Happy Sysadmin Day! Today is the ninth annual sysadmin appreciation day and I'd like to extend my heartfelt thanks to the systems administrators who keep my life running, especially Ken… Read the rest of the article: Happy Sysadmin Day, Ken!

An 82-year-old woman in Southampton, UK was told she couldn't take photos of an empty wading pool because she might be a paedophile. Because, you know, anything that children touch… Read the rest of the article: Elderly woman prohibited from photographing empty swimming pool "to prevent paedophilia"

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, we looked at a Mondrian MP3 player and catalogued Congress' fight with evil robots. There was a gorgeous birdsong box automaton and an iPhone 3G… Read the rest of the article: Today on Boing Boing Gadgets

Here's some (way shakycam) video of Danny O'Brien's OpenTech presentation, "Living on the Edge," an extremely provocative and interesting talk about how we might restructure the Internet so that our… Read the rest of the article: Living on the Edge: Danny O'Brien's talk about moving our personal info off Web 2.0 and onto our computers

Matt sez, "When I was in fifth grade, Mississippi Public Broadcasting decided to introduce a series of short films to educate children on how to use the library. For some… Read the rest of the article: Post-apocalyptic bookmobile PSAs from Mississippi

The Camerahead Project is a Seattle protest group upset about the growing prevalence of CCTV cameras there — they're staging a bit of theater tomorrow in Cal Anderson Park, walking… Read the rest of the article: Cameraheads in Seattle protest CCTVs in public places

Yahoo Music just announced that it's pulling the plug on its DRM server — that means that as of September 30, everyone who bought Yahoo Music will lose the ability… Read the rest of the article: Yahoo Music shutting down its DRM server, customers lose all their paid-for music the next time they crash or upgrade

Modofly — who laser-etch designs into moleskine covers — are hosting a contest for new designs for the next batch — one of the themes is steampunk: Get your steampens… Read the rest of the article: Call for steampunk designs to be lasered into moleskines

Tim sez, "Ruth Whiting show's 'Plug In' is a show oil paintings at the Wedge Gallery in Asheville, NC. Ruth Whiting's paintings create a luscious mythology surrounding the ordinary plugs… Read the rest of the article: Oil paintings of computer cables — show in Asheville, NC

Jake Bronstein says: Wait, you ran some pictures of my Fun Idea machine the other day before I'd even posted it. I don't know why it didn't occur to me… Read the rest of the article: Fun-O-Meter vending machine update

Zak-n-Wheezie is a two-headed Bearded Dragon lizard that lives on the Wittes family farm in Fowler, California. They (it? he?) just turned one. From McClatchy Newspapers: When Zak-n-Wheezie were younger,… Read the rest of the article: Two-headed Bearded Dragon

A friend of mine, a journalist, recently emailed to tell me he likes the Olympus WS-110 digital voice recorder I recently recommended. He said: I just wanted to thank you… Read the rest of the article: Olympus TP-7 telephone recording device

Reason TV has a story about Owen Beck, a 17-year-old high school kid from California who got bone cancer and had to get his leg amputated. The medicine Owen was… Read the rest of the article: Medical Marijuana and minors

Everyone's seen those "living statue" street performers who pretend to be sculptures and then try to surprise you by moving. A few weeks ago in Barcelona, prankster artist Mark Jenkins… Read the rest of the article: Fake "living statue" prank by Mark Jenkins

In the 1960s, retired US Army colonel James S. Ketchum led efforts to develop a nonlethal incapacitating agent as a weapon for a "war without death." Along with LSD, they… Read the rest of the article: Synthetic pot and the 1960s military

This handsome Periodic Coffee Table contains samples of all stable elements. The radioactive elements are not included. Boo. Brownlee has the details over at Boing Boing Gadgets. Periodic Coffee Table… Read the rest of the article: Periodic Coffee Table

One Step Beyond, billed as "your guide to the supernatural," was a docudrama TV program airing from 1959-1961. The episode about psychedelic mushrooms and psychic experiments is a trip to… Read the rest of the article: One Step Beyond: shrooms and ESP

Daniel Larusso says: William Hope "Coin" Harvey was a businessman, author and former Presidential candidate. He was also a first-class eccentric, building a large (now underwater) resort in the middle… Read the rest of the article: The bizarre tale of William Hope "Coin" Harvey

Avon and Somerset Police are running the recordings of telephone calls from foolish (and probably drunken or drugged) people who want to report trivial problems, such as losing eyeglasses, wanting… Read the rest of the article: Avon and Somerset Police publish 999 (911 in US) calls from foolish people

To promote the Beijing Olympics, a city in China has erected several statues depicting a cartoony athlete mouse with curious square holes punched in its ears. Here's the YouTube video.… Read the rest of the article: Fake Mickey Mouse statues at the Beijing Olympics