism & Lowbrow Art, by Matt Dukes Jordan. Many of the same artists are covered in both books -- Williams, Biskup, Shag, etc -- but I don't think there's any overlap in the works of art showcased in each book.

The presentation Weirdo Deluxe is excellent. Each artist is briefly interviewed about his/her obsessions, collections, influences, and thoughts on lowbrow (most don't seem to like the term -- I like pop surrealism better, too).

Both books are worth having if you're a fan of this genre. Link

UPDATE: Mike Essl, the designer of Weirdo Deluxe, has a nice little write-up about the book. Link

Noted crooked scumbag Ken Lay, of Enron fame, is so desperate to get his "version" of the breathtaking scam he and his rich buddies pulled off into the public eye before his trial that he's paying search engines 5-12 cents/click to return a link to his bogus account of his wrongdoings when searchers enter "Ken Lay" into the search-box.

Put the search words "Enron scandal" or "Ken Lay," or even this Enron reporter's name, "Mary Flood," into any of the above search engines and one of the first things you will see is www.kenlayinfo.com. If you hit on Lay's Web site from there, then Lay pays between roughly 5 cents and 12 cents.

Link (via Battelle)

Update: Clicking this link will bring you to Ken Lay's page while costing him one click's worth of traffic. Click early, click often! (Thanks corps_no_play_nice!)

Copyfightin' Canadian law prof Michael Geist has a modest proposal for Canada's digital strategy: digitise every Canadian book, ever:

While digitally scanning more than 10 million Canadian books and documents is a daunting task, the Google project illustrates that it is financially feasible. Reports suggest that it will cost Google approximately $10 to scan each book.

Assuming similar costs for a Canadian project and a five-year timeline, the $20 million annual price tag represents a fraction of the total governmental commitment toward Canadian culture and Internet development.

In fact, the most significant barriers to a national digital library do not arise from fiscal challenges but rather from two potential copyright reforms currently winding their way through the system.

Link to article mirror on Interesting People list; original is behind dumb-ass registration system

The Texas investment company that owns Biosphere 2 north of Tucson, Arizona is selling the place. Billionaire Ed Bass dropped $200 million in the 1980s to build Biosphere 2 as a prototype "space colony." The experiment suffered major scientific and managerial problems and was eventually opened to the public as a tourist attraction. From the Arizona Daily Star:

"We're looking at everything from government entities, universities and private schools to church groups, resorts and spas as potential owners," (said Christopher T. Bannon, general manager of Decisions Investment Corp.) "We'd love to see the Biosphere 2 used as a research activity, but we know that may not be the end result."

Link

UPDATE: Jamie McCarthy says: "It's a bit unfair to refer only to Biosphere 2's 'scientific problems.' It's been doing good science since it dropped off the media's radar. Scientific American Frontiers devoted a segment to the Biosphere global-warming-related experiments. Link

University of Toronto researchers have built "nano-propellers" that are 1/500th the width of a human hair. Hydrogen peroxide acts as the fuel, causing the gold and nickel "blades" to release gas bubbles that provide enough thrust for them to spin. From BBC News:

But researchers admit that if nano-machines are to have a future, ways must be found of getting different parts to interact as a functional whole.

"Rotational motion is at the heart of many conventional machines, such as rotary engines, screws and clocks," said Professor (Geoffrey) Ozin. "However, these machines clearly need more than just a rotor."

Link

My first article for Technology Review is now online. It's about Sony Computer Science Laboratory Paris, the company's only computer science research facility outside of Tokyo.

"Last year, a video circulated around the Internet depicting a delighted German Shepard sniffing at a fine cut of beef on the floor while a Sony AIBO robotic dog watched curiously.

It was a cute scene, until the AIBO became a bit too interested in the steak. Without warning, the real dog viciously attacked the AIBO, while off-screen human witnesses shrieked in fear.

Who pitted the canine against the computer? Sony researchers themselves, in collaboration with Hungarian animal behavior experts. And that's just one of the myriad experiments conducted by Sony Computer Science Laboratory (CSL) Paris, a commercial laboratory where research and development don't always go hand in hand."

Link